Posted by jstutz1 | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on January 12, 2020
1/6 – 1/10
It was so nice to be back at school with all of your sweet kinders! We missed them SO much over break!! Having two weeks off from school can be challenging especially for young students because they are just starting to get into the routine of school. With that being said, this week was a little tough, and we had to have lots of talks about how we should act at school. Tomorrow will be a fresh start!
Popcorn Words: at, that. The kindergarteners did an awesome job with these words and picking up on the relationship between the two with at being in the word that! They practiced writing the words throughout the week and finding them in their books during reader’s workshop.
Literacy Centers: This was a fun week of literacy centers because the students were taught a new center… and they LOVED it! We had them listen to books on tape. It was so cute to see their facial expressions as they followed along while they were read to. This really helps with their tracking skills and being able to find the same words in the book as the words are said to them.
Math: This week in math we talked all about shapes. The kindergarteners were so excited to learn that we can use one shape to make another shape. We practiced using triangles to make squares, and we put two squares together to make a rectangle. To celebrate building new shapes, we made shape snowflakes on Friday. The students made predictions about what shapes might be on our snowflake by looking at the cut lines we had to do. They were so smart and used their reasoning skills to predict the new shapes we would cut! They were amazed when they were able to open up their snowflake and discover what they created!!
Writer’s Workshop: We started a how-to unit for writer’s workshop. The students learned that how-to stories tell the reader steps of how to do something. To help them understand this concept, they had to determine if we read a storybook or a how-to book. The kinders did a GREAT job finding the differences between the two. We practiced writing a few how-to’s as a class, including: washing your hands, building a snowman, and making hot cocoa. We will continue to practice this writing and they will eventually start writing their own how-to. We also thought it would be fun to challenge the kinders by having them record a how-to video at home! This is just something fun to do and it is NOT a requirement. If your kiddo would like to do this, you can upload the video to YouTube or email it to us, and we will share it with the class! Some examples you could do are: how to brush your teeth, make chocolate milk, make slime, etc.
Reader’s Workshop: This week during reading, the students learned a few different skills to help them become better readers. We want them to be able to recognize which books are easy for them and which books are a little more difficult. We looked at some different leveled books and had a discussion about how some books have only a few words on each page while other books are filled with multiple words on each page. We then had them grab their book boxes so they could look through their books and make a stack with easy books on top and hard books on the bottom. Another skill we talked about was finiding patterns in books. They learned how patterns can help us understand the book better because we are seeing the same words over and over again.
Mystery Reader: We were super lucky this week and had two mystery readers in our classroom! Joe’s mom and his older sister, who is in fifth grade, both got to read us a book. They read us the story Railroad Hank and Pete the Kitty and the Case of the Hiccups. Joe was SO exctied to have both of you there. Thank you for visiting us and choosing such fun books to share with the class!
Jobs: Our kinders now have classroom jobs! This is something new we started after break, and the kinders were THRILLED. It is a great way for them to gain a little more responsibility in the classroom. Not everyone will have a job every week, so we say that those who do not have a job for the week are on “vacation”. It has been adorable to see how seriously some of them have been taking their job!
Upcoming Dates:
- Monday, Jan. 13… ART
- Tuesday, Jan. 14… STEAM, LIBRARY, help your kinder return their library book.
- Wednesday, Jan. 15… MUSIC
- Thursday, Jan. 16… GYM
- Friday, Jan. 17… ART, Emilie’s B-day!
