We are learning lots and having fun!

Writing Workshop

Another busy week in kindergarten!  We are learning lots and having fun!

We are learning we are all writers!   We are writing our names beginning with a capital letter followed by lowercase letters.  This is a hard transition to make.  Lots of praise and practice needed!

 We are also writing pattern sentences together with our word wall words (I, see, a & like).

 Examples:           I see a dog.

                   I see a cat.

                   I like apples.

                    I like pizza.

A word wall is a wall on which to display words – but not just any words-truly important words.  Our first 20 word wall words make up about a third of all printed material.   The tricky part about our word wall words is that a majority don’t follow spelling or pronunciation rules.  Henceforth, they are hard words to read and write!  They have to be memorized and known by sight.  Good readers should be able to recognize and read them instantly.

To help us practice our word wall words we began working with our Word Work Centers. These are fun and engaging ways to practice the letters and words we are learning.  This week was mostly exploration to get use to working with different materials.  This week we used the following:

·        Dry Erase Boards

·        Sand Trays

·        Play doh

·        Shaving Cream

Reading Workshop

During Shared Reading the kids are participating in echo (they repeat after me) and choral (they read with me) reading.  They are reading big books, rhymes, songs and poems every day.  We are continuing to focusing on tracking print from left-to-right and top to bottom.     Below will always be the poem we have been reading together that week.  The kids love to use pointers and read them on large chart paper or pocket charts.  We look for capital and lowercase letters, rhyming words, punctuation marks, word wall words and sentence patterns.  

When we read together, we also learn that print goes from left to right and top to bottom.  We learn to read with expression and one-to-one correspondence.  The Kinder-Kids also practice the reading strategy of “pictures give us clues when we read.” 

We visited our 3^rd grade buddies in Miss Mulligan’s class to see Independent Reading Time in action!  We have been building our stamina and learning our Reading Workshop routines.

 

 

Math Workshop

We started our monthly math journals this week.  During Math Workshop I have been meeting with small groups of kindergartners and focusing on the specific math skills they need.  I am enjoying getting to know all my little mathematicians!

 

 

 Behind the Scenes!

We have been working hard “behind the scenes.”  One of the biggest parts of kindergarten is learning how to be a student.  We are working on…

1.     Walking in a line

2.     Transitioning from one activity to the next

3.    Waiting our turn.

4.    Unpacking and packing up independently when coming and going.

5.     Learning our daily routine

6.   Following our classroom rules:  Be Safe, Be Busy, Be Kind (We have especially been focusing on keeping our hands and feet to ourselves.)

 

Jog-a-thon

It was definitely the highlight of our week! The kindergartners had

a great time exercising!  It was wonderful to see the Hill Community coming together to raise money for our school!