This morning we reviewed all of reading strategies and spent some time practicing them with our book bags. We used white boards in math today to practice solving both addition and subtraction word/story problems. We are still making sure we have 3 things when solving a word problem: picture, number sentence and an answer.
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This morning Mrs. Walcott's friends spent some time in the library with Miss Phalon's third graders playing some games the third graders made around fairy tales using Bee Bots. This afternoon in math we updated our Number Corner and focused on word problems. This months calendar revolves around word problems so we solved a few today making sure we always have 3 things. 1. a math picture, 2. a number sentence and 3. an answer.
Here's an example of one problem we did: there were 6 ducks in the barn, 2 ducks left the barn to go swimming. How many ducks are still in the barn? This morning we went back and edited our writing about vacation from yesterday. We are getting better at adding details and giving the reader more information about the exciting things we've done! In math we continued estimating handfuls of cubes. Today everyone recorded their estimations, counted their cubes and recorded the actual amount. This afternoon Mrs. Walcott's friends had Farm to School (Miss Koch's friends had it on Monday morning). We learned about root vegetable and made a confetti salad using carrots, beets, raisins and a homemade dressing. Everyone was willing to try it and many even liked it!
This morning in Literacy we went back to our brainstorm from yesterday and wrote about what we did over vacation. We worked on adding details to our writing and giving the reader more information. In math we continued with measurement and today talked about estimating. Everyone got 10 cubes and without counting they had to pick up a handful and estimate how many cubes were in their hand. We talked about what a "good" estimate would be based on the number of cubes they started with. They then placed their cubes on a 10 frame to count how many they actually had.
Welcome back! We hope everyone had a great vacation and enjoyed some lovely weather. We are in the home stretch of Kindergarten! We figured out today that we only have 34 more school days left. We've got a lot to do in those 34 days and many of those things are very FUN as well! I will do my best to get pictures on the blog everyday so you can take part in all of our learning and fun as we wrap up the year.
Miss Koch is here full time while Margo spends time at home with two of the cutest little girls I've ever met! Laura sent along some pictures of the girls today so check your emails! This morning we added another spring poem to our binders and brainstormed ideas of things to write about that happened over vacation. Tomorrow we will put that brainstorm to work and do some writing about all the fun we just had! In math we began a new unit on measurement and today we used a balance scale to compare the weights of various items. We got a little side tracked comparing the weight of two different water bottles and tomorrow we will continue our experiment. Here are some important dates coming up that I will keep reminding you about! MAY 18, 8:30 - K/1 Spring Concert in the gym JUNE 1, 8:00 - Parent Share (in our classrooms) JUNE 9, 10:00-2:00 - North Beach Trip (families and siblings are welcome to join!) JUNE 16 - Last day of Kindergarten! Early dismissal, time is TBD Please let us know if you have any questions about things happening between now and the end of the year. Before vacation, Mrs. Carlson (Alina's mom), came in with some of her Japanese students from UVM and did some activities in the classroom. Here are some pictures from their time here. This week in literacy we have gone back to letter formation. Our first and second grade teachers were talking about how critical and helpful it is to have writers that make their letters correctly so they are able to focus on the content of their writing, not the formation of letters. So back to basics we go! We color coded our letters and Pushy Purple was the one that led the way, making the first stroke of each letter. The most important thing to remember is top down. This will help with their writing fluency. We have also been working on digraphs and glued sounds. Our new sight word this week was 'come'. Our new April calendar is all about measurement. We have been talking about length, weight, capacity and temperature. HALF DAYS - Thursday and Friday! Don't forget, tomorrow (Thursday) and Friday are half days for students and students are dismissed at 11:30. We will have our morning snack but lunch will NOT be served. Please let us know if your child's after school plan is different than their typical Thursday and Friday! THANKS!
Next two weeks: Miss Mariella, Mrs. Walcott's student teacher, will be taking over in Mrs. Walcott's room for the next two weeks as part of her student teaching. She will be taking on the primary teaching role while being supported by Mrs. Antonioli and Mrs. Walcott. This week we learned 3 new glued sounds, 'an', 'am' and 'all'. A glued sound is one where the short vowel is changed to sound slightly different, more nasalized. In math we are using our double 10 frames to practice teen numbers.
This morning at assembly we played an all school game of BINGO to end I Love Math Week! It was a lot of fun! This morning we also finished up our St. Patrick's Day poems, started our April calendars and learned about the famous artist Paul Cezanne. This afternoon we played a few dice math games with our Book Buddies. After learning about Cezanne this morning it was time to do our own still lifes this afternoon. We set up some flowers and fruit in Mrs. Walcott's room and everyone took their time drawing what they saw, from their seat. We talked about perspective and how everyone might see something a little different depending on where they were sitting. Everyone first drew in pencil, traced over it with black felt pen and then colored it in with colored pencil. Don't forget, next Friday, March 31, there is NO SCHOOL. It is an in-service day for teachers!
Have a great weekend! This week we've learned two new digraphs. We know that a digraph is two letters that come together to make a new sound. One of our new digraphs /ck/ is almost always found at the end of words but sometimes it can be in the middle of a word. We've been practicing our new sounds with white boards, magnet boards, writing them in our Writing Journals and finding them in our book bags! Our new reading strategy is Tryin' Lion.
This morning we worked on our writing. We are continuing to work on spacing, spelling our sight words correctly, sounding out words we don't know and adding details. At the end of our writing block 4 friends got to share their writing. Here is what our calendar looks like for March. We are working on seeing combinations of 10 and making number sentences out of them. Parent/Teacher conferences are just around the corner. We would love your conference sign up sheets back ASAP. This will allow us to let you know when your conference will be sooner than later. Please let us know if you need another sign up sheet!
Word is we are getting a big snow storm! Please make sure your child comes to school prepared to go OUTSIDE everyday! |
WELCOME!
We are so excited you are going to be part of our Kindergarten fun this year! Check here regularly to see what's happening in the classroom and what we've been learning about! |