Hard At Work

    In looking back over the last several posts I noticced how many special events and celebrations I've documented.  It's true, we like to "woop it up" in kindergarten and there are so many "firsts". BUT... it's also true that the children are working very hard and building new competencies every day.  This post is dedicated to sharing about some of their recent work in Writing and Math.
    Below you can see three consecutive Morning Message questions or "jobs". They all relate to and build on one another.  You can see us working on representing a combination of five in a picture and an equation.  You can also see us moving on from five by relating a nickel and three pennies to a ten frame with 5 dots on the top 3 on the bottom.

Each day I assist the children in reading the message and send them off to their work spots with a small piece of paper to record their thinking.  The children then tape their papers up and we learn from the variety of responses.

In the pictures above you can see us integrating recent learning in Math and Literacy by doing a written response to the story A Chair For My Mother (upper left).  In this book a family saves coins in a jar for the perfect, comfortable chair- one that a hard working mom can really relax in at the end of a long day.  In the upper right photo, you can see us working on many ways to represent numbers (number bonds, 10 frames, equations...).  In the lower left photo we are doing coin rubbings to make pictures of coin jars and write about what we might want to save for.  And finally, in the lower right, the children are completing a worksheet that involves counting by 5's (or nickels) to add up to different amounts.  Lots of connections- lots of learning!