Today we studied a collection of photographs that were symbols of the United States. The children quickly guessed how the photographs all go together. Later, during Social Studies, we watched Brain Pop Jr. and learned more about symbols of the United States. Ask me to name at least two symbols of the United States. We worked with the /v/ today in Really Great Reading. We have been working with mirrors to watch our mouths as we make the sounds, and we pay attention to feel the air and where it goes. Ask me to show and tell you about what my mouth, teeth and tongue do when I make the sound. We have been working with nouns, and I forgot to post a very important video from my childhood. Enjoy! In math we are continuing to work with hidden partners and will be practicing how to form the numbers.
Read to Me, Talk to Me books are in the children's backpacks. I think I was so overcome with joy over being done with testing that it slipped my mind to save time to pass them out at the end of the day! Have a great evening! Miss Wolfe
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We have finally finished the formal assessments we have had to do and can now go about our day without interruption! We can work on reinforcing a normal schedule and routines!
Today we worked with the /r/ in Really Great Reading. We also worked more with peeling off the beginning sound of words and putting them together with the rest of the words. We read a beautiful book about a robot called The Robot and the Bluebird. We determined the book was fiction and talked more about what robots are really like and that they don't have feelings like the robot in this book. While I was testing I had the children draw robots. Some of the children often say they can't draw, so I showed them some robots made of simple shapes and encouraged them to try and put shapes together to make robots. In math we worked with hidden partners and talked more about two parts being put together to make the whole. We also worked with numbers and found more than one set of hidden partners. Have a great evening! Miss Wolfe We watched the last of the three Caminandes animated shorts. We studied the llama's feelings in this short and how they changed. We talked about the relationship between the llama and the penguin and thought about why the penguin might have brought all the berries to the llama at the end. We tied this in to our discussions today about friendship.
We listened to the story Be a Friend, by Salina Yoon. This is the story of a little boy who is a mime. He becomes lonely when the other children do not play with him. Ask me to tell you what a mime is and what happened at the end of the story. We also read a beautiful National Geographic book written by Barbara Kerley with beautiful photographs from around the world of people with their friends. In the afternoon we read You Will Be My Friend, by Peter Brown. This is such a great story about a bear who decides one day to make friends. Unfortunately her excitement and enthusiasm is too much, and she scares off many animals. And when the children try to make friends with her, she is scared of them! The children worked on some worksheets about the characters in the story as I tested, and will be working more with the character's feelings tomorrow as we reread the story. We will continue to do our Dibels testing in an attempt to finish most of it by Monday. Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, we watched another animated short. This time the llama has a different problem. The problem is what gets the story going. When talking about beginning, middle and end with the children, they were fixated on the llama getting shocked. Jumping over the fence and being shocked was not what got the story going, it was that the llama was hungry and wanted better food that was in the other fenced areas. The middle part of the story is the struggle to get over the fence and seeing that little armadillo come by and go under the fence. This does not work out well for the llama. Ask me to tell you how the story ends! In Really Great Reading we worked with building compound words. We also focused on the /l/. Finally, we practiced peeling the beginning sounds off words. I like to read a book that goes with the sound we are learning, and today was an easy pick. I asked the children what the most important thing in the world is, and they had really great answers. They guessed listening a few times, (we've been talking a lot about that lately), and guessed learning, and I tried to distract them by suggesting licorice but they weren't having it. So I played a song by the Beatles to give them the answer. We really enjoyed All You Need is Love. Then we read the book Love, by Matt de la Pena and beautifully illustrated by Loren Long. We talked about what love is as we read the book. We looked carefully at the illustrations to understand more about what the words were describing. I'm a huge fan of both Matt de la Pena and Loren Long and was so happy to share this with the children. Although the trailer for Love is really more for adults, I showed most of it to the children. I wanted them to see and hear the author and illustrator. Then, the children drew four small pictures on the big paper to show what love is to them. Ask me to show you my drawings and tell you what love is to me. Then tell me what love is to you. We are finishing up our Maryland KRA testing. Today I was able to get a lot more done with the help of the "big paper." When the children use this paper, some of them go to the carpet and put their paper on the hard part of the floor and stretch out on the carpet to draw and color. It's quiet and they work so well that way.
I will be the happiest teacher ever if I could get Dibels done by Friday with only a few make-ups next week. I think I can do it if the children continue to work as quietly and independently and then we can really get into a normal school day routine. In math we worked more with hidden partners and subitizing. It was a quick lesson so tomorrow we will spend more time on math learning a new game and working with bigger numbers to subitize and break into hidden partners. Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe We had a great day! This morning, instead of a Picture Talk, we watched an animated short set in Peru. Today we watched a cartoon short from Peru. This is a part of a series of shorts we will watch to help us with learning about beginning, middle and end of stories, using character's names when talking about the story, and other story elements. Today we focused on retelling the beginning, middle and end of the story. These shorts are great for an introduction to this because they are so short! We talked about what an event is and told an event from the beginning. The event for the beginning of the story should be what gets the story going. The middle of the story is where most of the action happens, so there may be more than one event in the retelling. The end of the story is how it all works out so there may be more than one event there as well. The name of this short is Caminandos 1: Llama Drama. Before you watch it, ask me to show you and tell you about the beginning, middle and end of the story. My pictures are in my yellow folder. We are learning about fiction and non-fiction books. We compared two books today as a class. We talked about the features that each has to help us in determining whether a book is fiction or non-fiction. We started a chart that we will revise as we learn more about fiction and non-fiction texts. In math, we worked with subitizing. We subitize when we look at a quantity and know how many without counting. I put a short video in the Curriculum tab under Math that you can view to learn more about subitizing. I worked with half the class to get them on Chromebooks. We focused primarily on signing on. They did a great job for the first time. Please continue to practice with the yellow paper that has their username and password.
Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe Almost every morning the musical transition to come to the carpet is James Taylor singing Oh, What a Beautiful Morning. On Fridays our transition is still Oh, What a Beautiful Morning, but this time it's Ray Charles singing. We talked about how the song is the same but different because the singer is different, as well as the style. We started our day studying these four pictures to determine what was happening in each of them. We looked at the emotions of the children and determined they were frustrated. We talked about what frustration means. We talked about frustration as being upset over not being able to do something or have something turn out the way you want it to be. Ask me to tell you want is happening in each picture. We watched a short clip to think more about the word frustration. The children really enjoyed this clip so I thought I'd pass it along! We read the book Saturday by Oge Mora. This beautiful book is about a mother and daughter who look forward to Saturdays because the mother works all the other days of the week. They have planned a very special Saturday, but things go wrong for each of the activities planned. Ask me to tell you some of the things the mother and little girl were going to do and what happened. The little girl and the mother both become frustrated. Ask me what the mother does when she gets frustrated.
We practiced a shelter and lockdown today. Mrs. Kemp emphasized to the students that this was a drill, not a real event. We were on our way to music when the shelter drill started so the children were with Mr. Sheetz during the lockdown. He told me they did fine, although a couple children told me they were a little scared. I suggested they hold the hand of the person next to them if they are scared, as I have had classes do in the past. In math we did more with connecting items that were the same but different. They talked with their table, then with the class about what made them the same but different. In Really Great Reading we reviewed first and next. We introduced part and whole as well, so the children looked at items and identified which was whole and which was a part. Finally, they reviewed rhymes. We read a fun rhyming story and picked out the words that rhyme. Have a great weekend! Miss Wolfe We started our day looking at these beautiful birds. We talked about how they are the same and different. Ask me to tell you about these birds. The same, the same but different, and different are words we are using in both math and our RGR work. Most of these birds were familiar to the children because we chose which bird we were most like the first week of school. We met with the other birds in our group and talked about why we chose that bird. Ask me to tell you which bird I picked. We talked about our Calming Corner today. I demonstrated strong feelings by throwing a book on the floor pretending to be very angry. The book is called When Sophie Gets Angry, Really Really Angry, but Molly Bang. We read the book and noticed Sophie's strong feelings, then listened to find out what she did to work through her strong feelings. Ask me to tell you what Sophie did to calm down. We will continue to talk about how we can calm down and stop ourselves from doing things like throwing a book down, or hitting, kicking, etc. Then we looked at our calming corner and some of the "tools" in the calming corner. I told them these are tools we use to help calm down, not toys to play with. We will look at them again and take time for children to try them out. We used our math bins and sorted magnetic alphabet letters. The children were to work in two groups at each table, so the groups had 3 or 2 children in them. Getting them to make a shared collection is tricky, but this is the second time and most understood more what they needed to do. Most groups first sorted by color, but then I suggested looking at the lines or curves to sort the letters. In the afternoon I was trying to start doing the testing online we need to do from the state, but the app wasn't loading. Apparently I wasn't the only one with that idea in Maryland. Finally it loaded but I didn't have time to test, so tomorrow we will be doing some testing. This testing will be done one on one, or with two children on the app. There are several questions that I have to be there to score even though it's on the app. The other children were making line drawings on the big paper so I had time to test, but my plans were foiled by the app. The children made their line artwork anyway. We studied the ideas above and then they worked on their own. Tomorrow is another day, and we will get through this mountain of testing!
Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe The kids did a great job coming in today and remembering our morning routines. I'm still back with them beside the cubbies with reminders but I will be pulling back soon. We talked about what responsibilities are today in Social Studies and they remembered what they are responsible for in the classroom. We also talked about about rules we have at home. We read the book Bella's Rules by Elissa Haden about a little girl who only wants to follow her own rules. Ask me what rules Bella made for herself. We started our Really Great Reading program today. This program starts with the same vocabulary we are working with in math. We talked about the same and different and noticed differences and similarities in pictures. Since we have no specials on Tuesday I am doing an extended Social Emotional Learning lesson. Today we learned about self-control. We read the book Oh No, George, by Chris Haughton. George is a dog that tries to be good, but when left alone, he loses his self-control and gets into some trouble. Ask me to tell you what George does when Harry leaves. We defined self-control as stopping yourself from doing something even though you really want to do it. We talked about stopping and thinking about the choices you have instead of acting too quickly. Then we practiced our own self control. I had a bubble wand that I waved over them. The rule was they could not reach up and pop the bubbles or move their body to pop the bubbles. If they did they had to go back to their seats. They did a great job, although a few friends had to go to their seats and watch the others. In math, we practiced two routines and did a quick problem set. We learned how we would follow a path to get supplies. Knowing this routine will make it easier for students to get supplies quickly and get to work. We learned about using a ruler to draw a straight line. We also learned how to tear one math page out of our math book at a time. The children did really well with that although we had a few tear more pages out than I needed them to, but we can deal with that! It's not easy, but I want to be able to send home their classwork so you can see what we are doing and how they are doing. Today they just had to draw a line to connect animals that were almost the same. I hope to see you tomorrow evening at Back to School Night. I added a book trailer for Oh No, George at the bottom of this page. It's a really sweet book not only about self-control but also unconditional love. Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe Week one in the books! The children did a great job this week learning so many new routines and rules. Today we read a silly book about rules called The Rules by Marty Kelly. ASk me to tell you some of the silly rules in this book!
We learned about fire safety and fire drills. We watched a quick video that explained what to do on a fire drill as well as a few fire safety tips. We had our first fire drill in the afternoon. I knew the drill was going to be around 3:00 so when I saw a couple friends getting sleepy, I had to try and keep them awake. We have a few things to work on for the next drill, but they did a great job for the first whole school drill. The most important thing about all the drills we will have is that the children need to remain quiet and listening for directions. We opened another station for play time. Today we looked at our art station. Right now they are limited to just a few things to use, but we talked about where they would work and what supplies they could use. They seemed to really like the hole punchers! The hole punches are a great tool for kids to use to build the strength in their hands. We also have fancy scissors, crayons and markers for their use. We will add to what they can use as time goes on. We also revisited the toys in the cubbies they can bring to the carpet to use. We had to pause once to play quieter, but otherwise they did great! They are so good at cleaning up! Today we also drew a picture that tells a story. This is important for us in getting ready to write. We talked about getting an idea and adding details. This is another paper we will be putting in our time capsule. It's been a busy, fun and great week. The children, and I, really need the three day weekend! I hope you all have a happy, fun weekend! Be safe! Miss Wolfe Today we started our day by studying the different ways children around the world get to school. I didn't tell the children that was how the photographs were the same, but after they studied the photographs and talked to their partners, they came up with the idea. The backpacks gave it away! Ask me to tell you which way I would like to go to school. If they tell you they would like me to drive them home on a bus, please tell them that is not in my job description! I'm going to accept it as a compliment. I'm not sure what triggered it but this was an idea they came up with at dismissal today! We read the story This School Year Will Be the Best, by Kay Winters. In this story, the narrator tells us what will make this year the best. Most of the ideas were very silly! Then, the children made a wish for their kindergarten year. I told them it had to be something they hope happens at school. You will see their wishes at Back to School Night. We talked about the words exactly the same, almost the same or similar, and different. These words will be used in math in some of our work with Really Great Reading. We studied these items and used these words to talk about what we noticed. Ask me to tell you about the keys using the words exactly the same, almost the same, or different. (None are exactly the same!) The children went to P.E. today so they probably have a lot to tell you about that! Ask me to tell me the name of my P.E. teacher!
We read a beautiful book called The Golden Rule, by Ilene Cooper. This book introduces the Golden Rule through a discussion a little boy and his grandfather are having as they walk. They see the Golden Rule written on the billboard and the little boy asks what that means. The grandfather tells the little boy about the Golden Rule and shares that the Golden Rule is shared in different cultures and religions around the world. He shares their version of the Golden Rule. The grandfather also talks about how important it is to use your imagination to think about how someone else feels when you do something to them. This is a great beginning for learning about empathy, so I told them children about that word and that making good choices is easy when you think of others. What is tricky is stopping to think before acting so it's important to learn self control and how to identify and handle big feelings. These are the things we will be focusing on in our Social/Emotional learning this year. Ask me to tell you the Golden Rule. If you are looking for a great book for your family or as a gift, this is a great choice. I think it might have been at the PTA Book Fair last year, so if it's something you're interested in you might want to see if it's there this year too! In math we sorted pictures and math manipulatives. We started to try and work as a group to sort together, and we were close, but some children still wanted to sort their on their own. We will do more sorting tomorrow in our Math Tubs when we come back from lunch. Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe |
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April 2024
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