A week of thanks!

Writing Workshop

It was a week of “thanks” in kindergarten.  As a group, we wrote a thank you letter to Mr. Kevin for keeping our school so nice.  We wrote a thank you letter to our office staff for giving us ice and taking care of us when we get sick.  We also wrote to Mrs. Bussell for teaching us really fun games in gym!  The Kinder-Kids really did a nice job of recognizing all the components to letter writing.   During Writing Workshop we have been talking about quality work and trying our best. 

 

Social Studies

We have been discussing the topic of “Now and Then.”  We had quite a few interesting talks about life long ago and life now.  The kids made the CLAIM:  It’s good to be a kid in 2013!  Their EVIDENCE:  video games, stores to buy toys, T.V., Movies, ipads, etc.  It is on display in our hall.

 

 

Throughout the month of December, we will be “traveling” the world.  We will learn about the different holidays celebrated across the globe.  We would love for you to share your holiday with us.  Some ideas are to bring in a book to read or craft for the kids.  It is great to learn and share with each other!

Reading Workshop

I am so proud of all the kindergartners’ growth so far!  They have done a great job learning their letters and letter sounds.  In Reading Workshop we are working on our CAFÉ menu.  It is a collection of highly effective reading strategies that the students will be taught to use, to help them become better readers. They are organized into four goals:

• C is for Comprehension: “I understand what I read.”
• A is for Accuracy: “I can read the words.”
• F is for Fluency: “I can read smoothly, with expression.”
• É is for Expanding Vocabulary: “I know, find, and use interesting words.”

You will be getting more information on our reading strategies as we dig deeper into Reading Workshop!

During IDR time, I have been reading with individual kids or small groups.  I have been listening to your child read, and helping him/her pick a reading goal, and suggest a reading strategy that will help. Research shows that when students know exactly what they need to work on, and why, they are much more successful in meeting their goals!

Math

We used the strategy of CLAIM and EVIDENCE to help us with our shapes.  There has been some confusion over our shape characteristics, especially the hexagon, rectangle and square.

Music

I can’t tell you enough how much this group learns through music.  This is allowing me to build vocabulary, math & reading skills.  When you can already sing the words of a song you can confidently read the words to a song as you sing it!   Even in a very simple poem or song there are MANY opportunities to look for and learn about written text. For early readers just touching the words as they sing is wonderful reading practice. Kids who are ready for more can be thinking about word wall words, punctuation, spelling and developing fluency.  So we are going to keep singing away!

Just a few of our favorite songs are:

·         Learning Letter Sounds (letter and sound recognition)

·         All Together (alliteration)

·         Numeral Song  (Number Formation)

·         Macarena Math  (skip counting by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s)

Thankful…

During this month when we are all reflecting on what we are thankful for, I would like to give special thanks for all the wonderful children and parents this year.  I feel very fortunate to have such fantastic families to work with!