We have only been in school for twenty two days, but your children are already kindergarten pros! They have settled into our classroom routine and clearly know the rules and what is expected of them. I am impressed with what a cohesive group of students this is: they seem to truly enjoy each other and our time spent together is full of learning and fun! This group gets compliments all over the school for their respectful and responsible behavior. They really are "stars!"
In literacy, we are hard at work learning early reading skills. We are practicing the habits of good readers, including using picture clues to tell stories to ourselves, building reading stamina, reading to self and reading with partners. Our Fundations work (phonics or word study) is focused on building the letter-sound relationship. We are learning two or three new letters/sounds each week. So far, we have learned t, b, f, n, m, i and u. We are learning to read some of the kindergarten sight words and have added the words I, a, the, and see to our word wall. Sight words (sometimes called high frequency words or trick words) are words that do not follow the typical sound patterns and cannot always be sounded out, but they are words that appear over and over in the emergent texts that we will be reading. We talk about learning to read these words "in a snap" to help us with our texts. Students have also been introduced to the first reading strategy we talk about in kindergarten: checking the pictures. We use the pictures to help figure out puzzling words and read what is in front of us. Check out these two videos of Eliza and Ruby using this strategy:
Can you believe they've only been in kindergarten for four weeks?!
In math, we recently completed our first unit about shapes. We are now focusing on patterns (recognizing, copying, and extending patterns, as well as creating patterns). We also are practicing numeral writing, number combinations to five, and using tens frames. Students are enjoying their time at math work places, a time when they get to practice the skills and concepts that they have been learning, in a small group format. In the coming weeks, I plan to do a more detailed blog post about math work places and what they looks like in kindergarten, so stay tuned! Below is the link to an online game that children could play at home to supplement the learning taking place in the classroom.
Writer's Workshop is perhaps the most beloved part of the day. I have taught the children that writers think of a story, draw the story, and then write the story. Writing in kindergarten can range from scribbles to represent the writing, to a string of letters, to beginning sounds, to full sentences. At this point, children are encouraged to write what they can. I am most interested in the story telling element of the writing process, and hope that students find a love for telling the stories that they come across in their lives. A common exclamation these days in our classroom is, "hey, you could write about that during Writer's Workshop!" I am thrilled to see these blossoming writers embrace this process! Here are a few examples of some of the great writing taking place during Writer's Workshop:
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| "I was on a mountain." |
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| "I went on the Ferris Wheel." |
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| "I got my pajamas on and watched 'Jake and the Neverland Pirates.'" |
Hopefully you saw the earlier post about our theme for the week: apples! If not, check it out here! We had so much fun with this unit, and the fun will continue next week, when we focus more on fall. In the coming weeks, we will also complete a unit on colors, as well as activities about pumpkins and Halloween.
I hope this information brings you up to date about the happenings in our classroom! I apologize for the LONG post! I will try to keep it short and sweet next time!
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