Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Throughout this past week our class engaged in several activities to help understand  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s monumental contribution to our country. We made mini books about MLK's life and wrote about making the world a better place with our big buddies. With Ms. Garland's class we watched a clip of MLK's famous "I Have A Dream" speech and as a Kindergarten grade level we attended a presentation by some SBHS students and five fifth graders from Orchard. Together, they brought Martin's words "only in the darkness can you see the stars" to life. Mr. White shared a photo of Dr. King with his father and son that inspired one of our classmates to make his own drawing.  Kindergartners connect easily with MLK's messages of using words not violence, standing up for what is fair, persevering for a cause and using words not violence to insure equal rights for all.

Challenging Ourselves and Being Silly Too!

Over several recent Math lessons the class has been working with the concept of "doubles".  We've been arranging quantities "pairwise" on a 10 frame to see if if every cube has a partner.  If so, it's an even number and can be expressed in with a doubles fact (1+1= 2, 2+2=4, but not so with a fact like 1+2=3).  Here is a look at partners playing a game called "Grab Bag Doubles".  You reach in to grab some cubes, arrange them  on a ten frame to see if it is a"doubles number" (the number of cubes in the top row is the same as the number in the bottom row) and if so, you earn a tally.  First partner with 5 tallies wins!

Games make learning fun in math but they are also a great way for us to enjoy being together at Explore time.  Here is a little look at some of the games that have been brought in for this month's Sharing Theme: Pie Face Showdown and Hungry Hippos!

Time Seems to be Slipping Away

There is a lot to catch up on as I missed posting last week.  When we returned from break our book friends Gerald (the elephant) and Piggie burst on the scene to help us with our Reading Super Powers.  You may have read in the newsletter about Pointer Power (touch each word), Partner Power (two heads are better than one) and Sound Power (say each letter's sound to figure out unknown words).  Since then we've added Picture Power (the familiar "what might that say?") and  Re-Read Power (does it make sense?).  Take a look at all these in action.

We've also had fun learning to draw Gerald and Piggie following author/illustrator Mo Willem's directions.  Have a look:

When I asked the class why Elephant and Piggie books are SO great for Kindergarten readers, they has many insightful responses.  Stay tuned to the blog for a future posting of their answers!

Celebrate!

The week before the break was marked by much excitement for the many reasons to celebrate. We had so much fun sharing in our first Candle Day of the year- learning about Hanukkah and playing the driedel game! A popular Explore time activity last week was creating highly decorated fairy and animal homes- thinking about keeping those little creatures warm on the Winter Solstice! In the days before our Winter Workshop we found some time to practice mindful movement with one of our favorite websites- Cosmic Kids.  And finally, Friday came! Have a look at us creating glitter calming jars, picture frames, bookmarks and snacking too at our Winter Workshop.  (Sorry no pictures of creating sachets or bird feeders but many thanks to parent helpers!)

December rushes by in a blink!

It struck me at the very beginning of last week that I missed blogging the weekend before! Apologies for the lag but I will pick up right where we left off.   Below you will see a glimpse of the students in the midst of "step 3" of our story writing process (use pictures and words to give your story a beginning, middle and end).  I hope you can get a sense of the concentration and perseverance that the children brought to this process.  Other important events from the week of 12/11-12/15 included our first session with Ms. Courcelle (tech integration specialist) and the chromebooks!  We've been working on our skills with the track pad- clicking and dragging!  (Some of the games we use to practice are linking to this blog on the right hand side- you can check them out).  Lastly you will see Mr. White reading a great non-fiction book about birds flying south that extended our learning about hibernation, migration and adaptation.  Check out the evented spelling on the white board behind him.

Full Speed Ahead!

I opened this week's newsletter by saying what a productive week we'd had and I think this blog post will give you a good sense of it.  I'll start with some photos of our Math learning this week- you can see Ms. Emily's lesson about seeing equations on a 10 frame. "How may on the top row plus how many on the bottom, equals how many all together?"

Later in the week we played the card game Compare which tied in to seeing quantities on the 10 frame and did some Domino Math as a way of creating and checking addition equations.

In Literacy this week we began to think about creating our own stories.  We've been so inspired by reading "old favorites"! Take a look at our process poster and then you will see us doing step 1- brainstorming in writer's notebooks and 2- telling stories in a storyteller's voice.  As children told their stories, their classmates gave them feedback as to which story idea would be the best one to pursue writing.

And to all this learning in the classroom- lets add some amazing experiences in Farm to School- making a squash soup with curry and coconut milk, and using the parachute in PE!  Remember the article we shared in the beginning of the year about allowing for your child to have down time after school?  It's much needed!

Wondrous Words

This week a great deal of our learning centered around our current unit in Reader's Workshop: "Old Favorites".  I began the unit by reading an old favorite that I knew would be a bit less familiar to the kids but it really drives the idea of "knowing a book by heart" home- Mrs. Wishy Washy. Ms. Jane's next two lessons in which she read The Carrot Seed and Harry the Dirty Dog, linked back to the idea of looking at words and pictures as you read while also emphasizing sounding like the characters and being able to identify the beginning, middle and end of a story so you can retell it to a friend. I'm sure you saw the Mrs. Wishy Washy strip come home in folders and below you can see us dramatizing The Carrot Seed with popcicle stick puppets and one student's work about Harry the Dirty Dog.

The class has been doing a great job with independent literacy choices when their "have to's" are finished.  Below you can see a student proudly recording the words she made out of magnet letters

On Thursday we started a new literacy routine of making mail.  Sending a letter is an authentic reason to write and receiving a piece of mail feels like getting a present!  Below you can see two friends reading their mail to one another.

On Friday we were lucky enough to be read to by a student/athlete from SBHS.  He was a great role model and inspired our class to keep working hard on reading!

It's important to know that our class plays as hard as they work! And here's a look at the happiness brought by the first snowfall. Snow angels and snow butterflies???