Kindergarten 2015-2016: Week of October 12

This week in FUNdations we learned 'a' and g', the sounds they represent, and how to form the letters.

Number Corner this month has been exciting. We are noticing a few patterns emerge on the calendar markers. Ask your children about the colors, the direction leaves are pointing and how many leaves there are...

As the days pass by, we are excited to keep track of our days in school. We are using several counting tools to do so: tens frames; a number line...

...and links. They are all building 10. We have been practicing counting by tens and on as an efficient counting strategy. It's hard to believe that we have been in kindergarten for over 30 days!

As part of our number corner work this month, we are keeping track of the different ways (combinations) to make 10. We are discovering this by using the 10 strip, shown in the picture above, and as we add a link each day, we count how many more links we need to make ten.

We are also working on the "tricky teens" this month. Here is the BIG idea about teen numbers.

Number Line work in the Number Corner area: teen numbers. A number line is another important math tool that we are highlighting this month. The children are enjoying working with missing numbers, talking about numbers that come before and after, and simply counting--all using the number line as our math tool.

You Skills: Mrs. Nelson talked to us about being an ally and a bucket filler.

Bucket Fillers take care of ourselves, others and property. We take care of the whole world by saying and doing kind things.

Everyone carries an invisible bucket for carrying good thoughts about ourselves. Other people's actions can either fill our buckets with happiness, or can 'dip into' our buckets by saying and doing unkind things.

We strive to fill buckets, rather than dip from other people's buckets. And.....It feels good to help others feel good 😀

This week we have done several activities that involve color words. Pictured above is our color word chart that hangs in our room as a reading and writing reminder.

Working on books for book bins: the highlight is the sight word 'the' and color words.

Working on a book that highlights "the" and color words. We also practiced pointing to each word with our reading fingers as we read the book. Using a reading finger helps track the words we read.

Filling in the date on our morning message.

Filling in this weeks sight word "the" on the morning message.

Identifying, sequencing, and reading numerals 1-20.

Another sight word book focusing on "the" and color words.

This sure is a silly apple book that I enjoy reading every fall.

Children were delighted to draw self portraits and build 10 apples up on top, just like the book. Here is one student working hard to count and glue 10 apples up on top 🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎