Week in Review--Holiday Fun

Math:
Math this week focused in on addition and using number bonds to help us with breaking numbers apart and making addition problems. We have practiced number bonds whole group and now are practicing with partners at math with someone. They roll the dice, write the number in the top of the number bond, use math tools to help break the number apart and then write the problem in an addition sentence. After testing students this past week for the report card, they are learning their addition facts quickly! So very proud of them!

Students are continuing to add at least two entries every week into their math journals in the Book Creator app on the iPad. One of the additions we have added to our number of the day journal entry is to add the number bond that goes with the number!

 

Hour of Code

This week we participated in a global initiative called the "Hour of Code'. This initiative is based on teaching students about computer science at all ages. We learned what computer science is, how it is used to create games, websites, apps and more. Students all over the country, the world and even the Tippecanoe School Corporation participated in one hour of coding practice sometime this week.

 

In our one hour of code, we started off by practicing saying commands and coding by playing a game called "Harold the Robot". I put out a group of blocks and had the students give me commands to build something out of the blocks. If the command was not specific or too confusing I would "shut down" and put my head in my hands or I would do something that was not what they intended. We learned to use commands such as "rewind, delete, start over and finished" in order to help the robot do what we wanted. They practiced by describing objects using shape terms and positional terms in order to better command the robot how to build the finished product. It was a challenge at first, but the students got the hand of it!

 

After practicing commands with Harold the Robot, we moved to coding a game with our iPads. We played a game called "The Foos". We had several other games that we were hoping to get to but had so much fun with this game, we didn't get to those during this coding session, but plan to have more coding days and we will get to those! The class had so much fun being challenged and overcoming obstacles to move to the next level. I have videos below of the students in action and another video that showcases a few students at the end explaining their thinking process throughout the coding experience. The pure joy from successful codes was enough happiness to last a lifetime in these kindergarten students faces. Computer science is a huge part of our daily lives and I am so proud of these students for taking this challenge, all while having fun too!

 

Want to have your child practice coding at home? Go to this website to practice coding with The Foos like we did in class or click on the picture of the app to download it on your smart phone or iPad.

  Each student received a certificate after completing the Hour of Code! They were so excited and proud...as was I!

The entire hour put together!



Reading:

Our word family this week was the -op word family. We not only practiced with these words individually, but we also heard, read and wrote several of them throughout the day with stories and during writing time! We also had fun this week turning ourselves into elves. For morning work and during a few daily five rounds, we scanned a QR code that took them to a video where we were all changed into elves! After watching and laughing with all of the videos, we wrote a sentence or two about the videos. They could write anything they wanted and their reflections after viewing the videos were pretty funny!





















Content:
The holidays are filled with special days and memories spent with family and friends. This week we had one of my favorite days in kindergarten. This special day is called "Ornament Day". Families share their ideas, talents and time with our class and create one of a kind ornaments with each student. Students go around to the different ornament stations and at the end of the day they leave with 5-6 and sometimes 7 new ornaments to take home! I am always impressed with the creativity my parents bring to this special day and I even more love to see the interaction and watching families and students coming together to create! Watch the movie below to see several pictures taken from this special day!

 

PRACTICE AT HOME:

Talk about words we have learned in our word families. We have learned the -at, -ot,-an and -op word families. Have your child brainstorm words in these families, write them, build them with magnetic letters, play-doh or even write them in sentences. Talk about how they are rhyming words when they are in the same family and end in the same sound!

 

Next Week:

• In reading we will review word families, sight words and several reading strategies.
• In writing we will be writing holiday themed writing as well as continuing with true stories and a few free writes.
• In math we will focus on number recognition, counting and drawing shapes!
• Our theme next week is all about the HOLIDAYS!
• Don't forget to send in one NEW WRAPPED book for our book exchange!

Important Dates/Information:

• 12/15-Grinch Day
• 12/18-Polar Express, Book Exchange and Pajama Day
• 12/16-Christmas Program. Students arrive at McCutcheon High School no later than 6:30 and the show begins at 7:00
• 12/18-End of 2nd Nine Weeks

Week in Review-Gingerbread

Reading:

This week in reading we focused on comparing and contrasting our gingerbread books. We read books about the gingerbread man, boy, girl, baby, friends and even pirates! It was exciting to see which books had similar characters, settings and problems. A few of the books the gingerbread man was not able to out trick the fox and others he/she was saved! Some books also did not have a fox as the bad guy, there was one book that Santa almost ate the cookies! Luckily they were able to talk him out of it ;). We had so much fun finding things that were the same and different between all of the books we read. We also took characters and compared and contrasted those as well!

During our vocabulary review lesson this week, we took three of our words, wrote and illustrated using the app DoodleBuddy to show our understanding of the word.

Writing:

Writing this week focused on fixing, correcting and editing our own writing. We learned how we can check our writing for mistakes and errors. The first way we can see if something needs to be fixed is by seeing if our writing is easy or hard to read. If it is hard to read, we know that we need to fix something. A few things we practiced fixing were spacing, spelling sight words correctly, making sure we write all of the sounds we hear in a word correctly without adding any letters that we don’t hear and being sure to finish the sentences completely without leaving any words out. Teaching children how to edit their writing helps them become independent thinkers both before, during and after writing.

Below you will see examples from a book I wrote and had students help me correct. The first page I wrote all of the words together with no spacing. We practiced erasing our mistake reaaaaally good and then rewriting with meatball and noodle spaces. On the second page, I misspelled all of my sight words and did not finish my last sentence. On the final page, I left off beginning, middle or ending sounds of unknown words and I forgot to draw my picture! The pictures below are of the finished book after the class helped me with my corrections.

Math:

This week in math was filled with several different topics. We practiced sorting objects by shape, color and size, as well as drawing 2D shapes! We have a new choice at math by myself where we practice these shapes. In a few weeks, we will have another choice where students take shapes and create a picture and then draw that picture they created on a paper.

Our math vocabulary word this week was the word "add". Students wrote everything they know about the word in their journals. They wrote addition sentences using numbers and pictures, as well as writing the word and the definition.









Content:

Oh where, oh where is our gingerbread man! What fun this week learning, reading, playing, chasing and eating gingerbread cookies. We finished our week off by going on a gingerbread hunt around the school finding clues in different parts of the building. Each clue had a QR code attached to it that linked to a video where the gingerbread man told us another clue to try and find him. In the end, he gave us a book to read back in our classroom where he had left us some delicious cookies to eat!

Another fun activity we did this week was use an app where we learned how to roll out dough, cut the cookie, bake and decorate a gingerbread cookie. After decorating we saved the picture of our cookie and then put it into the app ChatterKid and recorded ourselves saying if we were a gingerbread man what we would want to run away from. They were so cute! I posted a few of the videos on the blog.

Our Elf on the Shelf arrived this week! We named him "Jingle" and he has been up to all kinds of things! One day we came in and he knocked off all of our lunch and behavior clips! That silly elf!

Extra:

As a school wide behavior celebration, students kindergarten through fifth grade went to Purdue University to see the Christmas Show. The students were absolutely wonderful and the show was a blast. I hope they came home telling you how the evil queen from the South Pole tried to steal Christmas away from Santa, but in the end he was freed and Christmas was back on! Thank you to the chaperones who were able to attend with the class!

PRACTICE AT HOME:

Have your child create numbers bonds for you at home. Give them a number 1-10, have them draw that many shapes, take a line in between and count how many are on one side and how many are on the other and write them in a number bond! They can also do this by writing an addition sentence.

 

Next Week:

• In reading we will practice asking and responding to questions during a story.
• In writing we will continue learning how to write a narrative story and talk about how to use a checklist.
• In math we will focus on adding and number bonds!
• Our theme next week is all about the HOLIDAYS!

Important Dates/Information:

• 12/8-Barnes and Noble Night 5-7:30
• 12/8-Ornament Day 2-3PM
• 12/10-Penguin Patch
• 12/15-Grinch Day
• 12/18-Polar Express, Book Exchange and Pajama Day
• 12/16-Christmas Program. Students arrive at McCutcheon High School no later than 6:30 and the show begins at 7:00
• 12/18-End of 2nd Nine Weeks