Reading:
In reading this week, we learned the reading strategy “Make a Mind Movie”. We practiced this skill by creating a scene in our mind while reading stories. We looked at the illustrations and listened to the words and made a movie in our mind where we could see what was happening if it were to come to life. We also talked about when they are reading stories on their own either reading the pictures and/or the words they can create a movie in their mind.
We also learned all about the -et family. To kick off our learning of this word family, we watched a video that had us reading and learning new words that end with the -et sound. We built words in the -et family, we went on a word hunt where we chopped the sounds up in the word and found it in a pile of other -et words and we practiced rhyming with all of the words in the -et family.
Our vocabulary words this week went with the story Stellaluna. We loved learning all about the words swooped, clutched, anxious, clumsy, limp and peculiar. For our vocabulary review lesson, we created a book in Book Creator where we learned how to take and add a video to a book and we acted out the meaning of two of our vocabulary words.
Our new sight words: do, had
**Be sure to keep the white sight word cards from week to week and continue to practice all of them as new ones are sent home every week.
Our Poem of the Week:
iPad Fun:
Reading
- Pebble Go: We used the website app Pebble Go this week to learn all about nocturnal animals.
- Draw and Tell: After listening to information on Pebble Go, we took what we learned and drew a nocturnal animal and recorded our voice saying a fact we learned about that animal. We then learned how to share the video to Google Classroom! We will continue to learn more about Google Classroom next week.
I had several other examples of student creations, but my computer is acting crazy today and not letting me upload them correctly. Hopefully next week's iPad creations will be able to upload correctly :).
Math
- Book Creator: This week students used the app Book Creator on their own by adding a journal entry of the activity number of the day! We have been doing number of the day as a whole class since the first week of school and they are now experts and are able to do this on their own! They rolled a dice to find their number, wrote the number, the number word, drew the dice, tally marks, number of shapes and number line! They finished the activity by recording their voice explaining their thinking and what they did with the number of the day.
- Ten Frame Fill: Students scanned a QR code that showed them a number 1-10. Students then colored in a blank ten frame to show that number on the frame. After filling in all of the ten frames, they looked at the answers on the back to check to see if they were correct!
Writing:
Writer’s Workshop this week we continued to learn how to write a True Story. We wrote our own stories this week! We focused each day on each part of a true story the “who, where and what happened”. We completed a chart where we listed options that we might write about to help generate ideas on true story topics.
We also learned a writing strategy where we focus on the spacing in our writing. In the middle of a word we learned that the letters should be noodle spaces apart and words in a sentence should have a meatball space. We use these terms to help the students visualize the size of the space that is needed when learning to become writers.
Math:
Our math vocabulary word this week was plus. We learned what the plus sign means and when it is used. We started to write an addition sentence in our number of the day using a plus sign.
We also started something new this week called a Mystery Number Skype. We Skyped with two other kindergarten classes this week and asked yes/no questions to see if we could narrow down numbers on a hundreds chart to find out what the mystery number is! We asked questions such as: "Is your number greater than 50? Is your number in the (10's. 20's...60's and so on)? Is your number one less than 76? Is your number even/odd? Does your number have a _____ in the ones place?" Variations of all of these questions helped us cross off numbers on our 100's chart and figure out what the number was! We also picked a number 1-100 and the other class had to guess our number. In the end we found out our new friends are from North Dakota! After the Skype, we looked at a map of the United States and put a mark on the map where they live and where we live. We can't wait to do more Mystery Number Skypes!
Content:
This week was all about Nocturnal Animals!
- Monday--We read a story about a nocturnal animal.
- Tuesday--We shared a fact about bats that we learned or already knew that we used later in the week.
- Wednesday--We read a book about a nocturnal animal.
- Thursday--We completed a bat craft where we put a bat, our bat fact and drew a moon and stars to show a bat flying at night.
- Friday--We learned all about owls! We practiced looking around the room like an owl, saying different owl calls and made and labeled our very own owl!
Social Emotional Learning (SEL):
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.
This week’s SEL focus was learning about PERSEVERANCE. We continued our learning about this topic by watching the second video on Class Dojo. In this video Katie gets herself out of the dip by not giving up and kept trying to get better and better at her art. We also read a story about a boy named Cody who wanted to so badly to learn how to play the drums and be in a band. He realized he wasn’t very good and even after trying for awhile he still wasn’t very good. He didn’t give up and eventually learned how to play the drums! We talked about how he changed throughout the story and used his perseverance to not give up!
A few discussion questions to talk with your child at home about this topic:
--How do we escape the dip? (Discuss the process.)
--Talk about a time that reflecting on a mistake improved your product/work/brain!
--Let's help one another! What can we say/ do when we make a mistake to encourage each other to reflect?
PRACTICE AT HOME:
When reading a story, have your child make a mind movie while you are reading. Have them describe to you what is happening in their mind.
Next Week:
- In reading we will practice Analyzing Characters
- In writing we will continue to write a true story!
- In math we will learn different ways to make numbers 6-10!
- Our theme next week is all about Pilgrims and Native Americans.
Important Dates/Information:
**Go to our classroom webpage if you want to see important dates on a calendar! I will update this classroom calendar as dates and events come about.
- 11/17--Behavior Celebration Movie
- 11/23--Spirit Day Mismatched Clothes
- 11/24-11/25--NO SCHOOL THANKSGIVING
- 12/2--Spirit Day MME Gear
- 12/8--Barnes and Noble Night
- 12/9--Spirit Day Wear PJ’s
