Weekly News (Oct. 21-25)

Math

This week we introduced the concept of weight using a pan balance.  We used the words lighter and heavier to help us understand the meaning of the word weight.  We talked about what it means when the pans are equal or balanced, and we experimented weighing several different objects.  The students were able to experiment with the pan balance on their own during center time this week as well.  

We also learned about dominoes this week, which are a great tool in math and can be used in a variety of ways to help students develop skills such as: counting, sorting, number recognition, adding,  and subtracting.  We practiced counting the number of dots on each domino and then sorted them by total number of dots.  It was a great activity for reinforcing the concept of addition as well as helping students create a visual representation for numbers that can sometimes seem abstract for students. 

The children also began a new number book this week that focuses on the teen numbers.  The children have not only been learning how to write each teen number, they have also been learning that each teen number follows the concept of ten plus "some more."  Working with the teen numbers is a great way to help students begin to understand the concept of place value.  The children also loved learning how to play one of our Everyday Math games called "Monster Squeeze.  They brought home a paper copy of the game to play at home.

Jolly Phonics

This week we began learning the Jolly Phonics sounds from Book #4.  The children learned their first long vowel sounds, long a and long o, and they did a great job finding examples of these sounds for their notebooks.  We talked about how sometimes two letters work together as buddies to make one sound.  Below are all the sounds we learned this week.

ai as "train"

Jj as in "jiggle"

oa as in "boat"

Literacy

This week we introduced the sight word "a," and the students brought home a new sight word book.  Please have your child add this book to their growing collection.  These sight word books are a great way for the children to learn their sight words, which are an important part of learning how to read.  Most of our sight words do not follow common spelling patterns, and therefore cannot be sounded out.  Children need to be able to recognize these words "on sight," so practice reading their sight word books and going through their sight word cards will help them master these words.  There is a great website that shows several different ways to practice sight words at home in a fun and engaging way.  I included the link below.  Two of our family favorites include: Sight Word Spotlight and Sight Word Island Jumping.  Enjoy!

http://childhood101.com/2013/09/sight-words-activity-ideas/

The children also learned all about pumpkins this week through several of our nonfiction read aloud books, which included: The Pumpkin Book; It's a Fruit, It's a Vegetable, It's a Pumpkin; Seed, Sprout, Pumpkin Pie; and Perfect Pumpkin.  The children will be completing an activity next week to demonstrate what they have learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin.  We had two guest readers this week as well.  Mrs. Mertes read Big Pumpkin to the morning class, and Mr. Keating read several fairy tales from Jon Scieszka's The Stinky Cheese Man to the afternoon class.  The children LOVED these stories!!  Thank you Mrs. Mertes and Mr. Keating!

All week the children worked hard to create a book called Where is Pumpkin?, which focused on helping the children learn positional words such as: under, behind, on, above, and in.  They did a great job making and reading these books.  Please encourage your child to read it over and over again.  It's a fun one to read!

I began meeting with the students in small guided reading groups this week.  It is a great opportunity for me to provide instruction that matches students' individual needs.  All students should have brought home a blue and red book bag.  Please be sure to have your child read the book(s) in the book bag over and over again throughout the week.  The repeated practice reading a familiar book really boosts the children's confidence in themselves and reinforces those sight words too.  Please continue to read aloud each night to your child as well.  Reading aloud to your child is one of the most important things you can do to help your child develop literacy skills.  I saw a good quote from Jim Trelease, a well-known educator and author in the field of literacy, that reiterates this point using a great analogy. 

"No player in the NBA was born wanting to play basketball. The desire to play ball or to read must be planted. The last 25 years of research show that reading aloud to a child is the oldest, cheapest and most successful method of instilling that desire. Shooting baskets with a child creates a basketball player; reading to a child creates a reader."

--Jim Trelease

 The children also learned how to write the letters Ll and Kk this week, and they practiced their writing skills during Writer's Workshop.  We have really been working on stretching out and saying each word slowly when thinking about what sounds to write down during Writer's Workshop.  

Science/Computer Lab

In the computer lab this week, the children practiced sorting leaves by color and by the number of points on each leaf.  Then they used Pixie, a drawing program, to create their own fall trees.  They turned out beautiful!

Centers

The children are doing a nice job working independently in centers while I am working with students in small guided reading groups.  The activities children do during center time are selected to reinforce and review a variety of skills and concepts.  Take a peek below to see what the children have been working on during centers.  The afternoon class is featured this week!

Listening to The Runaway Pumpkin provided students with a good model for fluent reading and helped build their vocabulary.

Rereading familiar books helps boost their confidence.

Exploring the concept of weight using a pan balance.

Building sight word mastery in a game format and working on cooperative game play.

Reinforcing eye hand coordination and developing fine motor skills using our geoboards.

Looking forward to another great week!

Thanks for reading!

Weekly News (Oct. 16-18)

For a short week, we sure were busy!

Math

This week the children practiced writing the number 10.  Here is the rhyme we used to help us remember the strokes:

Tall straight, circle then,

That's the way to make a 10!

We also reviewed the rhymes for writing the numbers 1-9.  The children completed a shape sorting activity and did some graphing as well.  Using a collection of red, yellow, orange, and brown leaves, the children counted the number of each color and graphed the results.  They did an excellent job with this activity!

Jolly Phonics
With our three day week, we spent time reviewing all of the Jolly Phonics sounds we have learned so far, and we also watched one of our Jolly Phonics videos.  The video reviewed the sounds for Book #3 (g, o, u, l, f, b) and showed students how to blend sounds to read words.  I loved watching the children as they practiced some blending while watching the video.  They are so eager to learn how to read!

Next week we will begin learning the sounds from Book #4.  The students will begin learning some of the long vowel sounds like the /ai/ in "rain" or "train."  When working on their Jolly Phonics homework, the students will be looking for pictures or drawing pictures with the long vowel sound in the middle of words.

Literacy

The children enjoyed several stories about leaves this week including: Autumn Leaves, Leaf Jumpers, and The Little Yellow Leaf.  We did a second "close reading" of the book The Little Yellow Leaf and talked about the different clues in the story that helped us understand that the story took place in the fall.  We also took a closer look at some of the author's words and discussed what some of the words might mean.  In the picture below, we were trying to understand the meaning of the word "bare."

We also worked in Writer's Workshop this week and wrote about some of the fun things we did over the long weekend.  It sounded like everyone enjoyed the nice long Columbus Day weekend!  We learned how to write the letter Ee as well and read a Time for Kids magazine about being a good friend.

Science

We worked as scientists this week as we explored many of the leaves that the students brought in.  The students each chose one leaf to study.  Using their leaf, they drew a picture of the leaf in their science journal and labeled the color of the leaf.  They covered the leaf with pennies and recorded the number of pennies it took to cover the surface of the leaf.  They placed their leaf in a pan of water and counted the number of pennies it took to sink the leaf.  They also compared the different sizes of all the leaves and recorded the size of their leaf--small, medium, or large.  Take a peek at our scientists in action below!

Have a great weekend!

Weekly News! (Oct. 7-11)

We have been enjoying our growing leaf collection this week.  Thank you for helping your children find such an amazing variety of leaves for our science lessons!

Math

This week we introduced the concept of a number story.  We used our interactive whiteboard to create our own number stories such as, "Ryan saw 2 green leaves on the tree and Maggie saw 2 orange leaves on the tree.  How many leaves did they see in all?"  Then we wrote a number sentence (or a number model) to match our story, 2 + 3 = 5.

The children also learned about symmetry this week by looking at many different examples of symmetrical shapes.  We took a closer look at our leaf collection and found several leaves that were symmetrical.  We even did some symmetry painting!

Symmetry Painting

What a masterpiece!

The children also played a new math game this week called Name That Number.  For this game, the children practiced rolling a die, counting the number of dots, and writing the matching number in one of the columns labeled 1-6.  The first column filled to the top was the winner!  This game not only reinforces number writing skills, it also helps students practice automatically naming the number of dots on the die.  Dice games are a fun way to reinforce math skills at home.  Tenzi is a fun dice game that we love to play at home!  I included a picture of the game below.

Playing "Roll That Number"

Tenzi

The children also practiced writing the numbers 8 and 9.  The rhymes below helped us remember how to form each number.

Make an "S" and do not wait.

Go right back up and there's an 8!

A loop and down line.

That's the way to make a 9!

Jolly Phonics

We completed Jolly Phonics Book #3 this week and learned the sounds and motions for the following letters:
Ll as in "lion"

Ff as in "fish"

Bb as in "bubble"

We review the sounds and motions for the letters we have learned frequently in class.  Some tricky ones to keep practicing at home are all the vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, and u), d, b, g, and r.  The children often want to make the /j/ sound for "g" and the /er/ sound for the "r" instead of the /r/ sound like you hear in the word "rug." All of their hard work learning these sounds will really pay off in learning how to read and write.

Literacy

The children learned the sight word "like" this week, and we used the word "like" in our writing during Writer's Workshop time. The children also spent some time hunting for our sight words in books.  This is a great activity to do at home too!  We read several fall books this week including: Fall Walk, Count Down to Fall, and Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf.  We also read a book about Christopher Columbus and sang a song called "Sail Your Ship."  We used the Count Down to Fall book to do a second "close reading" of the text.  During a close reading, the children are encouraged to go back and think more deeply about the words and pictures in the book in order to gain a deeper understanding of the story and the author's message.  In the picture below, the children had to close their eyes and listen to the words on one page of the story--"Six linden leaves in Valentine shapes" and think about what shape linden leaves might be.  Children drew leaf shapes on sticky notes and shared their ideas with the class.  We will be doing many close readings of text throughout the year to help students develop deeper comprehension skills that are reflected in the Common Core Standards.  

Close Reading Lesson

We had two special guest readers this week too.  Luciano's mom shared a beautiful story with the morning class, and Aleena's mom shared a wonderful presentation about Eid in the afternoon. We loved having you!  Thank you!

Science

We began our study of leaves this week by reading a book called What Is a Scientist?  We learned that scientists ask questions and try to find answers to those questions by making observations, noticing details, and conducting experiments.  We read a nonfiction book called Colorful Leaves that taught us about many different types of leaves.  We made crayon rubbings of several different leaves and labeled each one and then assembled our pages into a book to make a Leaf Field Guide.  Feel free to take it along on your next nature walk!  The children also spent some time investigating the many leaves that were brought in this week.  The children first used their own eyes to make observations about the different leaves.  Their observations included things like: leaves come in all sizes, shapes, and colors, some leaves are soft and others are crunchy, and most leaves have stems.  Then they used magnifying glasses to really notice the details in the leaves.  This time their observations included things like: some leaves have veins, some leaves have tiny spots on them, some leaves look like bugs have bitten holes in them, and some leaves have cracks in them.  The children did a great job investigating and noticing the details.  We recorded our ideas on a class chart.  

  

Centers

Leaf Rubbing

Fox and the Falling Leaves

Computer Center

Buddy Reading

Thanks for reading!

Weekly News (Sept. 30-Oct.4)

Is it really October already?  My how time is flying by in kindergarten!  Here is what we have been up to this week.

Math
This week in math we spent a lot of time learning about those "tricky teen" numbers from 10-19.  We practiced sequencing the teen numbers and counting out each number.  We also talked about how each teen number is "10 plus some more."  Any opportunities you have at home to reinforce the teen numbers would be helpful!

We reviewed our shapes this week as well and completed an activity with triangles.  We also introduced the concept of estimating, and we talked about how we can use information we know to make a "thoughtful guess."  We put 10 objects into one container and filled a second container with either more or less objects.  Then we estimated how many objects might be in the second container by comparing it to the container with 10.  The children did a GREAT job with this activity!

We continued number writing practice this week as we learned the strokes for the numbers 6 and 7, and our first calendar went home this week for October.  This is a great way to squeeze in some number writing practice at home.

Jolly Phonics
This week we learned the following letters and sounds in Jolly Phonics:

Gg as in "good"
Oo as in "octopus"
Uu as in "umbrella"

Although our vowels (a, e, i, o, and u) have both a long and a short sound, we are focusing on the short sound for each vowel at this point in the year--e.g.--/a/ as in apple, /e/ as in elephant, /i/ as in igloo, /o/ as in octopus, and /u/ as in umbrella.  Thanks again for your support at home with your child's Jolly Phonics notebook.  The children are hearing and recording more and more sounds each week!

Literacy
We wrapped up our apple themed literacy activities this week and read Apple Pie Tree, Red are the Apples, and a book about the seasons.  The children completed a sequencing activity where they had to put the events of a short story in order.  The children also brought home a new sight word book this week and colored a book titled Apples that reviewed some of our color words.  Please add both of these books to your child's growing book bag at home and have your child read them with you. The children enjoyed their first Time for Kids magazine this week as they learned about how apples are harvested and transported to markets and grocery stores.  The children also continued to strengthen their fine motor skills this week as we learned how to write more letters.  This week we focused on how to write the letters Aa, Dd, and Gg.

The children brought home their Poetry Folders this week with our September Song inside.  We will continue to add poems to these folders throughout the school year.  Click the link below to hear the September Song.  (Sorry...the video quality isn't the greatest, but you can hear the song!)

 http://vimeo.com/76268644

Centers
Take a peek at our centers for the week below!

Stamping our sight words in Play-Doh

Read to Self

Piggy Bank Coin Match

Sight Word Center

Writing our sight words in sand

Listening to poems at the Listening Center

Just Jump

The children did a great job during the PTA Just Jump Challenge.  Check out our afternoon kindergarteners in action!

Hope you have a great week!
Thanks for reading!