Celebrating Friendship

Shrieks of "This is the best day ever!" echoed throughout the classroom today.  And a great day it was!  The children were thrilled to pass out their Valentine cards to one another, and as they carefully opened their cards one by one, they were sure to graciously thank the child who had given them that card.  It was a true moment of friendship!  They loved the shared snack, too.  It's amazing how a little whipped cream and special napkins and bowls can transform ordinary into something special.  Thank you for all your help in making this day so memorable for the children.

 
During Reading Workshop time, we have been studying features of nonfiction text.  We learned that:

• readers get ready to read a nonfiction text by doing a picture walk.
• readers use their prior knowledge to help them comprehend nonfiction text.
• even if readers can't read the words in a nonfiction text, they can still learn new information by closely studying the photographs.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• many nonfiction books have a Table of Contents.  A Table of Contents tells us the different topics we will read about and what page we can find those topics on.  
  
  
  
  
• readers can compare and contrast two different texts about similar/the same topics.

During Writing Workshop we have been writing How-To books.  The children took off with this writing unit (as I expected they would since their minds are filled with ideas of things they know how to do).  We learned to:

• use sequencing words when writing our steps.
• use a telling voice (First, get your dog's leash) instead of a story voice (First, I got my dog's leash).
• leave spaces between our words.
• act out the steps if we are having trouble remembering what comes next.
• draw pictures that clearly show what each step is telling our reader to do.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

During Math we:

• learned about 3-dimensional objects (cylinder, sphere, cube, rectangular prism, and cone).
• practiced adding by playing Dice Roll and Record.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• practiced reading two-digit numbers and finding them on a number grid.
• solved addition and subtraction number stories.

It was a pleasure meeting with so many of you this week to share the growth your little learner has made throughout his/her kindergarten year.  I hope you were as impressed as I have been.  It's hard to believe that your children have been kindergartners for 98 days and will be celebrating the 100th day of school after vacation!  I hope they all have a vacation filled with fun, laughter, and plenty of rest.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Katie