We continued our winter theme by starting the week off with the big book The Jacket I Wear in the Snow. This is a rebus story and a fun one to sequence and retell.
Word Study:
• We worked on sorting sight words in different ways such as those with 3 letters or those with 2 letters or words with e’s and words with o’s.
• Students used a cut up version of our morning message to read and piece back together using known words as anchors.
• Students sorted pictures with long and short vowel sounds 
Writer’s and Reader’s Workshop:
Again, these were both focused on the reading and writing of small moments/personal narratives. We use what we call mentor texts to listen to how authors write narratives. This week I pulled from several books including The Kissing Hand to show students how an author stretches a simple statement by adding detail. For example in The Kissing Hand there is a passage that goes something like this:
Chester took his mother’s hand in his. He uncurled her fingers and opened them one by one like a fan. Then he gently pressed his lips against her palm and kissed it…” I explained to the children that the author could have just written “Chester kissed his mom’s hand”, but I asked them to think about how they created that picture in their minds from the author’s words.
We also had mechanical mini-lessons reminded students how to stretch out a word to hear and record all the sounds so that readers can better read their pieces. Punctuation was another reminder this week. Some students are beginning to use periods regularly and I noticed a few using exclamation marks as well…what smarties they are!!
Look what Claire produced from picturing her story like a movie...I loved when she told me "I pushed my lips together!" When I put this piece on the Elmo projector for all to see...classmates helped Claire decide that she needed to add what happened after the lip part and Claire chose to add "I softly blew". What an awesome piece of writing!
Madelyn's story: "Once there was a really scary dog! It frightened the 2 people because he had blood dripping down his mouth. It was just drool. All he wanted was the chocolate bar."
Wow!! Again, having this piece on the projector all students were able to see this piece and participate in a discussion. When asked "What do you notice about Madelyn's writing that was included in our workshop lessons this week?" The hands flew up quickly commenting on how it was a seed story vs. a watermelon and how she stretched out the moment with interesting parts. I was also delighted to hear students respond with other things they noticed about the piece...When asked "How did Madelyn show that they were frightened?" Two classmates responded "The boy and girl are pushing away from the dog with their arms." and "Look at their teeth!". It amazes me how observant they can be when they are focused.
Page 2 "So then they found out he was really just begging". AGAIN, WOW! Notice how her illustrations completely change and reflect the new mood of the story.
What a reward it is for us as teachers and parents to see this learning taking place so quickly. Keep up the great writing kindergarten!!
Additionally, we read several books with Tacky the penguin, a well-loved character. We listened to that author’s style and how she uses repetition and describing words. This led us into a lesson on descriptive words. We then went back into a snow story from the week and designed snowmen with which we listed with descriptive words.
Math:
We started our week off with a fun game learning attributes such as color, size and shape. Each child was given a shape with similar and different attributes . We compared them, explored the similarities and differences and played “Guess my rule” with them.
While I was absent students got extra practice with our “top-it” and “monster squeeze” games.
We continue to explore measurement and this week focused on length. Students learned how people long ago measured with their feet. It was fun to take a 12 inch foot around the room to practice measuring objects. Next, we learned about rulers and tape measures. I was able to squeeze in a fun "mitten" lesson I had planned last week. Due to the warm weather, not enough children brought mittens. The lesson connected to the story The Mitten and we estimated how many cubes would fit in different mittens. 
Work Stations:
At the listening center I again switched up or response to making drawings of the beginning, middle and end of the story. Again, I’m not sure the majority showed best effort. I’m hoping that this coming week will show better drawings with details. 
Other stations…reading a hearts book while highlighting the word “on”, clipboarding with things we wear in the snow, playing a game where students find specific letters in words, played a graphing game, wrote about things that are heavy and light, practiced the _an word family with a word wheel and magnetic letters, painted a snowy sky background for snowmen, retelling with puppets from The Mitten story at the puppet theatre and more
Below are photos of some of the finished torn snowmen on our water painted backgrounds. Hope you're enjoying them at home!
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 3rd- Spirit Day here at Dublin. Wear your favorite sports team shirt and bring Two Food items to donate to Gleaner’s Food Bank of Oakland County
February 14th- Valentine Party starting at 12:15 pm and ending at 2:20 pm. Details came 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
No comments:
Post a Comment