Please help me give a warm, Hastings welcome to our new student Aashrita! Room #7 is overjoyed in our newest addition and we look forward to getting to know her over the upcoming weeks!
As we continue to work with counting, shapes, and teen numbers, the boys and girls are becoming more comfortable and more importantly, more confident within our Math workshops. It is always amazing to see the progress they are making as every day passes!
- A Colorful Feast - At this station, the kiddos helped themselves to a Thanksgiving feast! Each child dished out servings of cranberries, turkey, potatoes, and corn (represented by colorful cubes). Next, they lined them up and used invisible buddy lines to determine the least and the most colorful “foods” they had served themselves. Finally, when asked specific questions, the “turkey eaters” figured out how many more they each had of the various foods. What fun!
- Turkey Tessellation – Using various pattern block shapes, the boys and girls of Room #7 created a turkey!
- Turkey War – At this festive station, the cherubs played the game of “War” with turkey-themed decks of cards. During this game, each person had his/her own deck of cards. Simultaneously, each child revealed his/her top card – the person with the greater number won those two cards. The tricky part of this game was determining which card was greater since they had different representations of a specific number. Each deck of cards had either a 10 frame OR a numeral. This was a super fun center! The kiddos are eager to use these cards again - maybe to make a match next time!
- Mix it Up! – The mathematicians of Room #7 are learning their teens! This fun game could be played either with a partner or independently! Given a deck of number cards from 10-20, the students mixed up the cards and put them back in number order. It was really cool to watch them problem solve to make certain the numbers were in the correct positions. Additionally, the cherubs often sang parts of our teen number song to assist in this tricky work!
- Roll and Color Teen Numbers - At this station, the mathematicians of Room #7 rolled a giant die with the teen numbers 11-16 (represented in 10-frame form). Next, they found that specific number on their activity sheet and colored it in!
- Turkey Teen Book – Let’s decompose teen numbers! In this festive book, students had to represent their teen numbers in a variety of ways: on ten frames, by writing the numeral, and by drawing that many (e.g, 13 x’s, 13 lines, etc.) The kiddos had a lot of fun with this cheerful station!
With the upcoming holiday, Room #7 has talked A LOT about Thanksgiving and what it means. Here are a few of the activities we did this week in order to cement the meaning of this fun and important day!
- I am thankful for…. After reading several books about thankfulness, the kiddos shared all the people and things they are thankful for. For example: family, baby brothers and sisters, homes, good food to eat, teachers, etc. Very sweet.
- On Monday, Room #7 learned about the very first Thanksgiving. After reading Thanksgiving is…. by Gail Gibbons, the class talked about the sequence of events that led up to this special day. In order to help them retell the story and include most of the events, the students made their very own Thanksgiving retelling bracelets, where each bead on the bracelet represented a specific part of the Pilgrims’ story. Everyone worked super hard on this activity and did a great job retelling the story to a variety of friends and adults! Ask your child to repeat the story to you!
- On Wednesday, Room #7 read the book Pilgrims of Plymouth by Susan E. Goodman. In this photo book, the life of the Pilgrims is recreated. In this way, the students were given a behind-the-scenes look at what it was like to live in that time period, and they learned of the tribulations that were endured daily by the Pilgrims. Then we compared our lives today with the lives of the Pilgrims and identified both the differences and the similarities. Using a Venn Diagram helped the students conceptualize this complicated concept and allowed them to really see what they have in common with the Pilgrims and their lives and also to understand the differences between the two. Great discussion, Kindergartners!
We also read several Thanksgiving-themed books this week. Two of the class favorites included A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting and The Night Before Thanksgiving by Natasha Wing. In the first book, the class talked about the word, prediction, and what it means. Everyone made a prediction about what they thought the story would be about given the title and the cover of the book. The class predicted that the main character, Mr. Moose, was going to hunt for a turkey for his holiday dinner. Boy, was everyone surprised when they discovered that their prediction was incorrect! Mr. Moose wanted to invite the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. The cherubs got a real kick out of the book and have been practicing making predictions ever since!
The Night Before Thanksgiving is a story that follows the format of the book The Night before Christmas. Many of the kiddos recognized the familiar cadence and remarked that the Thanksgiving book reminded them of the Christmas story. I told them that “Oh my gosh! You all just made a text-to-text connection!! Wowza!” This type of connection occurs when something in one book reminds the reader of something that one has read in another text. The class and I then discussed what this term means, and I challenged them to make other text-to-text connections with other stories!
Happy, happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all enjoy time with your families!