Kindergator Update 1.18
Happy almost Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Don’t forget that
there is no school on Monday in honor of Dr. King. It has been a long week,
with both Mrs. Walkup and myself ill, but we made it through! Here are some
things we were able to work on this week.
Goal Setting: The students looked at their current
scores and data notebooks to see where they were and think about what things
they might want to work on. Then we examined a picture based list of things
they might want to set goals for and thought about which ones fit and which
ones did not. From the list each student picked 4 goals to work on during our “goal
time” twice a week. The kids did a really good job at picking out things they
need and might be a challenge for them. The number one choice for most of the kids
was…learning to tie their shoes.
Reading: We have begun our unit on long vowels and
why vowels sometimes change their sound. There are 4 reasons: when bully-e
makes them, when two vowels go walking, when y changes its sound to “e” or “I”
and sight words that do not follow rules.
We also began our fairy tale unit by evaluating what all fairy tales
have in common and how to compare and contrast different versions of them. This
is a fun unit and we hope you hear about the stories at home.
Math: We are into our addition unit. We began by
learning all things addition means like more, bigger or putting things
together. Then we worked on the counting on strategy for adding numbers
together quickly. That means circling the bigger number and drawing dots for the
smaller number. Students can say the circled number then count up the dots to
find the answer. The class is getting faster at addition each day. We also
learned about addition models. That means representing the number sentence (3
+2) by drawing three of one thing and two of another. We even reversed the
process making number sentences from models and then models from number
sentences.
Writing: We are working on using our senses to
describe things in creative ways. We tried black licorice, red hots and sour
patch kids and came up with awesome descriptions for each. We will use our
words to write our first opinion piece this week.
Health: We compared and contrasted ways to prevent
the spread of germs. Each of the kids who finished their projects became a PDI
(Protect Don’t Infect) agent tasked with stopping germs.
Vocabulary: additions, subtraction, opinion,
positive, negative, compare and contrast
BIG THINGS:
We now have 100% of our class counting by 1’s and 10’s. We
also have 7 students already at 100 sight words and a lot more very close!
Woo-Hoo!
Addison has an awards day very close to the last day of
school. Parents will be invited to come and watch their children earn awards
for things like attendance, leadership, and writing. Kindergarteners are
eligible for 3 special awards: one for being able to count to 100 by 1’s, 10’s
and 5’s, one for knowing all 100 sight words and the last for tying their
shoes. So keep practicing those skills!
The students were allowed to pick their own seats in the classroom
when they came back to school recently. We saw some great choices happening
with some people venturing out purposely to make new friends and others picking
table partners who they thought would help them stay focused during work time.
It was fun to watch!
Thank you to:
- Ava, our January leader of the month who has been going the extra mile to help others in class.
- Elle’s family for sending in more CLOROX wipes. Us teachers are trying to be PDI agents too!
- Mrs. Reaves for jumping in to help when Mrs. Walkup and I were ill.
- Jackson for turning in an awesome science fair project and sharing with the class how his experiment worked. We hope you got to see it on STEM night last night.
- Elle, Reese, Jackson, Sarah Kate, Harper J. and Pennelope for earning their STAR behavior this week.
- Ava, Grant, Dilan, Jaliegh, Harper J., Jackson and Rayell for knowing all 100 sight words!