It has been so great being able to meet with each of you and chat about your child’s successes! Thank you for your time and efforts in continuing to support our Kindergarten family! Room #7 is full of busy bees! The kiddos have been hard at work; keep reading to see some of the highlights!
We started a new unit in Math this week. During this unit, students are focusing on shapes – learning their names, understanding their attributes, and describing the differences among them. Students are also finding out about teen numbers as well as exploring the concepts of addition and subtraction.
- Teen Puzzles – The kiddos concentrated on putting together a variety of puzzles. On the bottom of each puzzle were the numbers 11-19. This station had the students recognizing those numerals and putting them in consecutive order! The pictures also helped them to check their sequencing!
- Mix It Up! – 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!
- Copy Cat – A class favorite! With a partner, the first person created a design using various pattern blocks. Then, the partner worked conscientiously to replicate the original creation! This act took a lot of concentration and attention to specific details!
- Fill the Cup – an oldie, but a goodie! – In this partner game, the mathematicians picked a cup they wanted to work with: big or medium. Next, taking turns, each cherub rolled a die and filled the cup with that many cubes. The partners continued until one of the cups was filled up to the top! Next, each person connected his/her cubes to make two individual trains. Finally, after lining the trains up, side by side, the partners used buddy lines to determine which train was longer and by how much! Terrific job, boys and girls!
- Shrinking Number Monster (with a twist!) - Another favorite, 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! This was tricky work that required a lot of thought!
- Give and Take – At this station, Mrs. Bellaire hid a specific number of cubes under a tub. Then, she lifted the tub and either added a cube (or two!) or took one (or two!) away! Next, the boys and girls wrote the numeral that represented the number of cubes under the tub. Finally, they counted to see if they were correct!
- Spin and Write Teen Numbers - Using a spinner with all of our teen numbers represented in 10-frame form, the kiddos spun, then practiced writing that number on their board. They always had to remember: “Numbers in the teens start with a ONE!”
As it is a new month, the kids created gorgeous, one-of-a-kind self-portraits using oil pastels. As usual, they concentrated on including all the features of their faces into their pictures. Many even included extra details by adding intricate and festive designs to their shirts. Come on by Room #7 to sneak a peek at the cherubs’ handiwork!
We have started a new unit in Writer’s Workshop: pattern books! The cherubs were thrilled to start this new unit and did an amazing job with it! One way to encourage the kids to write is to give them a purpose to compose by presenting to them the kinds of books they like to read - ones that are often predictable and follow a certain type of pattern. To begin, the class and I read a variety of these types of books, and the kids were quick to notice the patterns. They also remarked how the last page was always just a little bit different. The boys and girls picked several subjects on which to write: what dogs play with, themselves, their siblings, what he/she likes to play, animals, etc. I cannot express how engaged, involved, and excited they were to do this writing – it was incredibly refreshing! We will continue with pattern books for a few weeks!
We have also been talking about syllables in class! Wowza! Room #7 discussed how every word is made up of parts, or syllables. We figured out how we can discover how many syllables a word has by putting our hands underneath our chins to see how many times our chins move when we say the word. Next, we did a picture sort to see if the word had one, two, or three syllables! The kids did a fantastic job with this! We will continue our syllable finding with poems we read, morning message, and our Alphafriend songs! It’s a great game to play at home as well!
Room #7 is full of resilient learners! Last Friday, we read The Dot, by Peter Reynolds, an excellent, cute story with a profound message: instead of giving up, bounce back, and try again! The kiddos came up with an abundance of great self-talk to use when they are feeling defeated like, “I will try to get back to it,” and “I could add to it to make it better,” and “I can always try again!”. Awesome mindset, boys and girls!
Enjoy the weekend, everyone!