Dear Families,
I have noticed so much growth in the cherubs’ reading skills over the past few months. Every superhero (and Super Reader) occasionally runs into trouble when reading. As part of our reading curriculum, the boys and girls in Room #7 have adopted and use a variety of “powers” to help them defeat those challenges in both their reading and writing. Some of those powers include:
- Pointer Power!
- Sound Power!
- Reread Power!
- Partner Power!
- Picture Power!
- Snap Word Power! (reading circle words in a snap)
- Persistence Power! (or perseverance)
Math stations this week:
- One More, One Less – In this activity, the children were challenged to name a number that was one more or one less than a given number without counting. The kiddos started with a cube train of any length (e.g., 10), and continued to add or take away cubes and name how many cubes were in their train after each addition or subtraction.
- 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 card 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!
- iPad – Park Math – At this popular station, the boys and girls have to figure out how to balance a seesaw. On the seesaw are different amounts of cute mice. Through trial and error, the kids either added on or took away mice to balance the weight! What a great connection they were able to make to our pan balance as well!
- Race to Trace – At this independent station, students had a deck of ten frame cards. Each card represented a different number, from eleven – twenty-two. As the children turned over the cards, they had to find the numeral that matched that number and then they practiced writing it. Students received a lot of practice recognizing what various higher numbers looked like when represented on ten frames!
- Roll, Write, Count – Another counting on activity! After rolling a die (a teen number die, a 20’s die, or (!) a 30’s die – challenge!!), the mathematicians wrote that number on the snowman. Next, they counted on and wrote the next four numbers! Tricky work, but our math experts rocked it! They even used tools around the room to ensure that all of their numbers were written in the expected way!
The boys and girls in Kindergarten are working extremely hard on their pattern books. It is just phenomenal to see how much growth they have made in such a short amount of time. The kiddos have been concentrating on the following skills:
- Spaces between words
- Write a little, read a little (to ensure no words are left out)
- Label Lines – draw a line from your picture and label it!
- Drawing unique pictures – making sure they match the words and the reader can tell!
- Drawing detailed drawings – drawing body parts, background, and showing movement!
- Endings with a twist – the whole book follows a specific pattern until the very end!
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
- have only one parent
- are divorced
- don’t have children
- have stepparents and/or stepchildren
- have different skin colors
Lastly, here's our librarian, Mrs. Rich has been doing an author/illustrator study on Jan Brett. As a family, you could visit the following Website:
www.janbrett.com
There are LOTS of activities, coloring pages and videos that the children might be interested in.
Have an incredible, relaxing vacation! See you next year!