Love was in the air
this week in kindergarten! We had
“sweet filled” valentine centers.
We practiced our estimation skills by estimating candy hearts. We also played valentine rhyming games, made
valentine patterns and created a valentine ladybug. We also did a Chalk Talk on LOVE!
We
also have been learning about the different parts of letter writing. We have been writing valentine letters to
friends and family at our kindergarten post office. We also wrote “I love….”
sentences during Writing Workshop.
All
the valentines your child received this week provide a wonderful opportunity to
practice literacy and math skills! (I
can’t resist the opportunity to make something educational!) Here are a few ideas….
·
See
how many valentines he/she can read.
·
Sort
them in a variety of ways (valentines with dogs on them, with 1 heart, with the
word LOVE,etc.)
·
Choose
a word wall word and count how many times it can be found in their valentines.
Reading Workshop this week focused on Visualizing. Good readers create pictures in their mind during
reading to better understand, remember, and enjoy books.
Visualizing personalizes reading, keeps us engaged!
We used Jane Cabrera’s colorful book Cat’s Colors to practice the comprehension skill of visualizing. We read Jane’s lush descriptions of color words without showing the pictures, and the children practiced closing their eyes and visualizing pictures of their own. Her description of yellow as “the sand on a sunny beach” was a very welcome thought to us!
Valentine Thank You!
I want to give a heartfelt thank you for the
amazing Valentine’s Day
party. The kids had so much fun! Thank you for
all the fun valentines and treats too!
The Kinder-kids are so fortunate to
have wonderful parents like you!
Reading Workshop
Visualizing personalizes reading, keeps us engaged!
We used Jane Cabrera’s colorful book Cat’s Colors to practice the comprehension skill of visualizing. We read Jane’s lush descriptions of color words without showing the pictures, and the children practiced closing their eyes and visualizing pictures of their own. Her description of yellow as “the sand on a sunny beach” was a very welcome thought to us!
To help
your kindergartner visualize while reading, try having your child draw or describe
what they see in their mind (without seeing the pictures in the book). We call these “mind pictures.”
We
are getting settled into our guided reading groups. I am meeting with small groups and getting to
know individual reading strengths and areas of growth. Our main focus right now is learning what a
reading group should look like and sound like.
We are learning how good readers sit up straight. We put one hand holding one side of the book,
and the other hand using one finger to point and slide under the words as we
read. We are learning how to “whisper
read” so I can hear all the wonderful strategies that all the readers in the
group are using. We are also learning
what good readers do when they come to a word that is not familiar...
·
They
“get their mouths ready” and make
the beginning sound of a word that looks unfamiliar to them.
·
Good
readers also look at the pictures and
think about what’s happening in the story.
- They point to the first letter, and slide their finger
across the word while saying each
letter-sound out loud.
- They cross-check
by looking at the picture and the word. Then thinking about what looks
right and make sense.
- We are also talking about reading for understanding. What they read needs to make sense.
We also read the book, The Little Snowflake. We did another thinking routine called Headlines. This routine helps students capture the main idea of
the story. Then we had so much fun
learning how to make snowflakes!
Math
Thank you for making our 100-Day
celebration so wonderful! All the
projects made our 100th day of kindergarten very
special! Over the past week we shared
our 100-Day projects, raced our way to 100, wrote what we would like to have
100 of, practiced recognizing numbers to 100 and created pictures from the
number 100. We also made 100 tally marks
and counted to 100 by 1s, 5s & 10s.
We worked together to assemble a 100 piece puzzle too. WOW!
It is so much fun learning!
We took 100 steps! |
|
Look what we made with the number 100! |
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