Weekly News (April 17-21)

Another great week in kindergarten! Keep reading to see what we have been learning.

Math
This week in math, we learned more about the dime and reviewed how to count by 10's when counting a collection of dimes. We also played a new math game called "The Money Exchange Game." We practiced making equal coin exchanges using pennies, nickels, and dimes. We learned how to exchange 5 pennies for 1 nickel and 10 pennies for a dime. One student even noticed that we could exchange 2 nickels for 1 dime! We also reviewed 2 and 3-D shapes.

Take a closer look at a dime

Exchanging pennies for nickels and dimes

Literacy
Reading Workshop
We wrapped up our poetry unit this week. We learned how good readers make connections while reading to better understand and enjoy poetry. We used the poems Eagle Flight and Song of the Dolphin by Georgia Heard to learn about making text-to-text connections, and then we read the poem Bedtime, which all the children could relate to, as we learned about making text-to-self connections.

We also practiced finding the "big" idea or the message of a poem. After reading the poem My Bed, we used the strategies shown below to help us figure out the real meaning of the poem. We learned that the poem wasn't just about a boy pretending his bed was a race car or a rocket ship. It was about being lost in our thoughts and using our imaginations to create dreams for ourselves and our lives.

Writing Workshop

In addition to our weekly weekend writing, the students also spent some time creating a "copycat" poem where we added our own lines to an existing poem. Using the poem Raindrops, we came up with our own pairs of rhyming lines and added pictures to match!

Earth Day
We finished out the week celebrating Earth Day and learned about ways we can protect the Earth and take care of our environment.

Click here to see more photos from the week!

Have a great weekend!