Full Speed Ahead!

In considering this post, there is so much I could say!  I skipped a week of blogging due to report cards and I think it's best to catch you up on all fronts.  Below I'll offer a little look at some literacy work- two friends writing their own Elephant and Piggie stories for fun, some math work- finding patterns in pictures and numbers, some explore time creations- a block aquarium and playdough "baked goods", a look at our recent Farm to School lesson, and lastly, learning about loons at James' Candle Day.  Make sure to scroll all the way through.  

Above you can see students using Mo Willem's Elephant and Piggie books as "references" for spelling the words they need for their own E and P stories.  Thanks for the inspiration Mo!   There was a recent article about him in the New Yorker Magazine- check it out

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/06/mo-willems-funny-failures?mbid=social_twitter

The focus that students are bringing to both their writing and their math is evident in the photos!

Explore time is SO important for us!  Allowing the children time to be self-directed with open ended materials, playmates and imagination is VERY VALUABLE.  It's how they learn from one another.

Here we are learning about sweet potatoes- how they grow, how to cook with them and what they taste like.  This Farm to School lesson took place in the classroom and the cafeteria.

And below you can see highlights from a recent Candle Day.  We learned a little bit more about a one of our friends and little bit of science about Loons- fantastic!

Let's Hear It For Games!

Thanks to all of you, this month's sharing theme of games- the non electronic type, has been a huge hit!  The children have done an outstanding job of presenting their game, explaining the rules and then making it available to play with their friends at Explore time. I'm very impressed with this crew's turn taking abilities and their willingness to include others.  From the very beginning of the month we established that if a game had had four players and a fifth child wanted to join you could say, "sure, you can be on my team" or "this round is full but you can watch".  And this group really does it!  We've learned some cool new (to me) games and relearned some old stand by's.  Here's a look at in in action including a look at Friday's math game- Grab Bag 10.  In this game students take turns taking a handful of cubes out of a bag and spilling them on a 10 frame.  They then arrange them pair wise to see if every cube has a pair (it's an even number) or if there is an odd-cube-out (it's an odd number.  Last, they record the number on a white board noting if its odd or even.  The big aha...even numbers are doubles!

Finding New Strategies and Patterns

As you know Gerald and Piggie have been making the children laugh and motivating them to put their new found decoding strategies to the test.  We've been talking about: getting our lips ready to make the first sound of the word, stretching out the word to articulate all the sounds, skipping a hard word to see if you can figure it out from the words around it and checking to see if you what you read makes sense.  Lucky for us, Mo Willem's humor makes all of this a ton of fun!

 

In Math we've been working on seeing patterns as a strategy to predict what comes next in a series of numbers.  Using bikes and wheels as our example we teased out the concept of doubling (1 bike, two wheels- 2 bikes, 4 wheels etc.) and then made some observations about how counting by 2's could be a way to predict what would come next in our growing pattern. A careful look at the sticky notes and the white chart on the right will let you see the children's thinking about doubling and counting by 2's.

Happy New Year!

We had a lot of fun this week simply being back together!  Here is a look at the watercolor art that accompanied our January calendars.

As you may have read in the newsletter, Gerald and Piggie (the main characters in Mo Willem's brilliant beginning reader series) were an especially important part of our learning.  As we read more and more of their adventures, the children will be recording their favorite Gerald and Piggie quotes to create a new display in the hallway outside out classroom. These books are incredibly powerful in motivating young readers to tackle new words.

Here is a look at a number bond (also mentioned in the newsletter).

The children are enjoying this new way of representing addition equations.  Number bonds have become a regular component in our daily Number Corner routine.

This Is For The Kids!

In posting to this blog, it's almost always parents who I imagine as the audience.  Blogging is a really effective way I can help parents stay up to date on the goings on in the classroom.  But this post is for the kids!  Building at explore time is a favorite activity of many and these pictures convey the creativity, cooperation, focus and wonder that you would see and feel if you were in the room.  In the last picture the construction material was connecting straws and the children were able to get inside their own structure. Please show it to your kindergartner- they will remember the moment!

A look At Our Winter Workshop

On the last morning before our Winter Break we closed out our month long sharing theme of "handmade" with an epic crafting workshop!  Thanks to the generosity of some super parent volunteers and Mrs. G, every classmate went home with a bag full of projects they had made themselves to either keep, share or give away.  The mood in the room was happy and relaxing, the snack was healthy and delicious and the project bags (stenciled by the children) were filled to the brim.  I hope your kindergartner shared his or her crafts with pride!   I apologize for not having a picture of the calming jars.

Animals in Winter Part Two

    I am very excited to share these photos with you- the children did an incredible job applying what we learned about how animals who stay active in winter, adapt and make themselves shelters to stay warm. Below you will see two modeling clay foxes and one skunk in their cozy dens. In the coming weeks these projects will come home so you can see your child's animal den up close.