Today we read a poem we read a few months ago about ducks. Today, our purpose was to find words with multiple meanings or homophones. Ask me to find the words with multiple meanings and tell you at least two meanings for the word.
Ducks Ducks are lucky, Don’t you think? When they want to Take a drink, All they do is Duck their bill. (Doesn’t matter If they spill.) When they want to Take a swim, All they do is Dive right in; And they never Seem to sink. Ducks are lucky, Don’t you think? We also read a story about ducks. The story Just Ducks, by Nicola Davies, is told by a little girl who has ducks that live near her. The book also includes captions to the watercolor pictures that give more information about mallard ducks. We learned what a drake is, what ducks are doing when they dabble and why you see them upended sometimes. We also learned about why preening is important to ducks. Ask me to tell you what preening means! We have also had a mini unit of study about nutrition. We learned about why it is important to know about the food groups. Today we read a story by Bernard Waber called Fast Food! Gulp! Gulp! We have a better understanding of what fast food is and why we need to limit how often we eat it. We made lists of junk food and healthy food. In math, we practiced counting back 1 and 2. Many of the students practiced subtracting by playing a subtraction game. Ask me to tell you what I did in math stations today. I hope you get a chance to get outside tonight to enjoy the beautiful weather! Juliet
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Today we began learning about life long ago. We looked at and played with some toys and games for long ago. We practiced playing jacks, tabletop nine-pins, catch ball, tiddly winks, shut the box, pick-up sticks, quoits, and we built with Lincoln Logs. Friday we will play again, this time keeping track of points. Most of these games can involve math, so we will add this in to our games now that we are familiar with the parts of the game. Check us out playing with toys from long ago: We read an inspiring story this afternoon called The Red Bicycle, by Jude Isabella. The story is about a red bicycle that a boy, Leo, has saved his money for by doing jobs for neighbors. We talked about choices he could have made with his earnings, but instead he set a goal of buying a new, red bicycle. As Leo grows, he becomes too big for his bike. He wants to give his bike to someone who will love it as much as he did, but everyone he knows has a bike. The lady in the bike shop tells him about an organization that sends bikes to countries who need bicycles to help the people who live there. Ask me to tell you what happens when the Leo donates his bike.
Have a nice evening! Juliet Today we had a Mad Science Assembly called the Marvels of Motion. We learned about Newton's Laws of motion and basic understandings of movement. Ask me to tell you about the assembly! Today we also finished our Informational Text Shared Writing book. We are very excited to share this with you. We used many different sources to gather information about bald eagles including books, photographs, videos, an online encyclopedia and an eagle expert from the DCEaglecam.com. We included text features to highlight important information. Ask me to tell you about bald eagles and our eagle book. Remember, there is no school for kindergarten students on Monday and Tuesday due to Kindergarten Orientation.
Have a wonderful weekend! Juliet Today we studied this photograph and thought about words that describe the feelings we have when we look at this scene. We thought of many adjectives to describe the scene as well. Everyone agreed this photograph was very peaceful and calm. We noticed many interesting things in the photograph as well. Ask me to tell you about this picture. We read this poem today. We talked about the interesting words the author chose to use in this poem. We looked at words that end with y, and found out the y makes the long e sound at the end of these words. We also thought of words that that began with fr and dr.
I Like It When It's Mizzly I like it when it's mizzly and just a little drizzly so everything looks far away and make- believe and frizzly. I like it when it's foggy and sounding very froggy. I even like it when it rains on streets and weepy windowpanes and catkins in the poplar tree and me. by Aileen Fisher Today in math we worked more with addition and subtraction story problems. We are working hard to read and listen to find out what the problem is asking so we know whether it is a joining together problem, addition, or a taking apart or missing part problem, subtraction. We practiced writing the algorithm that went with the problem. We reread our eagle book today and matched photographs to the text. It was hard to decide on photographs because we love so many of the pictures we have been looking at! Our book is almost done! We will be adding a contents page and glossary today. We will share a copy tomorrow online once it is finished! We read a book called T.L.C., by M.H. Clark. The story is about a little girl who is trying to give her mom what she said she needed; TLC. But the little girl doesn't know what she meant by TLC, so she gives her many things, like a Tropical Ladybug Collection. Ask me to tell you some of the other things the little girl gives her mom. In the end, the little girl's mother tells her what she needs is Tender Loving Care. You would have been so proud to hear how each child in the class was able to share one way they give their parents tender loving care. I was so impressed not only by their answers, but also by how well they listened to each other and did not repeat anyone else's answer. Every answer was different! Have a nice evening! Juliet Today we continued to work on our informational text about eagles. We watched a short video that shows eaglets testing out their wings and hopping from branch to branch, just like we were told about by one of the eagle experts from the DC Eaglecam. We looked at our charts and organized our information into sections of the book. We came up with headings for each section, then worked together to compose the words for our text. We also read a book today about Dr. Jane Goodall. We read Me...Jane, by Patrick McDonnell. Dr. Jane celebrated her 82nd birthday this week. This book shared how Dr. Jane became interested in animals, and her dream to someday go to Africa. Dr. Ask me to tell you what Dr. Jane did as a little girl to find out about how hens lay eggs. Here are a few pictures I took today during playtime. Enjoy! Juliet Today we used the facts we researched about bald eagles to write the text of a big book we are writing as a class. We sorted the facts into topics and wrote headings for the pages. Students used the notes on our research collection sheets to share sentences for the book. Tomorrow we will choose photographs to go with the information we put in our book. Ask me to tell you three facts about bald eagles.
We did a spelling check-up to see how we are doing learning to spell the 44 kindergarten word wall words. I will be sending home a list of tricky words your child is still working on so they can practice at home too. They will have a list at school too so they can practice spelling those words during literacy stations. Students who already are spelling the 44 words will have challenge words to work on. We listened to a story today called Doris's Dinosaur, by Rosemary Wells. The story had a good lesson about being different or doing different things. Ask me to tell you what Doris's problem was and how she learned that being different is okay. Have a peaceful evening! Juliet We had a great first day back after Spring Break. We passed the Talking Fish and heard the highlight of everyone's break.
We checked in on the eaglets at the Arboretum then read more about eagles and nests to add to our research. We have information now from books, an online resource, and an eagle expert from the Eagle Cam who answered questions we had. We will be using our information to write a class big book about eagles. The students were great Word Birds. They learned two new words. Ask me to tell you what a raptor is and what a scavenger does. Today we listened to a simple story called Me First, by Michael Escoffier, that had a simple, direct lesson. The students then did a quick write to tell what the lesson in the story was and to write what happened in the story that illustrated the lesson. We talked about starting their quick write with a sentence that told what the lesson was, and then to add support from the story. Ask me to tell you about the story and lesson. We are working on knowing addition facts through five fluently. This means when shown the algorithm, such as 3+2, they know it is five without using manipulatives. We want them to learn these facts so they know them as soon as they see them. Most of the students know these facts, so we were also playing some strategy games with addition. Please be sure to check our homepage each week for suggested resources, or optional homework, that supports what we are learning each week. Have a nice evening! Juliet |