Kindergarten Happenings

This class is amazing!  We have received multiple compliments this week at lunch, during specials and working in our own class.  To top it off our marble jar is just about full!  The kids are so excited and can't wait for the last marble to fill the jar.  I predict if we continue doing the great things we have done so far it won't be very long!  I have a few pictures from Friday and then this weeks activities.  I hope you enjoy the pictures! 

 Strengthening our finger muscles with tongs and rice.  Cate is working to fish out the beads.  Afterwards she sorted the beads by color and we asked some math questions.  What beads have more / less / same?  How many more / less? etc.

 Popcorn numbers, counting, matching & identifying.

 Writing activity to add to our "All about me" binder.  

 Norah celebrated her 6th birthday last week!  She was very excited to wear her hat and have us sing to her.  We hope she had a fabulous day!  

 This week at choice time! 

 A little housekeeping time.  Using our imaginations, creativity and social skills.  

 Game time ~ fishing

 Shopkins working on taking turns.

 Frogger ~ looks like that was a close one!! I know they were able to get at least one in.  A difficult task but they gave it their best effort and had fun doing so! 

 Exploring kinetic sand

 The favorite game of the week was "Don't Break the Ice".  The kids did a great job taking turns and got so excited when the ice was getting thin!  

They were laughing and squealing during each game!  It was so great to see & hear!!

 This week we continued to practice Daily Five. We were so excited to reach 8 minutes of independent reading time during Read to Self.  They did an amazing job!  

We then learned about another Daily Five called Word Work.  Word Work includes activities to help us become better readers, writers and spellers.  Three activities we practiced were alphabet arc, which I explained last week, hole punching letters and wikki sticks.  The children did a wonderful job!  I am so proud of their hard work!  

 Wikki sticks may have been a favorite.  They enjoyed making lettters, their names and sight words with the pieces of wikki sticks.  

 Movement-  They love Heidi Songs numbers & shapes.  I can't wait to see their reaction when I introduce them to some of the other movement breaks we will use.  

 More math practice.  Aviva sequenced the cookies and matched numbers and quantities. 

 Watermelon seeds and counting.  It also doubles as a fine motor activity to strengthen our fingers by pinching the small clothes pins.  

 Number 8 can be a litte tricky to make!  Start with and S and close the gate, that's how you make the number 8!  Josie is showing off her perfect 8!  She worked really hard and didn't give up!  

 Picture Day!  "We are never fully dressed without a SMILE!"  The children bought their smiles today! 

 Another fine motor activity.  We are building stamina and finger muscles by pinching broken crayons and filling tiny circles.  This works on pinching writing utensils correctly and strengthens our upper bodies.  We practice making small circles rather than back and forth or up and down strokes.  This will also help to build control and filling in the white space. 

As you can see it was another busy and successful week!  Please don't forget about the family photo page.  The children really do enjoy looking at the family book and sharing about the important people in their life.  I have received a handful of people interested in being a mystery reader.  I will check on Cori's and then send out an email so we can select some dates.  I know the children will be super excited about this!  I hope you all have a fabulous fall weekend!!  

Kindergarten Happenings!

What a week!!  The children have been working really hard and trying their best.  We have been very busy learning about rhyming, syllables and word awareness in sentences. These concepts will be practiced and reinforced the entire year.  Some of the children are grasping it more easily than others, but that is expected.  We will differentiate along the way to help those who need a little more support and to challenge the other students.  In math we have been focusing on numbers to 5.  This includes writing, counting, recognizing and showing different ways to make numbers.  A huge concept that was introduced was whole & parts.  For example taking the number 5, which would be the whole, and breaking it into different parts (2 and 3, 4 and 1, 0 and 5).  We will continue to work with this concept, as well as, the concepts of equal, greater than and less than.  Here are some pictures from our week!  

 Throughout the week, we worked with 2 - 3 children at a time, to show them the correct formation of letters when writing their names.  Many of the children write their names using capital letters, which is great!  We are just beginning to show them how to write using an upper case and lower case letters properly.  In time this will be the expectation so we like to take baby steps and start trying.  Way to work hard and concentrate boys and girls! 

 Matching upper and lower case letters of the alphabet. 

 Alphabet arc ~ There are so many ways to use this fabulous tool.  Mrs. Fallon worked with small groups on letter matching, saying the alphabet correctly, and identifying letters & sounds. She then challenged some students by giving them a picture and seeing if they could hear the sounds in the word (not to identify letter/sounds) but to hear the number of sounds.  

For example, when given the word bus.  She would say slowly.    B - U- S and using chips to represent 3 sounds heard.  

 Mr. Flournoy came in to work number concepts.  Seeing & understanding 

numbers can be shown in different ways and arrangements,  

 Working on a number book.  

 Ipads ~ The top picture the children are using the Handwriting without Tears ap to practice number formation.  The bottom picture shows students using the show me ap to practice numbers, showing quantities and identifying which is greater & less. 

 CHOICE TIME

 Puppet Theater is open! Using our imaginations to put on a show.  

Practicing being a respectful audience.  

 Playing with the princesses! Another creative thinking activity! 

 Zingo game where we can practice sharing and taking turns.  

 Glitter bug - germ lesson.  Mrs. Amaral came and read us a story about germs.  Afterwards we got to put some special glitter lotion on and look under a special light.  We saw GERMS!!  Then we washed our hands and looked again to see how most of the germs washed away!  

 Comparing numbers with Mr. Flournoy.  

 Thank you Mrs. Lee & Mrs. Coleman for decorating our school doors!  What a wonderful, welcoming sight.  It puts a smile on my face each morning! We are lucky to have such wonderful parents in our school!  

 A little time with books.  

 Practicing Read to Self, one of our Daily Five activities.  

We were able to build our stamina to 5 minutes!!!

 Ways to make 5!  Using chips and then showing the different ways with our hands as well.  

 Popcorn - matching quantities & numbers.  

 Upper and lowercase letter matching. 

 Ways to make 5.

 A game of headbandz.  

 Another great puppet show.

A chance to use the computers.  

As you can see we had a very productive and busy week!  Keep up the terrific work boys and girls!!  

Have a wonderful weekend!