Saturday, October 10, 2015

Week in Review--Community Helpers


Math:
This week in math we practiced and I tested the students on counting. The goal for the beginning of the year (the first nine weeks) is counting to 25, as the year goes on each quarter goes up to 50, 75 and by the end of the year 100! We took silly pictures of each student this week and when they reach the goal of counting to 100, we will put their picture out in the hall with the other kindergarten Math Magicians!

We also learned a few new math apps this week that practiced missing number, number recognition, counting and skip counting! We are having so much fun learning with our iPads!

We introduced a second choice to Math Daily 3 this week, "Math with Someone". Our first activity in this choice is a math game called Shape Race. Students pull a card with a shape on it and count the number of sides and corners. They then can move their counter that many spaces on the game board!






















Writing:
This week in writing we learned our first writing goal "Draw pictures using shapes and lines." We will add several new goals over the next couple of weeks. This goal is important for students to learn how to add detail and illustrate a clear picture and take their time so they do not scribble scrabble over their pages and to help students vary their writings by changing the topic. Often times students stick with one or two pictures/ideas that they write about everyday. Sometimes they do this because their confidence level in writing and drawing about that topic is high, teaching students how they can illustrate any picture using shapes and lines helps students gain confidence in their writing! These goals help us become better writers. As we learn and work through each goal and I meet with individual students during writing conferences, we  will decide on specific goals each student might need to focus on specifically to help them become a better writer.














Reading:
This week in reading was all about the SETTING in a story. I failed to get any pictures of our lessons focusing on the setting (so sorry) but we really enjoyed learning about how a setting can stay the same throughout a story but it can also change from page to page or from the beginning to the middle and the end! We learned that the setting is where the characters ARE in the story. Last week was all about characters, so this fit perfectly to come next in our journey to become better readers!

We also finished up focusing specifically on beginning and ending sounds in words and started to listen to the middle sounds we hear! We will continue to focus on all the sounds we hear, specifically the middle sounds into next week!












Content:
We learned all about our community, types of communities and community helpers this week. We were excited to have THREE community helpers visit our kindergarten classes to tell us about their jobs, why they chose their jobs and what they had to do to get their job. We learned one of the most important reasons they chose their job was because they love helping others! Thank you to the flight nurse, police officer and fire fighter for coming to our school this week!

We shared pictures of what we want to be when we grow up and I just love hearing what each student wants to be! We have a class full of teachers, doctors, nurses, police officers race car drivers, ballerinas and more! I hope and dream each of these kids becomes what they hope to become!























































Extra:
We were excited to cheer our favorite baseball team the Chicago Cubs on to a Wildcard victory this week! We are ready to take on the St. Louis Cardinals in the next series! Lets Go Cubs!


PRACTICE AT HOME:
Recognizing numbers, specifically 11-20. Numbers are EVERYwhere! Whenever you see or hear a number in the teens, ask your child what number it is or what that number looks like. The more exposure they have to numbers all around us, the quicker they will learn them!
 

Next Week:
  • In reading we will learn the CAFE strategy "Text Features".
  • In writing we will learn how to write two sentences using sight words.
  • In math we will focus on numbers in the teens!
  • Our theme next week is all about FIRE SAFETY!

Important Dates/Information:

  • 10/9 End of First 9 Weeks
  • 10/13 Pink Walrus Night
  • 10/19-10/22 Parent/Teacher Conferences
  • 10/22- First Nine Week's Awards Program
  • 10/30-Grandparent's Day 10-11AM