The kiddos certainly had fun working on their surprise projects for Mother’s Day. We hope you appreciated their hard work and inventive thinking and that you thoroughly enjoyed your special day.
Well, spring has sprung both inside and outside Room #7. We have officially begun our unit on planting, and the kids are pumped. The boys and girls and I have chatted a lot about the differences that are occurring outside due to the change in seasons. Last Friday, the cherubs were able to sow their very own seeds! From beans and radishes, to marigolds and sunflowers, the children each received a few seeds to plant in their individual planter. Over the course of the next few weeks, the students will come in every day, water their plants, and watch them grow! Additionally, the kiddos will be recording their plants’ progress as well as noting what seedlings and plants need to thrive and grow in their Planting Journal. Very exciting times in Kindergarten!
To go along with the theme of planting, we read Jack and the Beanstalk, as retold by Steven Kellogg. Next, the students created their very own castles that were attached to a wooden skewer and inserted into their planters. Finally, after making “mini-me’s” and connecting them to the skewer, each cherub made their very own “Jack and the Beanstalk”! The boys and girls loved moving their mini-me’s up and down the skewer acting as if they were climbing the beanstalk! Additionally, on Friday, the Kindergartners did some perspective taking and had to imagine what they would do if they had a magic bean like Jack. They came up with some great ideas! Very cute!
Math:
· 10 Shape and More - subtraction – An oldie with a twist! Each child took a ten frame and one other shape and wrote the total number of cubes needed to fill both shapes (always a teen number). Next, the kids rolled number cubes to determine how many Unifix cubes to take away, and finally, recorded the corresponding number sentence. This multi-step process required a lot of brainpower for the children to complete!
· 3 Towers of 10 – This partner game is all about adding! Each person picked a cube color and rolled a die. After taking the specified number of cubes and putting them together, the student colored the recording sheet correspondingly. The game was over when there were three towers of 10 cubes! Lastly, each child recorded his/her number sentences!
· Clear the Deck – This game is intended to provide cherubs with opportunities to distinguish between the plus and minus signs and to perform the corresponding operation. Each kiddo filled his/her game board with 20 colored tiles. The goal was to be the first to completely “Clear the Deck” or clear the board by using a plus/minus spinner and a number die. Everyone LOVED this station, and it was great practice for the class!
· iPad – kids’ choice! – We have learned a variety of games thus far! What better way to continue their mathematical practice than to have the boys and girls pick the game and skill they want to improve!
· Race to 10 – An oldie, but a goodie! Each player started with an empty working-space paper. First, he/she rolled a die to determine how many counters to put on the paper. Secondly, he/she spun the spinner to determine whether to add or to subtract. Lastly, he/she rolled the die again to see how many counters to add or subtract. The kiddos did a really fabulous job with this multi-step center!
· Snap –it – Working with the number ten (or more), students made trains of cubes. They then “snapped” their trains at various places. Putting part of their trains in front of them and placing the remainder behind them, students worked to figure out how many cubes were hidden. In this manner, they are learning to describe a number by its parts. For those tricky high numbers, students used invisible buddy lines as a strategy to determine the hidden number. Excellent work, cherubs!
· Part-Whole Bingo – This game is a spin-off from the kiddos’ work with apple boxes last week. After partners chose a game board, they rolled 2 number cubes. The roll of the number cubes combined determined the number of connecting cubes that each player could place on the board. For example, if a cherub rolled a 5 and a 2, each child took seven connecting cubes and placed them on his or her board. Each player decided independently where to place the cubes, and the two players’ choices could be different. This game promoted the exploration of equivalence, and of decomposing and composing numbers by allowing the boys and girls to cover equivalent arrangements, not just a match to the roll of the number cubes. Because the objective is to cover the entire board, there is a built-in incentive to think about a variety of equivalent expressions.
The children are listening for the individual sounds in words and then are figuring out how to blend them together to make a complete, whole word. We’ve been playing games and having fun developing this skill.
The class and I are also continuing our work with segmenting! They are becoming quite the pros at splitting up the words into their consequent parts! Ask them to try this exercise at home!
Have a wonderful weekend!