When the 100th Day Meets Valentine's Day

I meant to look quizzical here, but it came off more as if I'm

pondering if we would ever see the 100th day of school.

We began the month of February celebrating the upcoming 100th day of school.  It took us 2 weeks to get there, but we finally made it!  All of our whole-group reading and writing times and many of our centers were centered on the number 100. 
    We began the week by bringing in our bags of 100 things.  The students wrote in their journals about what they brought and we displayed them on the hallway bulletin board for the whole school to see. 

Then there were three more days of snow........



After that (it was a Friday)  we read the book, Bunny Money (a Max and Ruby book) and the students discussed and wrote about what they would do with $100.  I can tell you this, we don't have a lot of 'savers' in either class. (Then there was one more day of white stuff).....

The third day of this unit was the actual 100th day. The students made art out of the number 100

and we hopped 100 feet down the hallway. 

We counted to 100 in a whole new way with a music video from youtube.  And we wrote 100 words in a 'write the room' activity. (These are also on display in our hallway). 

The next day we counted 100 seconds.  Afterward, we discussed what we could and couldn't do in 100 seconds on an anchor chart.  I posed two questions centered on one situation.  (Could you have a birthday party? Could you sing the birthday song?  Could you eat a French fry? Could you eat your whole dinner? Could you play a game of baseball? Could you run the bases?)  Then the students wrote about what they could do in 100 seconds.  Our final writing activity came after reading a story about a character who travels to many different places. The students wrote about where they would want to spend 100 days. One student said they'd spend it at school.  Awww. 
       And now for the centers....The students used cups to make a 100 cup tower in the block center.

  It's amazing how something so cheap and simple can bring such joy and entertainment. 
In the word work center, I tried something else with cups that was...well.....less successful.  I realized after the first day that it was an activity that would be better for first grade. Each sight word was written on a cup, some more than once.  Other cups had easy to read/recognize words such as dog, cat, mom, dad, sat, ran, etc.  The students were supposed to put a sentence together, then try to stack the sentence up to read properly.  Fail.  After two days of centers, I made cards with a picture of a sentence structure already on them so all they had to do was find the words and stack them exactly how the card showed.  Fail again.  There were just too many cups. It was overwhelming. I will try this again, but with fewer (a lot fewer) cups and in a more structured way.

In the Number Work center, the students had to match up tetris-style shapes to a hundred chart.  And they raced their partner to 100 in the Math Games center.

 

And, instead of puzzles this week, the students made original creations out of 100 q-tips. Again, cheap and simple=tons of fun.

Our Fun Friday was extra fun as it was Valentine's Day. This was the first year I let the children look through their boxes before taking them home and I will do this every year from now on.  The joy on their faces was priceless.  It was like Christmas morning in our classroom! I'll leave you with pics from our Valentine's activities.  

We did this activity after playing Make a Valentine on starfall.com



The AM class made heart animals.  The PM class didn't get to make these
because of the early dismissal.



Subtracting as we ate M&Ms.



Kennedy was THRILLED with every Valentine.

We estimated (made a careful guess) how many candy hearts were in the jar.
  The winner got to take them home!

Caitlyn won in the morning class.

Khabria won in the afternoon class.

Opposites Week

These are the snowmen the AM and PM class have been
 'building" during calendar math in January. We weren't in school
enough days to finish them!

    This past week was more of a learning experience for parents than for the students. Quick, what do you do on a one hour delay? What do you do on a two hour delay? Now that we all know, lets hope we don't need to do it for the rest of the year!
    Although we did miss one day (in kindergarten), it was a full week of learning back in room 109.  Some of that learning was just remembering our routine and how we cooperate and participate while in the classroom. But we worked on academic content, too. Our main focus in math has been subtraction. We had a snowball fight in the Math Games center (I forgot to take a picture of it). We've been using a similar activity on the SmartBoard during calendar math to demonstrate subtraction and how it means "to take away." For this game, the students place 10 cotton balls into their own ten frame. Then they spin a spinner with the numbers -1, -2, and -0 on it.  They get to "throw" that many snowballs (really they just remove that many from their board, but I'm sure they'd love it if they could)! The first student to throw all of their snowballs wins, collects a Snowball Fight trading card, and then they play again. This was a crowd pleaser!
   In the Number Work center, the students worked on composing teen numbers with marshmallows in hot cocoa! There was some added fine motor work with the tweezers.

    One of the math goals in kindergarten is to recognize that teen numbers are made up of a group of ten plus some "ones" left over.  Students need to both compose (make) and decompose (break down) teen numbers to demonstrate that knowledge.

Our phonics focus this week was again on the short vowels, short i and short o, specifically. The students worked on making CVC words using the short vowel sounds in the Word Work center. 

In the Writing center, the students played on a new app on the IPad called Dolch Words.  It s a free app that allows the students to select a sight word, hear it, and trace it.

Then, as always, the students read to themselves or to each other in the Reading center, and got to play with trains in the Block center. This is the last week of using www.starfall.com at the Computer center.  Beginning next week, they will work on www.raz-kids.com instead.  Remember to let them log in at home, too. It will really accelerate their reading!

 

Our theme this week was opposites. We sang along to a special music video everyday as we gathered at the carpet. Then we read books and noted the opposites we heard during our whole group writing.

    Over the course of the week, we read The Foot Book by Dr. Suess, Big Dog, Little Dog by PD. Eastman, and Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion (one of  my childhoold favorites). The students selected their own pair of opposites to write about in their journals. Once again, they surpassed my expectations. They are getting really GOOD at journal writing.

    Our Fun Friday art project tied in our theme of opposites and wrapped up our unit on measurement. The students had to order 5 dogs from shortest to tallest.  Then some chose to draw their bones, dog houses, water bowls, etc to further show size comparison.



The class welcomed our new student teacher, Miss Emily Kendall. She is from Georgetown College and each week she will be leading more and more in activities and instruction.  She will be with us for 8 weeks. The students have already grown attached to her. Here she is playing Quiz Quiz Trade with McKenzie. 

Next week will be pretty HUGE.  We celebrate the 100th day of school for a whole week!  I'm already looking forward to next week's blog. Fingers crossed that snow days don't ruin our plans!
    I'll leave you with a few pics from a special music program the AM class got to be a part of on Friday. (Sorry PM class).  A group from Belmont University in Tennesee called dnk. came and entertained and involved the students in a very fun musical experience.

Back in the Saddle Again

Let me begin with a big HOORAY!!! After a full extra week of winter break due to snow, extreme cold, and bursted pipes, we finally made it back to the classroom. I was more than ready to get back to a normal routine and the students were, too.  Although we started on a Thursday, I treated it like a Monday. That means we started new centers right away.  Our theme of the week was winter, our main focus in literacy was the short vowel sounds, and our new math focus was subtraction.
    Our shared reading began with identifying/listing the clothes we put on to play in the snow. We read "The Hat" by Jan Brett and "The Jacket I Wear in the Snow" by Shirley Neitzel. We made an anchor chart as a whole group to go along with it, and on Friday, the students took the topic to their journals.  Mrs. Taylor and I were very impressed with their work! We weren't sure what they would be able to do after having 3 weeks off. Turns out, they hadn't missed a beat. We saw the same results after reading books about fun snow day activities. First we read the Ezra Jack Keats classic "The Snowy Day." The next day, we read "Snow Day" by Betsy Maestro.  Again, we made an anchor chart about the activities the students did or wanted to do on the next snow day. (And wouldn't you know it, the very next day was another snow day)!  Here are some samples of the students work. 

And take a look at the progress below. This is a student's journal writing from September (on the left) where he attempted a few letters and then traced the sentence we wrote for him. And on the right is what he was able to do ALL BY HIMSELF this week!

 

As I said, our focus this week was on the five short vowel sounds and subtraction. The students sang along to this music video everyday at the start of class. This video is not only great for teaching the five short vowel sounds, but it also reinforces how we learned to sound out words long before the break.

 

At the beginning of group math time, we sang along to this crowd pleaser to learn all about subtraction.

 

Centers got a little remodel this week as our class is now home to a real, guided reading table! We made due before with a rectangular table but it was not ideal.  Thanks to our principal, our school now has several of these babies to make reading groups much more efficient!

In the Math Games center, the students got to build a snowman.  (And I sang the song from Frozen "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman?" over and over...).  This game works on addition skills. The students roll two dice, add them together, and get the coordinating piece.

In the Work on Writing center, the students rolled a dice that coordinated with one of six sight words. They got to use colored pencils to write the words in a table form.  (Writing with colored pencils is kind of a big deal. Not writing-with-markers big, but close).

In the Word Work center, the students decoded (or sounded out) CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) and placed them on top of their matching pictures.

Finally, we wrapped up the week with Fun Friday (but it was really on a Wednesday)! As always, we had a fun craft activity. The students wrote each letter of their name on a snowball (a white circle) and added one more snowball to the top on which they drew a snowman's face (with markers -squeal!).  Then they assembled their snowman adding a hat and scarf.  This reinforced our math goal of measuring length and height and ordering/comparing the sizes. We arranged their snowmen from shortest to tallest on the bulletin board outside our classroom. The students can see that the fewer the letters in a name, the shorter the snowman. I didn't get to take a picture of the finished product (blame that snow day!) but I will include one on next week's post.

Now that we're back in the saddle again, I expect some great learning progress in the weeks ahead. Many students are right on the cuff of becoming proficient readers. The steady of routine of reading is what will get them there.

Before I go, I want to recognize Tyler Malicote and Preskutt VanAntwerp. They received the Fairness Award in their classes because they so frequently display this characteristic when playing with their classmates. I am very proud of them! We are now learning what it means to be trustworthy. And next month, two new students will receive an award in front of the whole school. 

 (erallR