Reading:
Our CAFE strategy this week was focused on Skip the Word and then Come Back. As experienced readers, when we come to an unfamiliar word in a text, we are usually able to use context clues to help us figure out what the word is. We use the accuracy strategy ´Skip the Word, Then Come Back without even knowing what we are doing. We have enough experience and practice as a reader to know this strategy works.
When children come to words they don’t know some stall on the unknown word and
are unable to move on. These children must learn strategies to help them move forward. This strategy teaches the reader to skip over the word until the end of the sentence or passage. Then, the reader should back up and read the sentence again, using the first letter or letters of the skipped word and their context clues to decode the
unknown word.
This week our word family focus was on all words with “ar, er, ir, or, ur” or as we also like to call them the “r controlled” vowels. This r is very bossy because it makes those letters say something different than their normal sounds. We watched videos that helped teach us about words with these pairs in them and we used a special chart each day to focus on their sounds too!
Our vocabulary words this week went with the book A House for Hermit Crab. We loved learning all about the words discovered, plain, grazed, decorate, frightening, sturdy.
Our new sight words: find, now
**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
- Draw and Tell: We used this app this week to retell one of our favorite Eric Carle books The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Instead of using the caterpillar as the main character, we put ourselves in that spot. We drew a picture, added a speech bubble and then chose 6 food stickers to retell and eat like the book. We uploaded our finished product into Google Classroom!
- Pic Collage:: Second round of iPad choice this week, students took a picture of one of their favorite characters in any book they have read and added a the photo into a pic collage. They changed the background, added a speech bubble and their own text as to what they thought the character might be saying at that part of the book. We saved and uploaded our finished collages into Google Classroom.
- 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.
- Doodle Buddy: We learned all about addition stories this week and the vocabulary word “all together”. We practiced creating and telling these stories either on our own or with a partner using the stamper tool and solving the problem.
Writing:
Writer’s Workshop this week, we continued with Opinion Writing. Next week we will take our post-test on this unit. We reviewed a lot of our charts and strategies that we have learned throughout this unit including different ways to start opinions, the OREO chart and various ways to get an idea of what to write. We also read a story called Duck! Rabbit! And in this story there are two characters (whom you never see) that discuss what the picture is of, a duck or a rabbit. By the end you are left without an answer as to which it is. We then shared our own opinions about which animal we thought was in the book and why. It was a great way to showcase how we can have different opinions and not one person is right over the other.
Math:
Math this week we learned all about the vocabulary term all together. We learned that these two words are used in an addition story and it helps tell the person solving the problem that they need to add two numbers together to get the answer.
Content:
This week was all about the author Eric Carle!
- Monday--We learned about the author Eric Carle.
- Tuesday--We completed an entry into our butterfly journals because they hatched and were flying around!
- Wednesday--We learned how Eric Carle illustrates his books using tissue paper.
- Thursday--We completed a picture of the hungry caterpillar using tissue paper just like Eric Carle.
- Friday--We had Eric Carle rotations where each kindergarten teacher went to each of the classrooms and completed a craft that went along with one of his books.
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 LEADERSHIP. We started the week off by learning and discussing what leadership is and read the story Elmer. We talked about how Elmer was a leader throughout the story even when he didn’t know he was. We then discussed the difference between being “bossy” and being a “leader”. We sorted cards that described one of them and sorted where we thought they belonged and discussed why. We continued on with the week learning what characteristics leaders have and reading a story called Swimmy. All in all, it was a great week of learning, discussing, sharing and showing what a good leader does and how he/she acts.
A few discussion questions to talk with your child at home about this topic:
-Who is someone you think is a good leader?
-What does that person do that makes them a good leader?
-What are two things you could do to be a leader at school and home?
ABC Countdown to Summer Highlights:
A-Animal Day
B-Bubble Day
C-Chalk Day
PRACTICE AT HOME:
Have your child practice composing with objects around the house. Have him/her take various items and put them together to form something else.
Next Week:
- In reading we will focus on “Cause and Effect””
- In writing we will finish up our Opinion Writing Unit.
- In math we will learn all about subtraction stories.
- Our theme next week is all about the author PLANTS..
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.
- 4/19 ABC Countdown to Summer Begins! Be sure to keep your calendar handy and/or check our classroom calendar on our school website to be in the “know” of what letter and celebration is each day.
- 4/24--Mid-Spring Break NO SCHOOL for no missed days of school through 4/7
- 5/5--MME School Carnival 6-8PM
- 5/9--Field Trip to the Indianapolis Zoo *Please send in your child’s money ASAP.
- 5/11 & 5/12--Muffins with Mom
- 5/22--Kindergarten Graduation 10AM
- 5/24--LAST DAY OF SCHOOL
