November 5th-8th

Thank you for all the hard work you put into the Turkey Family Projects. They look great decorating our bulletin board in the hallway. 

Reminders: There is no school tomorrow, Friday November 9th because it is a teacher workday. We are preparing the progress reports that will go home next week. 

There is no school Monday November 12th because it is Veteran's Day. 

I am still collecting hair conditioner for the hygiene drive

Reading and Writing:

This week we worked on the sounds /b/ and /f/. I introduced a new activity in our letter lessons called "quick erase" in which I write a word on the board and then change one sound a time. For example I might start with sun and say what happens when the /s/ becomes a /b/. Then the kids say bun! Then I'd say okay what happens if the /u/ becomes an /i/ and the kids say bin! It's meant to be a quick practice in sound manipulation and focusing more on listening to the word and what sound will change than actually sounding the words out. I also introduced a new app called I Speak Word Wizard on which we practiced quick erase together. This app has all the letters displayed like a keyboard and we practiced spelling the words and then changing one sound at a time. 

In writing this week we continued working on the narrative stories about the pumpkin patch and when the kiddos finished they did a new story about something they did over the weekend. When writing or dictating I am looking for kids to produce the following:

1. The topic-what they did/where they went

2. Two details about the topic-what happened, who was there etc.

3. A feeling-how they felt about what they did (and more than just "it was fun" which can be a very popular Kindergarten way to end a story)

We have been using StoryKit to practice including these important parts of a narrative and today the kiddos were asked to do the same exercise only this time trying to actually write it out on paper. We started with just writing the topic because at this point it is still hard work for Kinders to sound out all the words and get the topic written down. We are not at the point yet, where they can easily write out their entire story which is why we use StoryKit and dictation as well. This allows me to determine if they know what elements to include in the story and if they can do so in an order that makes sense even though they're not ready to write all of that. As they continue to practice writing they will be able to write more in their stories. 

Math:

This week we finished up our first math unit with a graph predicting who would win the presidential election. We talked about who the main candidates were (names only) and the kiddos drew a picture of who they thought would win. I created a graph Monday after school and on Tuesday we looked at the graph to compare how many votes each candidate got. I gave the first assessment yesterday and overall the results were really good. The only thing that I want to review is shapes as there is still some confusion between triangle, square, and rectangle. Next week we'll do some activities to promote shape recognition. 

Enjoy the long weekend! 

October 29th-November 2nd

Wow! I can't believe it's November already. I realized in posting this that I missed a few weeks of posting, so I apologize and I will fill you in on what we've been up to in the classroom. We had a fun week with our field trip to Baggenstos and our Halloween celebration. I managed to get pictures in the rain at the pumpkin patch which I emailed out, but didn't get any during the business of our Halloween activities. 

Here are a few of Halloween at the Toppel house :)

Reading & Writing
In the past two weeks we have covered the letter/sounds /c/, /k/, /ck/, /u/, and /r/. The kiddos are making great progress in remembering their sounds and many students are already able or starting to be able to sound out words. We have also been practicing the sight words "a," "my," and "see." I've started to do some simple writing activities in class once a week where we being by writing a sentence starter together such as "I like my ..."  or "I am a..." (on Halloween). When I model writing I am showing the class where the letters go on the lines and how we use a "finger space"in between words when we write them. I remind them of the sight word songs we have learned because I expect the children to spell sight words correctly in their writing. I also remind them that a sentence starts with an uppercase letter and ends with a period. Then we write the sight words together (I on my paper and them on their paper). After that, they choose how they want to complete the sentence and try sounding out the word(s) they want to write. This is where the children are using the "break it down" skill to hear the different sounds in the word in order to write down the corresponding letters.

Today we did a pre-writing activity where students were asked to draw a picture of one part of our field trip to the pumpkin patch on Sketchio and then record where we went, two details about what we did there, and then a feeling about the field trip. That activity was done so students could practice retelling a personal narrative which is one of our writing standards. As they become more competent in writing, they will also write words to go along with their dictation. Some students did not finish yet, but if your child finished I forwarded you the email with their story.

Math
We have been continuing to focus on numbers 1-10. In class, do several finger games to show different numbers and we've been using our number cards to practice line em up. We do this in two ways. First, I give out one number card each to a group of students and ask them to line themselves up so their number cards are in order from one to ten. We do this a few times with different groups to practice putting the numbers in order but also to practice teamwork. Then students get their own set of number cards from 1-10 and have to put the numbers in order. Once the cards are in order we do a series of activities to help the children practice identifying, counting out, and arranging tiles to show a specific number as well as comparing different numbers. The extensive focus on numbers 1-10 is to build automatic recognition not only of the numbers themselves but of quantities of those numbers and different amounts that make those numbers when put together.

Science
Before visiting the Pumpkin Patch we read a book called From Seed to Pumpkin to learn about how pumpkins grow and what they look like as they are growing. We are continuing to practice making observations of what we see in the world around us.

Social Studies
We talked a little bit yesterday about the upcoming presidential election and the two main candidates. I read a book called Grace for president which talked a lot about what presidential candidates do, but in the context of a little girl running for class president.

Other Stuff
Thank you to the parents who were able to come with us to the Pumpkin Patch. It's always great to have parents with us and it was great to talk with so many of you last week during conferences.

Our Hygiene drive is starting up. Our class item is hair conditioner, so please contribute some if you can.

Have a great weekend!