Our Week in Review

Math:
This week we learned about ten frames! Here is a cool ten frame game we played this week if you want to practice with your child at home!

http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=75

The students learned that ten frames ALWAYS have ten boxes and it’s another tool to help us practice numbers. I have been showing them ten frame flashcards and they have been doing their best to say how many dots they see as quick as they can. Another activity we tried used a blank ten frame mat and linking cubes. I showed the students a number and they had to put that many linking cubes on their ten frame mat. They are really getting the hang of it and we will continue to work on it this week. We also continue to work on writing our numbers, working on math games quietly by ourselves and solving math problems. Here are a few examples of our problems from the week:

 

Language Arts:
We continue to meet new letter friends each day. This week we met: Dana Dolphin, Edie Elephant, Frankie Frog and Gerdie Giraffe. We get to watch their videos and see where they live, what they eat and what they look like in real life. This is also helping us remember the letter names and what kinds of sounds those letters make. They are doing a great job of learning how to write the letters and looking for those letters in their names! We use this name chart everyday and compare letters in each others names.

We talked about the "red letters" in our names, which are also called VOWELS! Vowels help other letters make words. :) Along with learning our letters, we are also learning how to read books quietly by ourselves and this week we will start talking about the parts of a book and the correct way to use/read them. 

Writer's Workshop:

The students were SO excited to bring their writing folders home for the weekend to share their stories with you. They have been working very hard on their writing "stamina." This means working quietly in one spot for the ENTIRE writing time. We continue to get better at this and I love "reading" all of their stories. Please take the time to go through each story with your child and allow them to "read" their stories to you. This week we will be learning about making our writings better by adding a setting and characters that look real.

Discovery:

We finished our unit on names and we are looking forward to learning about the farm the next two weeks! We had a lot of fun last week reading Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom! and making our own coconut tree with the letters in our name.

              

We also read all the "Miss Nelson"books. It was fun to make Miss Nelson to remind us of the rules of school and how we act when we are in class. Friday we read/sang Pete the Cat: Rocking in my School Shoes. We did a guided drawing (I draw, they copy what I draw onto their own paper) and the kids did FANTASTIC! Their Pete the Cats turned out so good! They will be proudly hanging up in our room to remind us that when we are at school, everything is alllll goooood!

Important Reminders:
-Wednesday is our first Early-Out day. The students will be dismissed at 1:45. If their regular transportation plans are different on this day, please remember to let me or Dana know so we can send your child to the right spot!
-A green and blue polka dot bag will be coming home in your child's backpack if they are the "show and share" friend. Please remember to have them bring something special to them to share with the class.
-Please return the Writer's Workshop folders and Friday Folders with your student on Monday.

Week One is Done!

Wow! What a fun first week we had in Kindergarten!! We packed our days full of learning, laughing and playing!  Here is our first week re-cap:

Math

We learned the calendar routine and practiced saying the date and counting the days we have been in school. We practiced writing our numbers from 0 -9 on whiteboards. We also learned how to work quietly by ourselves which will soon be called, “Math by Myself.” During this time the students picked out a number card (0-10) and then made a set of linking cubes that matched that number. They did a great job of doing this job QUIETLY as well as successfully! It allowed me to work with a group of students in a small group. We also learned how to work in our Math Journals and completed two story problems!!! Hats off to your children--they did GREAT!

                  

                 

Language Arts

The kids loved meeting our new letter friends: Amos Alligator, Brodie Bear and Celine the Cow. We use the SMARTboard to make our letter friends come alive and watch real videos of the animals. They seem to love this part of the day! We also worked on ways we can read a book. Lots of them said the couldn’t read...NOT TRUE! We learned that we can read the pictures or retell a familiar story if we cannot read the actual words. We learned how to pick a spot in the room and read quietly by ourselves. This will take lots of practice to build our stamina so we can sit in one spot looking at books for a long period of time. :)

                 

Writer’s Workshop

This quickly became one of their favorite parts of the day! We learned that writer’s write to tell a story and that we ALL have stories to tell. This also takes a lot of practice because we have to work quietly in our own space to allow ourselves and others to think. They have done such a nice job of working silently and creating WONDERFUL stories! I can’t wait for them to show you.

                 

                                               

Discovery

This week we played many games and activities dealing with “names.” We also learned a lot about being a Bucket Filler and working very hard to make sure we do things to make our own buckets full as well as our friends. Next week we will continue to do some fun projects with our names.

                  

   

  

                 

Enjoy your long weekend! See you next Tuesday!

It Was a Great First Day! (Part 2)

What another fun day with another fun group!! We followed the same routine as yesterday and I was again so impressed with how well they followed rules and directions. We accomplished a lot and we are excited to meet the other half of our class tomorrow! Enjoy some pictures of our second "first day."

It Was a Great First Day!

After saying goodbye to moms and dads, we had a fun day....

.... touring the school
... playing at recess
... learning about the letter Aa
... meeting new friends
... eating in the new lunch room
... drawing a picture of what we like to do with a friend
... learning about bucket fillers and FINALLY....
... PLAYING!!!!! ( They had been waiting for this part since about 9 a.m.)

We had a lot of new rules and routines to learn. They did a WONDERFUL job of following them and waiting patiently for playtime to begin! I am excited to have them back Wednesday!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome to our class blog! I am excited for a new year and anxious to meet you all. 

I hope this blog gives you a good idea of what we are doing each week in Kindergarten and is a place you can find information easily. I try and post new updates as much as possible!

I have been busy in the classroom trying to make it look organized enough for a couple pictures! Still a ways to go, but I’m getting there. :)

Ready to have the room filled with students! 

Enjoy the last weeks of summer!

May Madness

Language Arts: In the past two weeks we have learned about Ima Iguana and Ollie the Orangutan. They have helped us remember that these letters say two sounds. We have been working really hard on being able to sort the two sounds as well as read words with two sounds. One of our reading buddies, Flippy the Dolphin, reminds us to flip the sound in a word we don't know to try and figure it out. This has been much easier for us now that we are learning the vowels and both their sounds. Next week we will learn about letter U and the week after that is letter Y as a vowel. We will wrap up with a week of review and your little kindergartener will walk out the door ready for a summer vacation and excited to start first grade! 

Math: Addition and Subtraction facts to five have been our focus lately. One of the benchmarks your child needs to meet is easily identifying an addition or subtraction sentence within 5, and being able to say the answer without using manipulatives (fingers, counters, etc.) We have played many games of around the world, done flashcards everyday and worked on story problems within 5. We have also been reviewing all of the 3D shapes we need to know in kindergarten: sphere, cone, cylinder and cube. We learned how to draw each 3D shape and drew pictures of real life things that looked the same as each 3D shape. We ended the week by having a fun day creating, sorting ad identifying all these 3D shapes! We had four stations set up:

    1. Shape Building with marshmallows and toothpicks.

2. Candy Sorting

 3. Cut and Paste: 3D v 2D

    

4. Smartboard

Writer's Workshop: We spent every day this week working on writings of our OWN CHOICE!! I read some great books, letters and posters this week--all ideas generated by none other than your children! It is so fun to see what they come up with and how their writing has evolved over the past 9 months. I hope they are sharing their stories with you!

Discovery: We finished our study on the desert this past week. We started the week by making a Schema chart (things we think we already know). Here are some of our schemas:

-the desert is dry

-lots of sand 

-the desert is hot

-there are camels

-there are pyramids

-there are caxis (cactus) :)

After watching a video about the desert, we drew a picture and wrote down our new learning. Here are some of the things we learned:

-cacti have long roots to get water

-camels have long eyelashes to keep the sand out of their eyes

-many animals live there

-snakes blend in

-the cactus is very spiky

We also made our own saguaro cactus, a cactus that takes up to 150 years to get big and grow arms. It is the home to many desert animals while it is alive as well as when it is dead. We learned that the elf owl loves to make its home in the saguaro.

Our fun wrap up craft was a desert scene. We used colored chalk to make a background, then added cacti, animals, flowers and sand to make it come to life. They are so cool! We loved learning about the desert. For the next two weeks we will study our last habitat/environment: the ocean! 

Please remember that we have our spring music concert Tuesday, May 7 at 9:00 a.m.