Life in Kindergarten: A Busy Week!

What a busy week we had with the 100th day of school and Valentine's Day! On Valentine's Day, the children repeatedly said, "This is the best day ever!". It was so exciting to hear and watch their excitement! I couldn't have made the day as enjoyable as it was without the help from all parents. Thank you for the items you contributed to our special snack and for the Valentine cards your child brought in.

Last week in reading we continued reading, and learning about, nonfiction books. The children learned that:

When readers finish reading nonfiction, they tell the main idea and details they learned. Readers can use the fingers on one hand to tell five facts they learned while reading.

Readers might not have any prior knowledge about a topic. Readers acknowledge this, then ask questions and tell what they hope to learn.
Readers can mark new learning or interesting learning with a sticky note. This new/interesting learning can then be shared with a buddy during buddy reading.

Readers look closely at the visuals in a nonfiction book to help them think about what an unknown word might mean.
Many nonfiction books have a glossary. Readers can use this to help them understand the meaning of new vocabulary.
There are 26 letters in the alphabet. Five of those letters are always vowels, and sometimes y is a vowel, too. The rest of the letters are consonants. They learned that every word must contain a vowel. Children played a game called "Follow the Path" to help them practice identifying consonants and vowels.

In addition to all the new learning, children have continued to practice using reading strategies when they come to a word they don't know. These strategies include:

Skippy-Frog
Chunky Monkey
Stretchy Snake
Eagle Eye
Tryin' Lion and
Lips the Fish

Remind your child to use these strategies when he/she comes to an unknown word.

Last week in writing we continued writing how-to books. The children learned to:

Think of all the things they can teach others how to do and write those ideas on the covers of how-to books.
Use a strong, clear voice when writing.
Write sentences that tell other people how to do something instead of writing about ourselves.
Zoom in on important parts of pictures to better help our readers understand what we are describing.

Last week in math we:

Learned about exchanging. We learned a new game, The Raft Game, which required children to make many exchanges. The object of the game was to get a plastic bear across a river, but since the bear couldn't swim, the children had to build a raft. Each raft was made out of five planks. Each plank was made out of five beans. The children rolled a die and collected that many beans. When they had five beans, they exchanged them for a plank. When they had five planks, they exchanged them for a raft. Then their bear could make it across the river!

Continued counting by 5's and counting/writing tally marks.
Learned that 10 groups of 10 equals 100. We explored this on the 100th day of school. During calendar time, we exchanged ten bundles of 10 straws for one bundle of 100 straws. Children also made crowns containing ten strips of paper, with each strip of paper holding 10 stickers or drawings for a total of 100 stickers/drawings.