Kinder News!: Weekly News (Oct. 5-8)

We definitely packed a lot of learning and fun into a short week! Keep reading to see what we have been up to in K-2!

Math
This week we reviewed our shapes and used tangram pieces to make shape puzzles. By rearranging and rotating our collection of 7 shapes, we were able to make new shapes. Click on the picture below for more practice with shape puzzles!

The children were also introduced to the concept of a "Ten Frame" this week (see example below). The format of the ten frame helps children develop a good number sense. For children and adults, it is easy to immediately recognize quantities less than 5, however, recognizing quantities beyond 5 is more difficult. The ten-frame helps students visualize the numbers between 5 and 10. The children fill the top row of the ten-frame with objects from left to right before filling the bottom row to promote recognition of "5 and some more" patterns. For example, the ten-frame below represents the number 7---5 plus 2 more.

The children did a great job during our lesson turning and talking with their neighbors to answer some of our questions.

Is this ten frame filled out correctly? Why or why not?

What number does this ten frame show?
How many more chips do you need to get to 10?

To wrap up our first unit in math, we went on a "Number Hunt" throughout our classroom and around the building. Below are some of our findings!

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

/r/ as in rag

/m/ as in mouse

Click here to listen to the ABC Mouse song for Rr.

Click here to listen to the ABC Mouse song for Mm.

Please continue to practice our Jolly Phonics sounds at home. The children are becoming more and more confident with their sounds each week, and it is definitely showing during writing workshop time!

Literacy
Reading Workshop

This week we learned some new phrases during reading workshop to help us learn how to have back-and-forth conversations with our partners when talking about books. We learned the following phrases:

"I think....because...."

"I notice..."

"I agree with you because..."

I disagree with you because..."

The students did a great job using these phrases during our whole group read aloud and when discussing books with their partners. It was great to see how these phrases really encouraged students to support their thinking with examples and evidence from the text!

We also learned another skill that strong readers use--they read books over and over again, especially our favorite ones! This helps build reading fluency and confidence. This week we practiced reading a short piece of text in a variety of ways using some of the suggestions below.

As we continue to work together to help our kindergarteners grow as readers, please continue to make reading aloud to your child a part of your daily routine, and when your child says, "Read it again! Read it again!" please do! Hearing the same story over and over again helps young children develop their vocabulary, strengthen their comprehension skills, and develop their phonemic awareness, and most importantly it promotes a lifelong love of reading!

Writing Workshop
It was a very exciting week for writing workshop--the students began working on their very own books! After looking through two mentor texts--one all about chipmunks and another book about soccer--we learned how authors can write several pages on one topic. After brainstorming some topics we know a lot about, the children talked to their partners about their chosen topic and shared three ideas about their topic that they wanted to write about in their book. Our brave writers wrote about a variety of topics including--soccer, dinosaurs, squirrels, cupcakes, porcupines, woolly mammoths, and more. Wow, what experts we have in K-2! Later in the week, the children continued to work on their books after getting feedback from a partner on where they could add more detail or how they could make their pictures or writing more clear to the reader. What an exciting week for our kindergarten writers!

Science
The children brought home a letter this week explaining our first science unit of the year--Collections in Nature. For our collection, we will be studying leaves. I can't wait to see all the different leaves the children bring in on Tuesday!

All About Me
This week the class loved learning all about Ian and some of his favorite things. We learned that Ian is a big fan of Pokeman, and he enjoys playing frisbee. Ian also loves playing with his Hot Wheels, riding his bike, and playing the guitar. He enjoys spending time with his family, and he loves books--especially the book Dogzilla that his mom shared with us during the week!

A big thank you to Ian's mom for coming in to read one of Ian's favorites--Dogzilla!

Centers
The children are doing a great job during center time while I am beginning to meet with students one-on-one and in small groups. Here are our centers from the week.