Welcome back! I was so happy to see the students after the winter holidays! They came back excited to share about all the fun they had over break. Read on to see what we were up to during our first weeks of 2018.
Reading Workshop:
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 also had a chance to learn about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We read the book, The Crayon Box That Talked. In this book, the crayons do not like each other, but as they begin to notice and appreciate each other's differences, they realize they can work together to create beautiful pictures.
Writing:
Students had a chance to set some goals for the new year. Each student wrote about a book they would like to read, a personal goal that they would like to accomplish, and a new food they want to try. It was so exciting to see the thought and effort put into writing these goals!
We are currently working on Chapter 6: Numbers 0 to 20. In this chapter, students should not only be able to count and recognize the numbers 0 to 20, but also understand that each number they say is one more than the number before it. This leads to an understanding of one more and one less. Knowing the size and order of these numbers is essential to understanding place value later on. Taking a few minutes at home, or even in the car, to count and/or compare is extremely helpful in building this number sense in your child.
We are also learning about different ways to represent numbers. Students have been practicing with drawing pictures and using their fingers to show numbers.
Students were also introduced to the concept of a ten-frame. This tool can help represent numbers 0-10. For numbers larger than 10, we began practicing with a double ten-frame! We will continue to use these visuals to help students understand the concepts behind each number to help strengthen their number sense.
Ten-Frame:
Double Ten-Frame:
Science:
In addition to researching and continue to graph our daily weather for our Tracking Weather unit, we have also started a unit on Pushes and Pulls! In this unit, children heighten their awareness of motion in their surroundings as they act out different motions and go on a motion search. They will explore how pushes and pulls cause changes in motion, such as starting, stopping, and changing speed and direction. They will find that pushes and pulls have different strengths through exploration with toy cars and balls. The students were so excited to get started with this fun and hands-on unit!
LMC:
The kindergarten researchers continue to do an excellent job using the website, Pebble Go, to learn about weather. Recently, they recorded facts about winter clothes, winter sports, winter work, and winter food.
After hearing the story, Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, the students had the chance to use the Bee-Bots to help practice sequencing the main events in this story. I am so impressed with the coding skills I am seeing in these young learners!
Me Bags and Guest Readers:
Before break, James shared his Me Bag and we learned that he loves sharks, drawing, books, and the color blue!
We loved having James's mom come in to read the funny story, Shark vs. Train! Such a perfect book for this shark lover!
We were also lucky to have Gracen's mom join us as a Guest Reader! She read the perfect book for winter: Penguin's Big Adventure.
We learned that Saya loves princesses, coloring, and the color pink!
Saya's dad helped us end the week in a fun way by reading the books, Don't Let the Pigeon Wear the Bus and Fancy Nancy: Poet Extraordinaire.
Winter Weather
I wanted to send a few reminders about dressing appropriately for the weather. Please make sure your child comes to school each day with a coat, hat, and gloves. Even though we are not outside for recess each day, the students do line up outside before school and do need to walk to buses and cars after school.
The students will only be going outside for recess on Wednesdays and Thursday, so those are the days to have all the snow gear brought to school. In order to play in the snow at recess, students must be dressed appropriately in boots, snowpants, coat, hat, and gloves. The school rule is that we do go outside for recess is the temperature (with windchill) is above 0 degrees.
If your child wears boots to school, please make sure they have shoes in their backpack to put on.
I know those zippers can still be tricky for little hands and all the extra snow gear provides an even bigger challenge, so extra practice at home is definitely helpful and appreciated!
Please remember that there is NO SCHOOL for students on Monday.
Enjoy your weekend!
