The last few weeks have been......interesting. State testing began a week and half ago and our schedules have been altered quite a bit. So we've been going with the flow and doing lots of spur of the moment activites (a few have been planned) particularly in the AM class which has been most impacted by the schedule change.
We danced for indoor recess.....
We played "Guess, Guess" after reading a short story by the same name on starfall.com. The students spotted something in the room and wrote 4 clues about it in their journals. They read the clues to their classmates who then got a chance to guess the item.
On Thursday we did a hallway hunt for words with r-controlled vowel sounds, and irregular vowel sounds, such as -oo and -ow.
On Friday we sorted the sight words using hula hoops. The students worked in pairs and had to isolate the vowel sound in each word (rather than just identify the vowel letter) and sort them accordingly. This means, they had to put the word "the" in the short 'u' hoop and the word "eight" in the long 'a' hoop. So, clearly this required some serious concentration and critical thinking. They did SO well with this. Here's the PM class in action.
Let's see..... We also had cupcakes...
and dug up worms....
and got pretty silly in general. Hey, it's the end of the year.
We have kept centers going, but this was the final week of them. The students played games they were familiar with. And, instead of phonics worksheets during reading groups, we worked on our end-of-kindergarten journals. These are special keepsakes the students have worked very hard on; writing about their memories from center time, working on the Smartboard, making art projects, fun parties, and playing at recess. Each journal cover is in full color and has a sweet photo of your child on it. Here's my daughter, Harper's, so you can get an idea of what to expect.
Precious, right?
Next week will be wonky too. On Monday we will be wrapping up the special journals and will begin all the final testing for the report cards. The main assessment will be the DRA - finding each child's reading level. This takes a loooooonnnng time. Students will be pulled out one at a time to read for me. In the meantime, the students in the classroom will be making a craft to adorn our hallway with one last time. On it, they will be telling the upcoming kindergarteners what they can expect to love about our class. They will also be watching a movie on Tuesday while the DRA tests are going on. Wednesday is Field Day - pray for no rain! Thursday- more reading tests and some fun activities. And then Friday is our Celebration Program at 9:30 and 1:00. If it rains on field day and it gets postponed to Friday, our program times will change to 8:00 and 11:15.
There is so much to prepare for next week, and I can't wait for you to see all that your child has been working on. I will see you on Friday!
This is a wrap-up of the last two weeks. My home computer is touch and go, so last week the blog wasn't happenin'. But I figured since it was Mother's Day, you'd probably be pre-occupied with other things to even know that it was missing.
Last week we did an author study of Mo Willems. One of his most famous books is "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." It has several "spin-offs" and we read nearly all of them. They are very funny and the kids loved them. We read other books of his (that had nothing to do with pigeons) and we made a list of the techniques he likes to use.
Then we went through a few stages of the writing process to create our own "Don't Let the Pigeon..." books. The students were encouraged to use the same techniques Willems uses in his books. The kids couldn't wait to make their own books and had a blast doing it. We have lots of budding authors and illustrators! Here's just a few excerpts from a handful of them.
First we practiced drawing the pigeon.
We also made Mother's Day cards last week - hope you got them!
And these were a few of our centers last week.
Students added blue and green beads to the kite strings to show all the different
ways to make ten.
And lastly, we had cupcakes to celebrate Miss Hisel's last day.
Now onto this week. We learned about compound words: "A compound word is two words squished together to make one new word."
The students made word baskets of compound words (one of the working memory games we've been incorporating into the classroom).
On Thursday, the students were each given a half of a compound word and had to search through among their classmates to find their match. (Picture to come).
And today, the students went on a hallway hunt to find and record lots more compound words.
Then the AM class made their own stack of compound words like the ones we made together on the anchor chart. (The PM class went to a play and didn't get the chance to make one. They will make theirs next week).
And here are a few of our centers this week. In the math games center, the students rolled two dice that had numerals on them (not dots) so that they had to "smash" and count up, rather than add by counting the dots. Then they graphed their sums.
And the students played Sight Word Baseball in the word work center. This is just like Sight Word Parking Lot, except the students put a baseball in the glove once they spell a word.
With our focus this week on caterpillars growing up to become butterflies, it was quite fitting that Career Day fell during this week, too. All the students wrote about what they wanted to be when they grew up. Get ready for picture overload. There were so many good ones - I had to share. (There are plenty more good ones not pictured, by the way).
Is that not the sweetest?
Both McKenzie and Harper want to be gymnastics teachers.
Ben wants to be a firefighter who saves houses.
Ryleigh wants to sing on the Las Vegas stage!
Alexus said, "I want to be a designer because I like fashion."
That same day, we heard from some special guest speakers who shared what they did for a living. In the morning class, the kids learned from my sister, Lydia Moore, (who has also substitute taught for me a few days) about drafting. She passed around blueprints she had made and explained how she draws houses and floorplans from a "bird's perspective."
PS, contrary to popular belief, she is the older sister. By four and a half years....
Next, the students went to Mrs. Perkins classroom and heard from firefighter, Tim.
These four boys had all written that they wanted to be firefighters, too.
The afternoon class got to hear from two different guests. First, they heard from someone who works for the US Department of Agriculture, Wildlife division. He brought lots of animal pelts with him.
Mackenzie was quite fond of them.
And then, the most exciting part of the whole day (students and teachers alike): a visit from a pet store owner and some of his furry (and slithery) friends. Many of the animals were let loose for the children to follow around, touch, and hold. (He did put away that giant lizard thing, however, when he saw me perched upon a table). I learned that Mrs. Taylor and the PM kids are much braver than I am.
As for the rest of the week, as I mentioned, our theme was the life cycle of butterflies. We did some "cloze sentences" this week for our anchor chart. Cloze sentences are "fill in the blank" sentences. Since this week we learned about -ing, the missing word always had that word ending. By the end of the week, we had recorded the entire life cycle, and on Friday, we cut each sentence into three parts. The students had to find their partners to reconstruct the sentences so they made sense.
The butterfly theme was seen throughout a few of our centers this week. Here is a short video of centers in action. (Miss Hisel managed the reading groups this week, as it was her "solo" week).
In math games, the students played "Build a Butterfly" by rolling the dice, adding them up and covering that number with the matching shape. (This is just like our Build a Turkey game we played in November). This was a great review for addition and shapes. It also exposed them to a new concept, symmetry.
In the writing center, they used a magnifying glass to read teeny tiny sight words written on a butterfly. (We have done "Snowflake Words, Turkey Words, Flower Words, and Baseball Words in the past). When they finished, they could color the butterfly in a way that showed symmetry.
The students did their first word searches in the word work center this week. But in order to know what words they were looking for, they had to use the word slider. I wasn't sure how it would go: if it would be too hard, too boring, too easy. Turned out, they LOVED them. It really kept their interest and the level was just right (all the words went from left to right only).
Our Fun Friday art project was coffee filter butterflies. The students used markers to color the coffee fiilter, then they sprayed them with water which allows the ink to spread and blend together in cool, tie-dye-like ways.
Then, just for fun, the students wrote about what one item they would take with them inside the cocoon if they were a caterpillar.
Ava would take a tv and a bed.
I'll leave you with pictures from our Citizenship Award recipients; Cooper Shaddix from the AM class, and Tesla Hall from the PM class.
Funny thing is, Cooper's two older brothers (one in 1st grade, the other in 2nd - and both former students of mine) also received the citizenship award from their teachers!
