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
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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 Hello Wonderful Kinder Families! I want to express my deepest gratitude for all of your continued support of our Superheroes. Our Kinders were so very excited to unveil their Superhero personas. Kinder-Kon was a complete success! The energy in the room was amazing. Our Kinders presented their costume designs and their books to a large and varied audience. They carried themselves with excitement, confidence, and pride. It is neat to see how much their confidence and public speaking skills have grown from our first Exhibition. As many of you know, A LOT of groundwork went into the second phase of our project. Phase Two was rooted in imagination, collaboration, and service. In this phase, our Kinders were invited to imagine themselves as agents of change. And through collaboration with each other, Middle School/High School Buddies, and family members, superhero dreams became a reality. Phase Two of the Kinder Kause was comprised of three distinct categories: Animal Justice and Care, Middle/High School Collaboration, and Costume Design. Animal Justice and Care: How can I be a responsible Pet Parent?As Animal Justice League Crusaders, our Kinders investigated animal needs, animal classification, and humane pet care. We learned that pets have the same basic needs humans do. Like their human family members, pets need access to clean water, healthy foods, shelter, exercise/play time, and love. Our Kinders also learned to differentiate domestic animals from wild animals. We learned that wild animals can survive and thrive without the help of humans. Wild animals also tend to feel nervous or scared around humans and as a result, do not make the best pets. Domestic animals need our help to live happy and healthy lives and are used to being around people. To deepen their understanding of animal classifications, our Kinders investigated a variety of animals photographs. They discovered that many animals share specific characteristics such as fur, feathers, or scales. This launched our study of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and fish. Through a partnership with the Rancho Coastal Humane Society, our Kinders learned about dog safety and dog communication. We even had a chance to meet Animal Ambassador, "Miller." We even took a trip to the beautiful Rancho Coastal Humane Society. Ms. Lizzie, the RCHS Education Coordinator, took us on a tour of the shelter, introduced us to more Animal Ambassadors, and taught us how to make rabbit feed for the shelter's rabbits. We learned about the importance of animal shelters and how it can make a difference in lives of animals waiting for new homes. 8th Grade Collaboration: Friendship and Superhero ScienceOne of the highlights of Phase Two was our collaboration with Ms. Frederick's and Mr. Harm's Eighth Graders. Our Eighth Grade Buddies met with our Kinders weekly and whenever our Kinders saw "Buddies" on our schedule, it was met with a loud cheer! Our Buddies supported our Superhero designs through honest critique and interviews. Our Buddies are currently writing and illustrating a Comic Book starring their Kinder Buddy in their Superhero persona. You can check out examples of their drafts below. They are pretty spectacular! Comic Books will be unveiled at Phase Three's Exhibition. Our Buddies also developed lessons and taught us the science behind superhero powers. Through interactive experiments and activities, our Kinders learned about the principles of flight and magnetism. They were introduced to Bernoulli's principle and how to attact and repel items with magnets. Check out this short video from our Buddies' lesson on magnetism: Our Cross-Age Collaboration has produced great benefits for both the Kinders and Eighth Graders. Our Kinders:
Our Eighth Graders:
Costume Design: The Animal Justice League Comes to LifeLastly, with our new knowledge of animal care and with the help of family and HTH friends, we began the design and construction of our Superhero apparel. We looked at classic Superhero costumes for inspiration. We found that many shared the following items:
We began the design process by thinking about our Superhero personas and what symbols we could use to represent our "cause." Through the gracious donations of gently used clothes, old Halloween costumes, and fabrics, we constructed capes, belts, and insignias. With the help of HTH Seniors, Maygua and Sophia (who also happen to be big sisters of two of our Kinders), we have a formal invitation to Kinder-Kon. You can check it out here: The Animal Justice League would like to personally thank our families for all of their help with our project. Thank you for your patience, time, and creativity. This phase of our project would not be possible without your presence. Cheers to a fabulous project and to a Super "Phase 3"! With Love and In Gratitude, Chief Animal Justice League aka Mrs. Rosemarie Hello Lovely Kinder Families! What an amazing first phase of our project, "The Kinder Kause." The Kinders had an amazing Exhibition. I was so proud to watch them perform their song, read from our book, share our project process, and unveil our Kinder City of Heroes. It was truly a magical night! If you have any pictures of our first Exhibition or the Exhibition Celebration, please post them on our Shutterfly sharing site. I also send oceans of gratitude to all of you for my thoughtful gifts. They are so greatly appreciated! We have had an awesome couple weeks back. Our Kinders have hit the ground running and are ready to begin the next phase of our project. They are reading and writing with more confidence and fluency. Please be on the lookout for Home Book Bags. The bags will contain sight words, word family words of the week, and the books they are reading in Guided Reading. Please have your child practice reading their sight words and their books. All of this extra practice helps build their reading confidence, fluency, and comprehension. Home Book Bags must be returned to class the following Monday. For the next phase of our project, we have investigated various "causes" such as animal care, recycling, and ocean conservation. After some discussion and research, our Kinders voted and finalized our "Kinder Kause" for this trimester: Animal Care. In this phase of our project, we will study about the needs and issues regarding domestic and wild animals and how we can help. We will begin our study through an exploration of pet care and have field work with the Humane Society planned. Our Kinders are excited to advocate for the rights of animals beginning with the animals they share their homes with. Our Engineering Week was a complete success! After reading The Three Billy Goats Gruff, our Kinders were left with a message from the troll: "Using teamwork, build a bridge strong enough to hold two trolls, and I will leave the trolls alone forever." Throughout the week, we studied three different types of bridges: beam, truss, and suspension. We learned about the function of bridges, attributes of strong bridges, and famous bridges. Given a limited amount of materials, our Kinder Engineering teams, planned, designed, and tested their bridges. Afterwards, they documented their designs and reflected upon the process in their Engineering Journals. On the final day of Engineering Week, Mr. Troll (who happens to bear a very close resemblance to After-School HUB Coordinator, Mr. Gary. They happen to be cousins after all. Who knew trolls and humans could be related?) came by to test our bridges. To our delight, EVERY bridge held our testing robot! Check out the video of one of our first bridge tests: During this week, our Kinders were invited to think and act like Engineers. Children are natural Engineers, Scientists, and Artists and it was wonderful to see them work collaboratively and take risks. These Engineering practices teach basic Engineering concepts and so much more! Such opportunities facilitate collaboration, innovation, perseverance, and reflection. The Kinders are growing and learning so much! Thank you again for all of your continued support!
To another week of investigation, innovation, and fun! With Love, Mrs. Rosemarie Hello Lovely Kinder Families! Our Kinder City of Heroes is near completion and the children are very excited to unveil our hard work. Over the last few weeks, we have planned out what buildings and corresponding heroes would be part of our city. We then worked in our project groups to plan and draft our buildings. Our Kinders will then use the drafts to guide their final pieces. We have integrated measurement and geometry into our Kinder City of Heroes. We began with a shape walk around our school where we took notice of the shapes found in buildings around us. We then made sure to integrate those shapes into our designs. We have also been measuring items around our classroom using non-standard units such as linking cubes and blocks. Using non-standard units teaches our Kinders that we can measure objects by iterating a small object over and over (ie cubes). This practice lays the foundation for standard measurement and the use of conventional measurement tools. We used our cubes to help us measure appropriately sized rooftops for the homes in our "Kinder City of Heroes." The Kinders are now working on their final drafts for our "Book of Heroes." We have met a variety of heroes, interviewed them, and engaged in post-interview write ups. We look forward to compiling our reflections on the real life heroes who keep our community safe, calm, and happy. We will unveil our book and our city at our first Winter Exhibition on Thursday, December 19 at 5:00 p.m. The Kinders and I look forward to seeing you all there!! With Love, Mrs. Rosemarie We have had a fabulous October in Kindergarten! Our project is up and running and we have had many opportunities to meet with many Community Heroes (with many of them being HTe parents). We are exploring the big idea: Community Heroes are people who keep our community safe, calm, and happy! We began our study by meeting heroes around our school: We then had a Heroes Day where we met with Mr. Bobby the Navy Seal and the Chula Vista Fire Department (thank you to Dane's Dad, Firefighter Tyson, for arranging the firefighter visit). Mr. Bobby showed us his Navy Seal gear. We got a chance to see, touch, and wear his gear. It is very heavy! The Chula Vista Firefighters reminded us about fire safety and what to do in an emergency. We also got a chance to watch a firefighter get into full gear and we also got a chance to go inside a fire engine! Next, we met with Lucy's Mom, the Letter Carrier. We learned about the Postal Service and the very important job they have. It even inspired us to create a "Love Letter" station where we write letters to friends and family! We also met with Mr. Patrick the Police Officer. We had an opportunity to interview him and check out his gear. We are using all of these experiences as writing inspiration! We are working on post presentation write ups and thank you letters! All of these experiences help us develop what educators called "schema" or background knowledge on a particular topic. The more "schema" we have on a topic helps us better understand the world which in turn, supports our reading comprehension. Lastly, we had a fabulous Pumpkin Carving Party! A very big thank you to Zulema (Antonio's Mom), Paola (Leo's Mom), Shauna (Talon's Mom), Elaine (Bryson's Mom), Maria (James's Mom), Shannon (Dane's Mom), Wendy (Noah's Mom), the Cabal Family (Ramzie's parents) and Erica (Sancherie's Mom) for your gracious time, talent, and donations! The children learned so much and had a blast doing so! To Another Magical Week of Learning,
Mrs. Rosemarie Hello Lovely Kinder Families! We have had another awesome couple weeks in Kindergarten! The Kinders have been working hard on their mini projects and are mastering many of our routines and procedures. We have launched our "Community Heroes" project by examining the following question: What is a hero? Naturally, students began talking about superheroes such as Iron Man and Spider-Man. However, one of our Kinders named Ryder shared one very important idea: "Heroes can be normal people." This launched another discussion that our world was made up of normal, everyday heroes. We then generated a list of these heroes: -Parents -Police Officers -Teachers (why, thank you!!) -Firefighters In the next couple weeks, we will identify heroes and examine their importance to our community. We will begin this investigation by identifying and interviewing heroes within our school community. I look forward to sharing our progress. Our Literacy Centers are running beautifully and I look forward to introducing new and engaging literacy activities. Your child should have brought home the following sight word books: I Like Parties and Bounce, Bounce, Bounce. Please make sure to have him or her read these books aloud to you. I know the children are excited to show off their emerging literacy skills! This week we practiced counting, reading, and writing numbers to 10 with the partner game, "Roll and Record." In this game, we work with a friend to record the different numbers we roll on a dice. Next week we will begin our unit on graphs, data, and analysis. This week we had our second monthly "Community Meeting." Community Meetings are a way for all grade levels (K-5) to connect and engage as a school community. It is a completely student-led meeting with fifth grade as our first student hosts. At this month's meeting, each grade level shared what project they are working on. Check out our Kindergarten representative as he shares what we have focused on during the first six weeks of Kinder: Lastly, I would like to send a special shout out to our Support Teachers. We have been fortunate to have had so much support in Kindergarten these first six weeks. I would like to celebrate Ms. Sunny, Ms. Carly, Ms. Sharlene, Ms. Leslie, Ms. Nicole, and Ms. Jeanine for all the love and kindness they have given our Kindergartners. If you happen to see any of our Support Teachers in passing, please make sure to say hello. They are an extraordinarily talented bunch and we are so lucky to have them! To Another Awesome Week, Mrs. Rosemarie Hello Wonderful Kinder Families! We have had a "Rockin" week in Kindergarten! This week we worked on the Ravishing Letter R. We have practiced writing the letter R, brainstorming items with the R sound, and reading words that begin with the Letter R. We discovered that many of us had R's in our names and that 3 people in our community had names that began with the letter R: Rosemarie, Ryder, and Ramzie! We have begun our work with our Literacy Center routine. As part of our Literacy Center routine, the Kinders work on different literacy "Must Dos" (work that they must do) and "May Dos" (activities they may do when they finish their "Must Do"). This daily practice builds the foundation of their literacy journey. We are currently working on a variety of "Letter of the Week" activities and we will soon transition to Word Work activities. The children have been working very well together. I am so impressed with how quickly and seamlessly they have gotten into the routine! We are continuing our "All About Me" project work by writing about ourselves. We learned to read and write the sight words "I Am..." by creating our own "I Am" books. We brainstormed positive words to describe ourselves and used our chart to help us write our books. In the next couple weeks, we will begin our "Hero" project by investigating our family histories and learning about the heroes within our own family!
Thank you all for your wonderful gifts, emails, and overall support! It is going to be a great year! With Love, Mrs. Rosemarie Hello Wonderful Kinder Families! I would like to extend a warm welcome to Kindergarten at High Tech Elementary School! We facilitate a developmentally appropriate project based curriculum rooted in curiosity, investigation, community, and play. We have had an awesome few weeks in Kindergarten! The children are getting into the "swing of things"--creating new friendships, developing early literacy and math skills, and becoming comfortable with the Kindergarten day! Here are the highlights of the last few weeks: Project Work: We are nearly finished with our "Hopes and Dreams" Flags. The children have been working hard and are very proud of how the flags are turning out. Through this project, our students discovered that they needed help from one another to complete their final piece. They found that it was difficult to draw on small pieces of fabric without the help of a partner (who could hold down the corners). As a result, our Kinders had another opportunity to collaborate, build friendships, and create beautiful work. Our Kinders have been working hard on their early literacy skills. We have worked on the letters S and M and have engaged in a variety of activities ranging from handwriting letter practice, sound identification, and letter songs. We will introduce the letter R next. Start looking around for those "R" items at home! We have also begun our sight word practice with the words: "I see ________." We learned that Good Readers: -Read from left to right -Use the pictures to help read unknown words We are also developing our number sense through a variety of hands on games and exercises. This week we worked on a new math center called "Creation Station" where we use our engineering and spatial skills to build, count, and write numbers. Our Kinders look forward to Monday and Tuesday because those are our Engineering days with Mr. Bryan. Mr. Bryan was a Civil Engineer before becoming one of the founding members of High Tech Elementary (and one of the very few Elementary School Engineering Teachers in the country). Our Kinders are learning about domino theory and how it relates to mechanical engineering. They are learning about different tools and how Engineers use them safely. They are also given plenty of time to explore building materials (blocks, dominoes, legos, small catapults, etc.) We will be collaborating with Mr. Bryan on this trimester's project about community heroes. And lastly, we have been ending our Kinder days with Exploration time. During Exploration Time, the Kinders are given voice and choice in their activities which range from dramatic play, blocks, natural "loose parts," play doh, etc. This is a special time where children work independently from the teacher and practice important social skills such as sharing materials, taking care of materials/space, and time management. I will be using this time to pull small groups for literacy instruction or project work. To Another Magical Week, Mrs. Rosemarie |
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September 2017
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