Kindergartners are taking a break from Math stations this week for a new unit entitled Bunk Beds! This unit begins with the story of a PJ party – a sleepover during which eight children play, moving up and down bunk beds, teasing and tricking the babysitter who imagines she is losing and then gaining children.
The unit introduces the arithmetic rack, or rekenrek, as a powerful model and tool, to help act out the story. The rekenrek is a calculating frame consisting of two rows of ten beads with two sets of five in each row. The five-structure of this apparatus supports the development of part-whole relations in early number sense. In this unit, the cherubs move the beads on the rekenrek to illustrate and develop an understanding that eight can be named in many ways, for example 7 + 1 = 5 + 3 = 4 + 4. The kiddos absolutely adored exploring with their very own individual (and smaller!) rekenreks. They did an extraordinary job showing the different combinations to eight and were able to explain adeptly that no matter what combination of numbers they used, it still equaled eight.
At the end of the week, the boys and girls of Room #7 made their very own bunk bed stories choosing a target number that was just right for them. They loved the creativity aspect of this project, obviously enjoying the mingling of Math and English Language Arts! We made another class book! Additionally, as their stories were read, we used the class-size rekenrek to model the changing arrangements. Next week, we will go back to station work, but stay tuned because this unit will continue!
I am so proud of the writers in Room #7! They have all been working amazingly hard on stretching out their true stories across 3 (or more!) pages. They have been incredibly thoughtful in planning how they will include as many important details into their stories so they are brought to life. Their who, what you did, where, and how you felt checklists have really helped them with this endeavor and they are excited to make their readers picture exactly what happened. We will continue this important work over the next few weeks, continuing to hone in on stretching out words as well!
The cherubs are also learning about blends at the beginning of words in reading and writing. In Reader’s Workshop on Wednesday, we chatted about how blends are two letters that are glued together but one can still hear both sounds. We explored various words with beginning blends in a book we are reading and then, the kiddos wrote down the two sounds they heard. This is tricky work! Many began by only writing the one sound, but once I said, the word is “stones,” not “sones”, they began to understand what I meant. As soon as they went to read from their own book bags, the readers were excited to discover that they had words with blends in their books! As we continue to work on this important noticing, I’m excited to see this skill transfer from reading into writing! Point blends out when you say them in conversations at home too!
For the last two weeks, the cherubs have been working on understanding and noticing empathy in book characters and their real lives. It is so refreshing and rewarding when students come up to me to share how they were empathetic. Our Empathy poster is getting fuller everyday with kids’ empathy experiences.
This week, students made x-ray puppets. On one side, they drew an x-ray person feeling sad with a broken heart, and on the other side, they made the person happy with a full heart. After attaching a popsicle stick to the puppets, the cherubs listened to various scenarios and they had to imagine how the person in that specific situation felt. They then chose the appropriate x-ray to show. This was an excellent exercise to see how/which kiddos are able to imagine another person’s perspective and the act of empathy! Now, hold onto your hats, we are learning another brain grower word next week: resilience!
Have a wonderful weekend! Go Pats!