Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Cloud Nine. That is where I'm sitting!!!

These kindergartners are AMAZING! I just left Mrs. Wells' office bragging on some writing they did this morning to go along with our directed drawing of a kite. After we drew we talked a bit about what sentence they could write. And has been our custom for some time, I told the students that they could copy my sentence or choose to write one of their own. 11 of the 20 kids present wrote their own sentence. With spaces and great spelling. See why I'm on Cloud Nine?

And I even bragged on the students to Mrs. Chalashtari (first grade teacher at NR) about the writing. She is so looking forward to having these kids next year.

During ELA we had rotations, and several kids were able to work with the grown ups on specific ELA needs that they have. Magic!!! We tried a "Mannequin Challenge," but no go. We will try again on another day.

This week we are reading stories about neighbors and festivals other cultures may have. And have learned the high frequency word "do."

In math we started measuring by weight. Which is heavier. I love when we have units that are "easy" to the kids, makes them feel so knowledgeable.

We talked more about needs and wants by working on a book. It will probably be finished next week and you may be quite pleased with their knowledge of needs and wants and their drawing and writing.

Looking forward to another magical day tomorrow!!!

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

What a great day of learning! And receiving! I learned that my Donor's Choose project has been fully funded and our classroom will be getting materials for flexible seating and classroom appropriate options for movement (to help with the wiggles that are natural). Yep, a great day!!!

The students are sponges with our sounds/spelling lessons. Today they gobbled up the long i sound spelled i consonant e (like in bike and mile). So proud of them.

After Art, we started talking about Kindness, in preparation to our Random Acts of Kindness that we will be doing each day in December. They got very excited to learn about our kindness heart in our classroom that can document kindness by our class.

We watched a book on youtube (I need to get a copy of the book, it is wonderful) that's main theme was kindness, but needs and wants was in it as well. Just in case you want to watch it at home, here is the link: Those Shoes.

I was able to capture a few photos during math, but mostly let the students learn on their own today. We continued talking about measuring, so the kids used our cubes and found objects in the classroom that were the same as 6 cubes, 7 cubes, 8 cubes. It was amazing for me to sit, watch, and listen to their math talk. "This is shorter than..." And more, I wish I could remember more.

After specials, we wrote cards for our friend who has moved to a new school. We sure will miss him.

Thanks for a great PTO fundraiser! This special wind chime is what I got as a thank you from PTO for having a class that raised a lot of money. I love it!!!

Monday, November 28, 2016

Oh my it was good to hug the Kindergartners today!!!

I was super happy that it seemed that they remembered all the reading sounds and stuff I have taught them.

I beefed up the reading rotations and added some new choices.

In math we reviewed measuring, and I was super happy that they remembered "endpoints," and used them to measure. :-)

Here is a quick picture from reading intervention: naming the picture and the middle sound. Pros, I tell you!

We began a social studies unit on needs/wants. Today was a quick introduction and color sort of needs and wants.

I have a new "station" set up. It is for early finishers or before/after school. Kids look at the scene and tell their own story of what is happening. If kids have plenty of practice telling stories in K, then it will be much easier to write stories in first grade.

There is more... a hot cocoa fluency (photo tomorrow, I hope), reading Christmas stories and Numbers to 20 (or 120, if they can handle it). So busy and lovely!

November 17 & 18, 2016

Let's see if I can remember what happened...

We wrote sentences about bees and learned a new to us sound. W, Winkie Walrus.

And Mrs. Wells read Thanksgiving stories to the class.

Kids were working on ELA rotations:

And read books during intervention times.

At the end of the day on Friday we had a quick Foodie Fun Friday (turkey legs and turkey poop).

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Today was a quick day for me (I left at 11:30 for a district meeting).  Lucky for us that Mrs. Fitzgerald spent the morning with us and learned about our classroom.

I introduced the long e spelled digraph ee. Leaping Eve leaps over three trees.

After recess the kids created some cute turkeys. I loved the problem solving they used. Check them out on the board outside our door.

And more ELA work. Kids are reading books that they choose, Amazing!

Here the students practiced counting syllables in words. So fun. Kids were talking and learning and smiling!!!

Again...cannot wait for tomorrow and more exciting lessons and learning!

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

What a fantastic day! AND the kids were able to show Mrs. Wells what they know about letters and how to read and write words. It was amazing.

We practiced with the long o sound today. I will only teach the spelling o-e (o, consonant, silent e) this year. So some of their writing may not be conventional spelling, but we will still be able to read it. There are 3 other ways to spell long o, and the first grade teachers can teach that.

In art class, the kids were able to have a college student teach the lesson. From what I saw, it was great. I think that artwork will hang in the hallway starting next week.

We were so fortunate to be able to listen to the second and third graders do their final music rehearsal before tonight's program. The Kinders did fabulous listening and they really enjoyed seeing kids they knew on stage.

We squeezed in a bit of reading comprehension: We reread a story from yesterday and decided on the Main Idea and also found Key Details. This is a task that the kids will be working on for the rest of their school career, and they are off to an excellent start.

Today in math we talked about "taller than and shorter than." Each student got a "tool" (a piece of yarn) and they found objects in the room that were shorter than and longer than the yarn. Such work ethic!

And a photo of the dreaming kinders at recess. Loved being comfy today on pjs, although, the pajamas were kind of HOT during recess!

Monday, November 14, 2016

No Super Moon worries in room 102 (Mrs. Bartel's Kindergarten room)! We had a wonderful day, learned a lot, smiled and showed kindness.

Our phonics lesson today was about the long o sound spelled o consonant silent e. It is going to take a lot of work, but these kiddos are up to the challenge and thrived with the task today! Love them so much.

Vowels are tricky, but we are going to get them by May.

Our fluency this week is Ted the Turkey, and we are going to do some fun turkey crafts and writing.

In math we started our measuring unit. Today we used words like "longer than, shorter than, and endpoints."

We continued working on addition to 5 by drawing pictures to solve and explain.

Looking forward to Dreaming of Kindness tomorrow while we wear our pjs.

Friday, November 11, 2016

It was a gorgeous day in Kindergarten!

Mrs. Rogers read a story about a kindness quilt and then the kids made a square that will be made into a quilt and displayed in our hallway. Lovely.

We practiced letter names and sounds, and then drew a chick and wrote about it.

We love to see Mrs. Wells and show her our good work!

For ELA time we made wonderful drawings and writings about places we go. You can see them in our hallway, just outside our door.

In math we did more practice in number sentences.

And we finished the day with some great work during reading intervention!

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

Thursday, November 10, 2016

I am so thankful for this class! They are hard workers and bring me joy every day!

Today I introduced another digraph. This one is digraph ch. Chauncy Chipmunk chops chips.

Every day we review letter names, sounds, read words with the learned sounds and write words with the learned sounds. Many years ago in a training I attended, I learned that some kids will learn to read by learning how to spell. So, I have made it a priority to write words with the kids every day.

To do this I say a word (charm), the kids repeat the word (to make sure they heard me correctly), we say the sounds as we count the sounds (ch, ar, m), next we say the letter name that goes with each sound (digraph ch, combination ar, m), finally we write the word. Some kids go through this process faster than others, but EVERY kindergartner can do it. So proud of them!!!!!

At our first recess we were pleased to see Mrs. Wells on the roof. She talked to us, and read us a book. Mrs. Wells is such a huge cheerleader of all the students and staff. Being on the roof is how she celebrated a fantastic PTO fundraiser this fall.

I'm looking forward to a wonderful day on Friday!