Today we read a poem that had some of the words covered. We thought about what would make sense in the poem, then checked the first letter. If it was correct, then we checked the remaining letters. If we didn't have the correct letters, we tried another word that would make sense. These are strategies we want students to use as they are reading. They need to think about what would make sense and check the letters. In Writing Workshop, we continued a lesson from yesterday. We talked about what to do when we were having a hard time either with writing or drawing something, or even their idea, they get an "oh no" feeling. It's so important to have a positive "I can" attitude. Yesterday we watched an old short movie of The Little Engine that Could to use as inspiration for having the "I think I can" attitude. We know that just saying you think you can won't solve your problem, but thinking about what to do first, or where is the tricky part for you will help the writer tackle the problem. The children are really confident writers. We talked about some of the things we will be working on in future lessons such as putting spaces between words, using lower case letters, and growing our stories so they include more details and tell a whole story. I took a movie of the children dancing to Prince Ali from Aladdin. It's a little shaky at the beginning but it gets better once I get everything started. The children have four characters to choose from, so you will see some of them doing different moves; this is based on what their character does. Enjoy! Have a great evening!
Miss Wolfe
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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 Today we learned a fun word game called Switcheroo. This game involves CVC words, consonant-vowel-consonant. Start with a word such as cat. One letter can be changed at a time to make a new word. A strategy for the kids to use is to think of rhyming words and change the beginning letter. The next easiest is the ending sound. Finally, trying out each vowel in the middle of the word to see if it produces a new word is another strategy for kids who are ready to move on to the vowel. This is a great game to play while waiting for appointments or in restaurants. It's quiet, doesn't need to be charged or use batteries! Here's an example we did in school on the Promethean Board. This is an activity for Literacy Stations now. I'm sure you have already heard we went to the Book Fair today to browse through the books. It always amazes me how the children are like magnets and somehow find the books that have some bauble the comes with it. There were a lot of Lego books that were high interest, but I tried to get them to look at the books that are great books but without a toy. The volunteers who have set up the fair have done a great job. They were so helpful and patient with the kids, helping them with their wish lists and to find the prices on the books. The Book Fair is open tonight and tomorrow night from 6-8. It closes at 1:00 on Thursday. You can send in money with your child if you are unable to go to the Book Fair yourself and would like to purchase books.
Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe Thank-you to those of you who were able to come in and visit today! I know the children were excited to have you come see what a fairly typical day in kindergarten looks like! We modified a few things due to having extra people in the room, but what you saw is mostly what happens each day. You did not get to see Literacy Stations and reading groups. I decided to not to do this as it gets very loud with the visitors usually and the readers are distracted with the extra people. So the children were on the carpet longer than normal. We do a Brain Break in the mornings, mostly dancing up to this point, but we will be adding in some other kinds of movement. I will video them soon, probably dancing to Let It Go, because they are so cute and do a great job dancing and singing to that one!
As you can see, they really know the routines of our classroom. They respond well to music and having musical transitions seems to move them along. I highly recommend it for leisurely toothbrushers or eaters. They learn very quickly where they are in the music and really want to "beat the music." And I really don't know why it is they love Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass so much, but over the years I have tried other music and Herb keeps them moving. My dance teacher used that music when we practiced steps in dance class, so it's special to me! I hope you enjoyed coming to visit! Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe We started our day studying and analyzing these two paintings. We looked for details to help us understand the weather better. We had a very good discussion about the weather and the settings. Talking about the details in the paintings helps us to understand the paintings better, just as when we think about the details in our reading. Ask me to tell you about what I noticed that was the same and what was different in the paintings. We read a book called Max the Brave, by Ed Vere. Ask me to retell the story. We listened to identify a character and something we learned about them from the story. We drew and labeled a picture with the character and what we learned about them. Here's the book trailer for Max the Brave. Enjoy! In math, we continued to work with ten frames. We showed different ways to represent different numbers on the ten frames.
We are working on listening and following directions. It's really important that students stop, look and listen so they are focused. Often they are impulsive and just want to start without listening to the directions. At this point in the year, they know they have to write their name on the paper, they know where the supplies are, and they are comfortable. The details of the task are now more important, and I am giving them more steps to do. They are learning to stop and think if they forget what to do. Since I give verbal directions and model, we can remind students to make a "movie in their head" to remember the directions. If they are still stuck, they can look around to see what others are doing, which may remind them of what they are to do. They can ask someone at their table to remind them of the directions. We will continue to go over these strategies so that children can become more independent and understand it's important for them to watch and listen. I hope you have a great weekend! I hope to see you Monday Just a quick update... Today we started talking about wind. We analyzed one picture to determine what was happening in it, then I revealed the next part of what was happening in this little story.. A lot of great ideas were shared and I could see the children were inferring from the details they were noticing. Ask me to tell you about these two pictures, then you can watch the short Sesame Street clip to see the whole story. . We will be learning more about wind next week as well.
We started our day by studying this interesting old photograph. We studied the photograph and talked about what we noticed and what we wondered. There is a great website that has cameras on the statue so you can get close-up views of the statue and the surroundings. We didn't mess around with it much, but you might want to go and check it for yourself! It's pretty cool!
https://www.libertyellisfoundation.org/TorchCam/ We read a book called Her Right Foot, by Dave Eggers. This book told the whole story of how the statue was built and what different parts of the statue symbolize. Ask me to show you some of the important parts of the statue. We drew the Statue of Liberty and labeled the important parts. I'll be sending that home on Friday with some other work. In math we worked with Ten Frames. I did an introduction and we practiced making different quantities on the ten frame. I also did a flash game where I showed different quantities for three seconds and they determined by the placement how many there were by remembering what the ten frame looked like. With even just a little practice they started to get pretty fast and accurate! I am working to finish testing the state requires of kindergarteners. They take just a sample so not everyone takes this test, but it is rather long. I probably have at least one more day of testing. Tomorrow is Walk to School Day. Please meet at Cabin John Middle School between 9:00 - 9:05. Mrs. Bekdash and Ms. Lillis will be meeting my class as I will be out tomorrow for dental work. Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe Well, let me just start by saying, "the next time will be easier!" We took our MAP-P assessment today for math. This is an assessment used to give teachers information about what the students know in math. It gets progressively harder in different topics as students answer correctly. It tries to find where their understanding stops. We took it on the Chromebooks, and once we got logged on and found our names and the test name on a teeny tiny drop down menu, the kids were fine. The children will have more experience on the Chromebooks in the next couple weeks and they will be used more often. Kindergarten shares a cart so we will have a few in the room daily after this testing is completed by all the kindergarten teachers. On some Fridays we will have whole group instruction and work time. That has a much easier log-on which our third grade bear buddies helped us to set up, so that will be much more efficient!
Throughout this year we will be reading books set in each of the fifty states. It is our Read the USA challenge. We take a quick look around the state with pictures on the Promethean Board and then read a story. The kids will bring home a postcard from the state that they can color at home. I didn't get the postcards back yet from our central copying but I'll send it when I do. Today we read Saving the Liberty Bell, by Megan McDonald. The setting was really important in this story because it was in Philadelphia at the time of the Revolutionary War. We talked about what life would have been like then, and why the Liberty Bell was so important to the colonists. Ask me to tell you why the Bell was hidden. We had a visit with our school counselor, Mrs. Kanter, today. She talked to them about recess. They talked about how to find someone to play with and what to do if someone does not want to play. They did some role play as well. Ask me to show you the picture I made of recess. Our September Scholastic order came with Mo Willems books for every student. The children can learn to draw their favorite characters and write two stories in the book. I told them to show you so you could guide them. They will need some paper to practice drawing the characters. I was so happy to have a little something to give them after the long testing we did in the morning! Enjoy! I overheard this in Housekeeping on Friday. Somehow my cash register is in housekeeping, so they are playing house and store. One little girl I guess was shopping. She had a babydoll in one of those snuggly things on her chest, and the two of them were having a lovely time, until... Her husband called. One of the boys used my ancient phone and called the store manager. He told the manager to send home his wife, we'll call her Angelina, because she had shopped long enough. The manager got on the microphone on the side of the cash register and passed along the message. Angelina gave him such a look and told him she was not done shopping! If I could just watch them play all day.. but then .I wouldn't have anything to put in my grade book. But I'm glad we have the time most days to have some playtime! Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe |
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