Danny and I began a unit on communities and community helpers today. We defined a community as a place where people live, work, and play. Danny colored and cut out pictures of items to place them with the type of community building in which those items are associated. The structures were a hospital, a firehouse, a supermarket, and a school. Danny did a great job properly sorting his items. We then reviewed that each location is part of a community. We watched a BrainPop Jr educational video about "School". We worked through some of the discussion follow up questions in the easy quiz. The video gave basic information about who and what we find in schools. We then read "Clifford Goes to Dog School" by Norman Bridwell. We laughed at the silly things Clifford the Big Red Dog did when being trained. Additionally, we read the nonfiction book, "What Does a Teacher Do?" by Felicia Lowenstein. We then used the facts in the book to make a poster highlighting the basic duties of the community helper, the teacher. We finished up the day with Starfall letter and sound practice as well as Starfall Learn to Read. With this app, we explored short vowel a stories. Danny enjoyed watching the animated stories and echoed the audio reading of each screen with short sentences such as: "Zac had a pan. Zac sat on a can".