Friday, August 28, 2015

Week in Review--ABCs and Names


Reading:

Our poem of the week went perfectly with our theme of ABC’s and Class Names. Our poem was the ABC’s with a little twist at the end! Watch the video below to see the poem performance!



We began a new choice this week during our Daily 5/CAFÉ reading block. We have built our reading stamina to around a consistent 15 minute stretch for several days in a row, that we were ready to learn the new choice…WORK ON WRITING! This choice has the students taking and examining a book from their book box and finding a picture from that book to write and draw a response. Students find a selection from a book of their choice from their book box and write the title of the book, draw a response or the same picture they see in the book and write either by adding labels to the picture, writing the word or words they see on the page on their paper or writing a response about their thoughts of feelings about that particular section of the book. The students have absolutely LOVED getting to do this activity this week and have built up enough stamina that I was able to meet and work with students on letters and with books this week! Woo Hoo! Next week, we will learn the third choice…WORD WORK!



























































Writing:

In writing this week we focused on the letters Dd, Cc, Ee, Ff and Gg. Each day we had something fun to look forward to working on once we completed the handwriting practice page. For Dd day, we made necklaces out of the both the upper case and lower case letter Dd and decorated the letter with DOTS! For the letter Cc we used our dry erase boards to practice writing letters of the alphabet. The letter Ee day we made a puppet with our Zoo Phonics animal Ellie the Elephant! On the Ff day we painted an upper case and a lower case letter Ff by using a feather as our paintbrush! And finally on Friday, we colored a picture of a goldfish for the letter Gg while enjoying a tasty snack of Goldfish crackers! We are having so much fun learning the letters of the alphabet!























































Content:

This week with our content, we focused on the ABC’s and our Class Names. We practiced the sounds of all of the letters of the alphabet, read alphabet books and completed several activities with our names. At the beginning of the week, we counted the letters in our names and put them under the correct number to see which we had the most of and then we placed our names on our word wall, along with our two sight words “I” and “like”. We then moved on to writing our names, ripping paper (yes I said ripping paper, not only is ripping paper fun but it also helps build the fine motor skills that young writers need to correctly grip writing tools to write a draw. So fun!) and gluing it on their name and finished the week off by putting the letters of our name up the coconut tree just like the letters in one of our favorite books Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!








































Math:

This week in math it’s been all about shapes! We focus on five main shapes in kindergarten, square, rectangle, triangle, circle and hexagon. At first, we only practice recognizing the shapes and we move on to knowing the number of sides and corners and being able to describe the shape using that vocabulary. Our final practice with shapes comes when we practice drawing the shapes. The hexagon seems to be the most challenging, any work you can do on practicing those shapes ahead of time will be helpful! In learning about our shapes this week we traced them with math tools, went on a shape hunt around our room, made shapes out of Play-doh and painted shapes! We love shapes and are excited to continue learning about each of the five shapes next week!
































































































Extra Fun:

I joined the students for part of their gym class this week and had so much fun watching them learn and play! Below are a few videos taken during this time. Again, have I mentioned how much fun we have in kindergarten?















Next Week:

In reading we will begin focusing on print concepts of a book and beginning sounds.

In writing we will continue with 5 more letters of the alphabet!

In math we will continue working with our shapes and focus on the sides and corners.

Our theme next week is FAMILY. Please send in a picture of your child’s family with him/her to school on Monday. We will share these every day during our content time.
 

Important Dates/Information:
  • 9/7 Labor Day NO SCHOOL
  • 9/16 School Pictures
  • 9/30 Field Trip to Exploration Acres (more info to come)
  • 10/9 End of First 9 Weeks
  • 10/19-10/22 Parent/Teacher Conferences