Here are some highlights from our week's project work. Through these tasks, we incorporate Social Emotional Learning, Art, and Literacy. The majority of our work around kindness came about from this sweet book called The Kindness Quilt by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. In this story, the main character engages in a "Kindness Project" with her classmates. Through this project, they are encouraged to commit a kind act and then document the action in a drawing. She takes it a step further by creating a small "Kindness Quilt." The beautiful illustrations and story inspired our students greatly! We brainstormed how we can be kind to others in the classroom and created our own "Classroom Kindness Quilt!" We have finally added all of our words to our "ABC's of Us Word Wall." Our word wall is "living," constantly being added to, and interactive. During the day, our Kinders use this wall to celebrate when they see friends demonstrating any of our word wall words. Check out how many friends were caught being flexible and kind! Lastly, to decide how to format our pages in our ABC's of Us alphabet book, we examined the formatting in the ABC books in our library. We noticed colorful illustrations, illustrations matching the words, and each letter being represented on each page in a special way (bigger size, different color, etc.). Check out our slide show below: We will put the finishing touches on our own ABC book over the next week!
With Love, Mrs. Rosemarie
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Hello Wonderful Kinder Families! Two weeks ago, we officially launched our first Kindergarten project with a special scavenger hunt around the school. Using our "letter knowledge," we answered a variety of clues hidden around the school. This launch was especially exciting as we found ourselves all over the K8 building! At each stop, we were given a letter, which would help us figure out the focus of our project. When we gathered all the letters, we went back to our classroom and worked together to unscramble the secret message. The focus of our project would be: The ABC's of Us! But what did that mean? We examined a variety of alphabet books to figure it out. Through our investigation, we discovered that alphabet books dedicated each page to a specific letter of the alphabet and that alphabet books could be about a certain topic. We also looked at the alphabet book that my last year's class had published. After looking through a book that was written and illustrated by Kindergartners, there was a special buzz in the air. Our Kinders were inspired! Several children asked, "Mrs. Rosemarie, can we do that? Can we write our own book?" The children got even more excited when Molly pointed out the barcode and said "Look! They made it so people can buy their book!" I responded, "Of course we can do that! And we can publish it so people can buy it!" And now, here we are! The ABC's of Us is in full swing! In this project, our Kinders will investigate the following Essential Question: Who are we? How can the ABC's help us express ourselves? Our Kinders will learn about one another, establish and practice community values (kindness, empathy, patience, flexibility, grit), and ultimately use this knowledge to write a community alphabet book. To prepare for the publishing of our first book, our Kinders write daily about our "Student of the Day" and practice letter sounds, sight word recognition, and writing in our Literacy Investigations. Everyday, our students get valuable letter practice by figuring our mystery Student of the Day. Students must unscramble the letters and use their deductive reasoning skills to figure out who the mystery student is. During this time, students are naming, matching, and having conversations around letters in their names. After they figure out the Student of the Day, they practice their questioning skills by interviewing the student. Afterwards, we work together on an interactive writing piece about the Student of the Day. The interactive writing process allows children to practice using resources, write high frequency words, and apply their knowledge of letters and sounds. The interview process allows them to find out fun facts about that person. Many children find out that they share the same favorite food, enjoy the same movies, or share a favorite song. We also use this time to discuss positive character traits such as kindness and flexibility. Afterwards, every student writes about our Student of the Day, which is then stapled together in a book that our Student of the Day can take home. Our students are working on adding to our ABC's of Us Word Wall. We are adding words that describe us as a community (Ex. A is artistic, T is for talented, F is friend). Here students are taking words from our brainstorm lists, writing them on a notecard, and organizing them under the appropriate letter on our wall. Here our students are sorting objects and words by initial sound. These sorts are also anchored by our past Students of the Day. On the left, M practices writing words that begin with the letter M like "Molly." On the right, J and D sort objects in the "D for Dylan" pile or the "A for Adam, Adeleine, Amber, and Alejandro" pile. This week, we introduced two new Literacy Investigations focused on sight word practice: Sight Word Stamp and Find the Button! In Sight Word Stamp, students practice reading, writing, and stamping sight words. Find the Button is another fun way to practice reading sight words. In this team game, one student hides a button behind a sight word written on a card. The remaining students have to guess where the button is hiding by reading the sight it could be behind ("I think it is behind the word like.") All of these tasks build the foundation towards our final product. We will continue our work in our Literacy Investigations, look more closely at ABC books, and learn more about the positive traits that describe our community. I look forward to starting our alphabet book! It will be Amazing!
With Love, Mrs. Rosemarie Hello Wonderful Kinder Families! This week's blog entry is focused on another important and essential part of our day in Kindergarten: Math Workshop. The primary focus of our Math Workshop this trimester is to develop number sense. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) define number sense as follows: “Number sense refers to a person's general understanding of number and operations along with the ability to use his understanding in flexible ways to make mathematical judgments and to develop useful strategies for solving complex problems (Burton, 1993; Reys, 1991). As a result, our work this trimester will focus on counting, writing, representing, and comparing numbers to 20. We will also identify and describe two-dimensional and three-dimensional figures. In Kindergarten, Math Workshop is play based with a "hands on, minds on" approach. This approach is enjoyable and engaging; math manipulatives allow students to construct their own models of abstract mathematical concepts and make them more concrete. We are playing a variety of partner games during Math Workshop as well. In Roll and Record, students roll a die, count the number of dots, and record the number it landed on. In Button Race, students use the "counting on" strategy to race to the number 10. In addition to practicing essential Kindergarten math skills, partner games allow practice in turn taking, patience, empathy, and flexible thinking. Lastly, our Kinders practice essential math skills through our amazing schoolwide computer program: ST Math. In ST Math, students have their own special passcode that stays with them until 5th grade. As a result, ST Math is customized to go along with the specific child's pace. Our Kinders are still in the early phases of ST Math and will have access to ST Math at home in a few weeks. We try to end each Math Workshop in a Reflection Circle. During this time, children share celebrations, challenges, or something new they learned. As the year progresses and our Kinders become more fluent writers, we will eventually begin reflecting in a Math Journal. In the meantime, I encourage you to talk with your child about his/her favorite station in Math Workshop. This week, I will introduce new tools, stations, and games which include using a 10 frame, counting natural materials, and incorporating playdough!
To Another Magical Week Ahead, Mrs. Rosemarie Hello Wonderful Kinder Families! This week, we began our work in a special chunk of time called, Investigations. During our Investigations, children self-select from a variety of activities designed to pique curiosity and "invite" discovery and exploration. Similar to our Exploration activities, most Investigations are open-ended by design and curated in an inviting manner. Our first week of Investigations built upon students' excitement around nature, names, and self-portraits. As soon as they walked in Tuesday morning, the Investigations were set up on our tables. They were all immediately drawn to them and I could hear the excitement in their conversations with one another: "Ooh! We get to paint today!!" "Wow! It's going to be fun today!" Our Investigations: Self-Portraits, Names, and NatureIn this station, children use "loose parts" to create Transient Art. During this time, students created nature self-portraits and circular patterns/mandalas. Loose parts provide many opportunities for open ended play and fine motor skill development. We are always in need of loose parts. Natural elements like seeds, pebbles, sticks, etc. are of great value to us! On your next nature walk, please consider grabbing some "treasures" to add to our growing collection. You can read more about the theory of loose parts here: http://www.aneverydaystory.com/2013/03/05/the-theory-of-loose-parts/ These Investigations are nature inspired. In the top row, students investigate clippings of native plants found in our neighboring canyon. Using magnifying glasses, they document the characteristics of each plant. In the middle row, students create a nature mobile using the treasures they found on our last nature walk. In the last row, students investigate a variety of rocks. Some children created animals out of rocks, while others counted, created patterns, and balanced (the record for the most rocks balanced belongs to Adam with 4 rocks!). In our Literacy Investigations, students can practice spelling each other's names, forming uppercase letters, and sounding out the initial sounds found in our friend's names. In this Investigation, students are sorting objects in a "M for Molly" pile or a "B for Bryson" pile. They can then practice writing each word. Here is a brief video of our Investigations time in action: The purpose of Investigations is to foster innovation, creativity, problem solving, risk taking as well as practice essential Kindergarten skills (emergent literacy, number sense, fine motor skills, social emotional skills, etc.). Our Kinders have had thoughtful reflections about their learning during our Investigations and truly look forward to this time.
To Another Magical Week, Mrs. Rosemarie |
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September 2017
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