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

Sensory Overload

Well this was a whirlwind of a week.  More MAP testing, shopping at Santa's Workshop, PM class cancellation, fire drill, and, oh yea, it was too cold to go out for recess and the gym wasn't available for PE classes.  To say that we were all going a little nuts would be the understatement of the year. But we rolled with the punches and had some great learning experiences anyway.  We explored our 5 senses this week with a different 'experiment' everyday. We started with our sense of sight.  The students had to call out a sight word on the screen.  As I erased each sight word, a little bit more of the Christmas picture behind them was revealed. It was a picture of Santa! 

On Tuesday, we explored our sense of hearing.  Each student was given a (very old) metal film canister with unknown objects inside. They had to shake them and find their sound match.  Some students had jingle bells inside, some had ornament hooks, candies, beads, etc.  They sat down with the partner they thought matched their sound and then I revealed what was inside of each one.  It was pretty tricky! (Unfortunately, the PM class didn't get to do this activity, since their class was cancelled due to the snow. But I hope to have time to do it with them next week).

The next day was about our sense of smell. We went on a "Smell Hunt." First, I let each child smell a jar of cinnamon.  Then I told them there were hidden objects in the room with the same smell and to use their sniffers to find them. 

It wasn't the crayons......

It was cinnamon-scented pinecones!

   By the way, as we discussed each new sense, we also learned the stanza about that sense in our Christmas poem.  Your child has a copy of it attached to their newsletter. If they can read it or recite it by themselves by Wednesday, they will get a Christmas-y prize! (They do not need to collect signatures this time).

 On Thursday, the students' taste buds really confused them.  I wrote the different tastes that our tongues recognize on the board and showed them a red hot candy (not in its box) and asked each child to guess what they thought it would taste like. (I also didn't tell them what it was called). Of course, they all assumed it would be sweet like a strawberry.  But they were in for a surprise! The looks on their faces when the heat set in was priceless!  I followed up by showing them a dark chocolate mint M&M.  It was a very unassuming shade of green. This time, most of them guessed it would be sweet like chocolate.  Once again, they were surprised by a minty, bitter taste.  Here's a video of the PM class tasting the Red Hots.

  And finally, our Fun Friday senses activity was about touch. I placed a cookie cutter in a "Touchy-Feely Box" for the students to reach in and feel, but they couldn't see what was inside. (The morning class also had a small pair of mittens in their box).  The students had to describe what the object felt like and then they made their guess. 

We followed this up with an activity that used almost all of our senses - using cookie cutters to make delicious-smelling cinnamon dough ornaments. Mrs. Taylor has a perfect recipe for it and the ornaments were looking super cute when I left them to dry this afternoon. 

 

We wrapped up our fun Friday with the art activity we were supposed to do last Friday (the snow day). We are learning about measuring and comparing measurements in math. To tie into this objective, the students made a Christmas tree by ordering green paper strips from longest to shortest.

As for centers, the favorite of the week was the present wrapping center (what better way to learn about rectangular prisms?

The Number Work center involved measuring and recording the measurements of various Christmas items using pop cubes.

 

 

 

In Math Games, the students played Race to Santa's Sleigh.

The Word Work center was "Roll and Color the Sight Words." The students worked in pairs, taking turns rolling the word dice. They would then choose a piece on the page with the same word and color it together (according to the color key).

And in the Writing center, the students wrote the Christmas words neatly in the letter boxes.

 Instead of our normal reading groups, I gave the students a tutorial on how to use the Raz-kids reading website. The instructions on how to log them in at home are attached to your child's newsletter.  Please check it out and let your child use it during the Christmas break.  Students will regress in reading if they don't read for two weeks.

And while we may not have been able to get outside for recess this week, the students did have a pretty good time dancing in the classroom.  I leave you with the PM class dancing to Who Let the Dogs Out and the AM class doing Santa Clones.  Your child will probably want to dance to the Santa Clones again. Here's the link to the entire Just Dance video that they dance along to.  Its awesome. 

Have a Merry Christmas! I'll post again in the NEW YEAR!