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 Monday, 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 – At this popular station, the boys and girls of Room #7 got to try out a new activity within Park Math! In the game, the students 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!
- Grab and Count; One More/One Less: A new tricky station! At this center, the boys and girls grabbed a handful of a specific material (we used pompoms, counters, and foam shapes). Next, they counted their material and wrote that number down. Finally, their last two steps were to figure out what one less number was and one more number was from the first number they counted! Not only did the cherubs practice their counting and writing skills but also had to concentrate on what the numbers were before and after! This can be difficult work! Way to go, Kindergartners!
- Missing Teen Numbers - Let’s fill in those missing teen numbers! Given a starting and ending number, the cherubs filled in the missing numbers and paid extra attention to forming their numbers correctly!
- 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!
- Teens on the Ten Frame – more practice breaking apart their teen numbers! After representing a teen number on two ten frames, the students filled out a sentence showing that the teen number was 1 group of ten plus ______ more (e.g., 12 is one group of ten and 2 more). This is great practice!
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.
Last week, Room #7 tackled some very tricky sounds – the “h” brothers: “ch,” “th,” “sh,” and the sounds they make. The class and I made an anchor chart to show the various ways our mouths look when making the specific sounds, and we brainstormed all the different words that belong in each category. A new game will be coming their way during Word Work in Reader’s Workshop as well as Morning Work. Help your kiddos to notice them in daily conversations and ask your child to tell you all the sounds!
The class continues to practice listening for sounds during Word Work. Next week, independently, the boys and girls will complete a corresponding activity as their “have to” during Word Work in Reader's Workshop. As a class, I have noticed that everyone is really emphasizing the last sound to ensure they can identify it.