Hello Lovely Kindergarten Families! Firstly, I would like to thank all of you for helping make our Publishing Party a great success! The Kindergartners were incredibly proud to share their work with their families and friends. I was so proud to see them read their work and speak confidently about their illustrations and families. A key component to project-based learning is creating and sharing our work for an audience. It is a great achievement that our Kinders have already done this in the 4th week of school! Thank you again for making this day so very positive and special for them! I will be publishing their writing in our first class book of the year. The book will be available for purchase so please be on the look out for my email with the corresponding link. I plan to send it out by the end of the week. Check out some pictures of our Publishing Party. We had a great turnout! Math Workshop and Literacy HighlightsThis week in Math Workshop, we added two new stations: Grab and Count and Button Station. Both centers focus on counting and representing numbers to 20. This week we also practiced reading and writing the sight words: "I am..." by creating an "I Am" book. We generated a list of words to describe ourselves and used our list to help us with our writing. Student-generated word lists, sentences, and stories are one of the many ways young children learn to read and write. Here is Royal reading from his "I Am" book: We have had a busy week and can't wait to share more of our learning with you!
Warmest Regards, Mrs. Rosemarie
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Hello Wonderful Kindergarten Families! We have had an awesome last two weeks filled with "Family Fun," writing, critique, and collaboration. Our Kinders have engaged in three critique sessions over the last two weeks. With their family writing pieces, they have gotten feedback from each other, their 12th grade Buddies, and their 4th grade Buddies. We are currently putting the finishing touches on our final drafts and are looking forward to sharing them with you at our first Publishing Party. Our Publishing Party will be held on Thursday, September 25th at 8:15 a.m. in our classroom. This will be a time to celebrate all of our Kinders' hard work during this project. For many, this is their first attempt at process writing. Each child is unique and will be writing at varying developmental stages. Most of the writing may not look like "conventional" writing and may even contain inventive spelling. The children are developing their identities as writers and "makers" and our Publishing Party will be a space to celebrate their efforts. We look forward to seeing you all there! Buddy Critique: Building Community through CollaborationWe definitely want to take this time to thank our 4th Grade Buddies from Ms. Tran's class and our 12th Grade Buddies from Ms. Nuvia's Advisory. Through these partnerships, our Kinders are able to enhance their work and develop trusting relationships with peers within our High Tech High village. Our Kinders have been very receptive to their Buddy's feedback and have gone on to complete 4 drafts of their work. Check out the slideshow below of our critique sessions: This project has also introduced our Kinders to the concept of "craftsmanship"--taking deep pride in our work, understanding that our work can always be improved upon, and exploring ways to make our work even more beautiful. In addition to Buddy critique, we looked at some of the books in our library for inspiration for our illustrations. We discovered that many of the illustrations in our books contained a variety of colors that immersed the entire page. We used these illustrations as models for our own. Math and Literacy Workshop HighlightsOur Math Workshop is running beautifully. Our Kinders are owning our Workshop Norms. In addition to practicing foundational math skills, they are learning to cooperate, problem solve, and share classroom materials. We have begun our "Number Love" unit (also known as Number Sense) in which we will explore a variety of ways to represent numbers. Currently, our Kinders can choose from 3 math stations: Roll and Record, Buttons and Bears Sort and Count, and Attribute Block Match Up. All three stations facilitate number sense and develop mathematical language in a fun and engaging way. This week we will add two new centers to our Workshop. Ask your child which station is their favorite! We are also engaging in many different literacy activities in preparation for our Literacy Centers rotation starting next week. We are mastering the letters of the alphabet and are learning to read and write different sight words. Please make sure you have your child turn in his/her Book Bag (the ziploc baggie) so that I can put new books in it this week! Thanks so much! We are learning so much and look forward to sharing our learning with you! See you all on Thursday! To Another Magical Week, Mrs. Rosemarie
This week our Kinders were introduced to "critique." Here at High Tech High, we strive to create beautiful work and the "critique" process helps us get there. When we critique each other's work, we make sure that our feedback is: 1) Kind (We are mindful of one another's feelings.) 2) Specific (We tell our friends exactly what we like about the piece and how the piece can become more beautiful.) 3) Helpful (Our feedback helps our friends' work become even stronger.) Next week our Kinders will choose a writing piece to be critiqued by a peer. They will continue to work on this piece until it is ready to be published in our very own "Guide to Family Fun." We look forward to sharing our drafts with all of you next week. This week our Kinders collaborated with our Fourth Grade Buddies from Ms. Tran's class to create our own alphabet. In our conversations about beautiful work, we also began talking about "beautiful stuff." I shared some examples of what I considered "beautiful stuff" from our classroom (shells, colored stones, etc.) and invited the Kinders to look around their homes for their own "beautiful stuff." The next day, we had bags and bags of "beautiful stuff"--smoothie straws, old necklaces, rubber bands, plastic bread ties, cotton balls, cotton swabs, pasta, cheerios, old toys, etc. And all of these found materials were given new life as our classroom alphabet. Our Kinders were very inspired by our found materials and many chose to work with them during our afternoon Exploration Time. Our "Creation Station" is now up and running! Young children benefit greatly from the exploration and play of found materials. It gives young children an opportunity to practice choice and independence. It also fosters creativity and develops a sense of aesthetics. We will continue to work with found materials all year so please think of us before you throw anything away. Thanks so much for your support! Lastly, we enjoyed our Super Letter of the Week activities. Thank you for having your child share items that begin with the letter S. We looked at shells, a San Francisco alphabet book, a straw, a toy snake, and a scepter. To Another Magical Week in Kindergarten! With Love, Mrs. Rosemarie Hello Wonderful Kindergarten Families! I would like to extend a warm welcome to Mrs. Rosemarie's Kindergarten at High Tech Elementary School! Thank you for visiting my Digital Portfolio. This blog will be updated weekly with a detailed summary of our week along with pictures and videos. We have had an awesome week filled with community building, exploration, laughter, and fun. The children are quickly learning the in's and out's of our classroom and building. We have spent the week establishing norms and creating the tone of our classroom community. We are establishing daily rituals which include our daily Morning Meetings, Project Time, Math Workshop, Yoga (breathing, stretching, movement, and mindfulness), Exploration, and our Closing Reflection Circle. Here are some highlights of our first week in Kindergarten: Cross Grade Level Collaboration: 4th Grade BuddiesHere at HTe, we are fortunate to be part of a K-12 village, which provides many opportunities for cross grade level collaboration. These cross age partnerships provide many benefits for all students. Some benefits include: Village-wide community building, healthy and meaningful relationships, increased self-esteem, and individualized support (social and academic). This year we will be partnering with Mrs. Tran's 4th grade students and Ms. Ruland's 12th grade Advisory students. Our Buddies will be supporting our project work this year and the first project we have in store is our own student-created alphabet. We look forward to sharing our work soon! Math Workshop: Calendar and Exploring Math ToolsOne of the essential parts of our day is Math Workshop. During Math Workshop, our Kinders are invited to think and create like a mathematician. Our Math Workshop always begins with our Calendar routine. During this time, Kinders develop their sense of time by reviewing the days of the week and months of the year. We also use this time to practice representing numbers in a variety of ways (counting, word form, number form, graphic representations, etc.) As the year progresses, the calendar will serve as an important tool in time management. This week in Math Workshop, students were introduced to three math tools: pattern blocks, linking cubes, and geoblocks. One highlight that emerged from our open exploration was an interest in measurement. Students discovered that they could use the linking cubes to measure objects around the classroom. A popular question that could be heard around the room was, "How many cubes tall are YOU?" We have had an awesome first week together! Please make sure to check out next week's blog entry as we showcase the beginnings of our first community building project of the year: A Guide to Family Fun.
Thank you again for your love and support this week! With Love, Mrs. Rosemarie |
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September 2017
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