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.   

Week of October 9th

Stallion Stampede is Saturday October 17th!  Milla from our class will be performing her gymnastics routine with FlipzUSA at 11:30 in the gym!  I will be working the bounce house from 11-12:15.  Kindergarten teachers are offering icecream and a trip to the fire station for our teacher raffle.  Hope to see you there!!

Happy birthday to Frankie!!  We had so much fun celebrating with him.  

Reading

We got new literacy stations this week:

Reading

We got a new station this week.  At the reading station the kids first read from their bookbins- we have an alphabet chart, poetry notebook, and little readers we have done in class.  After they finish reading from their book bins they may choose a book from our library to read.  

Computer

We another new station this week.  At computer station the kids practiced their computer skills while playing on starfall.com.  

Word Work

At word work this week the kiddos could work on rainbow names, where they trace their name or friends name multiple times in different colors of crayon to make a rainbow.  They could also use wiki sticks to make their name or friends name.  

Writing

The kids got to label a fire safety picture.  I encouraged them to try to hear the first sound in the word and write that sound.  

Storytelling

Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?  was the book we retold this week.  The kids would go through the book and retell the story using pictures or they would just read the book.  It is repetitive, so it is very easy to reread.  

Star

The kiddos sequenced pictures of an apple being eaten.  It is sometimes confusing for them to put in order, whole apple, one bite gone, two bites, then the apple core.  

Math

The kids used pattern blocks to fill in pattern block puzzles.  

Listening

At the listening station the kids practiced book handling skills and got to listen to fluent readers.  

Poetry

Our fluency poem for this week is Five Little Firemen.  

Smartboard

At smartboard the kiddos could play 2 games, alphabetical flowers or acorn counting.  Alphabetical flowers is where the kiddos had to put flowers back on the stems in alphabetic order.  We used the word wall or our alphabet line to help figure out the next letter.  Acorn counting is where the kids count the number of acorns a squirrel has and writes that number.  

Writing

In writing this week we continued to think of  a topic, plan our story, sketch our story, and label.  We talked a lot about how planning our story helps us when we go to sketch our story, because we know what we need to draw.  We also talked about adding details to our story and how this will make it better for the reader.  

Math

We have been learning about numbers to 5.  We are identifying numbers, counting sets, putting the numbers in order, and forming the numbers.  We made flashcards of numbers 1-5.  We wrote the number and made the set with stickers.  We made an apple core with 1-5 seeds and wrote the number on the leaf.  We made a bear parade and had to put the bears in order from 1-5.  We also made sets.  "Show me __." and we practiced counting out that many counters.  

Health

We have been learning all about fire safety.  We learned that if their is smoke to get low and crawl out.  We learned to stop, drop, and roll if our clothes catch on fire.  We also learned about needing 2 ways out of our house.  We talked about feeling the door with our hand to see if it is hot and about a family meeting place.  We also talked about emergencies and 911.  

Making applesauce

We had so much fun making applesauce last Friday! Here are a few pictures of how we made applesauce in the classroom.

Cut the apples. 

We talked about the skin, flesh, core and seeds.

We added cinnamon and a little sugar. Then cooked it in the crockpot until we could smell the cinnamon and apples and the apples were soft.  We put the apples into a bowl and smashed them.

Finally our applesauce was ready to eat!

YUMMY!!

Week of October 2nd

We are collecting Box Tops- our first collection is October 30th. 

This is a great opportunity to help our school earn some extra money.  Just cut them out and send them in... I will collect our class box tops.  

Stallion Stamped is Saturday October 17th from 11-2.  Hope to see you there!

Reading

We started Literacy Stations in reading this week and the kids love it!! They are having so much fun working independently or with their partner.  This week we only had 8 literacy stations (next week we will have 10)- each day the kiddos go to 2 different literacy stations.  The literacy stations are Writing, Star, Math, Listening, Poetry, Smartboard, Word Work, and Storytelling.  

At writing the kiddos worked on labeling an apple picture.  Right now I want them to try and identify the first sound they hear for each part of the picture.  

At star the kiddos used their fine motor skills to color, cut, and glue an apple to make an apple puppet.  

At math the kiddos played a shape game with their partner.  They had to match the shape they got with the picture of real shapes on the board (square = present, circle = ball).  

At listening the kids listened to books on cd.  They got to hear fluent readers read with expression and they practiced book handling skills by holding the book and turning the pages.  

At poetry kiddos added our fluency poem to their poetry notebooks.  They are illustrating the poem to match the words and then rereading the poems in their notebooks.  

At smartboard partners got a choice of playing 2 different activities.  Alphabetic Flowers is where the kiddos put the flowers in alphabetical order.  Acorn Counting is where the kiddos 

At word work we turned an apple slice into something new, like a boat or the moon.  Then filled in the sentence "I used to be an apple wedge but now I am__."  I encouraged the kiddos to write the first sound of whatever they turned their apple slice into.  

At storytelling we retold Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  

Writing

This week in writing  we continued to come up with a topic to write about, picture it in our minds to help plan the story, sketch our story and add lots of details, and label parts of our story.  We also published a piece of writing on the last day in September.  This is something we will do monthly.  We looked at all of our writing over the month and picked the best story to color in.  We talked about how illustrators first sketch the story like we did then go back and add details and colors.  I sent home the kiddos writing for the month and I hope that you enjoyed reading their stories with them!

Math

In math we are working on numbers to 5.  We have been practicing how to form each number correctly by using white boards. We have also played a game to help practice where we rolled a dice, counted the dot and wrote the number we see.  We had a lot of fun and the kids tried to beat me in writing the number faster!  I have seen a lot of improvement this week in formation!  It is really tricky to write those curvy 2's, 3's and 5's but we are working hard and getting better and better each day!!