A holiday gift is coming to your family which showcases your child’s diligent work, so if you are planning to leave before vacation officially begins, please let me know; I want to make certain I can get your gift to you in time for the holidays! Additionally, if you have not sent in family photographs, please do so by Monday! They are needed for the gift!
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
Math stations this week were all about measuring, more and less, and a little bit of addition! The cherubs are doing such an excellent job with all this difficult work!
- Exploring the Pan Balance – On Tuesday, I introduced the balance to the class. They loved predicting what items would be heavier than others and were amazed to see when 2 different items balanced each other out. During Math stations, the students explored the pan balance with a variety of materials (e.g.: dominoes, counters, pompoms, etc.) to see which was heavier, which was lighter, and how many more or less of a material it took to even the balance out. The kiddos loved this station!!
- iPad - Park Math – The kiddos were incredibly excited to continue with this station 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!
- 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!
- Nearby Numbers – A new, tricky station! Using various game boards, students placed the missing teen numbers in their grid to complete the “number line”. They are really getting good at counting on and then, thinking of one less!
- Shrinking Number Monster - Are you ready for a challenge, cherubs? This week, some students were completing this center without the counting aspect! Because many of the boys and girls are really understanding the concept of teen numbers and their sequence, we had to make the exercise trickier. The kiddos tried independently (and succeeded!) to figure out one less than the number they rolled! Way to go – this is hard work! If students still need to count as well, that’s perfectly all right! Students rolled dice to determine how many “eyes” belonged on their monster work board. They then took away one eye, recounted them, and this week, wrote the number that was one less!
- 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.
As Room #7 learns how to read, we’re listening to the ending sounds in words and connecting them to letters. The children are learning about last letters in words as they listen for, say, and recognize the consonant sounds at the end of words and attach the sounds to these letters. They are understanding that
• Some words sound the same at the end.
• You can connect words that sound the same at the end.
Moreover, as they read during Reader’s Workshop, the students are learning how to problem-solve unknown words by paying attention to BOTH the beginning and ending sounds, and if they match the word they said aloud.