Ask Me About Wednesday, October 11, 2017

In reading groups today we were working with characters to identify something we learned about the character in the story.  We went to the text and pictures and found what we identified.  This is important because we want children to go back to the text and have the support of details to show their understanding.  Often, kindergarteners just say what they think.  We want them to be sure what they are saying is "right there" in the text, or was a clue that helps them to infer.  As you read with your child, you can ask them questions and follow up with "how do you know" or "what makes you think that."  Something new for our county this year is required responses to reading that are scored by a rubric that looks for deep understanding and clarity.  At the kindergarten level this can look very different depending on the level of reader because some of the earlier reading texts are not that complex.  We work we these in whole group as well so the children get more experience.  Friday work will come home and you can see some of the early attempts at responding to reading in pictures and labels and/or sentences.  Students are asked to tell about what they drew and wrote so we can evaluate their understanding and not just look at their written work, which is a different skill but dependent upon the understanding.

We worked more with subitizing in math both with dot patterns and with ten frames.  We played a fun game in math today with different dot patterns that force children to use what they know about numbers to determine the value of the box.  Some children are still counting some, but we want them to start looking and knowing that if they see three dots together and one more dot in a different spot on the square it's four.  We are working with dot patterns up to six and up to ten on the ten frame.  I will send home the game we played today on Friday.  This is a three-in-a-row partner game, so there is strategy involved since both players and using the same game board.  With many games, children need to play it several times to learn the rules and procedures in the game, then continue playing it to develop strategies and that is what we will be doing as we take some time during our Math Workshop to play the game more.

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe