Kindergator Update 8.17
What a great week! My favorite quote from the week, "My Brain hurts because it got so big."
We saw our "learning gator" Bridgit grow to enormous size in our water pond this week proving we did lots of cool learning. Now we are going to watch and see if she shrinks back down like the alligator in the book we read, "Zack's Alligator." We even discovered an animal called a gharial that is a cousin of the alligator. Have you ever heard of that? Here are some things we learned about this week:
Reading: We began working on strategies for sounding out words. We teach them to ...
1. Look for the tricks in the word (but the words we did this week didn't have many-more to come on that later)
2. Put the first two sounds together by moving your voice slowly through both sounds turning them into one sound.
3. Say the first part and add one, then add another, and another.
We hope you liked the books that came home: Drop It and The Mall
Math: We worked on counting strategies like crossing out what you counted to show you counted them already, and making your mouth and hands move at the same time. We worked on how to represent numbers with fingers, tallies, dots and tens frames.
Writing: We began our first story with illustrations for a beginning, middle and end! Boy I know a lot about your summer vacations and I am jealous.
Science: We studied what engineers are: people who solve problems by asking questions, and trying to build things. We talked about how they use lots of math and science and make lots of mistakes. The students were asked to try to engineer me a hat for my son's baseball game that would stay on and protect me from the sun. Elle, Zeb and Jackson all did a great job and completed my hat. I got lots of compliments on them from my fellow teachers.
Vocabulary For the Week: I call these double dessert words and tell the kids if they use them at the dinner table you might be so impressed that you give them 2 desserts.
engineer, begin with the end in mind, alligator, reptile, illustrator, fake fiction versus real reading (non fiction) photograph, caption
Big Things:
We are going through art supplies quickly. Please consider donating to our supply so we can keep the creativity going.
Our class as a whole is really struggling with applying our rules or directions. We may say something like put down the stick at recess only to find the child picked it up again right away when we walked away. Often this continues to a third time. The same is true for talking or putting hands on others. We are having to give reminders over and over so next week we will be giving less warnings and moving names more often for this kind of behavior. Please take some time to talk with your child about the importance of doing what we ask and not repeating poor choices over and over.
Please let me know if any of these are your bags.
Thank You To:
Sorry for the length. Its been a big week with lots of funny moments to share. I promise to be more brief next week.
We saw our "learning gator" Bridgit grow to enormous size in our water pond this week proving we did lots of cool learning. Now we are going to watch and see if she shrinks back down like the alligator in the book we read, "Zack's Alligator." We even discovered an animal called a gharial that is a cousin of the alligator. Have you ever heard of that? Here are some things we learned about this week:
Reading: We began working on strategies for sounding out words. We teach them to ...
1. Look for the tricks in the word (but the words we did this week didn't have many-more to come on that later)
2. Put the first two sounds together by moving your voice slowly through both sounds turning them into one sound.
3. Say the first part and add one, then add another, and another.
We hope you liked the books that came home: Drop It and The Mall
Math: We worked on counting strategies like crossing out what you counted to show you counted them already, and making your mouth and hands move at the same time. We worked on how to represent numbers with fingers, tallies, dots and tens frames.
Writing: We began our first story with illustrations for a beginning, middle and end! Boy I know a lot about your summer vacations and I am jealous.
Science: We studied what engineers are: people who solve problems by asking questions, and trying to build things. We talked about how they use lots of math and science and make lots of mistakes. The students were asked to try to engineer me a hat for my son's baseball game that would stay on and protect me from the sun. Elle, Zeb and Jackson all did a great job and completed my hat. I got lots of compliments on them from my fellow teachers.
Vocabulary For the Week: I call these double dessert words and tell the kids if they use them at the dinner table you might be so impressed that you give them 2 desserts.
engineer, begin with the end in mind, alligator, reptile, illustrator, fake fiction versus real reading (non fiction) photograph, caption
Big Things:
We are going through art supplies quickly. Please consider donating to our supply so we can keep the creativity going.
Our class as a whole is really struggling with applying our rules or directions. We may say something like put down the stick at recess only to find the child picked it up again right away when we walked away. Often this continues to a third time. The same is true for talking or putting hands on others. We are having to give reminders over and over so next week we will be giving less warnings and moving names more often for this kind of behavior. Please take some time to talk with your child about the importance of doing what we ask and not repeating poor choices over and over.
Please let me know if any of these are your bags.
Thank You To:
- Britany Fisher Kerns for signing up to be our room mom. Be sure to give her a huge THANK YOU when you see her.
- Everyone who volunteered to help with a school related event like PTA, foundation, science lab or media center. Addison works hard to build a positive community of caring people and that shows in how many of you guys took a chance and signed up for something. I love knowing that our parents and teachers are dedicated to working together to build greatness and be part of building each other up. If you want to find ways to help, but aren't sure how, just let me know. There are lots of little ways to get your feet wet without jumping full in.
- Jackson for my delicious apple! I usually only eat green, but his apple convinced me to change my ways!
- Jackson's family or perhaps our Fairy Godmother for delivering a bunch of playground things and art things for the children to enjoy. Their eyes lit up when they saw the new stuff.
- Harper H., Harper J., Gustavo, Aspen, Zeb, Pennelope, Elle, Dilan and Ava for earning their STAR behavior rewards. We have never had so many kids earning awards so quickly in my memory.
- Elle, Pennelope and Reese who bravely read their books to their brother's classes. And thank you to their brothers who were so kind to their little sisters.
- Jaleigh who is one incredible puzzle doer!
- Olivia, Aspen, Pennelope and Sarah Kate who showed incredible bravery sounding out words when their mouths "didn't want to make a sound at first" and trusting their groups to help them through any mistakes. Think about how much bravery it must take to take that kinds chance in front of others.
- Dilan, and Grant and who illustrated great stories this week.
- Harper H. who is such a great friend to those who need a friend on the playground.
- Elle, Zeb and Jackson for completing the STEM opportunity this week. I love my hats. And thank you to Rayell who also made a hat for my Yorkie Holly.
- Ava for her super first story about getting burned by a sparkler and Arnold for his scary hammerhead shark tale.
- Reese and Rayell for making me beautiful pictures every day and mailing them to my desk.
- Sarah Kate who decided not to be scared of sharks or ghosts anymore.
- Landon for being one of the most polite thoughtful boys in the world. He even says "thank you" when we hand him work to do.
- Gustavo for surprising himself while identifying sounds in words. He had no idea he could be so good at it and blew his own mind.
Sorry for the length. Its been a big week with lots of funny moments to share. I promise to be more brief next week.