If a boy were to ever tell you what he did in school- it would be this week! Transportation week is always one of the boys' favorite weeks in kindergarten. The girls like it quite a bit too. And what's not to love? We began the week by reading Curious George and the Hot Air Balloon. We watched for, then recorded, the three modes of transportation George used in the story: a car, a hot air balloon, and a helicopter. Then we sorted them on the transportation anchor chart. The next day, we read Harbor by Donald Crews. The boys were INTENSELY into it. It names and shows the many different types of boat you can see in a harbor.
That same day, the students paired up and were given a picture of a vehicle. Together they decided if it went by land, air, or sea. They took turns coming up in front of the class and sharing about their vehicles, then posting it onto the anchor chart under its correct category.
On Wednesday, I read "I'm Dirty"by Kate and Jim McMullen. Some of the boys were really excited to share what they already knew about construction/clean up vehicles.
After that, each students reached into the mystery box and pulled out a picture of a vehicle. This time, instead of sorting it on the chart and telling about it verbally. The students had to write about that vehicle in their journals. As a special treat, they got to use the picture as a part of their illustrations.
Our new sight words this week were 'now', 'goes', and 'does.' I always try to use the new sight words as much as possible in our group writing time and have it be a part of their journal writing as well. So our chart this week modeled how to use two of the words in a sentence. For two days, we made and read sentences about how a vehicle goes (on land, air, or sea). Then I posed questions about which way a vehicle goes. Does a car go in the air? Then the students answered these questions using the word 'goes' in their responses. No. A car goes on the road.
To wrap up the unit, we watched a great video about transportation on brainpopjr. Then the students wrote about which vehicle they thought was the best. I encouraged them to write at least two sentences but told them that 3 sentences would be too hard for them-that they wouldn't be able to write any more than two until they got to first grade. And they wouldn't be able to write more than 4 until they were second graders. This reverse psychology worked on a handful of them. I had some that completely filled up the page! (But I forgot to take pics)!
This week's centers got the students really pumped up. In the word word center, the students used letter beads to create sight words in individual "parking spaces." Once a word was complete, they got to park a car in that spot.
In the math games center, the students played "By Land, Air, & Sea." In this subtraction game, the students start in the air, rolling the dice and traveling down the numbers. Once they've landed on zero, they trade out their plane for a car and travel down the road. Lastly, they change their car to a boat and work their way down the sea.
In the writing center, they wrote sentences similar to the ones we'd written on the anchor chart. This center is mainly about teaching the students correct letter formation, and then, as they advance, correct sentence formation -using spaces, keeping letter in words close together, using punctuation, etc.
The students put together a firetruck, a ship, a plane, a train, and a construction vehicle in the puzzle center.
And they built a road in the number work center. The unifix tracks had to be put together to go from 1 to 100. After that, the students had a bag of yellow "mile markers" that they had to place on the road. Once those tasks were complete, they could pretend to make long trains or other vehicles on the road.
For whole group math in April, our calendar/Smartboard time looks like this.
There is no regular pattern on the calendar this month. Instead, the students are learning about the life cycles of various "springy" things: frogs, flowers, butterflies, and hens.
On the next page, the students have to read and then solve a word problem. We try to solve using mental math or our fingers. Then we can check our answers using the pictures on the left of the page. We go back and forth between addition and subtraction problems.
On the next page, the students go on an Easter egg hunt. They touch an egg and it disappears to reveal a number. Then they add that many green squares to the odd-looking hundred grid. This grid is set up in vertical groups of ten to look like we're working with base ten blocks. This activity is great for learning to count on from numbers other than one, determining how many more we need to get to a certain number, and figuring out how many we will have once a new amount of blocks has been added. We also review how many tens and ones are in the number.
For example, in the picture below, we had started off on the number 38. Before Sydni touched an egg to reveal a number, I asked the students, "How many squares do we need to reach 40?" After she touched an egg and revealed the number 4, then I asked, "What number will we finish on?" Finally, after Sydni placed the last square on number 42, I asked, "How many tens are in 42? How many ones?"
One the last page, the students track the days in school and adjust the amounts of tens and ones.
Sometimes we finish up our group math time with an online game. One we've been playing a lot in April is Shark Numbers. It works on identifying how many tens and ones make up a number. The students really enjoy it.
I"ll leave you with a few pics from a wonderfully entertaining assembly that the AM class attended this week. The Zuzu African Acrobats put on an awesome show and even got some of the kiddos involved!
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This was not taken at our performance, but this is one of the tricks they did. |
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