We enjoyed Jan Brett’s version of the folktale, The Mitten this week. This big book led to wonderful discussions on winter, animals, hibernation and many elements of literature such as cause and effect (not necessarily in those terms), and sequential order.
We also read several winter favorites, such as The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats. This is the third Ezra Jack Keats book we’ve read in class. Just the other day Carter brought a book found in our classroom library and said, “Look, this is another Ezra Jack Keats book”. Five year olds can be so amazing! Speaking of Carter…he became a big brother this past week to a baby girl named Riley. Congratulations to his family!
We will touch upon the theme of winter and animals throughout the winter months as we learn about our changing seasons for science (this is emphasized more so in the spring) and non-fiction texts connecting to arctic animals.
Word Study:
• We worked on recognizing high frequency words in context. This is something your child likely does at home or on the road too when s/he shouts out a word s/he knows and can read from a sign, label or book.
• We played sight word Lotto (just like Bingo).
• We also continued our work with short and long vowels.
Writer’s and Reader’s Workshop:
This week both workshops shared the same theme- Personal Narratives.I spent a lot of time reading literature that demonstrated an author taking a small moment in time and turning it into a story/book. We read books such as Night Whispers by Angela Johnson and I reread parts of The Snowy Day to show this as well. Readers noticed things such as how the author uses I or me or my in these types of small moment/personal narratives. Within these books we also practiced making connections and retelling the stories in our own words. Notice these are concepts we repeat often in kindergarten.
In the writing workshops students used their buzz groups to help them first tell their stories and then went to work shortening these to put on paper with details. The big focus used to have students write "small moments"/personal narratives was taking a large (watermelon) idea and pulling out just a small (seed) moment from that story. Another strategy used for teaching small moments was to have children picture experiences in their heads like a movie playing. We found that when we set it up as a movie we could pull in more of our senses such as the smells or sounds in our stories. It took most of the week for students to write a small moment and it was a difficult task for most. We tried to bring in our beginning, middle, end learning from last week to help them stick to writing at least 3 sentences…it’s a work in progress at this time for sure.
Alivia was proud to read this story to us during our workshop sharing time. It's adorable! "Once upon a time I did work and my name is Alivia. I was the boss of a company and the company was called The Cupcake Factory. And they had donuts too. And then people came in. Then the people did get a donut and then they ran out of donuts."
This was another wonderful story we heard this week by Merrick: "I had a play date with Andy. We played Bayblades And we played video games. And I went home."
Math:
We had our last week of math review. Students were excited to bring home their patterned block template pictures that they created with the templates (stencil like tool we use with shapes). I wish I had remembered to take photos of these pictures, as they were quite creative. Students also practiced our “Top it” game with recognizing numbers and values. All students were given a math assessment and I was very pleased with the progress our class has made thus far. On Friday we started new math learning by introducing time periods. We discussed how time was measured in days, weeks, months etc. on calendars and also with minutes & hours on clocks. We read a couple books on passing time and learned about how our days were broken into morning, afternoon and evening. Students created a one day time line to illustrate the sequence of their day. Below are a few photos of the work that was done.
Work Stations:
At the listening center we switched up or response to making a diagram of the character and telling one thing about him. I notice that many children do not put forth best effort at this station. I thought the diagram would add a fun component. If you had a chance to look at the listening center response sheet and still have it, please comment to your child about the effort in the diagram and sentence.
Other stations…writing a number chart to 40 on dry erase grids, comparing weights with our balance scale, filling in a hundreds grid with number tiles, painting, handwriting and sorting ending sounds at the magnetic station.
This week we were proud to see that more students than ever completed all of their work stations. To celebrate we had a game morning on Friday. Students enjoyed a variety of games such as Candy Land, Toss a rhyme, Letter Factory and more.
Extras:
• A special thanks to Mrs. Kerwin for again supplying our class this week with extra snacks. The children go through a large carton of goldfish every few weeks. Please try to remember to pack a daily snack for your child.
• Mrs. Currie, our art teacher is looking for a parent to volunteer in the art room with our class on Mondays from 1:30-2:30 pm. You can only imagine making art projects with 28 students each week. From experience it can be very tricky. If you’re available Monday afternoons, please let me know. Thanks!
Upcoming Dates:
February 14th- Valentine Party starting at 12:15 pm and ending at 2:20 pm. Details will come through folders this week.
February 17th- If we have no snow days before this date we will have an all kindergarten celebration for our 101st day of school. It’s a Dublin tradition similar to the Pow-Wow day, but a 101 Dalmatian Day. I’ll have to check with my colleagues to be sure on this date, but wanted to give you a heads up on it.
February 20th – 24th Winter Break, no school
This was another wonderful story we heard this week by Merrick: "I had a play date with Andy. We played Bayblades And we played video games. And I went home."
Math:
We had our last week of math review. Students were excited to bring home their patterned block template pictures that they created with the templates (stencil like tool we use with shapes). I wish I had remembered to take photos of these pictures, as they were quite creative. Students also practiced our “Top it” game with recognizing numbers and values. All students were given a math assessment and I was very pleased with the progress our class has made thus far. On Friday we started new math learning by introducing time periods. We discussed how time was measured in days, weeks, months etc. on calendars and also with minutes & hours on clocks. We read a couple books on passing time and learned about how our days were broken into morning, afternoon and evening. Students created a one day time line to illustrate the sequence of their day. Below are a few photos of the work that was done.
Work Stations:
At the listening center we switched up or response to making a diagram of the character and telling one thing about him. I notice that many children do not put forth best effort at this station. I thought the diagram would add a fun component. If you had a chance to look at the listening center response sheet and still have it, please comment to your child about the effort in the diagram and sentence.
Other stations…writing a number chart to 40 on dry erase grids, comparing weights with our balance scale, filling in a hundreds grid with number tiles, painting, handwriting and sorting ending sounds at the magnetic station.
This week we were proud to see that more students than ever completed all of their work stations. To celebrate we had a game morning on Friday. Students enjoyed a variety of games such as Candy Land, Toss a rhyme, Letter Factory and more.
Extras:
• A special thanks to Mrs. Kerwin for again supplying our class this week with extra snacks. The children go through a large carton of goldfish every few weeks. Please try to remember to pack a daily snack for your child.
• Mrs. Currie, our art teacher is looking for a parent to volunteer in the art room with our class on Mondays from 1:30-2:30 pm. You can only imagine making art projects with 28 students each week. From experience it can be very tricky. If you’re available Monday afternoons, please let me know. Thanks!
• I apologize that I forgot to send the handwriting prompt sheet along. I will copy it and send it soon. My focus had been on the assessments and ending our quarter. I’ll be happy to be back into our usual routines.
Upcoming Dates:
February 14th- Valentine Party starting at 12:15 pm and ending at 2:20 pm. Details will come through folders this week.
February 17th- If we have no snow days before this date we will have an all kindergarten celebration for our 101st day of school. It’s a Dublin tradition similar to the Pow-Wow day, but a 101 Dalmatian Day. I’ll have to check with my colleagues to be sure on this date, but wanted to give you a heads up on it.
February 20th – 24th Winter Break, no school
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