Please forgive me for not updating the blog last week. I had a crazy week in and out of school and just couldn’t carve out the time needed for an entry (which unfortunately is a large chunk of time).
While we are all enjoying the beautiful weather, it’s not cooperating as it does most years during our kindergarten weather unit. Most years in March we are able to watch our window for the various types of weather. Still the children are learning about weather words, causes and signs. Our objective is for our students to understand that our world is ever changing. This coming week we will lead into how weather fits into the 4 seasons. Ask your child about the one thing that makes our weather.
Word Study:
• With the struggles seen recently with word families we revisited this skill and I saw much improvement.
• Practiced hearing beginning, middle and ending sounds in words
• Played game with segmenting sounds in words
• Building, writing and reading common sight words
• Working with short vowel middle sounds
• Connecting words that go together. Examples with family words such as mother, brother, grandmother etc. Students had independent practice by drawing and labeling a family picture.
Reader’s Workshop:
• We’ve made a strong move from our focus on fictional stories to non-fiction. In the first week we incorporated the non-fiction books in each workshop.
• Students were asked to notice differences between the two.
• Students have been asked to identify a book as fiction or non-fiction. During independent reading they have browsed their own book bins for samples of non-fiction. Already they are recognizing the main differences between the two.
• We’ve listed our comparisons thus far on charts. One of the biggest differences noted was that fiction means stories to kindergarten. Non-fiction is informational.
• We’re working on identifying the themes of non-fiction texts.
• In looking at non-fiction books students have had some introduction to how they are laid out differently. To start we noted that non-fiction books do not need to be read from cover to cover.
Writer’s Workshop:
• While making the switch to non-fiction texts in Reader’s Workshop we completed our final narrative (fictional) pieces in our Writer’s Workshop. Students put finishing touches on their pieces by illustrating the published stories.
• We eased into non-fiction with a discussion on non-fiction themes. This led to making a list of non-fiction topics for students to keep in their writing folders.
• Students have been given numerous examples of non-fiction writing. They are learning the difference between opinion and facts.
• Students are practicing writing non-fiction statements without words such as “I like”.
• We worked on stretching our ideas on one topic to record at least 3 ideas.
• Students are listening to mentor texts and returning to independent writing to record facts they recall.
Math:
• Our continued emphasis the past two weeks has been learning coins. We continue to practice with pennies and nickels and have added dimes. Ask your child to sing our coin song…”A penny is worth 1, a nickel is worth 5, a dime is 10 and a quarter 25”.
• Ask which presidents your child knows from our coins.
• Students learned “Go to the bank” game using a coin spinner. Most still needed to use our money posters to help identify the coin and its value.
• Students also worked on writing and reading large numbers. We practiced with before and after concepts as well as between.
• Students reviewed adding with plus sign and were introduced to the subtraction or minus sign.
Work Stations:
Ms. Mossoian has been a wonderful addition to our classroom. She has settled in quickly and the students are already building positive relationships with her.
MARCH IS READING MONTH!
Our class enjoyed mystery readers this week. Thank you to Hailey’s mom and Alivia’s dad! We have more scheduled readers for this coming week. The favorite book posters coming in are wonderful and are decorating our hall. Please remember that our annual kindergarten book character parade will be held on Friday, March 30th. It will begin at approximately 3pm. Parents are welcome to view the parade. We will begin in our hall, pick up the other two classes and walk through each grade level. Please do not feel that you need to buy any costume. Just simple props can make the character.
Congratulations to Allison. She has a new baby sister, named Erica!
We have two weeks left in this card marking. This means that over the next two weeks I will be testing individual reading levels and math levels. During this time our reading groups will decrease and likely stop so that I can use this time for testing. I’m eager to see the advances each of my students are making. It is a great time of progress in kindergarten! Thanks for all you do to support learning from home!
I almost forgot...Here at Dublin we celebrate St. Patrick's Day in a big way, including mischievious leprechaun visits! Evan's mom had our room decorated with shamrocks and Claire's mom helped us celebrate with festive cupcakes. Below are photos of some of our activities including our leprechaun traps (what creative thinkers we had).
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