October 14-18

Math:

We worked on three special ways to sort things. We learned we can sort objects by shape, color and size. We started by using shape pieces and sorting them all 3 ways. Then we brainstormed ways to sort ourselves! We sorted ourselves by what eye color we had as well as our hair color. It was fun to compare ourselves. It was also a great way to talk about our differences and that each of us is special.

Language Arts:

Henry the Horse was our letter friend last week. We made a list of all the words we could think of that start with letter H. We are practicing saying the beginning sound in words to help us think about what the word could say. We also worked a lot on sounding out words that end in -ad and -an. We are starting to learn that we can put letter sounds together to make words! They are doing an excellent job.

Writer's Workshop:

This will be our last week working on our personal narrative stories. Last week we learned about speech bubbles. Speech bubbles go above our characters and have the words our character is saying in them. We are working very hard to add words to our stories by stretching out the sounds that we hear.

Discovery:

Spiders was our theme last week and it was so much fun! Spiders have two body parts, eight legs and up to eight eyes. We sang a song about the body parts to help us remember. We made our own spiders and our own webs! At the end of the week we came up with a lot of facts about spiders!

Pumpkins and Fire Safety

Math:

We just finished our Unit 2 Assessment! We worked on different ways to make the number 2 and 3, continued to count a set of objects and write the corresponding number and answer story problems asking us which one "has more." This week we are learning the different ways to sort things. Today we explored with pattern blocks and found out we can sort them in 3 ways: by shape, color and size!

Language Arts:

Last week was our first week introducing heart words and word families! Each week from now on the students will have 4 heart words they will work on memorizing as well as a word family. Last week our heart words were: the, I, a, big. The goal with heart words is to be able to read and write them by MEMORY!!! I will be sending home flashcards soon to practice these at home! The more heart words your child knows, the more words they will know as they begin to start reading books. Word families are a group of letters that can be read together. Last week our word family was: -ad. We practiced putting different letters in front of -ad to make words! Ask your child to write words in the -ad family! This week we are working on the -an family. Again, being able to write and read these words and recognize them in reading is the goal!

Writing:

We continue to learn about personal narratives and how to make the come alive! A good personal narrative includes a cover, three important parts to the story and words to go with it. Some of them have finished and are working on new books and some are still working hard to make their first one great! The goal for each student is to write a book about something that has happened in their life that they remember. It has been so fun to read these books and see what is important to them!!

            

Discovery:

Two weeks ago we learned all about pumpkins! We studied a pumpkins life cycle, read a pumpkin poem, made our own scary pumpkins and did a pumpkin investigation! We finished our unit off by visiting the pumpkin patch--which we loved!!!!

     

  

 



Last week was fire safety week. We learned about firefighters and their jobs, safety rules and the parts of a fire truck. We also got to visit the Spirit Lake Fire Department. It was great to see where they work and what they do.

 


 

Our Awesome Apple Week

Math:

Last week we learned what the symbols + and = mean and where they go in a number sentence. We practiced writing number sentences with the end product being 2. We had to really think hard to find what numbers can be added together to equal 2. We continue to do story problems and figure out which set has more. We also keep working on writing our numbers 0-10 and counting sets of objects. 

Language Arts:

While I am working with small groups, the students are working quietly by themselves. They can pick from Word Work (using play-doh, markers, letter tiles, etc. to work with letters and word), Read to Self (reading books from our book shelf, their poetry binders or easy readers) and Listen to Reading (using the IPads to listen to stories being read to them). This week we will introduce Work on Writing (finding words words that begin with a certain letter around the room, writing sentences, etc.) All of these things help keep the students engaged and learning which gives me an opportunity to work with smaller groups. 

Writing:

We finished our first writing unit!! We celebrated Friday by sharing one of our favorite pieces and telling each other what we like about them. We reviewed what it means to add a setting and characters to our pictures and how to pick a writing topic. Monday we will start a new unit which will teach us how to write personal narratives. This unit will help us tell our stories in an organized, focus manner. 

Discovery:

It was so fun learning about apples! Especially using our taste buds to learn about apples! We started the week by labeling the parts of an apple and making a neat apple frame. 

                             

Tuesday we learned about Johnny Appleseed and wrote down facts we remembered from the stories we read. Then we made a Johnny Appleseed apple print.

     

Wednesday we sequenced an apple poem and made illustrations to match. This was a FUN project and I was so proud of how well they did with it!

 

  

Thursday did a SMARTBoard activity and learned about the different types of apples and what they taste like. We then tasted for ourselves! We tasted red, yellow and green apples and then graphed our favorite. I can't believe it, but the majority of our class liked GREEN apples the best! SO SOUR!! After they picked their favorite they arranged a sentence to show which they liked best and made an apple of their favorite.

Friday we spent the morning measuring, weighing and investigating our apples! We also chopped our apples up and put them in the crock pot with some other yummy ingredients so we would have applesauce in the afternoon!

Fun on the Farm

A lot has happened in Kindergarten since my last post! We spent the last two weeks learning about the farm and making our own Farm Fact Books! I can't wait for them to bring them home to show you. We have been learning more letters, solving more math problems and writing great stories! 

Math:

We completed our first math unit and took an assessment to see what we remembered from our learning! Ten frames and counting sets and writing how many were big components of this unit. Now we are starting to focus on numbers and how to represent a number in different ways. This is what we came up with for the number 2:

We also introduced a new math choice...MATH TECHNOLOGY!! We are learning one game at a time, but the kids are excited to FINALLY be using the IPads. :)

Language Arts:

We are over halfway through the alphabet in reviewing the letters. We continue to meet our new letter friends, practice writing the letters as well as recognizing the letters and knowing their sounds. Along with this, we have been learning about the parts of a book (cover, author, illustrator) and concepts of print (reading left to right, top to bottom, the meaning of a period, and the difference between letters and words.) This week we are reviewing ALL those concepts and making sure we understand them and can put them into practice. We have been trying these new concepts while we read our poem of the week. Listen to last weeks poem: At the Farm!

Writer's Workshop:

We have started to learn about the "setting" and the "characters"in a story. This is important to add in our writing because then people know where the story they are reading takes place and who the story is about. This week we are learning how to share our writings with a partner at the end of writer's workshop and how to give someone feedback on their writing. We will have a celebration of ALL or writings at the end of the week and start out new unit next week. Here are some of our writings from the past couple of weeks:

Discovery:

The focus of our farm unit was animals and what they give us. Each day we talked about a different animal and read non-fiction books that gave us many important facts about them. We made a class chart of all the information we learned as well as our own fact book. During this unit we also learned about the difference between fiction and non-fiction stories. The kids picked up on it so quick! Whenever I read a story now someone is always quick to tell me what kind it is: fiction or non-fiction. It is fun to see them learning and remembering! Here are some of the stories we compared fiction to non-fiction:

  

On the last day we took a trip to the farm!!! (kind of.) We took a virtual reality tour to a vegetable farm, a chicken farm and a dairy farm! It was neat to see how everything we have been learning about comes together on a farm and what different machines/buildings/people are used for. 

This week we are learning all about APPLES! This is one of my favorite weeks because Friday ends with delicious smelling applesauce baking in the crock pot all day long!