Week of December 11th

Our winter party is on Friday at 2:15.  We would love for you to join us!

Reading

This week in shared reading we continued to read different versions of The Gingerbread Man.  We talked about characters, setting, and the ending.  We compared the story we read each day to ones we read previously.

We added look and at to the word wall this week.  

At literacy stations we worked on 

Word Work

We did shadow writing this week at the word work station.  Shadow writing is focusing on handwriting.  All the kiddos have to do is copy the words in each sentence.  This activity takes away some of the stress of spelling independently so the kiddos can just focus on their handwriting.  

Math

We have been working on numbers to 20 in math and this activity has the kiddos counting and matching numbers using 20's frame.  

Star

At star station this week the kiddos got to play candy land where we practiced taking turns and playing cooperatively.  Or the kiddos could play a beginning letter sound matching game.  

Poetry

Our fluency poem this week is Gingerbread Rap.  After the kiddos added the poem to their poetry notebook and illustrated it they could play a beginning letter sounds game.  The kiddos put gingerbred cookies on the baking sheet, each cookie has a picture on it.  After the cookies are "baked" the kids can put them on the plate that matches the decorations beginning letter.  

Storytelling

We have been reading the gingerbread man during shared reading so this week at storytelling the kiddos are retelling the gingerbread man using a story map.  They cut out the pictures and put them into the correct order. 

Word Work

In fundations this week we practiced writing x and y.  We also practiced their sounds.  On Thursday and Friday we played a sight word game similar to hangman.  The kids used the word wall to come up with a word, put that many letter spaces down.  Then they called on kiddos in the class to guess letters.  If the guess was right the "teacher" put the letter in the correct spot.  If the letter guessed was wrong the "teacher" wrote it under the word and added an ornament to the tree.  This activity does so much to help kiddos learn their sight words.  They have to count letters in words, focus on where the letters are in the words and really use the whole word wall to be able to guess the word.  We had so much fun playing this game!

Writing

This week in writing we continued to talk about adding details to our story and adding more words.  We talked about being brave spellers and trying to write as many sounds as we could.  We are practicing stretching out words slowly and writing the sounds.  We are also using the word wall to find letters or words to help tell our story.  

Math

In math this week we continued to learn about numbers to 20.  We used a 20's frame (two 10's frames stacked on top of each other) to make numbers 11-20.  During this activity we touched on place value by talking about how the first tens frame is the 1 in front of each teen number and the number in the second tens frame is the second number.  We turned ourselves into elves and helped pack up toys.  Each kiddo was given a specific number to pack, wrote that number on our hat and went to pack that many toys.  

We played a gingerbread bingo game with numbers in the teens.  We also used a picture of a gingerbread house to graph how many of each candy were on it.  Then we used the graph to record how many pieces of each candy were on the gingerbread house.  

Week of December 4th

I am sorry that this is coming out so late!  The holidays are hectic and taking there toll on me!!

I hope that you had a wonderful break! We have had a very busy week back.

Reading

In shared reading we are reading different versions of The Gingerbread Man. We are focusing on characters, setting, and the ending.  We are noticing the differences in each version.

We started independent reading this week where the kids read from there book bins.  We started off at 3 minutes and worked hard to read the entire time.  In the beginning of the week we struggled with getting up to talk to me or talk to neighbors, but by the end of the week most of us were able to read for the entire time!

At literacy stations we are working on
Reading

Reading to ourselves from out book bins first, then choosing a library book to read.  

Computer

Rocket speller is a free app that has different levels and stages of support. The kids start out by matching the letters to spell words, but work to spell words by hearing the sound and identifying the letter. 

Writing

The kiddos can label pictures, write a list or card.  

Star 

The kids made a movable gingerbread man. They had to use their fine motor skills to push the brads and open the back to make the gingerbread man movable.  

Math

The kids made a gingerbread man book and had to count the animals and fill in the blank.  

Listening

Poetry

We illustrated our fluency poem, Gingerbread, Gingerbread. 

Smart board

The kids could decorate a gingerbread man or match letters uppercase and lower case.

  

Word work

The kids could do rainbow words, wiki sticks or play dough, or use stamps to spell word wall words. 

Storytelling

We continued with the same stories we had last week. 

Writing

This week we have talked about adding more words to our story.  We have talked about writing what our story is about on the line. We are practicing coming up with a sentence to tell our story. Sometimes kindergartners want to write every detail in their story but lose track of the sentence so we have talked a lot about simple sentences, I played outside. Or I went on a walk. We are also trying to use word wall words in our sentence.

Word Work

We worked on the letters v and w this week.  We practiced letter formation and letter sounds.  We also added the word "it" to the word wall and practiced spelling it.  

Math

We started a new math unit this week, numbers to 20. We have practiced writing 11-20.  We practiced counting sets, making sets of the numbers, and representing the numbers with pictures and the numeral.  We talked about how all of the teens have a 1 in the front and practiced identifying the numbers by saying the second number first and adding teen- for 16 you look at the 6 and say "six" and add "teen" to make sixteen.  

November 20th

Congratulations to Maria, Russell, Andi, Ada, Weldon, and Ryder for being leaders in our classroom and getting the leadership award at the assembly!

Kindergarten teachers are asking that children who are dropped off in the mornings and need to eat breakfast arrive by 8:10.  This allows them enough time to eat breakfast before learning begins at 8:20.  We are having many students arrive later or even after breakfast is over who have not eaten.  Students who arrive late and need to eat breakfast miss our morning routine and opening.  This is an important part of our day and a lot of learning conversations happen at this time.  Please make sure that if your child needs to eat breakfast they arrive by 8:10.  Thank you for your support in this matter!

Reading

This week in reading we talked about making connections when we read.  We talked about what making a connection is, things that the books remind us of.  At literacy stations we worked on:

At the math station we colored by number a picture of a turkey.  

At star station we made a paper bag turkey.  

At smartboard we worked on beginning letter sounds.  

At word work we make turkeys and wrote a word wall word on each feather.  

All of the other stations were the same as last week.  

Writing

In writing this week we talked about "When we are done, We've just BEGUN."  When we finish a story we try to add more details to the picture, then we add more words, and after that then we start a new story.  I am encouraging kiddos to add details like where their story happened, who else was in the story, etc.  Then to label all of the added pieces.  

Math

We played compare this week in math.  Compare is similar to the card game war.  This game focuses on greater than/ less than.  Each player gets a pile of cards face down, we practiced dealing the cards fairly.  After each player has their cards each player flips the top card over.  Whoever has the greater card says "Me, because __ is more than __."  The kids did a great job playing with their partner and keeping the focus on more/less.

Week of November 13th

We are having an open house to celebrate our new classrooms. Please join us on Thursday, November 19th from 4:30- 6:00.  

I made an error on our specials calendar and have posted an updated schedule under the schedules tab.  SORRY!!

Happy birthday to Maria!

Thank you for completing the turkey feathers. Our class turkey looks great!

We learned about scarecrows and made our own. The kiddos are so creative!

We learned about veterans and why we celebrate Veterans Day.  

Week of November 6th

Reading

This week in shared reading we talked about reselling stories. We learned that when you retell you must tell what happened in the story, using lots of details and tell the beginning, middle, and end. 

At literacy stations we:

Computer

We used the iPads to play an alphabet id game

Reading

Our library changed to have fall and thanksgiving books. 

Star

At star the kiddos made a scarecrow puppet. 

Writing

At writing the kiddos can label fall pictures, make a list of things they are thankful for or fall things, or write a card. 

Listening

At listening we listened to books about fall

Math

The kiddos represented numbers using pictures about fall. For example the page said "6 squirrels" so the kiddos drew 6 squirrels. 

Smart board

We practiced lower case letter formation. 

Poetry

Our fluency poem is I'm a little scarecrow. We added "and" to the word wall.

Storytelling

We retold the wheels on the bus. We also learned a new game- ABC rock, paper, scissors. 

Word work

We learned to roll " snakes" with play dough to make letters. 

Math

We have been working on numbers to 10. This week we played a game called grab and count. We grabbed a handful of cubes. Counted them, represented how many by drawing a picture, and writing the number. This activity practiced a lot of different math skills. We practiced counting with one to one correspondence, representing sets of things with drawings and numerals. The kiddos did a great job with this activity!

Writing

We have been talking a lot about writing goals, what each kiddo needs to be focusing on during independent writing. At writing conferences I talked with each kiddo about what they are already doing consistently and what they need to focus on. I added a visual goal to their writing folder to act as a reminder. 

Some kindergarteners are working on adding details to their story- where the story happened, what they were doing, who else was there, etc. Some kindergarteners are consistently sketching a story with lots of details so they are focusing on labeling their story. We try to hear the beginning and ending sound. If kindergarteners are consistently labeling their story then they are focusing on stretching out words to hear lots of middle sounds. 

New classroom!

We have had so much fun exploring our new classroom. We did a scavenger hunt this morning to find all of our materials and fun new places to learn!

Week of October 23rd

Reading

In shared reading this week we talked about "taking a picture walk," looking at each picture in the book and predicting what is happening and what words might be on each page.  Then we read the story and notice our predictions, right or wrong.  We also noticed repeating words and talked about how they help us read the story and understand it better. 

At stations this week we got some new things at our stations and did:

Poetry

The fluency poem this week is In The Dark.  We added in and see to the word wall.  When the kiddos got done illustrating their poem they got to practice fine motor skills by lacing fall shapes.  Practicing fine motor skills helps your kiddo develop the muscles in their hands and hand eye coordination. 

Writing

At writing the kiddos could choose to label, write lists or match letters and record the matches.  We are working hard to learn all of the letters in the alphabet.  

Storytelling 

We read The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything. The kiddos retold using pictures and motions that went along with the story.  

Star

At star station the kiddos worked on a pumpkin book inspired by Eric Carles Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Our book was Orange pumpkin, Orange pumpkin. The kids had to come up with fall or Halloween themed things for the pumpkin to see.  They illustrated the picture and filled in the sentence " I see a __ looking at me."

Math

In math the kiddos counted pumpkins and wrote how many underneath. 

Writing

We are continuing to practice our writing process- think of a topic, plan our story, sketch our story, label.  We are trying to hear more sounds as we spell words.  In fundations we learned letters d and s. We practiced how to form the letters the school way, we thought of different things that begin with each letter and we used magnetic letters to spell some consonant vowel consonant words using those letters. 

Math

In math this week we worked on numbers to 10. We played a game called button botton. There was an "it" kiddo who told us what number to count to 6-10. They closed their eyes as we passed the button counting for each pass. When we get to the number we stop passing and "it" guesses who has the button. We noticed that if you count from the person who started with the button to the number, you could find out who had the button without guessing. We also did counting jar. In this activity the kiddos do 3 things. Count the number of things in a jar, represent that number using pictures and numbers, and count out that number of items. 

Week of October 16th

Stallion stampede is Saturday from 11-2. Milla from our class will be performing with her gymnastics troup at 11:30 in the gym! I will be working at the bounce house from 11-12. Hope to see you there!

Parent teacher conferences are fast approaching! Please return the sign up sheet I sent in Friday folders this week. We are scheduling siblings school wide on Monday.  

We celebrated two birthdays this week. 

Happy birthday Ada!

Happy birthday Rossy!

Reading

Writing

We added a new activity to the writing station this week. Our class can write labels on pictures or write a list. We can write a list of fire safety words or costumes. 

Star

At star station the kiddos made a firefighter puppet.

Math

At the math station our class worked on identifying and making sets of apples in Apple baskets labeled 1-10.  

Poetry

Our fluency poem is Leaves are Falling.  We added "to" and "the" to our word wall.  

Smart board

We worked on matching friends names to their picture and writing friends names on the smart board.  

Word work

We added something new to the word work station. Kiddos could write about a friend in our class and what they like to do with them. They filled in the sentence "I like___." By using the word wall and writing their friends name.  

Storytelling

We retold The Itsy Bitsy Spider.  

Writing

This week writers practiced labeling our classroom. We practiced stretching out words and hearing lots of sounds. We used the word wall to help identify letter sounds. We then tried to use more sounds in our writing when we labeled our story.  

Math

We made sets using manipulatives to count out the number then practiced adding one for  1 more or took one away for 1fewer.  After we practiced together we tried to do both steps together.  I would call out "1 more than 4" or "1 fewer than 5" and each kiddo would make a set to match.