Saturday, January 31, 2015

Snow, Superbowl, and Groundhog Day! Oh My!

Are you ready for some more snow? I know I am ready for some football tomorrow night, but NOT more snow!

Math:
In math we are having so much fun learning about attributes.  We have been working specifically with attribute blocks.  Students are learning four ways to sort these attribute blocks (color, thickness, size, and shape).  At the end of last week, we played an attribute spinner game.  Students spun three spinners (color spinner, size spinner, and thickness spinner) to see if they could find that block in the pile.
This coming week, we will continue to work on writing numbers correctly.  The most important message we send to our kids is “always start your letters and numbers at the top!”

Decomposing numbers is another math concept for this week.  Below is one activity we will do. 

Language Arts:
The new Lively Letters we are working on are /w/, /wh/, /h/, and /i/.

We are really working hard on making CVC words with the letters we’ve learned.  I am teaching word families to help students sound out and find patterns in words.  Word families are groups of words that are sufficiently closely related to each other to form a 'family'.  This week we are focusing on the –op family. We will be reading books and poems with words that end in –op, we will make –op words with magnetic letters, we will practice writing words that end in –op on white boards, and we will make –op headbands at the end of the week.

Writing:
In writing, we are working on writing longer stories.  Instead of writing one sentence, we are stretching our ideas to include a beginning and end.  Last week we read the story Peter’s Chair by Ezra Jack Keats. We paid close attention to how the main character changed from the beginning of the book to end.  In the beginning, Peter was jealous of his new baby sister, and he did not want his parents to paint his chair pink for her.  By the end, Peter had a change of heart and helped his father paint the chair.  I was so proud of our kindergartners’ writing.  They wrote about what happened in the beginning of the book and what happened in the end.  They truly exhibited a clear understanding of how Peter’s feelings changed.  That means our reading comprehension is getting stronger.

Sight Words:
This week, we will review the words “an” and “so”.  We will make the words with magnetic letters, practice writing the words, and playing our fun new sight word game called “BAM”.   I will introduce a new sight word this week that is NOT on our Kindergarten Sight Word list.  The word is “said”.  This word is in many guided reading books, and it allows me to introduce dialogue in reading.

Concepts for the Car Ride:
(Concepts for the Car Ride is a section of my blog that gives you tips on what to practice with your kindergartener in the car, before bed, in the bath, or at the dinner table)

Rhyming words and Nursery Rhymes
Words that end with –op
Counting from 0-100 (with no errors)
Counting by 10s and 5s
Guess my number.  Think of a number between 1 and 10.  Use words like greater than and less than. 
When you are driving, look for people who are considered community helpers and/or buildings where community helpers work.
       Focusing on subtraction using numbers up to 10.
Write simple sentences including mostly sight words and relatively easy CVC words.  Cut up the sentence and have your kindergartener put it back together.  When they are done, they can draw a picture to go with it!  Example sentence (I see a dog on the rug). 
Read with your kindergartener and have him/her look for sight words.

FYI:
Guided Reading books will be coming home at the end of this week with your kindergartner.  They will be due back the following Monday.

FYI:

We will be doing lots of fun activities for Groundhog Day and the 100th Day of School.  There is nothing special to note for Groundhog Day, but for the 100th Day, I am allowing students to dress up like they are 100 years old!  I will be sending home a letter all about it.  Please don’t feel obligated to, the kids just thought it would be fun.
**I am also wondering if 2 parents from each class would volunteer on the 100th Day.  We will be celebrating it on Monday, February 9th.  
AM Class- 9:30-10:30
PM Class-1:30-2:30

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