Week of September 21st

This week during read alouds, we talked about text to text, and text to self connections. These are important skills that readers use during reading in order to comprehend the story or information. Here is an example of two books we enjoyed that were perfect to generate text to text connections, or similarities between the stories. The children LOVED this. 

We worked on m and n in FUNdations this week. Letter writing in the smart board is a huge hit.

The children practiced letter formation on white boards and paper.

Writing m and n "the kindergarten way".

Wonderful concentration and hard work :)

The theme activity this week involved creating an (eaten) apple and labeling its parts. We a reading bushels of books all about apples, both fiction and non fiction.

In a Writers Workshop we talked about this big and important idea. The goal was for writers to add as much to their work as possible, by adding more details to pictures, perhaps writing labels and words, or adding another page to continue their topic.

Another core idea we practiced this week is, "writers are problem solvers...we are the boss of our own writing". This mini lesson teaches children about writing and illustrating independently and thinking of ways to solve 'stuck points'. 

THis writer took special care to add details while illustrating. She kept adding more and more to her pictures to give more information about her idea.

Four Winds was just 'buggy'! We enjoyed a play about the changes different bugs go through. The word metamorphosis sure is a mouthful.

We then went garden area and outdoor classroom to search for insects or evidence of insects.

We found leaves with holes from bugs munching on them....

...we saw moths, dragonflies, ants, spiders, butterflies...

...and many kinds of egg pods.

Children collected grasshoppers and crickets too. It was so much fun to explore the insect world that surrounds CCS.

Week of September 14

This week we worked hard at FUNdations lessons. The sound card on the left illustrates how letter names and sounds are taught and practiced. The picture represents the keyword, which serves as a reminder of what sound a letter makes. We read this card as "t, top, /t/". Next, we learn how to write the letter on the FUNdations writing grid whiteboard. This week we learned f, t, and b.

As an extension we  take a poll of who has what letters in their names. This has been a highlight of letter lessons :)

We started WorkBoard Centers this week. The rotations include ABC (full of literacy activities); 123 (math games and activities that compliment the Bridges and Number Corner curricula); science and theme (currently apples and pumpkins and other autumn inspired work); Writing; and, Art. The math activity pictured above involves numeral identification, sequencing numbers into counting order, and one to one correspondence.

We also started Writers Workshop this week. I give children mini lessons on the craft of writing. I use Mentor texts by authors to demonstrate the particular skills and concepts I want to teach. A Core Idea is identified for each lesson, and these ideas build on each other. Children are then sent off to practice the skills. It's is a treasured time of our day!

Kindergarten writers!

Hard at work in Writers Workshop.

The children were excited to incorporate the Smart Board into a FUNdations writing lesson. Each student had the opportunity to write a letter on the Smart Board.

FUNdations writing practice on a paper version of the writing grid.

1-10 Numeral Crowns.

Children cut, sequenced, and glued numerals 1-10 to ,are these fun math crowns!

Both kindergarten classes merged outside in the CCS gardens to harvest beets and edamame. These were planted by CCS students last year.

Edamame harvesters.

Pulling up beets.

A handful of edamame. 

We gathered more than 5 pounds of edamame, which will be used by our cafeteria chef for school lunches.

More than 18 pounds of beets were harvested and washed. These lovely root veggies will also be enjoyed by CCS students who buy school lunch.

Mrs. Nelson joined us for our first You Skills lesson.

We are "focused and ready" for You Skills.

She talked to us about Whole Body Listening. 

Every morning we participate in Morning Meeting. This is a whole group time where we do different greetings, sing, stretch, talk about or day, and complete the Morning Message. I incorporate math and literacy work into the Morning Messages and throughout the year the children help me complete the messages. The example above highlights children working with sight words in pink, counting words in a sentence and filling in beginning sounds. Morning Messages provide rich and interactive learning experiences.

For our Fun Friday kindergarten community time with Mrs. Cota's class, we read this book. It has lovely ideas about the various roles children have in their lives.

We then gave a lesson on how to draw self portraits by thinking of our bodies as made up of shapes. The children's work was wonderful...

We also gave a lesson on building the three word sentence. Each child practiced reading the sentence attached to his/her self portrait.

What a fabulous and busy week in kindergarten. I hope you've enjoyed these glimpses into our time together. Please feel free to post comments or questions for us to read in class.

Week of September 8

The children loved hearing this classic book...

....and enjoyed creating their own Chicka Chicka Boom Boom trees to take home.

This week in math, I introduced several new 'math tools'. The students had many opportunities to explore these materials.

Pattern Blocks.

Polydrons.

Unifex Cubes.

We created a name chart where we compared the amount of letters in our names...

...then continued on to work with our own names on a simple chart.

Another math lesson involved using 'five frames'. This is a math tool children start using in kindergarten and lays the foundation for math in further grades. Five frames are a counting tool that help children subitize as well as see various combinations that make 5. We played the game "Fabulous Fives" where I flashed a five frame and children used Unifex cubes to build what they saw. I then flashed the finger pattern cards and children used five frames and Unifex cubes to built that amount.

"Spill Five Beans" was a popular math game. This game encourages learning the combinations that make 5, as well as practicing numeral writing.

Geoboards was anoth hit in the math area!

We read the story of Rainbow Fish and talked about how sharing is one way to be a kind friend.

We read this book as part of Kindergarten Community of Fun Fridays when we merge classes.

Children then used water colors to paint their own rainbow fish.

Each kindergarten student will get one shiny scale to represent the moral of the story: sharing is caring. 😃