Gym Class....The New Math Class?

Today in gym class, Mr. Z had the students play a game where they were split up onto four different teams. Each team was designated a specific color. The object was for each team to take turns running to the middle of the gym and grabbing one disc according to their team's color. Once that team member returned to his/her team, they revealed what number was on the disc. Once all ten discs were brought back to the team, they were to put them in number order 1-10. The first team to have all their discs in the correct order wins! It is such a neat thing to see when games in gym class are being combined with skills we have been working on during our math time.  

Poem 11-18-2011

I Have, You Have

Our poem this week had our sight word "have" in it four times! A few of the students got into the the reading pattern "I have a ____, You have a _____" that when the words changed to "I like to _____" they had to back up and reread to make sure they were reading the correct words. This is a strategy I have not introduced yet, but was excited to see some of the students using it and not even realize it!

Daily 5 During Severe Weather?

Yesterday, we had a little bit of a scare with severe weather. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the county our school is in. This warning was set to expire a couple of different times and when it was about to, another one was issued. Needless to say, we spent some quality time with each other for an hour and half on the floor of the women's staff restroom in our safe spot. Our librarian was kind enough to bring some books around to the classes to help keep them occupied. I started off reading a few of the books to the class and then let them share the books. I told them to use what they know from Read to Self and Read to Someone during Daily 5 and combine the two together. Since we needed to stay super quiet in order to hear any further instructions from our principal, the class was to read the books to themselves, while sitting EEKK (elbow, elbow, knee, knee) with their partner(s) and sharing the book. I love that what we do on a daily basis with Daily 5 helped out in a situation I never really thought it would be needed. Goes to show how independent these kids are with reading and how it can occupy a good amount of time, all while being more than beneficial!

Comparing and Contrasting Two Stories

Our first CAFE mini-lesson today focused on comparing and contrasting two stories we have read in the past couple of weeks, Peanut Butter and Jelly and Warthogs in the Kitchen. We wrote down ideas to include in all three sections of our diagram. There were several areas that were similar in each book. Below is the breakdown of what was only found in each book, as well as what we found to be the same.

Peanut Butter and Jelly:

• The characters cut the bread.
• They "smooshed" grapes.
• Spread peanut butter.
• Smeared jelly.
• People were in the story.
• Cracked peanuts

Warthogs in the Kitchen:

• They added lots of sugar.
• Put pickles in the cupcakes.
• Broke eggs.

Both Stories:

• They put things in the oven.
• Washed their hands/dishes.
• Ate the cupcakes/sandwich.
• Animals were characters.
• Made a mess in the kitchen.
• Made a bread type of food.
• Cooked/made something in the kitchen.

Math with Someone

To introduce our new activity during Math with Someone we started by doing a "Look and Talk" with a picture in our math big book. The picture showed a little boy who took shapes to create different pictures. The new activity is doing just that. The pair of students who are partners take a bag of shapes, a paper, pencil and clip board to a spot in the room. They create various pictures using the shapes and draw what they created. They can stack the shapes to create pictures or lay them down next to each other.

Exploring with Solid 3D Shapes

Last week, we split into three groups and used our imagination in building with various sizes of cubes, cylinders, cones and spheres. The class worked as a team to try different combinations to see what shapes would stack on each other. Afterwards, we discussed the successes and challenges they found when working with these shapes.

A few of their observations were:

• The sphere would not stay on top of the stack and it could not be a bottom piece.
• The cone would stay on top, but no other shape could go above it.
• The 1/2 sphere would stay on top, but most shapes fell off when we would try to stack a shape on top of it.

Whoooo is that?

Last week, we learned all about owls, bats and other nocturnal animals. One morning, we completed a predictable chart with facts we already knew or had just learned about owls. Each student wrote his/her own sentence. The only part that was on the paper was the word "Owls". They came up with the rest of the sentence on their own. We worked as a team to help each other stretch out any words we did not know. After we completed the chart, we touch read our sentences for a couple of days. By Friday, we were very familiar with our sentences! We created an owl puppet and cut the words in our sentence apart, mixed them up and put them in the correct order before gluing them onto the puppet. They are on display in our hallway for all to read what we have learned about owls!

Writing With Describing Words

During writer's workshop this morning we discussed how a sentence can be written in a way that can help the reader picture what the writer is writing about in further detail using describing words. We focused on using color words in sentences today. We first read through a couple of my journal entries and decided in order to give the reader a better picture as to what I was writing about, I needed to add a color word to describe the various objects I was writing about. For example, one of my sentences said "I like the flower." As a class we tried to picture what the flower looked like, we all had different ideas. We then changed the sentence to "I like the red flower". When we changed the sentence to add a color word to describe the flower it helped us as the readers picture what the flower looks like. Below are sentences we wrote together using color words, as well as an example of one of my student's writing entries in his journal during Work on Writing today. He was beaming with pride that he used a color/describing word to help the reader visualize what his pumpkin looks like.

Music & Movement

Every day we get up and move during our "Music and Movement" time.  Below is a video of the class enjoying one of the songs we dance to during the week.

PEP

PEP is an exercise activity we do as a class each day. It is to encourage a healthy lifestyle and to keep our students moving and active throughout the day. Our P.E. teacher, Mr. Z, creates these exercises to music on a tape that the class and myself exercise to each day. I choose one or two “peppers of the day” each day and this reward is given to students who worked the hardest.

This video is of students in gym class climbing the BIG net. This net is a challenge for kids to overcome their fear of heights as well as using their bodies to climb such a long distance. They will have chances throughout the year to see if they can get higher than they did the last time!



Red Means Stop!

Below is a video of my class reading their poem, Red Means Stop, this week.

Upper Case vs Lower Case

During one of our mini-lessons for Daily 5 today we worked on matching our upper case and lower case letters. I passed out upper case letters to each of the students and called out names for students to name their letter and come up to the chart and match their upper case letter with the lower case letter in the chart.

Owls!

This week we are learning about "Nocturnal Animals". Our focus at the beginning of the week was about bats and at the end of the week we are learning about Owls. Yesterday, we read a Weekly Reader magazine about Owls and fun facts. We learned about their feathers, wings, sharp beaks, eyes and claws. We also learned the many things owls like to eat!

Surfer of the Week Visitor

Adalyn is our surfer of the week and her mother came in to share all about her job as a dental assistant with the class today. She explained the different things she does everyday at her job, as well as showed the class a picture of Adalyn's teeth from an X-ray she took of them. The x-ray showed her adult teeth below her baby teeth, ready to push through and make her teeth wiggly! She also read the class a story about Dora going to the dentist office. She works at Dr. Bozic's office and he sent the class a few very special items to remind them to always brush their teeth to keep the "sugar bugs" away. Thank you to Dr. Bozic and Adalyn's mom for coming in and providing the class with several goodies!

Working Together

One of our mini-lessons today went along with a big book from our reading series called Peanut Butter and Jelly. We have listened and read this story a couple of different times the past couple of weeks and completed several activities with it. Today, we listened to the story on tape and stopped periodically to discuss how the characters were working together as a team to accomplish the task of making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After reading through the story, we brainstormed a list of how we, as a class work together as a team to complete activities and to work towards various goals.

Math by Myself

I introduced a new activity to be completed when students choose "Math by Myself" during our Daily 5 Math time. This activity goes along with a whole group lesson we have practiced in class from our math series. The students pull a number from the bag and place it on the board. Then, they count out that number of blocks and finish by writing the number on the board. The class was very excited for the new choice today!

 

Grandparent's Day!

Grandparent's Day was a success! All four kindergarten classrooms invited grandparents to come to our school Thursday morning for some fun and games. We had several tables set up with activities for the grandparent and grandchild to complete together. In the following video you will see families reading stories, making pasta necklaces, creating a placemat, face painting, playing games, reading/creating a hand print poem, pinning the nose on a pumpkin, bean bag toss and enjoying some cookies and punch! Thank you to all of the families that were able to make it for this special day and to those who "adopted" a grandchild for the morning because some of our grandparents unfortunately do not live close to our school and were not able to make it. 

Make a video - it's fun, easy and free!
www.onetruemedia.com

Poem 10/27/2011

Our poem this week was the Hokey Pokey! We had fun acting out the motions to this poem, as well as adding the additional verses!

Pumpkin Fun!

We read the story Spookely the Square Pumpkin. This story is about a pumpkin who grows into the shape of a square and all the other pumpkins are round. One day, a storm comes through and breaks part of the fence and sends several round pumpkins falling out to the bay. Spookley tips himself over to the cracked part of the fence to save his friends. We created our own pumpkins using orange paper that I let them rip up, yes rip they were shocked! Other than that being fun, it helps with building their fine motor skills. The class was encouraged to make any type of pumpkin they wanted. Some students made a triangle, square, circle, oval and a rectangle. The message to the kids was that it does not matter what size, shape or color you are that we all have special things about us and each of us are important in our own way.