Apples to Coconuts

This week we went a little nuts. COCO-nuts, that is. (Forgive me, I just had to).  We began the week reading the classic, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. You know the one where all the letters climb up the coconut tree?  Well, there is also a follow up book called Chicka Chicka 123 where numbers climb up an apple tree.  We read that one, too.  Since this week was all about comparing and contrasting to find likenesses and differences, we used these two stories to practice this skill.  The students chose pictures out of the bucket, showed it to the class, then we decided which book had those items. Sometimes, it was an item they shared, so the students were introduced to Venn diagrams to help organize our thoughts. 

That was done on YELLOW day, by the way :)

The next day, we read the follow up book to Mouse Paint (which we read last week), called Mouse Count.  Once again, we compared the stories using a bucket of pictures and a Venn diagram. 

We also discuss how things are alike and different everyday when I pull two things out of our alphabet mailbox. We learn two letters each week, so I pull out two items each day that begin with those sounds. This week we found 1)an elephant and a fox, 2) an egg and a fish, 3) an elbow and feet, 4)an envelope and a folder, and 5) an egg (again) and a football. So, you can see how the students can make comparisons. The students talk about the items with their "teaching partners," then they volunteer to share with the class. Their wheels are turning more and more everyday as we practice this skill. It's really neat to see!

We did lots more with the coconut and apple and finding how things are alike and different, but more on that in a minute.  Here's just a little of what we did in centers this week.

In the writing center, I used those student info forms that I had you guys fill out before school began to make a picture and word list of the students' favorite things. The students could choose from a variety of fun writing tools (Markers! Glitter pens! Pens shaped like animals!) and simply write a list of all of their favorite things.  It was a hit! 

In the letter work center, the students sorted out lowercase letters by how they're formed: all straight lines, all curvy lines, and both straight and curvy. They sorted them onto coconut trees (a la Chicka Chicka Boom Boom). They could also sort out the red, yellow, and blue letters into the coordinating jars (a la Mouse Paint), or they could play Letter Race (as Landon and Jayla are doing in the picture).

In the fine motor center, the students cut plastic straws and strung them onto red ribbon to make necklaces and bracelets. Some students wore theirs all week!  So- we'll definitely do that one again!

There is a magnet center during the literacy centers and the math centers. The only difference is the magnets they work with. In math, they get to design whatever they want with the base ten magnets and random shape magnets (it's more like an engineering and design center). We can already see lots of future engineers in the room!

In my guided math center, we worked on making amounts up to five in many different ways (5 + 0, 4+1, 3+2). The students are also working on representing amounts with drawings. 

At the sight word center, the students cut and paste the new sight words.  This will be the task at this center every week for a while. The format is familiar, but the words change every week. When they finish the task, they can put together sight word puzzles. This is one of the few centers that are project-oriented, meaning they should have a finished product at the end of the 10-15 minute period that they are there. 

In addition to this sight word center, we have sight word workshops four days a week. Unlike centers, the students get to choose the stations that most appeal to them.  They choose one of the seven stations each day. This way, the students can learn the sight words in the style that suits them best and avoid the stations that seem frustrating or boring to them.

These were their choices this week. For the ones who love to write there was....

White boards  

 Rainbow Words (spin the color spinner, trace the word in that color).

And Roll, Write, and Graph (which appeals to the 'gamers' too).

 

For the tactile learners, there was....

Sandpaper words and playdough words (which I forgot to take a picture of)

For the builders, there was pop cube words

And for the artsy ones, PAINT.

Each week I will change a few of the stations out, but I will always have 3-4 learning styles represented. I'm working on a hopscotch type game for my movers and shakers. 

Ok, now let's finish up with a bit more coconut stuff. 

So, after comparing the stories we'd read the first two days, we talked about our five senses. I had the children just use one - their sense of touch to describe what they felt in the mystery box. 

They mentioned that one item was big and one was small. One was scratchy and the other one was smooth.  But we decided they were both somewhat round. They were all able to guess that the small and smooth item was an apple - but they weren't able to guess the other. One guessed pineapple, another guessed a porcupine.  But once I pulled the coconut out, the light came on. Oh yeah! The Chicka Chicka Books!

 

The next day (Thursday) - we compared the fruits again using our five senses and talked about what was in the insides of them and how they tasted. Well we needed to see what was inside that coconut and taste it too! So we did. 

The boys were very much into the use of the hammer and screwdriver.

Sampling the coconut milk - it was unanimous - they didn't like it (The picture was pre-tasting)

There were a few fans of the fruit itself. 

Our final experience with alike/different and coconuts had to do with buoyancy. The students tested four round fruits; a plum, an apple, a coconut, and a watermelon.  The students told if they thought an item would sink or float using thumbs up (for floats) or thumbs down (for sinks) - because I try to do my part to decrease noise pollution. We were all surprised that the only fruit that sank was the smallest!

After our whole group experiment, the students got to test lots of random items back at their tables. And things got a little bit messy. But, thankfully, we have a Mother Hen in the room who LITERALLY cleaned it ALL up without even being asked to.  I mean - she wiped off every table, packed up all the items, even threw away the paper towels that had fallen on the floor. Shout out to Daleigha! (I wished I would have gotten a picture of her).

Lastly, we couldn't do a Chicka Chicka theme without an art and crafts activity!

Next week we will learn about community helpers and the students will become community helpers themselves in the classroom.  Check back in next week to see what fun we have.  

AND WEAR GREEN ON MONDAY!

Fun of the Kindergarten Kind

Welcome to the first blog entry of your child's kindergarten year!  We have spent three very busy weeks learning all of the ins and outs of working and getting along together in kindergarten.  We began the first three days sticking very closely to our Back to School theme, Monster's Kindergarten (my own prequel to Monsters University). On our very first day, I read Monsters Love School and the students thought about and recorded how they were feeling that day

We learned how to listen by reading the book Howard B Wigglebottom Learns to Listen. Before I   

brought the book out, the students had to find all the puzzle pieces sticking to walls and surfaces all around the room. I put the pieces together as they brought them to the board and we made guesses along the way of what the picture was. Once they saw the two floppy ears, they had the right idea. 

Then I showed them the cover of the book and the mystery was solved.  

Together, we came up with the rules for listening in our classroom and made a poster that is displayed right in front of where sit on the carpet as a visual reminder. We also started a tally chart to track how many times we interrupted the teacher.

 

Then the students put together their own Howard B. Wigglebottom puzzle and read the exact same rules on their half sheet. 

This page, the monster feelings page, and a few others (such as Mike Wazowski's Bathroom Rules)

 came together to make our very first take-home book all about the rules and routines of kindergarten. 

One of the routines we learned how to do was lining up and walking in the halls.  I tell the students to pretend like they have a big marshmallow in their mouth so they don't talk.  What better way to illustrate this than with real marshmallows? There was one rule- no chewing!

We walked through all the halls of Garth until those puppies dissolved! So- science experiment bonus!

The next week, we continued to learn about how to cooperate with one another.  We read the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today which teaches the importance of treating others with kindness.  The students searched the room for many different pictures of children being kind and children being mean.  Then we sorted the pictures on two different charts: a bucket filler chart, and a bucket dipper chart. The next day we read The Crayon Box That Talked- which is a story about a crayons who do not appreciate the the qualities of the other colors. We talked about how each one of us is special and it takes all of us to make a fun classroom - just like it took all of the crayons to make a beautiful picture. Then the students drew and colored their favorite crayon color and ordered the words in a sentence to tell about it. 

On Wednesday, we read the story Chrysanthemum, which is about a little girl (mouse) who loves her special name until she goes to kindergarten and all of the children tease her about it.  To further drive the point home about how teasing and making fun of others is unkind and hurtful, I gave each student a little paper heart. They repeated insults from the story, "Your name is silly. It's way too long." "You're named after a flower, we should pick you like a flower!" With each insult, we crumpled our hearts up more and more until it was all balled up.  Next, I told them to apologize because that is what we are supposed to do when we have hurt someone. We said. "I'm sorry," and uncrumpled the hearts- but then the students saw the irreparable damages they'd done. Even though they apologized, it couldn't make the heart like new. This would be a good lesson for grown-ups too :)

Later that same day, the students drew a picture of themselves and ordered the words in a sentence to tell what their names are.  

And now for this week.  We began a real center rotation this week. We have two rounds of centers: reading/writing centers which includes reading groups with the me, and math centers which includes guided math groups with me.  Each child comes to my instructional center once each day (for each center time) and then goes to two "independent" centers.  These independent centers are done with 1-2 other classmates.  Mrs. Taylor bounces around these free centers as help is needed.  

So while I was reading and instructing math in a small groups, the other students were....

And these were just the reading/writing centers. I forgot to take pictures of the math independent centers.  But I did take a few from my guided math groups. We are learning to count objects and then represent that number with counters.  The students then transferred their knowledge of amounts to drawing amounts. Here, I told the students to draw three of something. They really like the freedom!

We are also using unifix cube/pop cubes to represent numbers.  Here, Patrick shows the whole class one of the ways he can make three using 2 different colored cubes.

He decided to go with the all red option. 

Whole group time is one of my favorite times of the day.  We use the Smartboard to learn the letters of the week and play math games.  Here, Ava is launching a given amount of meatballs onto the spaghetti. You can play this Curious George game at home too.

We check our mailbox for items that start with the two new letters of the week. We also come together at the white board to make our anchor charts about the 2 new sounds of the week, review the sight words, write about the color of the week, and do our daily superstar.

 And of course we read together as a whole group. I began the week with the book Mouse Paint.  The students learned about the three primary colors and how they mix together. Right after the story, they got a chance to discover this for themselves.

To wrap up, we did several primary-color-themed projects on Friday. The students watched Mrs. Taylor make a "gak" recipe and saw how glue and water mixed with a little borax can go from a liquid to a very slimy solid. 

Then, they earned a bag of that gak as their first "paycheck" for doing their "work" (aka their Friday test which should have been in their folders today). The students used blue, red, and yellow markers to transform their gak into purple, orange, green, (and brown for those who couldn't stop at two colors) goops of slimy wonderfulness. Here is the simple recipe so you can make it at home on a rainy day. Your kid will love you forever. 

 A little while later, we made a graph of our favorite primary color, then the students used little snips of red, blue, and yellow construction paper to make a mosaic of their names. 

Then, as if all that wasn't enough (it was actually way more than enough, but I just couldn't space out all the fun theme-based activities due to our MAP testing in the computer lab this week) we finished the day with our first STEAM activity. STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math.  We typically won't have the art element, so most Fridays we will have a STEM lab, but I digress.  So, this STEAM activity: red, blue, and yellow paint on a white piece of paper taped to a box lid.  The students took turns tipping the box, using gravity to pull a marble through the paint, mixing the colors and making a very Jackson Pollock-esque masterpiece! (PS: I totally stole this from Pinterest).

Now that I'm seeing this, I need a totally different border. That polka dot is just not working...

 Next week there is more fun in store. Remember to have your child wear yellow on Monday and have a great weekend!