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!

Teen Numbers

Super e

February 4th-8th

Reminders/Announcements:

• If you are interested in ordering from the February Scholastic Book Club flyers, please submit your order either online or on the paper order form by Monday the 11th. 
• We have officially started sewing Teddy Bears and the kids are so excited! We are a bit behind, so next week the kids will finish sewing on a heart and two buttons for eyes, and then they will sew their bear from ear to ear. 
• On Thursday, we will have a Valentine Party beginning at 10:00 AM. If your child is doing Valentine cards remember to have them complete a few at a time instead of the whole class at once. That's a lot of writing! Use the list I sent home and include students' numbers on the cards please.
• We are now starting our second round of Star/Co-Star of the Week. If your child was the Star the first time around, he/she will now be the Co-Star and vice versa. Students will still have a chance to do a show and tell, but a family project is replacing the family photo this time around. 

Reading/Writing

This week our letter of the week was E and our word of the week was this. The class was very excited that they are now able to listen to our sight word songs in iTunes on their iPads. We had to practice not singing out loud and dancing around while listening, but they are really enjoying the opportunity to listen to music. The sight word songs are a fantastic way to help them remember how to spell the sight words, which I do expect them to spell correctly in their writing. There are also some Learning with Hip Hop songs on there which I can already tell are going to be favorites.

We started using an app called Popplet this week, which is an app that I am also using for organizing my dissertation data. It's a mind-mapping tool that allows the kids to create webs and organize information visually. We made a Mrs. Toppel Popplet where my name was in the center and they wrote (typed) different things they know about me in the bubbles, which are called Popples, around my name. They also made a Popplet about either pets or zoo animals yesterday when Mrs. Emerson was subbing. They used information from the Baby Animals ABC book we read this week to categorize animals as either pets or zoo animals, then used their category at the center of the popple and the names of the animals in that group around category Popple. Once the kiddos have had a little more practice with the app, I will have them email their work to me so I can forward it to you. 

We are continuing with the theme of animals and learned about many different baby animals with our big book story this week--one animal for every letter of the alphabet! During big book read alouds, I always ask students to talk to their partners in order to have them recall information they learned, make predictions, and have a chance to interact rather than just sitting and listening. Kids love to talk, so I like to respect that and provide them with opportunities to share their ideas during my lessons. The vocabulary words this week were information and parents.

Math

This week we finished up our second unit in math, which focused on 5-groups. I gave the end of unit assessment today and the kids did great. The objectives of the unit were to write numerals 1-10, see and make numbers in 5-groups, and identify and continue a pattern. We also worked a lot on practicing the names of the basic shapes (circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle) as well as hexagon and trapezoid. Starting Monday, the students will be at tables that are now marked by different shapes. From now on when I call table groups, I will use the name of the shape that is on the tables to help reinforce the shape names. 

Next week we start Unit 3 in our math program, which focuses on teen numbers 11-19. These numbers can be tricky for students, so I have a few fun ideas planned to get them interested and excited about teen numbers. The goals of Unit 3 are for students to find partners of numbers through 6, see teen numbers as tens and ones, and to use = and ≠ to pose and solve addition and subtraction problems. 

January 29th-February 1st

News & Reminders:

• We will be starting our Teddy Bear Project soon! Each student will get to sew his/her very own Teddy Bear. If you would like to send in special buttons to be the eyes on your child's bear, please do so by Wednesday February 6th.
• I already have a few parents who volunteer weekly, but I will need some additional help for the Teddy Bear project. If you are interested in helping please let me know! 
• We will have a Valentine's Day party on Thursday the 14th. I am sending info home about Valentine cards tomorrow in the Friday folders. 
• Report Cards are being sent home tomorrow.

Reading & Writing

Our letter of the week this week is R and our word of the week is for. 

This week we started a new unit on Animals which started with a story called Mama Cat and her Three Kittens. The vocabulary words for our story were compare and actions. We read the big book story that told about what the mama cat and her three kittens did, then we did a silent picture walk to remember all of the actions the cats did. After that, the kiddos talked with their partner to see how many actions they could remember from the story. Finally, they did some writing and completed the sentence "Cats can ____."

I introduced a new app this week called Skitch. We use this app to label pictures/photos in order to practice sounding out and spelling words. I will periodically email you examples of your child's work using this app so you can see the development in his/her spelling.

We have completed our Fast Track Phonics units, so we are now moving on to reinforce some word work skills. We are using various apps to practice spelling words and changing sounds to create new words.

Math
We are continuing to work with 5-groups, but this week we used pennies and 5-groups of pennies instead of the square inch tiles that we typically use. Today the class built the numbers 1-10 using 5-groups and extra pennies. Soon we will be moving on to teen numbers which helps to build the foundation for place value. All of the repetition in math is intended to build number sense and automaticity with basic math facts.

January 14th-18th

Reminders & Info: 

• There is no school on Monday due to MLK day. 
• I will be out next Wednesday because I am attending a workshop for our Digital Learning Collaborative grant.

Reading & Writing:
This week we are finishing up our third unit of Fast Track Phonics with the sounds /y/, /th/, and /x/. Next week I will be assessing students on recalling the sounds and writing the letters for the last 10 lessons we have done. We are continuing to practice sounding out simple words and writing them using the Sketchio app as a way to practice "break it down" which helps with figuring out how to write/spell words.

Our letter of the week is H this week and our sight word is you.

On Monday we read a big book story called Our Special Sweet Potato Pie. We talked about the vocabulary words special and feast. Students practiced retelling the important parts of the stories with their partner using picture clues. With our big book stories, we focus a lot on not just sitting quietly and listening to a story, but stopping to talk about what is happening, make predictions about what will happen next, and make connections between  the story we are reading and other stories we have read before. This type of shared reading is a great way for students to share their ideas and to do more thinking during story time. When I ask questions, I have students answer the questions with their partners because that way everyone gets a chance to talk and say what they think instead of just a few children who raise their hands.

Math:
This week we are spending a lot of time working with shapes. We have been drawing shapes, talking about the characteristics of shapes (how many sides, straight or curved lines) and today we used a new app called Geoboards to create shapes using virtual rubber bands. Most students can identify the basic shapes (circle, oval, square, rectangle, triangle) but we are also working to identify hexagons and trapezoids as well. Those two shapes are now considered "basic" shapes in Kindergarten. Times have changed...

Tomorrow we will work on building 3-D figures (cylinder, sphere, cone, and cube) with playdough. The concept of 3-Dimensional can be tricky so I think the kiddos need to create those figures and hold
them in their hands in order to really understand and learn about what they look like. I'm pretty sure the kiddos are going to be really excited about the play dough!

January 7th-11th

Welcome back and Happy New Year!

Reminders & Info

Next week on January 17th we have DIBELS testing at Durham. DIBELS is our school wide reading assessment that allows us to check in students' progress and to determine which students would benefit from additional reading support. 

Students received their snowmen, which is our January family project. Projects can be turned in anytime next week. The official due date is Tuesday January 22nd. Please let me know if you need any additional supplies for your creation. 

Reading & Writing

This week we started a three week unit on the topic of Food. Our vocabulary words this week were farmer and market. We read a story called Apple Farmer Annie and the kiddos worked on retelling the events of the story using picture cues with a partner. We also read a non-fiction piece on the process of making strawberry jam called From Strawberry Field to Strawberry Jam. We are continuing to work on informative/explanatory writing, so as a pre-writing activity, students used StoryKit to record the steps for making strawberry jam that we learned from the story. We practiced using the words first, next, and 

last. The goals for informative/explanatory writing in Kindergarten are for students to:

• Identify a topic about which they are writing (Dictation or Writing)
• Supply information about the topic (Dictation or Writing)
• Demonstrate proficiency in proper spacing between most words and word placement on lines (Writing)
• Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun "I" (Writing)
• Write letters for most consonant and short vowel words (Writing)
• Spell simple words phonetically (Writing)

Those are end of the year goals so we are working towards them and focusing on be able to organize and tell information at this point. 

This week we covered the sounds /ch/, /j/, and /v/. We are very close to completing our third unit which means the students are now using their skills to hear a word and "break it down" (or sound it out) in order to write it down. 

Our letter of the week this week is F and our sight word is "play."

Math

We are continuing to practice 5-groups. Our math program includes extensive practice with the intention that students will become proficient in knowing how to separate numbers into a group of five and extras which is building automaticity in basic math facts. Utilizing basic math facts is a necessary math skill that will be used in many grades to come, so, although it may seem like we practice the same thing over and over, it is with purpose. 

We have also been reviewing basic shapes which include circle, square, rectangle, oval, triangle, trapezoid, and hexagon. Today we did another shape picture similar to the tree and snowman that came home before break. These activities involve coloring the shapes according to the directions, cutting out the shapes, and assembling the shapes to create a new image. I modified today's activity a bit in that I didn't model for the students how to arrange the shapes once they were cut out. Instead I asked the class to think of a way they could go together and I got some very creative ideas. My original thought was a barn, yet I had students arrange the shapes to make a house, a school, a hotel, a tree house, and a secret fort.