font-family: 'Shadows Into Light Two', cursive;/ Life in Kindergarten: March 2016

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Spring!

The arrival of spring seemed to bring with it the arrival of winter weather!  The children seemed to enjoy a few extra days of playing in the snow, but it's nice to see that the winter weather has moved on.

On Tuesday, the kindergartners had the opportunity to observe the making of chicken soup with rice by our nutrition staff and some lucky kindergarten helpers.  After, they all got to sample the soup! All the children in our class enjoyed this special treat.









Last week during Reading Workshop we:

  • learned about periods, question marks, and exclamation points, and learned to read text the way the punctuation tells us to read.
  • learned that one reason readers reread is to improve their fluency.
  • learned about Tryin' Lion, a strategy that reminds us to keep on trying when we get stuck on a word.
Last week during Writing Workshop we:
  • learned that writers try on topics as if they are trying on clothes; like clothes, not all topics will fit us.  If we can tell at least five facts about a topic, then that topic fits.
  • write captions to go with our pictures.
  • get our minds ready to write by first telling all the facts we know about a topic.
Last week during Math we:
  • finished our surveys from last week and worked with our partner to create a graph to display our data.




  • learned about estimating.
  • played Bunny Hop to practice adding, subtracting, and moving on a number line.
  • worked on finding different combinations for a number.



I hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend.

Happy Spring!
Katie

Friday, March 18, 2016

A Special Visit

On Wednesday of this week, we were lucky to have author Lynn Plourde visit Rowe School.  The children had the opportunity to listen to Lynn read aloud Dino Pets, then the children worked with her to learn about copycat writing (creating our own version of a text we have read).


This week during Reading Workshop we:
  • learned to have our buddy check-for-understanding throughout the reading of a book.  Every so often, a reader can stop and ask his/her buddy "What have we read/learned so far?"




  • learned to check-in with our buddy after reading a book.  When we finish reading to our buddy, we should ask him/her to tell us what they learned or what the story was about.
  • learned that readers can compare and contrast books about the same/similar topics.
  • reviewed that after saying all the sounds in a word, we then need to put the word back together and read it as a whole word instead of just individual sounds.
During Word Work, we practiced reading words with short and long vowel sounds.  We have learned that when there is one vowel in the middle of the word without any other vowels in the word, it makes the short vowel sound.  When there is a "super e" at the end of a word, it can jump over one letter and make the vowel say its name.  Another way to make a long vowel sound is when "2 vowels go walking, the first one does the talking" (when 2 vowels are together in a word, the first vowel usually says its name).  On Friday, we played a board game to help us practice reading all these types of words.




This week during Writing Workshop we worked on writing All-About (nonfiction) books.  We learned to:
  • think of a topic we know all about and write facts about that topic.
  • think of how we want our books to be organized, then write headings on the top of each page.
  • write a Table of Contents to match our headings.


  • draw realistic pictures to help our reader learn even more about the topic.
This week during Math we:
  • told and solved addition and subtraction number stories with a partner.
  • used a balance scale to compare weights of different objects.
  • solved subtraction number models.
  • worked with a partner to conduct surveys and depict our results in some sort of graph/chart decided on by the partnership (we will finish these graphs on Monday).







It looks like the arrival of spring this weekend will bring with it a possible snow storm!  If our playground is covered in snow next week, please make sure your child has all the appropriate gear needed to play outside.

Have a nice weekend!
Katie

Friday, March 4, 2016

Dr. Seuss

We enjoyed many Dr. Seuss read alouds this week!  The children loved listening to the silly rhymes, plots, and characters.  On Wednesday, we had a school community meeting to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday.


This week during Reading Workshop we:
  • learned that readers use the pictures to add to their understanding of the words.
  • learned that many nonfiction books include pictures with labels.  The labels can help us better understand what the picture is teaching us.
  • reviewed that readers check for understanding as they read.
  • learned that when two vowels are next to each other in a word, usually you hear the name of the first vowel (the long sound) and the second vowel is silent.
This week during Writing Workshop we:
  • edited our how-to books.  We learned to edit for finger spaces, capital letters at the beginning of sentences, punctuation, correct spelling of popcorn words, and lowercase letters where they belong.  Children also worked to make sure their books included pictures with labels.


  • chose one how-to book to publish.  We spent Thursday and Friday working on these and will continue this process next week.  Children are creating a how-to poster from one of their books.  The rest of their how-to books will be sent home next week, so be on the lookout for those!


This week during Math we:
  • practiced subtraction by playing The Disappearing Train game.




  • worked on finding combinations of ten through a game called Ten Bears Hiding.
  • practiced writing and counting tally marks.
  • combined subtraction and addition into one game: The Growing and Disappearing Train game.
  • worked with a partner to tell and solve addition and subtraction number stories.





Enjoy this first weekend of March!
Best,
Katie