Updates

I love kindergarteners.  They come to school with a spring in their step every day, even though it certainly doesn’t feel like spring outside.

Last Monday, we welcomed in spring with our Spring Hat Parade.  We enjoyed decorating our paper hats with tissue paper flowers, jewels, stickers, paint, pom-poms, and streamers.  We paraded through the whole school playing loud instruments and chanting “Happy spring!”  The faces of joy on the kindergartners was truly priceless.

Math:

In math, we are working on various concepts.  We will continue to work on subtraction.  We will begin a subtraction word problem book next week.  We will be learning about 3 dimensional shapes over the next few weeks.  Another important concept in the area of mathematical practice is using check in thinking. It is important for students to stop and ask “Does this make sense?” and “What other strategy can I use?”

Language Arts:

The new Lively Letter we are working on is the long e sound.  His name, in the Lively Letters program is King Ed.  The story goes like this.  He is very mean.  When there is a vowel standing before him, he does not like it.  He makes the vowel say its name.  When the vowel says its name, he is silent.  Examples of words with King Ed in them are (make, like, bone, rude)

In reading, we focusing on retelling.  After we read a fictional story, we go through the retell rope.  Each child will come home with a retell rope to use at home.  Here is

a picture of the rope and the chart that explains each picture.  I used Goldilocks and the Three Bears as the mentor text to teach retelling.

Sight Words:

This week we will continue to review all of our kindergarten sight words.  We will also learn some new words from the Grade 1 High Frequency Words list. “Where” is the most recent sight word we learned.

Science:

Ask your kindergarten meteorologist what he/she learned about wind last week and the wind experiment we conducted with a straw, cotton ball, paper, pattern block, and a spoon.  How fun!

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)

Words that end in “e”. For example:

-bike

-ride

-made

-bone

-came

Counting from 0-100 (with no errors)

      

Focusing on subtraction using numbers up to 10.

Read with your kindergartener and have him/her look for sight words.

Begin talking about 3 dimensional shapes with your kindergartener.  We have not learned about them yet, but it would be a great preview.

Sounding out words without writing them:

FYI:

Thank you for replacing your child’s “Take Home” Folder. 

       Bingo for Books was a blast yesterday.  We played

       sight word bingo with the entire kindergarten.  Mrs.       

Pobuk called out and wrote sight words on an overhead projector while students colored in their squares.  Every kindergartner won a new book to take home.  What a motivating way to practice our sight words!

 Mrs. McCarthy did it again!  Here is her latest masterpiece!  This is based on the book The Wide-Mouthed Frog

Math Websites:

http://www.mathplayground.com/games.html

The best games are:

Number Bonds 10

Jet Ski Addition

Another great math game is on the site below:

http://www.softschools.com/math/games/subtraction_games/

Language Arts Websites:

http://www.starfall.com/n/level-a/learn-to-read/load.htm?f

**Your child received a Ziploc bag with a monkey on it a few weeks ago. If you have not returned it, please do so that way I can send home a new book this week.

Updates

See you next year, February!  March, I want to remind you that spring starts this month. That is all. Thank you!

Do you think my pep talk will help bring on spring weather?

 Math:

In math, we are working on subtraction.  We did a fun activity called “Subtraction Smash”.  Students made 10 small balls with Play-Doh.  Next, they looked at a subtraction number sentence like 6-2.  They took 6 balls of Play-Doh, lined them up, and then smashed 2 balls.  The kiddos determined how many balls out of the 6 were not smashed.  That number was the difference. This was a concrete way for students to learn take-away.

We will also continue working on finding compliments of 10.  For example, if I have 8 of something, how many more do I need to make 10? 

In addition, we will solve missing number problems.  For example, 

8 + ___ = 10

7 + ___ = 11

6 - ___ = 3

Language Arts:

The new Lively Letters we are working on are /x/, /y/, /e/, and the long e sound.

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 –og, and –ob families. We will be reading books and poems with words that end in –og and -ob, we will make –og and -ob words with magnetic letters, we will practice writing words that end in –og and -ob on white boards, and we will take part in word family activities.

Writing:

In writing, we are working on writing longer stories.  Instead of writing one sentence, we are stretching our ideas to include a beginning, middle, and end. Last week, we read the book Froggy Gets Dressed.   We filled in a graphic organizer to sequence the events of the story.  Then, we wrote about our mornings and how we get ready for school from getting out of bed to arriving at school.

Sight Words:

This week we will focus on the sight words “so” and “look”.  “Look” is not on our kindergarten sight word list, but it is a common sight word in our grade level texts.

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 –og and -ob

Counting from 0-100 (with no errors)

Counting by 2s, and 5s

Use words like greater than and less than. 

Focus on subtraction using numbers up to 10.

Read with your kindergartener and have him/her look for sight words.

Focus on ending sounds in words.   Play “I Spy” in the car.  Once your kindergartener guesses (for example “truck”) ask your kindergartner what the ending sound it.  Not the letter name, but the sound.

Play “Subtraction Smash” with your kindergartner (you need Play-Doh).

Mental math word problems:  If there are 3 buses in the parking lot, and 7 more drive in, how many buses are there altogether?

Backwards mental math: If the answer is 9, what could be the problem?  This is where you encourage your kindergartener to be creative and think of one way to break apart or decompose 9.  8 and 1 make 9, so the problem could be 8 + 1 =9.

Skip counting by 2s and 5s

Sounding out words out loud without writing them. For example parent says sound out "cat".  Student should say c-a-t. Sound out "so".  Student should say s-o. Sound out "look".  Student should say l-oo-k. Sound out "dog".  Student should say d-o-g.  Sound out "ship".  Student should say sh-i-p.

FYI:

If you haven’t noticed, our “Take Home Folder” are falling apart.  I kindly ask that you send in a sturdier folder with your child’s name on it.  I am trying my best to replace them, but I am running out fast.

RAZ-Kids

I know by now I seem like a broken record, but if you do not have accurately leveled books for your kindergartner at home to read independently, the books on RAZ-Kids are a great resource.  In addition, there are quizzes to take after reading the books.  It is a fun and effective resource if you give it a try.  As I’ve stated all year, it is critical for students to read on their independent levels.  If your computer has a microphone, your child can record his/her oral reading.  Then before the quiz, he/she can listen to their reading.  This helps to improve oral reading fluency.   

FYI: If you want your kindergartner to participate. 

Monday~ Wear red and white to celebrate Read Across America Day.

Wednesday~ Wear wacky clothing for Dr. Seuss’s book Wacky Wednesday.

Friday~ Wear Crazy Socks for Dr. Seuss’s book Fox  in Socks.

Lucky Family Project: Optional project due on Friday.  Here are some examples, but not limited to.