Week in Review--Spiders

Writing:

This week in writing we practiced writing the beginning, middle and end sounds in words that are not sight words. We practiced this several ways...we wrote on white boards as a class, wrote in our journals, used an app called Skitch and another app called PicCollage. We wrote words in sentences, in isolation and by labeling pictures. Within our two apps we used an arrow and pen tool to write the letters in the words and we also practiced using the keyboard to type the letters! Below are several pictures from the apps that are student made creations and video of the students in action!

Math:
We had so much fun learning about our 3D shapes this week! We started the week off by watching a video that went through each of the shapes and we were able to use an app called JuniorTube where we paused the video and found each shape and circled the correct shape using the pen tool. We then continued on throughout the week discussing these shapes and created a 3D shape chart. I did not get a picture of our chart, but the picture below is similar to the one we made together.

Reading:
During reading this week our CAFE focus was "Analyzing Characters". We read several books and discussed how characters change throughout a story, what their feelings are and how their actions effect the story and other characters.

Content:
Creepy, crawly....SPIDERS! We could not have had more fun with spiders this week! We completed several tasks this week in learning about these crawling arachnids. We read a spider book (and each student got their own copy, woo hoo), watched spider videos with our iPad partner, and completed a spider facts page and then added those facts to a spider!

After we watched a spider video with our partner, we gathered together and shared one thing we learned. We put those ideas together using an app called Popplet. I was beyond impressed with the things the kids learned and shared with the class!

Other:
Friday was such a special day in kindergarten! We had the BEST time sharing the morning with our grandparents! We painted, read stories, made necklaces, drew pictures, painted our faces and ate yummy cookies and punch! Thank you to all of the families who came and those who "adopted" a grandchild for those kids who have grandparents who live far away.

PRACTICE AT HOME:

Go on a 3D shape hunt! Find as many cones, spheres, cubes and cylinders as you can around your home! Have your child describe them to you and what is special about them.

 

Next Week:

• In reading we will learn the CAFE strategy "Compare/Contrast".
• In writing we will begin learning how to write a narrative story.
• In math we will focus on number stories!
• Our theme next week is all about Nocturnal Animals--bats!

Important Dates/Information:
 

• 11/5 & 11/6-Donuts with Dad (please send your RSVP)
• 11/11-Veteran's Day Program
• 11/19-Parent University
• 11/26-11/27 Thanksgiving break--NO SCHOOL
• 12/4--All School Behavior Incentive Field Trip--PMO Christmas Show
• 12/8-Barnes and Noble Night 5-7:30
• 12/18-End of 2nd Nine Weeks

Week in Review-Fall

Reading:
We had a fantastic week reading and learning all about FALL! Our main CAFE strategy that we focused on this week was "Sequencing". We talked about how when retelling a story it is important to know what happened first, second, third and fourth in order to tell the story correctly. If we retell a story out of sequence it might sound confusing! We discussed how things we do everyday are also in a specific sequence and if we did those things out of order it would be just silly and not make sense! We took pictures from books we read this week and put them in the correct order!

We learned a new app this week called "Skitch". This app has the students practice with the camera tool by taking a picture, using an arrow to point to parts in the picture, use the marker tool to label the picture and then save the picture to the camera role and start a new one! The students also learned how to delete marks or unwanted arrows that were made, as well as use the various tools and colors within the app!

Skitch

Sequencing

Using the app "Have Fun Teaching" for a little fun laid back video watching during morning work!

Writing:
This week in writing we discussed how writer's begin their sentences with more words than the word "I". We are really familiar with writing "I like..." or "I see..." sentences and are beginning to branch out by using the sight words "we, the, a, to" and more to begin our sentences! We also continued to focus on writing the beginning and ending sounds we hear in words that are not sight words. One of our favorite tricks to remembering how to write and spell sight words is pretending to take a picture of the sight word, write it down and then check it. We practiced doing this as a class for one of our mini-lessons this week!

Math:
This week was filled was so much math fun! We started the week off by learning a new math vocabulary word and writing that word in our math journals! We will eventually will be working in the math journals independently, but we will continue to practice whole group until we get the "hang" of it.

Our classroom exploded with QR codes again this week! We used the same QR codes from last week where we scanned a code and one of the numbers 11-20 showed up on our iPad. This week, we practiced scanning those codes in again and then toggled back and forth between our QR app and DoodleBuddy. In the DoodleBuddy app we wrote the word and either drew circles or dots that many times or we used the stamper tool to stamp that many times.

We added two new choices to our Math with Someone choice. These choices have the students practice sorting by shape and counting shapes and discussing with their partner "most, least, same". The second activity was working with links and number cards. One partner chooses a card and adds that many links to the card. The partner then checks the links by counting them to see if there is the correct amount on the card.

Math with Someone Choices

Content:
Autumn leaves are falling down, falling down, falling down.....woo hoo! We love Autumn! We started our week of learning about the season of Fall by scanning a QR code during morning work of Mrs. Brown telling the class what our new theme is for the week. Then each student scanned QR codes on the front table that linked to short educational videos about what animals, plants, people do in the Fall and why we even have a change of seasons. After viewing the video, the students were to come to me and tell me something they learned or heard on the video. I was impressed with what they learned!

A few other fun times we had this week with our learning about Fall focused around going on a leaf hunt, reading several books, measuring leaves, counting leaves and creating a leaf rubbing using our leaves from the leaf hunt!

Leaf Hunt

Leaf  Measuring and Rubbing

 



Other:

Thank you to everyone for coming to your child's Parent/Teacher conferences. Education plays such an important role in our lives and the sooner your child sees how important it is to his/her parents and their teachers, they will continue to believe in the importance as well. Each and every step taken at school and home helps your child improve in all subject areas. Keep up the great work you all are doing at home to help your child succeed both in and outside of the classroom!

We loved putting together a short video to welcome our families to conferences this week! If you didn't get a chance to see it, scan the code below!


   

PRACTICE AT HOME:

Go through various parts of your day, steps to making dinner, bedtime routine and put the steps in order and talk about how they need to be in a specific sequence in order to work. Try and do something out of order and see if it ends up working out or not working exactly right.

 

Next Week:

• In reading we will learn the CAFE strategy "Analyze the Characters".
• In writing we will learn how to write the middle sound(s) in a word.
• In math we will focus on 3D shapes!
• Our theme next week is all about Spiders!

Important Dates/Information:

• 10/28-Picture Retakes
• 10/30-Grandparent's Day 10-11AM
• 11/5 & 11/6-Donuts with Dad
• 11/11-Veteran's Day Program
• 11/19-Parent University