The kindergarten scientists are hard at work!

Science

The kindergarten scientists are hard at work!  What a great week learning about trees and leaves! The super scientists learned the parts of a tree and the function of each part.  They also learned why leaves change color in the autumn.  The class discovered that trees are very important.  They give us shade, clean air, paper, wood, and many other important things.  Trees also provide a home for many different animals. 

 

During the week we also read many books about trees, graphed leaves by color, and did leaf rubbings.   We also found symmetry in our leaves.  We will continue to study trees over the next few weeks.  

We loved meeting with our 3^rd buddies from Miss Mulligan’s class.  We worked together to create fall trees.  Fall is in the air! 

Up & Coming Science…

Our class is beginning a study of wood and paper.  We will be looking at the properties of wood and paper (texture, color, absorbency, flexiblility.etc.) and how different kinds of wood and paper are alike and different.   We will also investigate how wood and paper can be processed as we sand wood, make simulated plywood, paper mache and recycle paper. Then the kindergartners will use what they learned about the properties of materials to construct projects (weaving, taking apart boxes and making sculptures).

Reading Workshop

 

Independent Reading is the heart of the Reading Workshop. This is the time when students practice strategies modeled in our lesson.  It is also a time for students to make their own book choices, practice their reading stamina and have time to read and set independent reading goals.

As the children become more independent, IDR time will allow me to confer with students, teach guided reading lessons or have a small-group lesson on a specific strategy or skill

We are all at different developmental levels of reading.  During our IDR time, we have learned about reading books three different ways.

 

• Reading the words
• Reading the pictures 
• Retelling the story 

 During IDR time we love reading in our “Book Nooks.” Books Nooks are cozy spots to read in our room.  Ask your kindergartner where their cozy reading spot was this week. 


The kids are so excited to read!   As we were reading, one of our kindergartners said, “I want to read more!” ---music to a teacher’s ear!
  

Math

In math we are focusing on those “tricky teens.” (10-19). The Kinder-Kids learned that these numbers all have a 1 in front of them.  We have been learning that this 1 actually stands for “1 group of ten.”  Throughout our week we did many activities with our number cards.  On Tuesday each student was given a number card (O through 22) in which they had to recognize and then tell the class which number they had.  On Wednesday the kids had to put themselves in order from zero to twenty-two.  Not only was this an ordinal number exercise, but it also included the skills of teamwork and problem-solving.  On Thursday we took our numbers and made addition sentences together to see what number they equaled.   We are awesome kindergarten mathematicians!

Our Halloween party was a huge success!  The kids had a wonderful time.  Thanks so much to all who contributed to a great day!  We are going to have a lot of fun writing about our Halloween memories during writing workshop.