We have started our letter of the week work! Every week a new letter, named an Alphafriend, is introduced. Each letter has a song, and the students are able to sing it every day and complete some phonemic awareness activities that accompany the specific letter. This week, the boys and girls of Room #7 met Sammy Seal! The students loved singing his song and are on the look-out for “s” words around the room, in books we read, and in our work. They are thrilled to recognize the letter and are so proud of themselves! Each week, the class will learn a new Alphafriend – check out the Alphafriend tab on our Website to learn more!
This week, Room #7 began to talk about expected and unexpected behaviors. We read the book, David Goes to School, and the boys and girls identified his behaviors as either expected or unexpected. The kiddos noticed that when, at the end of the book, David turned his behavior around, how happy and proud he was of himself. A great discussion ensued where the cherubs recognized various other behaviors as expected or unexpected as we sorted some pictures. Super and thoughtful work, Kindergartners!
Last week, the cherubs and I discovered that there are three different ways to read a book! We can read the words, read the pictures, and retell the story! All three ways are excellent choices when reading books both in and out of the classroom! As the weeks continue, everyone will practice these skills independently!
Well, parents, this week Room #7 accomplished their very first day of Read to Self! As a class, we made a list of everything readers should do during this time. Kiddos had a lot of great ideas: stay in one spot and read the whole time, read quietly, take care of the books, and focus! I introduced a new word that helps encapsulate the cherubs’ work in this area – STAMINA! We discussed how over time, they will build up their stamina in reading to themselves! Everyone did a great job reading their books in the three different ways – read the words, read the pictures, and retell the story. We started with 3 minutes and they are all excited to go for even longer!
During our Word Work, we are working on the idea of sentences. In class, the children are learning that sentences are made up of words that when put together, make sense to the reader. The children are also realizing that we say one word for each word we see in writing. Knowing this will help them as they read sentences in books and write their own sentences.
Additionally, the cherubs have also been looking at the specific shapes of the letters of the alphabet and connecting a name and sound to each. Together, we’ve been exploring the letters in each child’s name, noting how the letters are always in the same order for that name. Alphabet charts and manipulating letters in each other’s names are helping to cement this concept!
Math:
- Play Dough Ten Frames – We work a lot with 10 frames in Kindergarten! They are an excellent way for the students to gain number sense as they continually practice identifying what a 5, 7, 9 looks like on a 10 frame. At this center, students used Play Dough balls to represent the number on each ten frame. Superb fine motor practice, too!
- Grow and Shrink– In a small group, a teacher asked the students to show a certain number on a work board. Next, the teacher told the students to either add (grow) or subtract (shrink) to a new number. The students then discussed how many they had to add or take away to obtain that number, and they pointed out the different configurations that made the same number.
- Roll a Tower – At this independent station, a cherub rolled a die, built a tower with enough cubes to match the number rolled, and then placed the tower on the game board in the corresponding column. The child kept rolling the die and building towers until an entire column was filled and a number had “won”! The boys and girls got so excited to see which number ended up winning!
- Great Dice Race – This independent activity required students to roll dice and trace the number their dice had landed on. The students continued rolling and tracing until a particular number won!
- Grab Bag Counting – Given a bag of cubes, the students grabbed a handful (or two). They then counted like mathematicians to figure out how many they had!
- 1-10 Number Puzzles – The kiddos concentrated on putting together a variety of puzzles. On the bottom of each puzzle were the numbers 1-10. This station had the students working both to recognize those numerals and put them in consecutive order! The pictures also helped them to check their sequencing!
Have a fabulous fall weekend!