We have been so, so busy in Kindergarten!! To start, our elf on the shelf arrived! She brought a Christmas tree and we named her Snowflake. Santa will really be watching us in school! :)
We have been learning so much over the last few months. From new star words to learning all about numbers and counting, we know so much more than we did 54 days ago!! We have been focusing a lot on learning about story elements and how to retell a story. To do this, we've been using fairy tales. So far, we've read Goldilocks, The Three Little Pigs, and this week we're reading The Gingerbread Man. We are also learning how to decode unknown words when we are reading. We have fun strategies to help us remember. The first two we have learned are lips the fish (sound out the first letter of the word) and eagle eye (look at the picture). Everyone is working hard on learning how to read our emergent level texts.
We've learned all about living and non living things and the life cycle of a plant and animal in Science. We have also learned about special holidays and are working on understanding what responsibilities are and what our responsibilities are in Kindergarten during Social Studies.
In Math, we just completed a unit on counting and measuring. We are now focusing on numbers and proper number formation. Please practice writing numbers at home!!
As you can see, we've been busy and that's only half of it. I look forward to speaking with you at conference time. :)
I promise to update you more often on here! I'm embarrassed about how long it took me to update this!! Too much planning for your child's fun days in school...lol!
Monday, December 2, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
First Two Weeks
We have survived the first two weeks of Kindergarten! It is exhausting (for everyone) but we have had so much fun getting to know one another, learning all about our routine and classroom, and establishing our little "family" in Room 2.
We have been learning how to build stamina while reading. I explained that stamina is being able to do something for a long period of time without getting tired or giving up. Right now, we can read for 2 minutes straight. I know most of you are probably thinking, "These little ones are only in Kindergarten and you are already making them read?!?" To begin our building stamina lesson, we talked about the 3 ways to read. We learned that you can read the pictures, read the words, or retell the story (usually with a familiar text that they have read often). It is amazing what these Kindergarteners can do! Here are some pictures of us building stamina in our classroom.
This week we also began our Daily 5 Literacy Centers (it is a program adapted from the book The Daily Five). We work on various literacy activities during this time. We try to rotate to 3 centers each day, which means by the end of the week the kids have visited each of the 6 centers twice.
In Read to Someone this week, the class read the weekly poem with their group members and put the poem in their poetry journal. They also read a sight word story and highlighted our star words in the book.
In our Listen to Reading center, the class listened to a book and drew their favorite part from the book. This week they listened to Kindergarten Rocks! and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.
In the Work on Writing center, the class read and wrote words from around the room. They will be working on this center for a little bit before moving into more intense writing activities.
In the Read to Self center, the kids worked on ABC games on the iPads and they also worked on matching uppercase and lowercase letters. this center will change to reading books that are on their reading level when we build our stamina and I assess each child's reading level using the DRA assessment.
In the Word Work #1 center, the class put the letters of the alphabet in order.
In the Word Work #2 center, the class worked on writing, stamping, and tracing their first names. This is something that we will be working on in class until each student can write their name using an uppercase at the beginning and the rest lowercase letters. It would be great if you had your child practice writing their name at home as well!
In Math this week, we began learning about sorting. We will be sorting by color, shape, and size. You can practice sorting at home all you want! Have your child sort the laundry, food, or anything else you can find around the house. The kids have practiced sorting using various manipulatives in our classroom, like rubber farm animals, rubber vehicles, and buttons.
Kindergarten is so much fun and I am looking forward to all of you visiting our classroom on Monday for Back to School Night!
We have been learning how to build stamina while reading. I explained that stamina is being able to do something for a long period of time without getting tired or giving up. Right now, we can read for 2 minutes straight. I know most of you are probably thinking, "These little ones are only in Kindergarten and you are already making them read?!?" To begin our building stamina lesson, we talked about the 3 ways to read. We learned that you can read the pictures, read the words, or retell the story (usually with a familiar text that they have read often). It is amazing what these Kindergarteners can do! Here are some pictures of us building stamina in our classroom.
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| Each child gets to pick a cozy spot in the classroom! |
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| The key is to read the whole time! |
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| Each child has his or her own book box filled with "just right" books! |
In Read to Someone this week, the class read the weekly poem with their group members and put the poem in their poetry journal. They also read a sight word story and highlighted our star words in the book.
In our Listen to Reading center, the class listened to a book and drew their favorite part from the book. This week they listened to Kindergarten Rocks! and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.
In the Work on Writing center, the class read and wrote words from around the room. They will be working on this center for a little bit before moving into more intense writing activities.
In the Read to Self center, the kids worked on ABC games on the iPads and they also worked on matching uppercase and lowercase letters. this center will change to reading books that are on their reading level when we build our stamina and I assess each child's reading level using the DRA assessment.
In the Word Work #1 center, the class put the letters of the alphabet in order.
In the Word Work #2 center, the class worked on writing, stamping, and tracing their first names. This is something that we will be working on in class until each student can write their name using an uppercase at the beginning and the rest lowercase letters. It would be great if you had your child practice writing their name at home as well!
In Math this week, we began learning about sorting. We will be sorting by color, shape, and size. You can practice sorting at home all you want! Have your child sort the laundry, food, or anything else you can find around the house. The kids have practiced sorting using various manipulatives in our classroom, like rubber farm animals, rubber vehicles, and buttons.
Kindergarten is so much fun and I am looking forward to all of you visiting our classroom on Monday for Back to School Night!
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Back to School 2013-2014
I love this time of year. I love walking through the store and seeing all the new school supplies. It gives me feelings of excitement and a little nervousness for the new school year. Although I am sad to see summer go, I am truly excited to see what this new year will bring. I can't wait to meet my new students and form a family this year in Room 2. We will have so much fun and we will learn so much during this new school year.
To all of my new students and their families, have an awesome end of summer and I will see you at Kindergarten Orientation on September 4th at 1:30! In the meantime, I will be very busy putting our classroom together for all of the fun times we will have this year (and maybe be visiting the beach a few more times before the summer is over).
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Long Overdue
We have been having a great time in Kindergarten! I can't believe it is almost the end of the year and all of our kiddies are moving on to first grade! We have been preparing for first grade by trying to write big kid sentences and work a little more quietly. We are also reading more independently. It is tough to get ready to be a first grader! We have also been getting ready for our Kindergarten show. We are doing a Salute to Summer. I know we are probably all so excited to get back to the beach this summer, especially after the storm!
We have been learning a lot about the farm over the last few weeks. We are learning all about the different animals and what they do on the farm and what they give us. We have been learning lots of information from nonfiction texts. We learned that a nonfiction text gives us lots of facts and information about a subject. We have also been working on making connections while we read and retelling a story. We have been learning all about how to read and write CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant). We also learned about words with the th, wh, sh, and ch sounds as well as compound words. There is a lot to learn about words and sounds. One main thing that we learned as Kindergarteners....the English language can be very confusing!
In Math, we learned about how to measure objects, using various methods. We used snap cubes and paper clips to measure length, a scale to measure weight, and we also used objects in our room to measure capacity. We have now moved on to counting tens and ones. We do this every day in our morning meeting, so counting by ten and separating numbers by tens and ones will be familiar to the students.
We also learned a lot in Science. We learned about the life cycle of a butterfly (thanks to Mrs. Grasso for the butterflies). We also learned about the life cycle of a plant. We planted lima bean seeds and put them in the window in our sprout house that we made (a Ziploc bag). Then we watched how they changed and grew. It was amazing to see how some grew very well and how some of them just shriveled up and grew moldy. We have had so much fun!
We have been learning a lot about the farm over the last few weeks. We are learning all about the different animals and what they do on the farm and what they give us. We have been learning lots of information from nonfiction texts. We learned that a nonfiction text gives us lots of facts and information about a subject. We have also been working on making connections while we read and retelling a story. We have been learning all about how to read and write CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant). We also learned about words with the th, wh, sh, and ch sounds as well as compound words. There is a lot to learn about words and sounds. One main thing that we learned as Kindergarteners....the English language can be very confusing!
In Math, we learned about how to measure objects, using various methods. We used snap cubes and paper clips to measure length, a scale to measure weight, and we also used objects in our room to measure capacity. We have now moved on to counting tens and ones. We do this every day in our morning meeting, so counting by ten and separating numbers by tens and ones will be familiar to the students.
We also learned a lot in Science. We learned about the life cycle of a butterfly (thanks to Mrs. Grasso for the butterflies). We also learned about the life cycle of a plant. We planted lima bean seeds and put them in the window in our sprout house that we made (a Ziploc bag). Then we watched how they changed and grew. It was amazing to see how some grew very well and how some of them just shriveled up and grew moldy. We have had so much fun!
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
April Fun!
We had a great first week back after our much needed spring break! We read one of my all time favorite books this week. It is called We're Going on a Bear Hunt. I remember reading this story when I was in second grade and I always loved it! I just knew that the class would love this story as well. We read the story, listened to the author read the story on You Tube, and we also retold the story as a class using picture cards. The best thing about this story is that the whole class gets to participate when we are reading it aloud. It was so much fun!
Then we read a story called We're Going on a Lion Hunt next. We made text to text connections while we were reading. We realized what things were the same and what things were different about the stories.
During center time this week we worked very hard. We listened to We're Going on a Bear Hunt and we wrote and drew about our favorite part. In the Word Work center, we put our star words in ABC order. Then we did a star word sentence activity using dry erase markers. Everyone LOVES dry erase markers! In the Creation Center, we made a flower pot of flowers for spring. In the Writing center, we had to write two sentences about things we like to do in the spring. In the Phonics center, we did a vowel activity. We had to look at the pictures on the card and figure out what vowel sound was in the middle. Then we had to write the word. In the Poetry center, we read and put together our spring poem. In Read and Write Around the Room we found words that began with the letters of the word SPRINGTIME. In the Reading center, we read our books in our bags. At that time, Mrs. Aiello likes to come and read one on one with all of the kids.
In Math this week, we focused on subtraction. We did subtraction stories and had to draw and write the subtraction sentence. Then we focused on how to figure out when you need to add and when you need to subtract. We did this activity on our white boards. I gave out a story problem, then the class had to draw it and figure out whether we are supposed to subtract or add. Then this week we learned about figuring out how many tens and ones are in a number. We also did really well with this skill!
Mrs. Grasso gave us an awesome butterfly garden and really cool caterpillars. We are going to watch them grow and then release them when they turn into butterflies! Everyone was so excited about that.
On Friday this week, we had a little celebration for our friend Blaise who is moving. We gave him a puppy, just like our friend Buddy that goes home with our star of the week. We are going to miss him so much, but we know you are going to love your new school and meet lots of new friends! Good Luck and we will all miss you!
Here are some pictures from the week!
Then we read a story called We're Going on a Lion Hunt next. We made text to text connections while we were reading. We realized what things were the same and what things were different about the stories.
During center time this week we worked very hard. We listened to We're Going on a Bear Hunt and we wrote and drew about our favorite part. In the Word Work center, we put our star words in ABC order. Then we did a star word sentence activity using dry erase markers. Everyone LOVES dry erase markers! In the Creation Center, we made a flower pot of flowers for spring. In the Writing center, we had to write two sentences about things we like to do in the spring. In the Phonics center, we did a vowel activity. We had to look at the pictures on the card and figure out what vowel sound was in the middle. Then we had to write the word. In the Poetry center, we read and put together our spring poem. In Read and Write Around the Room we found words that began with the letters of the word SPRINGTIME. In the Reading center, we read our books in our bags. At that time, Mrs. Aiello likes to come and read one on one with all of the kids.
In Math this week, we focused on subtraction. We did subtraction stories and had to draw and write the subtraction sentence. Then we focused on how to figure out when you need to add and when you need to subtract. We did this activity on our white boards. I gave out a story problem, then the class had to draw it and figure out whether we are supposed to subtract or add. Then this week we learned about figuring out how many tens and ones are in a number. We also did really well with this skill!
Mrs. Grasso gave us an awesome butterfly garden and really cool caterpillars. We are going to watch them grow and then release them when they turn into butterflies! Everyone was so excited about that.
On Friday this week, we had a little celebration for our friend Blaise who is moving. We gave him a puppy, just like our friend Buddy that goes home with our star of the week. We are going to miss him so much, but we know you are going to love your new school and meet lots of new friends! Good Luck and we will all miss you!
Here are some pictures from the week!
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| Flower Pot Craft |
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| We're Going on a Bear Hunt Listening Center |
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| Spring Fun Writing Center |
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| Spring Poetry Center |
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| Star Word ABC order (Word Work Center) |
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| Phonics Center |
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| Learning About tens and ones in Math |
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| Some of our friends reading in the Reading Center- They are reading from their own personal bag of books! |
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| Subtraction Stamp Book for Math |
Thursday, April 4, 2013
March Updates
In honor of Dr. Seuss, we did lots of Dr. Seuss centers and activities. We played a fun Math game that helped us practice our addition facts. It was called Fish out of Water. It was so much fun and we got to play with a partner, which was even more fun! We made Thing One and wrote a rhyming sentence on his belly. Then we wrote all about what we would like to do in the rain (in honor of Cat in the Hat). Hopefully the Cat in the Hat does not visit any of our houses! :) We also played a game that helped us make real words and nonsense words with the -ing ending. That was tricky for some of our friends, but it was fun!
Then to top it all off, we got to go see Seussical at Middletown North High School! That was so much fun!!! It was a first bus trip for some of our friends. The show was great and I even got to see some of my former students perform! Hopefully, I will see some of our friends in this class performing at North someday!
Here are some photos from our Dr. Seuss week:
More to come this week.....
Then to top it all off, we got to go see Seussical at Middletown North High School! That was so much fun!!! It was a first bus trip for some of our friends. The show was great and I even got to see some of my former students perform! Hopefully, I will see some of our friends in this class performing at North someday!
Here are some photos from our Dr. Seuss week:
We made some fun things and worked in some fun St. Patrick's Day centers. We also built Leprechaun traps in March also! We didn't catch a leprechaun this year, but boy did we have fun trying! The leprechaun named Lucky left all of us colorful, glittery rainbow colored crayons! We were so excited for the crayons, but also a little bummed that we didn't catch Lucky this year! Maybe next year....
Here are some of our traps and some pictures of our centers:
Then we worked on some Easter and spring centers the next week. We began working on subtraction in Math. We also made ramps in our balls and ramps unit in Science. When we made our ramps, we put things at the end of the ramp to see if we could knock it down. We learned that the higher the ramp, the faster the ball goes, and then it knocks the object down a little easier. It was so much fun!
We learned all about the sh, th, ch, and wh sounds for Phonics. We also played a life size board game using our star words. We made an adorable bunny and wrote about what we would do with a pet bunny. In Reading, we are still focusing on our reading strategies. We are learning what to do when we come to a word we do not know. We love being word detectives! We are also focusing on making connections when we read, visualizing (making pictures in our mind) while reading, and also retelling a story using details and character names. We are very busy Kindergarteners!
Here are some pictures from the week before spring break:
More to come this week.....
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Valentines, Presidents, 100th Day, and Dr. Seuss,Oh My!
We have had a very busy few weeks in Kindergarten. We had a very fun Valentine's Day filled with lots of love, friendship, and valentine cards. The kids got to pass out their valentines and we made a scrapbook filled with all of the cards we received. It was lots of fun! Here are some examples from our Valentine week.
We were lucky enough to earn the Reading Minutes Challenge for grades K-2 in January! We got a trophy to keep in our classroom for the month. Keep reading! I am so proud of all of our readers!
We celebrated our Presidents and the 100th Day in Kindergarten as well! We learned all about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. We compared and contrasted them and made our own president portraits. Here is a picture of our portraits:
We read The Lorax and some other Dr. Seuss books. We even got to listen to Justin Beiber read The Cat in the Hat on YouTube! It was great. Then we made the truffula trees and the Lorax picture. Then we got to watch The Lorax with our Kindergarten friends and our stuffed animal friends. It was a fun day!
We have been working very hard in addition to all of the fun things that have been happening. In Math, we have been working on adding numbers together. Soon we will be focusing on subtraction. In Reading, we have been learning about those reading strategies I talked about in my last post. Then we have been learning new star words, and we have also been focusing on CVC (consonant, vowel, consonant) words. We have also been learning all about the sh, th, ch, and wh sounds. We will be working on sorting words as the weeks progress. We have been having lots of fun and have been learning so much over the past few weeks.
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| Thanks to Pinterest for this great idea for a candy free Valentine! |
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| The kids listened to Happy Valentine's Day, Mouse! in the Listening Center |
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| We worked on the ch, sh, and th sounds in the Phonics Center! |
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| I'm bananas for you craft |
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| The kids unscrambles star words and wrote them in the correct place in the Work Work Center |
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| An example of a Valentine scrapbook |
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| A Valentine scrapbook |
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| Our Reading Minutes Challenge trophy |
For the 100th Day, we all dressed up like we were 100 years old. It was so stinking cute! The boys and girls got really into it! We got to do a lot of fun 100th day activities, such as writing our name as many times as we could in 100 seconds, we made a portrait of what we would look like when we are 100, and we also made 5 huge murals together in groups. Here are some pictures:
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| 100 pizza toppings |
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| 100 gumballs |
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| 100 polka dots on a mitten |
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| 100 apples on an apple tree |
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| 100 sprinkles on a cookie |
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| We are 100 years old! |
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| Counting by 10 with ice cream scoops |
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| 100 year old portraits |
Last but not least, we celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday. We got to wear our pajamas and we had a publishing celebration in writing workshop. We got to read our stories with a partner from Mrs. Massell's Kindergarten class. It was so much fun!
We read The Lorax and some other Dr. Seuss books. We even got to listen to Justin Beiber read The Cat in the Hat on YouTube! It was great. Then we made the truffula trees and the Lorax picture. Then we got to watch The Lorax with our Kindergarten friends and our stuffed animal friends. It was a fun day!
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| Ms. Amanda as Cindy Lou Who |
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| The Lorax picture |
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| Watching Justin Beiber read The Cat in the Hat |
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