Room #7 has been full of busy bees this week, and the kiddos have been hard at work before vacation. Here are some highlights from the week!
After our highly successful pattern book unit, Kindergarten is returning to narrative writing. Over the next few weeks, the boys and girls will delve back into true stories that have happened to them and learn about including a beginning, middle, and end to their narratives. They will incorporate details and descriptive words so that their readers feel as if they are there in the story!
Math:
· Decomposing Number Book – Last week, Room #7 began to learn how teens are made up of tens and ones. To help cement this tricky concept, the kids worked extremely hard on a Decomposing Number Book where they had to show how many groups of tens and ones were in each teen number. They did an awesome job!
· Pan Balance Activity – This week, the students measured a specific number of particular items on the pan balance and then determined which one was heavier! Everyone loved predicting which item would be heavier, and they were often correct! The kids’ favorite aspect of this activity was choosing their own comparison!
· Top-It – This partner card game is similar to the game, War. Each student put down a number card, and together they decided which number was greater. The child with the greater number card won and took the two cards. The kids LOVED playing this game!
· One More Bingo – At this station, students drew cards from a deck of numbers 1-25. After picking a number, they identified what one more of that number was and then everyone marked that number on their Bingo board, if they had it! 4 in a row won!
· Sorting Shape Puzzles – In the original shape puzzle center, the Kindergarteners estimated how many cubes would fit on a shape puzzle, counted, and then labeled them with the correct numeral. As an extension, they then sorted the shape puzzles onto a 1-20 number line! If the puzzle held 11 cubes, they would then place that puzzle piece on the 11 space.
· iPad - Park Math – The kiddos were incredibly excited to learn a new iPad game this week! In the app, Park Math, there are many games. This week, the boys and girls learned about an activity where they ordered numbers from least to greatest. It’s super tricky, though, because the numbers are not in consecutive order. For example, a child might need to order the following numbers: 23, 12, 15, 4, 25, 15, 6. They had fun moving the numbers around until they were correct! This was excellent practice in recognizing numbers and determining if they were more or less than others!
· How Many Does it Hold? - At this station, the cherubs filled specific containers with Unifix cubes so that it was full. Then, they counted and recorded the number of counters in each container. This is a great station for students to start to understand capacity and to visualize how different sized containers hold varying amounts.
Our family unit is coming to a close. Over the past month, Room #7 has read a variety of books that detail what responsibilities individuals have within families, while discussing similarities and differences among families. This week, I asked the students to identify one difference there is between their families and others. The list was outstanding! The cherubs did a really great job identifying some key differences. For example:
Some families:
· have 2 moms or 2 dads
· have pets
· are big
· are small
· live in different countries
· have adopted kiddos
· only have one parent
· are divorced
· don’t have children
And many, many more! When I asked what’s the most important part that is the same about families, the response was in unison – “They All LOVE each other!” So sweet!
The boys and girls in Room #7 are beginning to match letters to the initial sounds in words. This matching is helping the children learn to take words apart. In class, we’ve been sorting pictures and matching them to their initial letter and to the word. For example, the pictures of a ball and a bug went into the Bb column, with the words ball and bug written below them. The kiddos had fun with this whole group activity, and many of them made some great connections to this activity during our Writing and Read to Self times! Way to go, Kindergarteners!
Because next week is only two days, I will not be entering a weekly highlight! I hope you all have a wonderful, restful, fun vacation full of holiday cheer and family! See you in the new year!