I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with your family and friends.  I am very thankful to be teaching all of your children at Rowe School!

I enjoyed meeting with you at your child's conference.  It was exciting to be able to share the learning of your child.

The children have been very busy learners the last two weeks (as they are every week!).  During Reading Workshop I have been teaching the children strategies for reading words.  The children have learned the following strategies for reading text:

• When reading an unknown word, use the pictures to help think of what the word could be.
• "Get your mouth ready" by saying the first sound of the word.
• Locate "word wall words" in the books we're reading.  
• After figuring out what an unknown word could be, reread the sentence to make sure the word makes sense in the sentence.
• Point once under every word we see, even if the word has more than one syllable.

• Sound-out words by saying the sounds we have learned for each letter.

We started doing literacy stations a couple of weeks ago.  Children participate in literacy stations on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.  The children rotate through several stations over the course of the week.  The pictures below show children at some of these stations.

Children sort rhyming words at the "Word Work Tub Station."

At the "Handwriting Station" children have the opportunity to practice writing letters we've learned.

This child is putting letters in ABC order at the "Word Work Station."

These children are sorting pictures at the "Pocket Chart Station."

These boys are preparing to listen to a story at the "Listening Station."

The children had another opportunity to meet with their first grade buddies.  This time we shared books with our buddies instead of our writing.  All the children took turns reading to their buddy.  The children were very engaged and on-task.  The pictures below show the children with their first grade buddies. 
During Writing Workshop we have continued to write small moment stories.  The children have been working on adding more details to their stories to help their readers feel like they are part of the story.  Children have been making the people in their story talk and have been including feeling details.  I have been very impressed with the stories your children are writing!


During Math we have:

• Continued to solve addition and subtraction number stories.  Students even created their own number stories during math centers!

• Learned and played a game called "Monster Squeeze."  This is a game that children play in groups of three.  One child picks a number between 1 and 20.  The other two children take turns guessing a number.  The child who picked the number gives clues after each child makes a guess, such as "my number is higher than 12."  The two "guessers" hold monsters on a number line and squeeze their monsters closer and closer together until they guess the correct number.  This game helps children compare numbers. 

• Continued to learn about symmetry.  Children made symmetrical shapes during math centers.

• Participated in math centers to practice skills previously learned.  The pictures below show what we've been doing during our math centers. 

Children put pictures strips in numerical order to practice sequencing numbers

Cutting symmetrical shapes

Playing a number roll dice game

These children are playing "Teen Tangle" to help practice naming and finding teen numbers.  The children had a blast playing this game!!

Next week we will begin a Gingerbread Man unit that will bring us to our December vacation!  I'm sure the children will enjoy the many activities the kindergarten teachers have planned.

Last week in Reading we:

• Chose "just right books" for our book bags.  During read-to-self time students will work on reading the words in books that are at their reading level.
• Continued to work on pointing crisply under every word as we read.
• Learned how to use the pictures to help us figure out unknown words.
• Learned to search for "word wall words" in the books we're reading.
• Learned to look for repeating words across pages in a book.

Last week in Writing we:

• Worked on making sure we write who our story is about, where it is happening, and what is happening. 
• Learned to reread our sentence after each word we write.  This helps us remember what we have written so far and what we still have left to write.
• Continued writing small moment stories.
• Talked about being brave writers.  Children are encouraged to be risk-takers and to write words the way they think they should be spelled.

Last week in Math we:

• Practiced solving addition and subtraction number stories.
• Created a bar graph about our favorite school activities.  We analyzed and discussed the data after compiling it.
• Learned that when rolling a die, each number on the die has an equal chance of being rolled.  Children played a "dice roll" game to help them understand this.
• Learned about symmetry and created symmetrical paintings.

Introducing First Grade Buddies!

Mrs. Boutin's first grade class and our kindergarten class have partnered up as reading and writing buddies.  We will get together once or twice a month to read together and share our writing!  The children are very excited about this opportunity.  We met with our first grade buddies on Friday to share our best piece of writing from October.  This gives the children a new audience to share their writing with.

This week is Reading we:

• Learned how to make a plan for our reading each day.  The children practiced putting their books in the order in which they planned to read them.  By making a plan at the beginning of read-to-self or buddy reading time, the children waste less time deciding which book to read next throughout each block of time.
• Continued to practice retelling emergent story books.
• Practiced naming letters of the alphabet and their sounds (We do this daily.).
• Practiced finding specific letters and words in a piece of writing, like a poem or morning message (We do this daily, too!).
• Added the word "at" to our word wall.

 This week in Writing we:

• Learned that writers take a small moment from their lives and write a lot of details about that small moment.  We talked about the difference between writing one sentence about everything we did in a day (I woke up.  I ate breakfast.  I went to school.  I went to recess.) and writing a lot of details about one small moment.
• Learned to tell a story verbally across multiple pages before writing or drawing.  This helps us plan our story.
• Learned to say each word in the sentence we want to write and point to where we will write each word.  This is another way to plan our writing before diving right in.
• Fancied up our best piece of writing and shared it with our first grade buddies!

This week in Math we:

• Practiced, practiced, practiced naming and showing those tricky teens!   
• Learned about estimating.
• Practiced the tricky teens even more! 

 

Playing a number game

A number book to develop our knowledge of teen numbers

 

17 means "ten plus seven more"

Building an understanding of tens and ones

Drawing shapes to match a numeral

 

Ordering numbers

Number Match

Building a structure with a teen number of blocks

Creating a "shape monster"

Creating a "shape monster"