Sen-SEUSS-tional!

 

Happy March!  We had a sen-SEUSS-tional week in kindergarten.  We started our week with a "Who Was Dr. Seuss?" Chalk Talk.   Then we read a lot of Dr. Seuss books!  They make us laugh.  The kids want to read his books again and again!   They are wonderful for rhyming, counting and learning about letters and words.  They are especially great for our amazing imaginations!

  Dr. Seuss was born on March 2, 1904.  His birthday is now Read Across America Day, a national campaign to promote reading.   So what better way to recognize this author/illustrator’s birthday than with a reading celebration all month long!  Hill will be giving special emphasis to activities that promote reading as a fun and enjoyable experience.  Please refer to your March is Reading Month packet for events throughout the month.

Science

This week we dove  right into learning about our new classroom visitors… fish & guppies.  Our week started by investigating and observing the parts of a goldfish & guppies like the scientist we are.   The children had so much fun learning how to take care of fish & guppies.   They were eager to share their own experiences about pet fish.  We read a lot of fiction and non-fiction class books.  We especially liked The Rainbow Fish and the message we learned from the book.  But we learned a lot of information from our non-fiction books too. The children also learned how fish travel together in schools when they acted this out in our classroom.  Then the little scientists compared goldfish to guppies and had great responses to share.


We also learned about snails. This was so exciting. First we observed and explored snails.  We observed how they live in shells and can stick to the side of the glass in the aquarium.  After further exploration, we learned that their body is referred to as a foot and that they have strong muscles that ripple through their foot to help them move.  We also learned that they glide by using a trail of mucous.  Ask your child about their experiences as a scientist!

Reading Workshop

Often when learning new words, children apply the strategy of using the beginning sound to help them identify the word. When they do this, they often guess a word that may not fit in the sentence, it starts with the same letter so they guess and move on without looking at the rest of the word. They may not even know there is an end to the word. To gain accuracy it is important that children

also learn to look at the end of the word when reading. Applying the reading strategy of using beginning and ending sounds helps with both accuracy and comprehension.  Please encourage your child to look at the entire word reading.

 

Writing Workshop

We are in a new unit of study called opinion writing.  In this unit we teach children how to channel their natural abilities of persuasion into letters.  We began by telling children that what they have to say is important and that people are interested in hearing other points of view. 

 

Students have been listening and forming opinions about books they have heard.  We are now writing our opinions in the format of a letter.  This unit becomes a foundation for teaching students that in real life and in various other writing forms, individuals make a claim and support it with evidence.

 

 

Heartfelt Week!

Love was in the air this week in kindergarten!   We had “sweet filled” valentine centers. We practiced our estimation skills by estimating candy hearts.  We also played valentine rhyming games, made valentine patterns and created a valentine ladybug.  We also did a Chalk Talk on LOVE!

     We also have been learning about the different parts of letter writing.  We have been writing valentine letters to friends and family at our kindergarten post office.  We also wrote “I love….” sentences during Writing Workshop.

All the valentines your child received this week provide a wonderful opportunity to practice literacy and math skills!  (I can’t resist the opportunity to make something educational!)  Here are a few ideas….

·         See how many valentines he/she can read.

·         Sort them in a variety of ways (valentines with dogs on them, with 1 heart, with the word LOVE,etc.)

·         Choose a word wall word and count how many times it can be found in their valentines.

 

Valentine Thank You!

I want to give a heartfelt thank you for the amazing Valentine’s Day party.  The kids had so much fun!  Thank you for all the fun valentines and treats too!  The Kinder-kids are so fortunate to have wonderful parents like you!

 

Reading Workshop

 

 

Reading Workshop this week focused on Visualizing. Good readers create pictures in their mind during reading to better understand, remember, and enjoy books. 
Visualizing personalizes reading, keeps us engaged! 

We used Jane Cabrera’s colorful book Cat’s Colors to practice the comprehension skill of visualizing.  We read Jane’s lush descriptions of color words without showing the pictures, and the children practiced closing their eyes and visualizing pictures of their own.  Her description of yellow as “the sand on a sunny beach” was a very welcome thought to us!

To help your kindergartner visualize while reading, try having your child draw or describe what they see in their mind (without seeing the pictures in the book).  We call these “mind pictures.”

We are getting settled into our guided reading groups.  I am meeting with small groups and getting to know individual reading strengths and areas of growth.  Our main focus right now is learning what a reading group should look like and sound like.  We are learning how good readers sit up straight.  We put one hand holding one side of the book, and the other hand using one finger to point and slide under the words as we read.  We are learning how to “whisper read” so I can hear all the wonderful strategies that all the readers in the group are using.  We are also learning what good readers do when they come to a word that is not familiar...

·       They “get their mouths ready” and make the beginning sound of a word that looks unfamiliar to them. 

·         Good readers also look at the pictures and think about what’s happening in the story.

• They point to the first letter, and slide their finger across the word while saying each letter-sound out loud.
• They cross-check by looking at the picture and the word. Then thinking about what looks right and make sense.
• We are also talking about reading for understanding.  What they read needs to make sense.

We also read the book, The Little Snowflake.  We did another thinking routine called Headlines.  This routine helps students capture the main idea of the story.  Then we had so much fun learning how to make snowflakes!

Math

Thank you for making our 100-Day celebration so wonderful!  All the projects made our 100^th day of kindergarten very special!  Over the past week we shared our 100-Day projects, raced our way to 100, wrote what we would like to have 100 of, practiced recognizing numbers to 100 and created pictures from the number 100.  We also made 100 tally marks and counted to 100 by 1s, 5s & 10s.  We worked together to assemble a 100 piece puzzle too.   WOW!  It is so much fun learning! 

 

We took 100 steps!



 

Look what we made with the number 100!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Are Readers and Writers!

Reading Workshop

The focus first semester has been reading skills and behaviors using a shared reading approach.  Shared Reading is exactly what it sounds like – a time for sharing a story, poem, rhyme, etc. and reading together!  Shared reading in our kindergarten includes echo reading (students echoing the words after the reader), choral reading (students reading at the same time as the reader), or “fill in the gap” reading (reader reads the majority of the text and then pausing for students to fill in and say rhyming words, word wall words, etc.).

 

Shared Reading has helped your child to:

·         Enjoy and participate in reading

·         Attend to Concepts of Print (Track print from left to right and word by word, punctuation)

·         Learn the elements of books (cover, title page, dedication, author, illustrator, etc.)

·         Make predictions and inferences

·         Expand their vocabulary

·         Find letters and sounds in context

·         Strengthen comprehension skills by sequencing and retelling the events of a story

·         Focus on story elements (characters, setting, problem, events, and solution)

·         Read word wall words in context.

·         Practice fluency and expression

·         Develop phonemic awareness and phonics skills

For the second semester, we will begin Guided Reading.  This approach has many of the same components as shared reading; however, it is conducted with a smaller number of students and focuses more on the individual reading needs of each child.  During guided reading, I will meet with small groups of children, guiding them through books at their level, developing successful reading strategies and habits.   These “leveled” texts will gradually become more challenging as students learn to apply all their strategies.  Some children will be ready to move quickly, while others need more time and support.  My goal is to work together to ensure a successful learning experience and improved student achievement for all my kindergarteners.

 

Next week the children will start taking home their “reading bag.”  There will be more information and guidance in their bag on how to support your child at home.  Please let me know if you have any questions.  Most importantly, the children will be so EXCITED and PROUD to bring home their guided reading books.    Praise your kindergartener for all their hard work!

 

 

Writing Workshop

The children are really enthusiastic writers.  We are starting a new, but familiar unit of study.  We are diving back into small moments.  Small moments are focused, true stories that have specific details, and are written in a sequential order.  In this unit students are moving from writing a whole story to writing about a particular small moment that mattered most. 

Math

We have been working with another “thinking strategy” called Claim Evidence.  The children make a claim, such as, 2 + 3 = 5.  Then they have to show us evidence that their claim is true.  The children rose to the challenge and used a variety of ways to prove their claim.  They used 10 frames, tally marks, pictures, fingers, number lines and our 100 grid.  Our brains were hard at work!

 

 

 

 

 

Art

It's definitely winter in kindergarten!  We did a SEE, THINK, WONDER on Pointillism.  Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image.  We used Pointillism to created snowflakes and snowmen.   

 

 

The Mitten

Over the past week we have been learning about one of my favorite authors – Jan Brett.  We read Jan Brett’s famous book The Mitten.  We read another version of The Mitten written by Alvin Tresselt and The Umbrella by Jan Brett which is a rainforest version of The Mitten.  We also listened to the story, The Hat by Jan Brett in the listening center.  After reading the stories, we completed a Venn diagram on our Smart board to compare and contrast the similar tales. The children did a fabulous job!   We did another “thinking routine” called Step Inside.  We thought about what we would feel, hear, see, & think if we were an animal in the mitten.

The whole class also acted out The Mitten by using masks and pretending that there was a giant mitten in our classroom (it was really an outline of a mitten made from a rope).  Each day we retold the story to build our comprehension skills.  It helped us with sequencing, learning story elements, building vocabulary, develop the group skills of listening to one another, speaking clearly in front of the group and taking turns.  All very important concepts in kindergarten!

Writing Workshop

Handwriting

We continue to focus on handwriting.  More fluid and automatic handwriting translates to more time for concentrating on content rather than the mechanics of writing  We are paying special attention to the letters that go above the line (tall letters), Letters that go below (drop down letters) and letters that stay in the lines (small letters).

Reading Workshop

Reading many versions of The Mitten provided us lots of opportunity to make Text-to-Text connections.   By teaching students how to connect to text they are able to better understand what they are reading. 

To help your kindergartner make text-to-text connections ask them…

• What does this remind me of in another book I’ve read?
• How is this text similar to other things I’ve read?
• How is this different from other books I’ve read?
• Have I read about something like this before?

We have been learning how to CROSS-CHECK when we read.  Beginning readers need to learn how to bring together two sources of information simultaneously. They have to think about what would make sense and think about letters/sounds; cross-checking. When you are reading ask yourself, "Does this word look right, sound right,
and make sense?"

 

We also practiced the reading strategy of Cross Checking. Cross checking requires a person to constantly think and monitor meaning.  It is a strategy for ensuring the words and pictures read make sense and match the letters on a page.  You can help your child with this strategy at home. by asking them…

Math

We are having fun telling Number Stories (story problems).  Number stories are fun and challenging to solve because they represent actual situations that happen in our world.

We also continue to work on Subitizing.  Subitizing is an important kindergarten skill.  It is being able to instantly recognize objects in a set without having to count…instantly seeing how many. The ability to group sets quickly in turn supports their development of number sense and arithmetic abilities.  Some children in our class have moved on to the next stage which is to instantly recognizing two sub collections to make a whole set.

 

Happy Holidays!

Social Studies

Happy Holidays from Kindergarten!  The kids are so excited this time of year.   It is a wonderful opportunity to learn about different celebrations, customs and to respect others and their beliefs.   So we have been “traveling” around the world and learning about different holidays that are celebrated in various countries. 

One way we learned about Hanukkah was assembling menorah puzzles and playing with dreidels.  We also spent time learning about Los Posadas by reading books and making pinatas.  For Christmas we made a reindeer and candy canes.

 

This week we also read more versions of the Gingerbread Man.  We are fabulous at making connections between the stories!  Ask your kindergartner about…

·        Gingerbread Girl Goes Animal Crackers

·        Bad Boys Get Cookie

·        Gingerbread Friends

·        The Musubi Man

·        The Gingerbread Super Hero

·        The Gingerbread Man Goes to School

 

 

 

Writing Workshop

Since reading and writing go hand in hand… we have been continuing to write pattern books just like the ones we have been reading during Reading Workshop.   We have been focusing on “stretching out” (sounding out) our words when we write.  We call it Kid Writing.  I am encouraging the kids to record the sounds they hear.   
 

Reading Workshop

      We continue to work on the comprehension skill of Making Predictions.  Making predictions activates students' prior knowledge about the text.  By making predictions about the text before, during, and after reading, students use what they already know—as well as what they suppose might happen—to make connections to the text.

      To help your kindergartner make predictions use the following language…

“By looking at the cover I am guessing or predicting the story will be about…”

"Hmmm… my prediction that the story would be about ____ was right, but I did not think that ____ would happen. I'll make a new prediction that _____ will happen based on what we read." 

 

Math

In math we continue to focus on those tricky teen numbers and tally marks.  Tally marks help us count efficiently.  Tally marks are also a helpful tool for organizing and showing information.

YIKES! The cold weather is here!   When it is time to go home, we have 24 kindergartners that have to get ready.  It is very important the kids can dress and undress themselves in their winter apparel (putting on boots, gloves, snow pants, zipping coats, etc.).  Please practice these skills at home and don’t forget to label everything.  We have a poster in our room that shows the best and quickest way to get dressed.  It works great here in the classroom.  I attached a copy again so you can reinforce it at home. Thanks so much! 

 

Thank you for all the donations for our gingerbread houses.   It is greatly appreciated!  We had a blast making our houses with our 3^rd grade buddies from Ms. Mulligan’s class.

I WISH YOU A HAPPY, HEALTHY AND SAFE WINTER BREAK!  BE PROUD OF YOUR CHILD’S ACCOMPLIISMENTS, THEY ARE WORKING HARD IN KINDERGARTEN!