Reading & Writing
This week we are beginning our last reading unit which is on Amazing Creatures. Our first week's focus is on insects. We read a story today about Beetles and the kiddos came up with some great questions based on things they were wondering about beetles. We talked about some features of non-fiction texts including real photos and the table of contents. We also discussed the vocabulary words insects (creatures with 6 legs and a body that has three parts: head, thorax, abdomen) and interesting (something that gets your attention).
Our letter of the week this week is Z and our word of the week is friend. Students will learn the /ie/ sound on Wednesday and will do a post-test on opinion writing on Thursday. The goal for opinion writing is to express an opinion and to back it up with two reasons why.
Math
This week in math we will focus on "Tiny Tumblers" which is a visual used for drawing the two numbers/groups that are being added together to create a sum. Students will also learn about recognizing tens and ones and will work on writing numbers to 30.
This week I will also be reviewing some concepts that I identified as needing some more practice when assessing students such as 3-D shapes (sphere, cylinder, and cube), counting backwards from 10, and identifying sight words.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
May 13th-17th
Reading and Writing
This week we will doing several different writing activities. We will finish our digital butterfly books, label the parts of a butterfly using the Skitch app, and write an opinion piece about whether or not we should release our butterflies. I hope you enjoyed the books we worked on for Mother's Day! On Thursday we will have DIBELS testing school wide to check in with how the kiddo's reading skills have advanced. If you are reading at home, keep it up! Reading with your child and having him or her read to you is so important!!
Students will also learn the /or/ sound this week as in corn. The letter of the week is Y and the word of the week is where. We are almost through the entire alphabet and only have one more letter after this week.
Math
We are continuing to use our pretend grocery store to practice story problems with addition and subtraction. The kiddos are really having fun pretending to shop and writing equations to match what classmates purchase.
Science
I arrived at school this morning to find that all five of our butterflies hatched over the weekend! The kids were very excited to photograph the butterflies with their iPads and to see what they look like. We watched a video about butterflies today so they could see some examples of other types of butterflies, learn about the butterfly body, and see how what it looks like when the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis because they didn't get to witness that with our own butterflies. Later this week, we will release the butterflies outside.
This week we will doing several different writing activities. We will finish our digital butterfly books, label the parts of a butterfly using the Skitch app, and write an opinion piece about whether or not we should release our butterflies. I hope you enjoyed the books we worked on for Mother's Day! On Thursday we will have DIBELS testing school wide to check in with how the kiddo's reading skills have advanced. If you are reading at home, keep it up! Reading with your child and having him or her read to you is so important!!
Students will also learn the /or/ sound this week as in corn. The letter of the week is Y and the word of the week is where. We are almost through the entire alphabet and only have one more letter after this week.
Math
We are continuing to use our pretend grocery store to practice story problems with addition and subtraction. The kiddos are really having fun pretending to shop and writing equations to match what classmates purchase.
Science
I arrived at school this morning to find that all five of our butterflies hatched over the weekend! The kids were very excited to photograph the butterflies with their iPads and to see what they look like. We watched a video about butterflies today so they could see some examples of other types of butterflies, learn about the butterfly body, and see how what it looks like when the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis because they didn't get to witness that with our own butterflies. Later this week, we will release the butterflies outside.
(Photo by Wondi)
The kiddos also have a few butterfly projects to do this week. Today, they colored butterflies to make them symmetrical on both sides and later in the week we will be making a butterfly out of a coffee filter.
We've learned a few songs about butterflies and one student asked for a copy of the words, so I thought I would post them here.
The Fuzzy Caterpillar
(Tune: Itsy Bitsy Spider)
The fuzzy caterpillar
curled up on a leaf,
spun her little chrysalis
and then fell fast asleep.
While she was sleeping
she dreamed that she could fly,
and later when she woke up
she was a butterfly!
I'll take a video of the class singing this song and another song and I'll post it.
Monday, May 6, 2013
May 6th-10th
Reading & Writing
Our letter of the week this week is Q and our word of the week is me. The students will be learning the /ea/ sound as in team on Tuesday. They will continue working on a secret writing project and will label the parts of the butterfly using a photograph on the Skitch app. Students are also continuing to make their own digital book using the app Book Creator to tell about how the caterpillars are changing into butterflies.
Math
We are starting a new math unit that utilizes a pretend grocery store to create story problems. I have a little grocery stand set up with fake fruits and vegetables that the kiddos will use as props to tell story problems about buying food. Today we had two helpers at a time acting as the cashier and the shopper. The shopper chose two types of food to buy and told the rest of the class how many of each he/she was getting. Then the cashier and the rest of the group had to write the addition sentence to go along with the shopper's purchase on their iPads and solve the equation. It is really temping for Kindergartners to use materials like this just to "play," but they did a really great job of following the directions and everyone was engaged in math!
Science
We now have four pupa encased in chrysalises hanging from the top of our cup and one chrysalis that became unattached that is on the bottom. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of butterflies, but that will probably not happen until next week. The kiddos are very excited to see the changes. It's cool to have creatures right in our classroom! Later this week, the kiddos will do an art project showing the life cycle of the butterfly and the different stages it goes through.
Our letter of the week this week is Q and our word of the week is me. The students will be learning the /ea/ sound as in team on Tuesday. They will continue working on a secret writing project and will label the parts of the butterfly using a photograph on the Skitch app. Students are also continuing to make their own digital book using the app Book Creator to tell about how the caterpillars are changing into butterflies.
Math
We are starting a new math unit that utilizes a pretend grocery store to create story problems. I have a little grocery stand set up with fake fruits and vegetables that the kiddos will use as props to tell story problems about buying food. Today we had two helpers at a time acting as the cashier and the shopper. The shopper chose two types of food to buy and told the rest of the class how many of each he/she was getting. Then the cashier and the rest of the group had to write the addition sentence to go along with the shopper's purchase on their iPads and solve the equation. It is really temping for Kindergartners to use materials like this just to "play," but they did a really great job of following the directions and everyone was engaged in math!
Science
We now have four pupa encased in chrysalises hanging from the top of our cup and one chrysalis that became unattached that is on the bottom. We are eagerly awaiting the arrival of butterflies, but that will probably not happen until next week. The kiddos are very excited to see the changes. It's cool to have creatures right in our classroom! Later this week, the kiddos will do an art project showing the life cycle of the butterfly and the different stages it goes through.
Monday, April 29, 2013
April 29th-May 3rd
Wow!
I can't believe it's almost May already.
Soon enough the kiddos will be leaving me to become big First Graders!
Reminders
- Scholastic Book orders are due next Monday. This will be the last book order of the school year.
- Spring photos are Thursday May 2nd. Only students who have an order form and payment will have their photos taken. If you are sending an order form with you child, please send me an email to let me know. That way I know to ask for it/check his/her backpack.
Reading/Writing
This week we are finishing up our unit on Plants. Our story this week is called Sunflower house and we will focus on the vocabulary words senses and garden. Our letter of the week is J and our word of the week is with. On Tuesday the kiddos will learn the /ay/ sound. Later in the week we will start working on a super secret writing project that will be revealed next week ;0)
Math
On Wednesday the kiddos will get to do some graphing and adding with jelly beans for some J week fun. We will continue practicing teen numbers by building ten-groups and extras with stamps. The kiddos will also fill in a blank 100 chart to see how many numbers they know between 1 and 100.
Science
It's that time of year...we have butterflies in our room! Well--not quite yet...we have caterpillars! This is one of the most exciting activities we do all year because the kids get to watch the caterpillars change into butterflies with their very own eyes. We will be documenting the changes by photographing our caterpillars with the Ipads. We've also started using a new app called Book Creator to make a book all about Butterflies. I am amazed at how quickly the kiddos learned how to add text, photos, and sound to their books. They are working on writing scientific descriptions of what they see and how the caterpillars are changing. We have also practiced using QR codes and the scan app to access beautiful photos of butterflies from the internet. QR codes are used to ensure that kids are accessing appropriate photos on the internet rather than running the risk they will encounter something they shouldn't see.
Monday, April 22, 2013
April 22nd-26th
Reading
Students are continuing to learn "first grade sounds" during phonics instruction. Because these sounds are more challenging, I introduce one new sound each week rather than several. This helps give a little more time for it to sink in.Sound we have covered recently
/oo/ zoom to the moon
/ar/ start the car
/c/ city mice on ice (soft c)
This week our sound is
/ou/ shout it out
Our letter of the week is X and our word of the week is look.
This week we are continuing our reading unit on plants. We are in the second week of this unit and the focus this week is on Seeds and Plants. Last week we focused on How Trees Grow. Today our story talked about many different ways seeds can move from place to place such as getting carried by birds, blowing in the wind, or being carried by water. Later this week, the kiddos will get the chance to dissect a seed and see what it looks like inside.
Writing
Our current writing focus in Opinion writing. In this type of writing, the kiddos are expected to state their opinion relating to a particular topic or prompt and then give reasons to explain their opinion. When I was absent last Friday they wrote a piece in response to the question "Do you like to eat vegetables? Why or why not? As they are becoming more and more proficient in writing, spelling is becoming more accurate and we are now working on making sure to put periods at the end of each sentence and to capitalize the first letter of each new sentence. Writing is looking great!
Math
This week we are focusing on measurement. Today we looked at several different tools used to measure (measuring cups/spoons, a ruler, and two different kinds of measuring tape). We talked about how we use particular tools based on what we need to measure. One example I gave was that if I wanted to measure chocolate chips to add to my cookie recipe, I couldn't use a ruler for that. Throughout the week the kiddos will be doing some hands on measuring during math time and we will be using the math vocabulary words long/longer/longest, short/shorter/shortest, tall/taller/tallest.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
March 11th-15th
Reminders/Upcoming Events
Starting March 18th Durham will be collecting food for the food backpack program. Ramen noodles, rice, beans, cereal, and cans of corn or green beans will be collected until March 22nd. We appreciate your donations!!
Next Friday will be our Teddy Bear parade. The kiddos have been working hard on their bears and they are ready to show them off! Our parade will begin at 9:30 and we will parade into other classrooms. After the parade I would love to have a special Bear Parade snack and serve some Teddy Grahams. If you would like to contribute a box of Teddy Grahams, please let me know.
Spring conferences are this Friday! Your child is looking forward to showing off all that he/she has learned this year! Students will be using their iPads to show you some work during the conference and I am requesting that older/younger siblings not touch the iPads. Thanks for your help in honoring our Kinders and all their hard work.
Reading/Writing
Yesterday students completed the writing post assessment for informative writing. Their task was to write about why it is important to read. Informative writing can be quite challenging for students who are still focusing on learning the mechanics of writing and mastering sounds, but they did a great job.
We have been focusing a lot on writing in the past few weeks including some writing jobs about all of the wonderful Mo Willems books we have been reading. I introduced the kiddos to Knuffle Bunny last week during K week and they were big fans. Mo Willems also write stories about Pigeon as well as Gerald & Piggy. We use Socrative to vote for our favorite stories and characters and then analyzed the graph that was created based on our votes. The kiddos also wrote about which story was their favorite and why.
Next week we will begin a unit on weather and the kiddos will do some writing about weather.
Math
We are continuing to practice teen numbers in math. You will get to see how we use our iPad to practice showing ten groups and ones at your conference.
Starting March 18th Durham will be collecting food for the food backpack program. Ramen noodles, rice, beans, cereal, and cans of corn or green beans will be collected until March 22nd. We appreciate your donations!!
Next Friday will be our Teddy Bear parade. The kiddos have been working hard on their bears and they are ready to show them off! Our parade will begin at 9:30 and we will parade into other classrooms. After the parade I would love to have a special Bear Parade snack and serve some Teddy Grahams. If you would like to contribute a box of Teddy Grahams, please let me know.
Spring conferences are this Friday! Your child is looking forward to showing off all that he/she has learned this year! Students will be using their iPads to show you some work during the conference and I am requesting that older/younger siblings not touch the iPads. Thanks for your help in honoring our Kinders and all their hard work.
Reading/Writing
Yesterday students completed the writing post assessment for informative writing. Their task was to write about why it is important to read. Informative writing can be quite challenging for students who are still focusing on learning the mechanics of writing and mastering sounds, but they did a great job.
We have been focusing a lot on writing in the past few weeks including some writing jobs about all of the wonderful Mo Willems books we have been reading. I introduced the kiddos to Knuffle Bunny last week during K week and they were big fans. Mo Willems also write stories about Pigeon as well as Gerald & Piggy. We use Socrative to vote for our favorite stories and characters and then analyzed the graph that was created based on our votes. The kiddos also wrote about which story was their favorite and why.
Next week we will begin a unit on weather and the kiddos will do some writing about weather.
Math
We are continuing to practice teen numbers in math. You will get to see how we use our iPad to practice showing ten groups and ones at your conference.
Friday, February 15, 2013
February 11th-15th
Reading & Writing
Students are continuing to work on narrative writing in their journals. Each Monday they write about one thing they did over the weekend. I ask them to include two details and a feeling about what they did. This week we talked about trying out some different words/feelings other than "good" and "fun."
They have also started working on their bear books where they will write about the process of sewing their Teddy Bear.
Our reading theme this week was animals and we read a story called Mole and the Baby Bird. Our new vocabulary words this week were habitat and responsibility. In the story, the mole came across a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. Mole took the bird home to be his pet and put it in cage. Even though Mole was trying hard to take care of the bird, the bird wasn't happy because it couldn't fly. At the end of the story, Mole realized that the bird needed to be able to fly and wasn't able to do that if he was in a cage, so he let the bird go. At first Mole was sad, but then he was happy when he saw how happy the bird was to be free. After reading the story, students talked to their partners about whether or not they thought Mole was responsible to let the bird go.
This week we tried out a new app called Socrative with the help of Mr. Engstrom who works for the district and is available to help me co-teach when we use iPads. Socrative requires students to log into my "classroom" where they can take a quiz that I have prepared. I used this app to administer a quiz to practice spelling words. The great thing about the app is that I receive the student data via email so that I can track how students are doing and what sounds may need more practice.
We also tried out a new app called Scan that uses QR codes, but due to Internet issues, we had some trouble.
Our letter of the week this week was B and our word of the week was what.
Math
A letter was sent home in the Friday folders today that talks about what we are currently working on in math. We have begin unit 3 and are focusing on teen numbers. Students should recognize that when we write teen numbers they all start with a 1. They should also recognize that teen numbers have a group of ten and extra ones. I posted a Teen Number video prior to this post that you can watch. I add a second verse to the song that goes, Come on everybody let's sing it again, numbers in the teens have a group of 10! We've used the Doodle Buddy app as well as some hand motions to practice 11-13 so far.
We also practiced sorting candy hearts by color and graphing how many of each color students had.
Bears
Looking forward to having Amanda, Grammy Deb, Lindsay, and Stephanie next week for help with our Teddy Bears!
Students are continuing to work on narrative writing in their journals. Each Monday they write about one thing they did over the weekend. I ask them to include two details and a feeling about what they did. This week we talked about trying out some different words/feelings other than "good" and "fun."
They have also started working on their bear books where they will write about the process of sewing their Teddy Bear.
Our reading theme this week was animals and we read a story called Mole and the Baby Bird. Our new vocabulary words this week were habitat and responsibility. In the story, the mole came across a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest. Mole took the bird home to be his pet and put it in cage. Even though Mole was trying hard to take care of the bird, the bird wasn't happy because it couldn't fly. At the end of the story, Mole realized that the bird needed to be able to fly and wasn't able to do that if he was in a cage, so he let the bird go. At first Mole was sad, but then he was happy when he saw how happy the bird was to be free. After reading the story, students talked to their partners about whether or not they thought Mole was responsible to let the bird go.
This week we tried out a new app called Socrative with the help of Mr. Engstrom who works for the district and is available to help me co-teach when we use iPads. Socrative requires students to log into my "classroom" where they can take a quiz that I have prepared. I used this app to administer a quiz to practice spelling words. The great thing about the app is that I receive the student data via email so that I can track how students are doing and what sounds may need more practice.
We also tried out a new app called Scan that uses QR codes, but due to Internet issues, we had some trouble.
Our letter of the week this week was B and our word of the week was what.
Math
A letter was sent home in the Friday folders today that talks about what we are currently working on in math. We have begin unit 3 and are focusing on teen numbers. Students should recognize that when we write teen numbers they all start with a 1. They should also recognize that teen numbers have a group of ten and extra ones. I posted a Teen Number video prior to this post that you can watch. I add a second verse to the song that goes, Come on everybody let's sing it again, numbers in the teens have a group of 10! We've used the Doodle Buddy app as well as some hand motions to practice 11-13 so far.
We also practiced sorting candy hearts by color and graphing how many of each color students had.
Bears
Looking forward to having Amanda, Grammy Deb, Lindsay, and Stephanie next week for help with our Teddy Bears!
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