Half Way to FIRST Grade!

This one of my favorite times in Kinder. After a long break everyone comes back...older, and smarter, and mature, and more excited about learning!

We've been busy, busy with new things!

We started a unit on Motion in science.  The last couple weeks we've been exploring with magnets! Magnets are fun aren't they? Almost like magic!

We've been working REALLY hard on writing these last few weeks.  We are making sure we streeeeeeetch out our works so we can hear all the sounds - that makes spelling words correctly much easier! Another BIG goal is making sure we ONLY use capitals at the beginning of words (or when it's a name), making sure we always use periods, not forgetting our spaces, and USING GOOD HANDWRITING! (we need some extra work on this!!) This week we changed it up a bit and have been writing on dry erase boards instead of our Writer's Workshop Journals. 

We have also been reading books about snowmen and we made a GIANT one!

First, I asked them how to make a snowman and wrote what they told me in blue.

We re-read it and I drew a picture of 3 balls, a carrot, a hat, buttons, and a mouth on the board.  It DID NOT look like a snowman!! We discussed why and re-wrote our description to be a little clearer.  (some of that is written in orange) We are really trying to think about everything we write before and WHILE writing! After we got a better idea of how to make a snowman we...made one!

A BIG BIG ONE! Isn't he cute?? I really think this is the first snowman I've ever made!

Now we are working on writing exact details on how we made our snowman...

When we finish with that we will write snowman stories.  These will look great in the hallway around our massive snowman!
In math we've been reviewing skip counting. We're also working on ordering and filling in missing numbers by counting backwards and forwards. 

Oh, and we started something new! Sticker charts and they have been going over very well!  We earn stickers by listening, following directions, moving quickly and quietly from one activity to the next, working hard, helping others, even for doing really nice neat work! As soon as someone fills up their chart with stickers they will earn a treasure from my box.  When the whole class fills up a chart we will get an extra recess or PAT!

We have been reading like maniacs to get ready for the DRA2 which is coming up soon! Please READ, READ, READ at home!! Every little bit helps!!

Just a few words...

can make a sentance! (and build the confidence of those that "didn't think they could")

The past couple of days we have been working on the words I, can, see, the, and a.

(We always, always, always start sentances with a capital letter AND use spaces!!)

Then we put it to practice on our own...

Quiet little authors busy, busy...and behind those "offices" work like this is happening:

SO proud of Little Miss Claire for writing the word "cat" - /C/ is the first sound of her name, she had that down! Talan did a great job taking what we talked about and using it to make a sentance. He used a picture for the word "tree" he didn't know how to write but I know very soon he'll have the confidence to try and sound it out!! Great job Claire and Talan!

In math we're working on shapes...I have a few fun things up my sleeve! Stay tuned!

A little proof...

While I haven't had a free second to take pictures of students actually doing the work...I have taken a few pictures of the anchor charts we've been making together in class. These should give you a pretty good idea about what our morning look like right now. This year we are implementing the "Daily 5" in our classes. As it turns out I was basically doing this program all along the last 3 years, I just didn't know it was an actual "thing" teachers were doing, since it was something I just kind of started doing from the get-go without any real guidance, when I had no idea how to create a Kinder class my first year of teaching. (MAJOR run on sentance I just used...eek!) After reading up on it I changed my schedule a little and voila, we are officially a Daily 5 class!

Here's a little idea of how our mornings go....
Unpack, Morning Announcements

Sing our "good morning" songs (ask your kids to share!)

Go through the alpha chart daily like this:
"A says /a/ like apple" "B says /b/ like bear." etc.

(I will be sending home a copy of this very soon to practice!)

Read a story and fill out or discuss orally a chart like this:

Then we work on words. Many of us have earned a "ring of words" (which deserves a post of it's own in the near future, promise!) and others work together on letter recognition and letter sounds.

We've worked up to TWENTY minutes of independent work! WHOA BABY! :)

We then have a short lesson on whatever skill we are working on at the moment. Sounds, words, rhymes, etc. This usually includes working with a poem like this.

Then we grab our book baskets and read to ourselves for about 20 minutes.

We join back again and have some sort of short writing lesson like this:

Then we work on writing in our treasure books until it's time for lunch.

We also find time to throw in things like songs that get our wiggles out, a small activity here and there, and morning messages that will hopefully say this same thing every Monday...

GO TECH!!!

I only have about 901 things I want to add to our morning routine. The general schedule will remain the same but I will be changing things up as we go along.

Unlike your kindergartener who has built up stamina to work hard all day long, you are probably exhausted (or confused) just from reading all that!! I'm sure they'll be able to answer any questions you might have.

Peace!

**please excuse grammer and spelling...I was rushing! :)