It is hard to believe we are approaching the 100th day of kindergarten! It is amazing to see the growth that each one of the students has made during this time. I cannot wait to see the progress throughout the rest of the year! Read on to see what we have been up to in K-1.
Reading
We recently finished up on fiction unit. The students did an amazing job with the different skills taught during this unit. Using a variety of stories, the kindergarteners were able to work on making connections, creating a story map with the important story elements, retelling a story, and describing a character by telling about his/her traits. I am amazed by the progress each reader is making!
We recently began our new unit on nonfiction. In this unit, we will explore three different types of nonfiction texts: biography, reference, and literary nonfiction. The buzz in the classroom as they discover new information is so exciting to hear!
Guided Reading
While I am meeting with students in small groups during our guided reading time, the students are working independently on a variety of literacy and math activities. Once they are finished, it is time for dessert! Each table has a special "dessert bin" that has a hands-on activity in it that focuses on literacy, math, fine motor skills, or creative thinking and/or building skills. These bins rotate frequently so each table has a chance to complete each activity.
Writing Workshop
We have been working hard in writing! It has been great to see the growth the students are making with their sentence writing. We recently began a new writing unit about writing personal narratives. The students will be learning about what is a narrative and the different parts that need to be included. We are currently using various books to help model this new type of writing. Once students are comfortable with knowing more about narratives, we will begin by telling a story about something that happened in our lives, and then we will move to writing about it.
Math
Wow! We have been quite busy in math lately! Building number sense remains our main focus, as the students have played games to practice recognizing, counting, ordering, and comparing numbers. We have also been introducing the concepts of addition and subtraction. We played a game called The Train Game. The goal of the game is to build a train with 12 train cars. After rolling a die, students have to add or subtract cars depending on what they roll until the train is 12 cars long. We also practiced solving and writing our own addition number stories and continuing our work with patterns.
LMC
The students LOVED using the iPads to show what they know about the difference between fiction and nonfiction stories.
Global School Play Day
February 1 was Global School Play Day! Schools from all over the world came together on this one day to celebrate the benefits of unstructured play in our students’ lives at school. As you can see from the pictures below, it was a huge success!
Me Bags and Guest Readers
We continue to love learning about our classmates and seeing what they bring to share in the Me Bag.
We learned that Thomas loves to do art projects!
We learned that Max loves to play with toys, especially The Hulk!
We learned that Klimenty loves learning about different countries and his favorite country is Algeria!
We learned that Jayla loves all of her pets, but especially her dog!
A Few Reminders
- Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather. Hats and gloves should be brought to school each day, but especially on Wednesdays and Fridays when we go to recess.
- The 100th Day of school with be on Tuesday, February 14. You should have received a letter and empty water bottle explaining the collection your child can bring to school. Please send these to school no later than Monday, February 13.
- Our class Valentine's Day party will be held on Tuesday, February 14. If you need another copy of the letter that was sent home with information about passing out valentines, please let me know.
