Friday, March 3, 2017

Week in Review--Dr. Seuss

Top 100 Kindergarten Blog Award:

Kindergarten Blogs

A little something fun and extra this week is that our classroom blog has been named one of the Top 100 Kindergarten Blogs! We are honored and excited that so many people love checking in with us each week to see all of the hard work, learning and most importantly the FUN we have every single day in room 26. Thank you to everyone who has a part in our weekly activities and lessons. We would not be able to do this without you. Check out the list of all the top 100 blogs here!

Reading:

In reading this week, we reviewed one of our report card skills and favorite reading strategies “Main Idea and Key Details”. Identifying and understanding main ideas along with determining importance are prerequisite skills to summarizing text. Readers summarize the most important aspects of the text by determining the details that are significant and discarding those that are not, and state the main idea in their own words, thus improving comprehension.

To kick off our learning of this week’s word families we watched a video that had us reading and learning new words that end with the -ale and -ame sounds. We built words in both families and to review both word families we watched a Google Slide that showed a picture that fit one of the of the word families and then wrote the word on our iPad. The next slide showed how to spell the word and we checked our answers. It was so much fun! We can't wait to do it again!




Our vocabulary words this week went with the book The Lorax.  We loved learning all about the words proper, greedy, smog, pardon, midnight and grim.

Our new sight words: went, saw

**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
  • Telestory: We tried a new app this week called Telestory. It was SO much fun! The app has students create their own “TV” show in a sense. This week, we chose to create a news broadcast being a critic of a Dr. Seuss book. We shared whether we liked or disliked the book, if we think others should or should not read it and why not.
  • Dr. Seuss Bday Card/Popplet:: We used a specific Dr. Seuss app this week where the students were to take a picture of themselves to add to a birthday card for Dr. Seuss. After creating the card and saving it, students opened up the app Popplet. They added the photo to the middle of the Popplet and then wrote or typed rhyming words around the card. We loved doing this because we know how much Dr. Seuss loved to rhyme!
  • Reading Eggs/QR Books: Third round all students completed lessons in Reading Eggs and/or listened to stories on “tape” using QR codes inside picture books.











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.
  • Math Slide: We learned two new math apps this week that had the students practicing addition, subtraction, tens and ones and subitizing. It was a fun game!


We also completed a Mystery Shape with new friends from Texas! We guessed their shape first, which was a cylinder and then they guessed ours, which was a hexagon! What fun it was!



Writing:

Writer’s Workshop this week, was continuing to work on our information writing. We finished up our information books on animals and began working on a biography on Dr. Seuss. We learned facts about him using the website app on our iPads called Pebble Go. It was filled with so many interesting facts about his life! We will finish up our books next week! I will post the finished books next week. :)


Math:

Math this week we learned all about the vocabulary term subtraction. We reviewed the difference between addition and subtraction and the symbols using Gus the Plus and Linus the Minus. We also continued on with the week by reviewing tens and ones, greater than/less than and equal to and finished with counting on from a given number. We also learned a new choice at Math with Someone where we practice subitizing with a partner!. .

Content:

This week was all about valentine's Day and love!
  • Monday--We read the story If I Ran the Zoo and shared our stuffed animals.
  • Tuesday--We read the story The Sleep Book and created a baggie of soft marshmallows as our pillows for the night.
  • Wednesday--We read the story Wacky Wednesday and found all of the wacky things!.
  • Thursday--We read the story Fox in Socks and shared our fuzzy silly socks!
  • Friday--We finished up our Dr. Seuss unit with a bang by having Dr. Seuss rotations! The kindergarten teachers rotated from each class and completed a STEM lesson with them. By the end of the day each class completed 5 STEM activities!

















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 CONFIDENCE. We continued our learning about this topic this week by reading a couple books, watching a few videos and more! We read the stories The OK Book and Be Who You Are. We also discussed ways that make us feel confident and shared things about ourselves that we are proud of!

A few discussion questions to talk with your child at home about this topic:
-What are three words to describe yourself?
-What is something that others would say they like about you?
-What is something you can do every day to



PRACTICE AT HOME:
Have your child tell you facts he/she learned about Dr. Seuss!

Next Week:
  • In reading we will focus on reviewing “Cause and Effect”
  • In writing we will continue to write Information Writing and take our Post-Test for the unit..
  • In math we will work on graphing
  • Our theme next week is all about Fairy Tales. Don’t forget to dress as your favorite fairy tale or super hero character on Friday for our Fairy Tale Ball. Reminder NO masks. Thank you!

 
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.

  • 3/10--End of 3rd Nine Weeks
  • 3/13-3/17--Parent Teacher Conferences
  • 3/27-3/31--Spring Break NO SCHOOL