"Sunburst Over Camel's Hump", by local artist Laurel Fulton Waters; used with permission.

Monday, October 19, 2015

Week of October 19

This weeks theme activity involved filling in a pumpkin....




...and cutting up a poem, and then reordering the sentences into the poems order.

FUNdations: 'd' and 's'.

Practicing letter formation on white boards.


Writers Workshop: now that we are well into the FUNdations program, children are well equipped to stretch out words to listen for each sound and write the corresponding letter down.mthus is a great kindergarten writing strategy.

I read this book for inspiration for the following writing prompt...

I can be a helper.

I can do music.

I can sing.

Stretching out a word to hear each sound.

I can snowboard.

ABC Station: word wall word sort.



A math highlight of this week was working with combinations of 5.

We compared different fives frames to explore the ways we can make 5.
 

Word wall word of the week!




A read aloud to get our creative writing juices flowing...

...for a writing task.

Children wrote and drew about what they like or know about autumn.




123 stations: working to identify and match numerals 1-20.

Letter hunt in ABC

With October drawing to an end, we were excited to explore several patterns...

These are the three different patterns occurring through the month on the calendar markers.

A fun way to practice letter formation in the ABC STATION.

Working on 1:1 correspondence.

Fun Friday. We read the book Mouse Shapes with Mrs. Cotas class and played the game above to build our own mice out of shapes.





So cute 🐭





Saturday, October 17, 2015

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 🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎🍎

Working hard to count and glue...

...10 apples take a lot of space on the paper...

...working so hard on a self portrait...

There she is, with 10 apples up on top!

Children cut out, sequenced and glued numerals onto the apples. They practiced counting forward 1-10, and back from 10-1.

I hope you enjoyed seeing this wonderful kindergarten work come home.




Feeling proud!