Exciting and Colorful Week!

Social Studies

This week we focused on friends in Social Studies.  This is one of my favorite units to teach because it is the foundation of our kindergarten program.  We discussed and acted out ways to be friends with each other.   We made ‘friend drawings’ where two friends worked together on one picture.  The children also partnered up and measured each other using connecting blocks we call unifix cubes.  (This helped us count and write numerals too!)  I really enjoyed hearing the children use manners and interact with each other.  I heard the words please and thank you many times.

This week we also discussed problem-solving skills (conflict resolution) in Friendship Circle.  We are learning how to solve our differences with our words. I encourage children to try to solve their own problems by using statements such as, “I don’t like it when you_______, please stop.”, and if it does not work, they are asked to find an adult for help.  We also encourage them to say, “When you are done with that, may I have a turn?” if they would like to use something another child has.  Ask your kindergartner to model how we solve our problems peacefully. This was an important week! 

Reading Workshop

It has been an exciting and colorful week in kindergarten.  We read many great color books including Mouse Paint and Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See?  By Bill Martin, Jr.  We made our own copy of this book and called it, “Kindergarten, Kindergarten, What Do You See?”  Then we used props to act out the story.  As children learn to remember and retell stories, they are in the beginning stage of reading!  If you do not have this book at home, I highly recommend it.  Children love to read it and memorize the words.

During Shared Reading we learned a new “colorful” nursery rhyme this week – Little Boy Blue.  Kindergartners and rhymes just go together!  The children have loved chanting, singing and making up their own rhymes.  However, it is not just for fun!  Rhyming activities develop one of the most critical concepts for success in reading – phonemic awareness.

Science

We also learned about the primary colors (red, yellow and blue) and mixed them together to make secondary colors (purple, orange and green).  The kids loved working with our color paddles.

 

Math Workshop

In math we were busy with shapes.  We learned how many sides and corners each shape has. We created our own shapes on geo boards too.
We also graphed our favorite color and sorted buttons.  The Kinder-Kids showed off their math skills by sorting buttons by shape, size, color and button holes.
I am also really happy with how the kids are learning our routines and procedures for math workshop.  We are amazing math stars!