We have been busy in kindergarten! We are practicing our Heart Words and using them to write sentences on our white boards. We are doing a really great job remembering to begin sentences with a capital letter, put spaces between words and end our sentence with punctuation. I put a tricky two syllable word in each sentence we write and the children are pounding out the syllables then tapping out the sounds in each syllable. Today we read one of my favorite stories called Love Is My Favorite Thing, by Emma Chichester Clark. This is the story of a dog named Plum who has trouble with self-control and gets herself into trouble. She worries her family and friends won't love her anymore but learns in the end that she will always be loved. Ask me to tell you about what Plum does in the story that gets her in trouble. We made a text-to-text connection to a class favorite Oh No George, that we read earlier in the year. For our picture talk on Wednesday, we collected data on favorite Disney movies. It's not looking good for the princesses! Ask me to tell you about the data on our Disney survey. We have been reading about technology in our Benchmark reading, so today we looked at phones from now and long ago. We analyzed these pictures looked at the parts that make up the phones, and compared how they are the same and different. We also shared which phone was our favorite. OK, and I'll confess, I showed them a minute of the Andy Griffith Show so they could see how the phones from long ago worked.
We continued to talk about force and motion today. Next week we will test out different textures to see how a ping pong ball, marble and car move on them, and if the direction or speed changes on the different surfaces. Today when I picked up the class in the cafeteria, we had one table that had children up on their knees, playing around, and pushing lunch boxes and water bottles around. We have kids flipping water bottles both in the classroom and in the lunchroom. I have talked to them about this behavior in the lunchroom and was talking to them in the hall about it when Mr. Smith told me he also had talked to them and told them to stop. We had another talk in the classroom about respecting all adults in the building and doing what they are told. That is the bad news. The good news is they had a substitute in P.E. who actually walked them back to the classroom to tell me he would be happy to sub for me anytime because they were so good in P.E. That is a huge compliment. P.E. is an area where kids could easily get wound up and have trouble following directions especially when there is a substitute. Mr. Tom has built so many good routines with the children that they were able to cooperate with a substitute. I was really proud of them and happy to hear that they behaved so well with a substitute teacher. Have a great evening! Miss Wolfe
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Today we read Before She Was Harriet, by Lesa Cline-Ransome once again. The children listened to remember one important event and the name Harriet was called then. They also listened to this quote, "Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." This is a quote from Harriet Tubman and we used it to think about what we could do, no matter how small, to change the world. I shared ideas with the students and they wrote their dream of how they could make life better for others in some way, big or small. I will send these papers home tomorrow so the children can tell you all about Harriet as well as their dream.
Later in the day, we continued with that theme with our read aloud book before recess. We read Ordinary Mary's Extraordinary Deed, by Emily Pearson. This story starts with Mary picking blueberries and leaving them on the porch of her neighbor. Ask me to tell you what happens next. In Really Great Reading, we worked with long vowels. Right now they are learning to listen for the long vowels, but not spell them. Because there are so many ways the long vowels are spelled, we are stretching a bit into looking at how to spell words with a long vowel with a silent e at the end of the word. We have also talked about how two ee's together make the long e sound. Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe We started our day studying these interesting nests. The children were particularly interested in the octopus nest and the nest on the cliff. Ask me to tell you which nest I found the most interesting.
We had another SEL lesson about worrying. We read a really great book for helping children learn about their worries called Avocado Feels a Pit Worried by Brenda Miles. Avocado, the main character in the story, worries about everything. His "what ifs" make it impossible for him to do anything. His just sits in his house doing nothing. He finds a way to turn his what if's around to make them positive. I highly recommend this book for anyone who struggles with anxiety or worries. In the back there is a lot of information about how to help your child with worrying and anxiety. This author has a few other books we will be reading as well that are really great! In math we are working with story problems, and representing them with pictures, number bonds and number sentences. We can use the words "and" and 'is" in our number sentences or use the symbols + and =. We are working with numbers 6, 7 and 8. Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe Avocado Feels a Pit Worried: A Story About Facing Your FearsAvocado Feels a Pit Worried: A Story About Facing Your FearsAvocado Feels a Pit Worried: A Story About Facing Your Fears We started our day talking about leaders and teamwork. We watched some short videos and talked about what the leader did and how the others worked together.. This is a topic we will be talking about throughout the month. I am putting the videos below if you would like to take a peek yourself! Ask me to tell you how the animals and characters worked together. In Benchmark reading, we read about technology in the future. We read about a space elevator and jet packs. We have some pretty brave friends who are all ready to try both! The space elevator seems to be an idea that ran out of steam, and probably won't ever be built, but I couldn't help myself and showed the children a short clips of the space elevator simulation at Epcot's Space 220 restaurant. It shows going up and how everything below gets smaller and eventually we are able to see the state of Florida from space. Then we saw the reverse from space, back to Epcot. The children were especially interested in the jet packs. We identified key details in the text. Ask me to tell you about the space elevator and the jet packs and which I'd like to try! We read a beautiful story today called Before She Was Harriet, by Lisa Cline-Ransome. This beautiful book tells about the many amazing things Harriet Tubman did in her life. I introduced her as a super hero who didn't need bat belts and being able to fly, but instead was brave, patient, and was determined to make life better for so many whose freedom and choices were taken away. I shared this with the students on the board today because there is a wonderful recording of the author reading it, and I'll post it below for you to enjoy. In math, we worked with finding numbers between other numbers. For example, I asked the children to write a number on their whiteboard that is more than 8 but less than 12. They did a great job. We went on the show how to draw a quick number line to show our number. We will work with number lines more, but this was a good opportunity for children to use it to explain their thinking.
We continued working with number bonds, and represented our decomposition of numbers with a number sentence. For example, we wrote 7 = 3 + 4 to show the whole group we started with and the number partners that we broke apart from 7. Keep reading for the Read-a-Thon. Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe We started our 100th day of school by thinking about a place we would like to go that is about 100 miles from our school for a 100 day of school field trip. We considered exploring the caverns in Luray, Virginia, spending time around Cambridge, MD watching birds, looking at the beautiful Choptank River and walking along the coast, We read a beautiful story called 100 Chapatis by Derek Mascarenhas about a grandfather and his grandson making 100 chapatis while waiting on the little boy's new baby sister to be born.. This was something the grandfater did with his wife while waiting on the birth of the little boy. We covered a chart with 100 small stickers. We made it into a race to remind us of working quicker and not stopping. This was also a great fine motor activitiy to have the children using their fringers to pull the small stickers off the strips of ten I gave them. To help them rember to work quickly, I played music such as The Fight of the Bumblebee and the Theme from the Lone Ranger to get the kids moving. We stopped after each song played and counted how many stickers we had put on our paper all ready. We kept starting and stopping until the chart was covered. We enjoyed the projects the children did to show 100. The children did a great job os explaining how they made their projects! We ended our day with the 100 Cup Tower Challenge. This was the first time the children were building with the cups so they needed to work together to find the best way to stack the cups. They also needed to uderstand that a tower would need to have space in the middle and could not just be a wall. Before the challenge began, we talked about encouraging each other and being patient and careful. We knew there would be times when the tower fell down, but that we were not going to blame anyone or get upset. I'm happy t say the children were worked very well in the groups of four they selected. The children had a great time with this challenge!
It was a great 100th day of school! Miss Wolfe We started our day by studying this picture from a Pixar short we were going to watch. In reading we will be working to make predictions, so we looked for clues in the picture to make a prediction about what might happen. We watched the video to check our prediction. We thought about what the message or lesson the writers might have wanted us to understand by watching the video. We talked about kindness, including others, and not making judgements about others based on what they look like. It was interesting to hear children sharing with their partner that they thought the big bird was mean because of the black rings around its eyes. We also practiced retelling. The children do a great job remember events in the story, but getting them in the right order and not leaving out important events is more difficult for them. Ask me to retell this story to you before we watch it together. We have started a new unit in our Benchmark reading. This unit is called "Why do people tell stories?" We talked about folktales being stories that were told by people to other people. We know many of these stories have been made into books. We watched an African inspired folktale/song performed by the great Pete Seeger. Ask me to tell you the story of Abiyoyo. I have included the video below but I am warning you, you might be singing Abiyoyo the rest of the night! We will be reading more folktales over the next few weeks in recognition of Black History Month as well as the Lunar New Year. So many good stories to share, so little time!
We practiced reading the text for our current unit in Really Great Reading. I pointed out to the children that one BIG thing I noticed is that they are not stretching out the words now. They are making their eyes move across the word to read it without saying each sound first. This is something we have worked on for a couple weeks now and I am seeing big improvements. We are moving on to making our eyes move across the whole line, chunking the words into groups so our reading sounds more like people talking than a robot talking. The children are getting more practice in reading short, simple books during our Independent Reading Time we have each day after lunch. They choose books and a magazine and find a quiet place to read on their own. I need to spend some time getting the books organized a little better so children will have an easier time finding books that are just right for them. It's exciting to watch the changes I have seen since we first started this up until now. They are becoming more focused and are building stamina. We are practicing counting to 100. Many of the children can do it already but enjoy getting up and moving to Jack Hartman as he exercises and counts to 100. The end of the year benchmark is 120. We are continuing to work with the concept of more and less in math. Being able to articulate which set has more or less is more of a challenge than just circling which one is more or which is less. Although it is not in our curriculum, we are stretching and looking at sets to determine how many more or how many less. They are doing this with manipulatives, pictures in the workbook and with just the numeral. They are using the visualization strategy as well as learning to use a numberline. Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe So far this week, we have been talking about the food groups. We know it's important to include all the food groups in our diets, so we are learning about the different choices we have as we think about what we would like to eat. We learned that vegetables are a root, stem or leaf that is eaten, and fruits are from flowering plants that grow into a fruit that encloses or has seeds. Interesting!
We have been working on writing our information text about groundhogs. We are keeping it simple, and I am modeling before they write to try and reinforce using a capital at the beginning of a sentence, spaces between words, and punctuation at the end of a sentence. That is on top of finger stretching unknown words, which means we are gently pounding syllables to help break up the word so we can finger stretch. The children also need to determine the words they are going to use to share their information. That's a lot of work for these little people who have been on Earth five or six years! The indicators for writing include the words "with adult help" so teachers do model the process for the students. What the children need to do independently though is the mechanics of writing; putting spaces between their words, using upper and lower case letters appropriately, and using simple punctuation. We will work on this in writing stories and texts, and for practice. In Social Studies we are learning about Economics. We read a great book called Wants Vs. Needs Vs. Robots. We built on what we learned in our Benchmark reading about what plants and animals need to survive. We then found out that robots, in this book, need four things. Ask me to tell you the four things these robots needed. One robot wanted other things and traded things they needed to survive. Ask me to tell you about what happened and what better trades the robot made at the end of the story. Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe We started our day by studying photographs of groundhogs. We looked closely at their external features and made connections to other animals they are similar to. We read about groundhogs and found out they are called by other names. One of the names is woodchuck, and the other is whistling pig. We are going to do our writing research project together and use the information we learned about their shelters in our book. Ask me to tell you what I learned about the shelter. Did you know groundhogs can climb trees? We talked a little about Groundhogs Day and the tradition of watching Punxsatawney Phil come out of his burrow to determine if we will have six more weeks of winter or an early spring. We collected data to find out which our class hoped would happen. Ask me to tell you about our data and what more of our class would like to happen.
In math we took a fluency test with five. The children had to move through boxes with objects and either add to them or cross out so there were five. This meant they had to stay focused. I asked them to go not too fast, and not too slow because we were trying to be as accurate as possible. The Eureka routine for fluency tests is for the children to grade them, so we went over it together and they used a crayon to mark with a checkmark if they were right and to fix it up with the crayon if they were not. We played a game to practice naming one more or less than a number. The children either rolled one or two dice and added one on. They had to cover four in a row to win. The children with two dice had to add the dice and then add one more. Are you hoping for an early spring or just no more snow days? Miss Wolfe |
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January 2024
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