Taking a Pause

The past few posts have been largely about our work in Literacy and Math.  I'm taking a minute here to show you some other aspects to our learning.  We take some time everyday to move our bodies and practice focusing our minds. The children are learning how important it is to be able to focus on one thing at a time- that's being mindful!  We often say- "when you are walking in the hall, just walk" or "when you are listening to directions, just listen". This past week we did a mindfulness activity called "Pass the Cup" where we literally passed a cup full of water around the rug so each child was responsible for handing it to and receiving it from someone else.  It took focusing on just that one thing!  Below you can see us doing some Mindful Movement with  leadership by Jamie from the Cosmic Kids website. A fun thing you can try at home with your Kindergartner.

Moving Right Along

This post got its title because it's really a continuation, or "next steps" to last week's post.  If you've been following along here or in the newsletter you know that our hope was that after reading so many "old favorite" storybooks, we would learn some tips and tricks for writing our own stories.  This past week be begin making  sketches in little notebooks of possible ideas for true stories.  You can take a look.  Also we enjoyed a second round of Math Menu- our three session rotation in which the children set the pace and monitor their completion of activities.  Have a look at floor puzzles for counting and number recognition, the teen number card game and problem solving with Mrs. Lamphier- 3 of the choices from this rotation.

And, on Friday afternoon we had lots of fun playing the Dreidel game with our Big Buddies.  We are always busy!

Working Harder to Get Smarter

This week the children made great strides in literacy and math.  We're in an exciting new unit in literacy where our reading focus and writing focus are intersecting.  Over the next few weeks as we read "old favorite" stories (the kind that are so good you want to read them again and again until you know them by heart), we will work up to writing our own true stories! The children are learning about story elements such as characters, setting, plot and dialogue.  Below you will see pictures from lessons led by both Ann Knox, Literacy Teacher and Janet Hayden, ELL teacher highlighting the stories Harry the Dirty Dog and The Three Billy Goats Gruff .
The children made tri-fold story boards to remember the beginning, middle and end of Harry... and popsicle stick puppets and block bridges to dramatize The Three Billy Goats...
In math the children are applying their addition and subtraction skills to story problems! Being able to listen to a scenario, understand the question and use math to solve it is a great skill!