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.