Our chicks have hatched! Room #7 was very lucky to have experienced this learning opportunity and also to have had the chance to come in contact with some very cute, chirpy, and fun chicks in our classroom this week. The boys and girls were over the moon with excitement! Learning about the embryos and how they develop from an egg to a chick has been a thrilling time!
The Kindergartners in Room #7 produced the most magnificent self-portraits this month. We went a different route for the month of April! To celebrate all the reading that we have been enjoying, the kiddos created self-portraits that show themselves reading their favorite book! This was a multi-step process that required much planning on their part. The results are nothing short of adorable, fun, and totally original. Pop on in to see your cherub's work of art!
As Room #7 continues to delve into number sentences and comparisons, we are also investigating shapes, both 3-dimensional and 2-dimensional. Have your child try to find the following shapes in the real-world; they are everywhere: cones, spheres, prisms, cubes, and cylinders. Ask them to tell you about what we found in the classroom! Here are our math stations of the week – we are chatting a lot about geometry and also chicks, of course!
· How Many Eggs? – At this station, the boys and girls picked a number they wanted to work with (between 8 and 15). The recording sheet prompted the children to figure out how many white eggs he/she would have if a certain number were brown. So, for example, if I picked the number 9, and the question said: There are 4 brown eggs, I would need to illustrate those eggs to determine how many white eggs I had! Critical thinking!
· Wall Game – At this center, the kids worked with the number ten. After arranging a vertical line of cubes of that number, a teacher “walled” off a portion of their line so only a certain number of cubes was visible. The children then predicted how many cubes were over the “wall”. What a fun way to see the different number combinations!
· How Many Chicks? How Many Legs? – This engaging book activity required students to stretch their thinking. Each page asked students to draw a certain number of chicks and figure out how many legs in total the page contained. As a result, some kiddos are even starting to count by 2’s! Way to go!!
· Roll, Count, Cover – The game board at this station had eggs on it with various numbers embedded inside. Each child rolled two dice and added the numbers together to find the sum. Then, he/she covered the corresponding egg until they were all covered!
· Fill the Hexagon - With what different shapes can you make a hexagon? At this center, everyone picked pattern block shapes to determine how to fill in their hexagons. This center really inspired the kids to think critically and carefully to see where they could fit each shape!
· Sorting Shapes on Geoboards – At this center, I built a variety of designs and shapes on a geoboard for the boys and girls to observe and copy. This station actually helped them be more analytical about the various parts of a design or shape and its position on the geoboard. The kids thoroughly enjoyed this station, especially when the designs got super complex! Lastly, they had to identify the similarities and differences among the shapes!
· Building and Recording Block Structures – At this center, the boys and girls were able to explore relationships of three-dimensional shapes and begin to develop a sense of perspective. They first built structures using about 10 different geoblocks and then drew what they saw. What’s interesting about this station is the fact that each geoblock has different faces (a new vocabulary word!). The cherubs only drew the face that they could observe.
In class, the children are learning about the structure of words and how some words are related to each other. This recognition helps them break down new words to solve them. We’ve been focusing on adding s to a noun to make more than one, instead of a z! Encourage this at home as well!
The boys and girls are blowing me away with their how-to stories. They have been immersed in a variety of mentor texts and our list of what to incorporate in our books continues to grow. I am so excited to see their hooks, or introductions, as well as their closings. The tips and warnings, labels, and step by step instructions are incredibly clear and moreover, the kiddos are super excited to teach each other! We will be working on how-to stories up until Spring vacation – I am learning something new every day!
Enjoy your weekend! Hope it’s a great one!