Thursday, October 27, 2016

What a glorious day! The birds sang, the children worked and the sun shone. AND then the children showed me how they can READ and WRITE words. Like pen, ten and nab.

We did a directed drawing of a hen and wrote a sentence about it. Some followed my sentence. Some wrote their own. LOVE that the kinders are getting confident in their ability to write words by listening to the sounds.

The hen pecks corn.

The hen can lay eggs.

And READ words by saying the sounds slowly together. My teacher heart was bursting with joy. I may have spent some of my lunch time bragging to Mrs. Wells.

We continued our study of shapes. Today adding circle and hexagon. (Not much new here, but glad to get it out and reinforce and extend as the year moves along.)

There was a creative streak at snacktime.

We are definitely looking forward to our Halloween parade tomorrow at 8:15 and party at 2:30!

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Today we started our second book in Animated Literacy. The kids brought home their first book on Tuesday. They know the characters and sounds from the chant we do of the entire alphabet every day, but I am spending two days on each character to really understand the name, sound, how to write it, read with it and spell with it. That is quite a big deal in Kindergarten!

Our first character in the new book is Nelly Newt. She nibbles a snack in her nest.

Look at this lovely student's page: the words we unblended (sounded out), and a short sentence from her about how she feels about Nelly. This was not required, she chose to do it. :-)

Then we got to have Mrs. Rogers in our room to talk about the zones--she brought M and M's and reviewed feelings of the zones. She even helped the kids practice ways to calm down or reboot to get back into the green zone. It was great that so many kids already had some strategies. You may have seen the book that we made--it hopefully made it into their backpacks.

Recess was a bit tricky since all the equipment was wet, but playing with the sand was even better!

As a review of shapes we tried making shapes with bodies. As a first time I think they did GREAT!

Monday and Tuesday (October 24 & 25, 2016)

Sometimes I remember what happened during the day, sometimes I don't (perhaps I am like the kids that way?).

Thankfully I have photos to remind me what we did...

I taught a digraph! Two letters that come together to make ONE sound. Meet Thick Thorny Thing (and digraph th).

Let's just say--fantastic job Kinders of learning this digraph, and reading and spelling with it. More practice is to come as the year progresses.

We also learned a Kagan structure called "Quiz-Quiz-Trade." It is an opportunity for the kids to work with a partner for a little bit, then move on to more partners. On Monday they practiced rhyming words, today was letter names. Can you say PROS? We had an observer in our room during this time today, and the kids were eager to do the Q-Q-T and show off what they knew. Teacher love.

We have started a math unit on shapes. Today we discussed the shape triangle. 

See these smarties roll a dice, say the number and then place a coin on the number that is one more? Yep, so awesome.

And Mrs. Weimer was so kind and sweet to read a book to both kindergarten classes after lunch. She had them mesmerized with a fun book about a penguin named Tacky. 

Friday, October 21, 2016

Oh what a fun, fall day!!!

After a quick lesson on how to draw an elf (we learned short e yesterday--Edgar Elf), and a quick recess, we dove right into a challenge.

I read the book Pumpkin Town! The brothers in the story threw out the not good seeds and they ended up in the village! Ack, the villagers had a problem, but the brothers fixed it all. I made a little village and field on the other side, and the hill for throwing seeds.

The challenge was to make a catapult to throw a "pumpkin seed" over the village and into the other field. The kids were put into 4 groups. We talked about expectations (speak softly, take turns, listen to each other, encourage each other), gave out materials and let them create a catapult. When they had made something they could test it out.

Work time:

The end results:

As we debriefed, we talked about the expectations, and that some groups worked at a team, and other groups worked as individuals, and the progress that was made. It was a good start, and I'm looking forward to more challenges and watching them develop team work!

Later we drew about the challenge and wrote a sentence about it.

Have a wonderful weekend! I'm looking forward to a bike ride!

Thursday, October 20, 2016

I keep being amazed at what Kinders can do!!!

Today they read words and sentences.

Wrote high frequency words (without complaining!).

And worked hard during small groups. These kids read some sentences and then drew a picture of what they meant. Awesome job with comprehension!!!

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

YES, I got photos today!!!

Let's start it off with a dance party!

Our ELA rotation time ROCKED so big that I met with two groups, the other two grown ups in the room met with multiple kids for individual work, and the rest were reading and making progress on other skills. I was such a happy teacher that we had a 30ish second dance party. :-)

We had a drawing lesson on bats and wrote about the drawing. I love that the kids copy what I write, and that some of the kids are getting brave to write their own sentence. I stretched them today... I had them write two sentences. It was pretty awesome!!!

And because I love the book Be Nice to Spiders I read that and we "asked and answered" questions.

During math kids "read" numbers in a tens-frame and colored a ghost, and other kids worked on math centers, and I did chapter testing with individual kids.

Reading intervention brought more small group work. See how these smarties can sort the papers into letters, words or sentences? So smart!

As far as the math testing went... I am pleased and happy to see the growth in math ability and math vocabulary. Even when I asked "How did you know?" The kids did not flinch--they just answered the question. Fantastic!!!

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

What a beautiful fall day (finally!!!). Thanks to so many families who came in after school today for parent/teacher conferences. It is always wonderful having time to talk with you!

In class today...

More of the same, and not one photo. Golly, I have to get better!

Here are two from Monday.

This is our fluency for the week.

And this is a practice of reading words and review of nouns and verbs.

And a list of all of the high-frequency words that we read each day and can read in books: the, a, we, I, can, see, like.

Happy evening!

Monday, October 17, 2016

It's been 41 days of Kindergarten. Can you believe it? It feels like a lifetime, and yet, so short. I'm so glad that we have a lot of days left, because I'm not done having these kids in my classroom yet!!!

Today was awesome. Reading. Writing. Drawing. One more. One less. Letter names. Letter sounds. Counting.

We were so busy.

See the kids working during ELA rotations:

The books are loaded with High-frequency words, which makes it great for the kids to read. They feel success as a reader and I am so proud of them!

The standing tables are very versatile--sit, stand or a hybrid. Just what the PE teacher loves!

We started math outside--counting, playing a partner game (roll a die, say the number and the number one less), then finished in our classroom.

Seriously, I think they "get" it!!! That is an exciting feeling!!!

Thursday, October 13, 2016

Today was full of awesomeness. And I want to highlight one part.

Since the beginning of school we have been learning letter names, the sounds that go with them, and high-frequency words (sight words). The kids are really doing great with it, and I think the pace of introducing the new letters and words is just right for kindergarten.

This afternoon during reading intervention I rotated the kids between reading a book from our reading series (Wonders) and my table for more work with letters (names and sounds). The kids were so excited to read the book, because they could!!!

The book was full of high-frequency words and three-letter words that they could sound out. We call it Martian speaking, because as we say the sound we blend it right away with the next sound, because that makes it easier to hear the word.

Have a wonderful three-day weekend!!! (I have the opportunity to attend a math training on Friday in Maize and I am quite excited about it!)