October 8th-12th

Reading & Writing
This week we finished up our first section of phonics and then reviewed our first ten letter/sound combinations. Yesterday and today I spent some time assessing the class one child at time so I can determine which letters need a bit more practice before we move on. Today the students did a whole group writing assessment during which I said a sound and they needed to write the letter that corresponds with the sound I said. I just went through and scored those assessments and I was really impressed with the letter formation that I saw. I can tell that practice with the Letter School app has contributed to neat writing!

Our letter of the week was "S" and our sight word was "like." Our country this week was Switzerland and the kiddos learned how to say hello, goodbye, and thank you in German which is one of the languages spoken there.

During small groups this week I introduced a game called the Alphabet Mystery Box. The kiddos had to read into the mystery box and pull out one of the objects. Then they had to identify the initial sound and the letter the item starts with. We had a lot of fun with it!

Math
This week we worked a bit on graphing and comparing numbers. First I introduced what a vertical graph looks with two bars and talked about how we can look at the graph and determine which side shows more and which side shows less. Then I asked the kiddos to create their own graph by asking 7 classmates whether they are five years old or six years old. They had to color a square on their graph for each response and then determine which answer had more responses and which answer had fewer responses. They enjoyed interacting with one another and "interviewing" each other. Today we talked about the words "same" and "different" and the kiddos drew pictures of two things that were the same and two things that were different to demonstrate their understanding of the words.

Coming Up
Monday is the first day of Extended Day Kindergarten. If your child will be participating, a new bus schedule was sent home in his/her Friday folder today.

Next week we will start Science! We don't do Science as often as we do Reading, Writing, and Math, but it's a lot of fun when we do! Our first objective in science is for the kiddos to understand what "science" is and to understand how they can observe the world using their senses. On Thursday, they will make observations about pumpkins and use StoryKit to photograph a real pumpkin and record their observations.

Reminders
Don't forget to save your empty pop cans and water bottles for the Drive By Can Drive.

Please sign and return the permission slip for our field trip to the Pumpkin Patch on October 30th.

Have a great weekend! 

Choice Time

I just wanted to share a few pictures from Choice Time today. It's always a great day when everyone has earned their choice time and gets to enjoy a fun activity of their own choosing.

building with magnets

exploring magnets (attraction and repelling)

initial letter sound recognition game

listening station

counting cakes

coloring

Each week I set out different activities that give the kiddos a variety of options that typically include educational games to practice literacy and math skills, science exploration trays, books on CD with headphones, blocks or magnets for building, markers and paper for coloring. 

Coming Up:

Next week our letter of the week is S and our word of the week is like. We will complete our first series of sound lessons with the letter o on Monday and then I will review our first 10 sounds [m, a, s, d, t, n, p, o, g] and assess the kiddos one on one. In Math we will begin learning about graphing so that we can compare numbers and determine which is bigger/more and which is smaller/less next week and we will also talk about the math words same and different. Additionally, the children will begin to practice number writing, which will be reinforced with Letter School on the iPad because that offers number practice as well as letter practice.

Our Star and Co-Star of the week are Mackenzie and Jena! 

The homework that went home today includes two sheets of math homework. Each sheet is double sided. Please help your child do a little bit of the homework each night instead of attempting it all at once. 

Helpful hint for math homework==> You will often see one side of sheet has an empty box without any directions. The directions are actually on the bottom of the previous page....look carefully! 

Have a great weekend and enjoy the beautiful weather! 

Can Drive

Durham's Drive-By Can Drive will be Wednesday October 24th. Please start collecting your empty pop cans and water bottles because the grade that collects the most cans wins a popcorn party! Wouldn't that be FUN!

Cans will be collected in the parking lot on October 24th at the following times:

before school

after school

5:45-6:15 pm

Please do not send cans/bottles to school prior to that date as I do no have any room in the classroom to store them. 

The money raised by collecting cans will help the Caring Closet buy new shoes and other items for families who need them.

Let's go Kindergarten! Collect those cans and bottles!!

In other news, the Literacy Bags are all ready to go for Friday! I bought some new games and activities and refreshed all the bags so they are new and improved for the kiddos this year. If you have not signed up and would like to--you still can! I have 23 bags which is an entire class set, so everyone is encouraged to participate provided you promised to take super good care of all the books, activities, and materials so everyone can enjoy complete bags with all the materials intact. 

October 1st-5th

 My family and I were off to a wedding in California right after school on Friday and we were away all weekend, so I am catching up from last week and giving a sneak peek into what we'll be doing this week.

Reading & Writing
Last week we did the letter sounds for /d/, /t/, and /i/. Now that the kiddos know a good number of sounds, we are beginning to practice sounding out words. Our phonics program introduces one letter at a time for students who are just learning sounds, yet it moves quickly so that children who already know their sounds are still engaged. It offers a lot of opportunities for review for kiddos who need to see and hear the sounds/letter multiple times before they "stick." Review often entails games, coming up with ideas, and sharing/talking with a partner, so there are many skills being practiced besides just the letter sounds. I want the children to be communicating as much as possible and using the words/sounds/letters we learn in context. In an effort to have as many kids engaged as possible, I am trying to move away from having just one child answer or demonstrate in exchange for activities where all kids respond and all kids are asked to share with their partners while I rotate and listen. This week we will cover /n/, /p/, and /o/. After 10 lessons, I will stop and assess students to see if we need to go back and practice any particular sounds before we move on to the next set of 10 lessons.

 We are also continuing to use our iPads to assist with our letter writing practice. I introduced an app called Letter School and it was a huge hit. Letter School is an app for practicing letter and number formation that corrects for letters that are not written properly. The students have learned that we always start our letters from the top so Letter School helps to ensure that is being done. Letter School requires the use of individual headphones, so we started using those last week and the kiddos have been doing a fantastic job using them, taking care of them, and recognizing when it's a time to take them off and listen to directions.

Math
In math the children have been practicing putting their number parade in order and counting out and/or drawing sets of different numbers. We have been creating "scenes" with the Sketchio app that model different numbers which will be made into a book using the app StoryKit. StoryKit is the app I demonstrated at Back to School Night which allows the kiddos to import their pictures from their photo album, record their voice to describe their photo/scene, and then eventually write the words to go along with what they say about their photo/scene. Initially, our math lessons have a slower pace and emphasize follow the directions and using the materials/manipulatives according to the directions. We do a lot of practice with number 1-10 to develop number sense and a deeper understanding of the numbers and their "number partners" which is a precursor to addition. It may seem like it's repetitive, yet our math program emphasizes depth over breadth. "Math Talk" is a huge part of our math curriculum because being able to explain math concept and mathematical thinking is both important and challenging!

Apps We're Using
Sketchio
StoryKit
Line Em Up
Letter School

Other Stuff
We have started our Star of the Week rotation and the kids are getting the hang of listening when a peer is sharing and are beginning to ask questions. Working on recognizing the different between asking a question and telling something about their own life is definitely something that we will talk about and think about when we have our Star of the Week presentations.

Our school Can Drive is beginning. I don't have the exact info with collection dates in front of me, but start saving your empty pop cans and water bottles. The class to collect the most wins a popcorn party! I will post more specific details another day.