In the last month, we have had lots of fun things going on in Kindergarten! We celebrated Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, and Dr. Seuss's birthday/Read Across America Day. We also finished up our addition unit in math, a history unit in social studies, and an informational text unit in reading. That means we've not started a subtraction unit, a new science unit on the Earth, Sun, and Stars, and a Close Reading unit in Daily 5! Not to mention, we're still nose-deep in writing our How To Books (which are coming along famously, I must say). Take a look at all our fun, documented through pictures...of course!
Holidays and Celebrations
Valentine's Day:
Dr. Seuss's B-Day/Read Across America Day:
This day really deserves its own blog post. This is one of the best days in the school year (it even rivals International Dot Day in my book!) As I'm sure you all know, I LOVE all things birthday. Celebrating the Dr. is no exception. The whole day revolved around him. But to top it off, his birthday is also Read Across America Day each year. On this day, schools and communities all across the country put an extra focus on reading, celebrating the importance of books and the gift of literacy. So for this day, it was all things Dr. Seuss and all things books! (And I have no idea why I somehow have only have pictures from math time during this day!)
Mardi Gras:
- The day before the celebrations, the kids got to color and decorate their own bags that would hold their Valentines the next day.
- On Valentine's Day, we distributed out our cards in the morning, and had a party in the afternoon. We listened to music, had yummy treats, and opened our over-flowing goody bags.
- During religion, we also learned about St. Valentine, and how the holiday of Valentine's Day really began!
Dr. Seuss's B-Day/Read Across America Day:
This day really deserves its own blog post. This is one of the best days in the school year (it even rivals International Dot Day in my book!) As I'm sure you all know, I LOVE all things birthday. Celebrating the Dr. is no exception. The whole day revolved around him. But to top it off, his birthday is also Read Across America Day each year. On this day, schools and communities all across the country put an extra focus on reading, celebrating the importance of books and the gift of literacy. So for this day, it was all things Dr. Seuss and all things books! (And I have no idea why I somehow have only have pictures from math time during this day!)
- Over the course of the day, I read roughly 10 books out loud, most of which were Dr. Seuss. During a typical day, aside from model texts during D5 and writing, I read 1-2 books out loud. We read math books in math, nonfiction books in social studies, and silly books throughout the day. I even read Fox in Socks, which is Dr. Seuss's most notorious tongue twister-inducing books.
- In math, the kids had a color by number addition sheet of the Cat's hat. They also played addition hopscotch on the floor, which was not Dr. Seuss related except that I made the blocks red and white, also like the Cat's hat. We also did our math pages from the book...but those were very unrelated to the celebrations.
- During Writing, I read The Cat in the Hat and had the kids write/draw about what they would do if the Cat came to their house.
Mardi Gras:
- Most of the kids' learning about Mardi Gras happened in French, but we also talked about it during religion time.
- For a project in class, the kids got to trace their hands on paper, cut them out, and decorate them with sequins, pom poms, beads, and feathers. Mr. Ploof and I cut holes for the eyes and attached handles so they could wear their awesome masks.
The Academics
We've accomplished a lot in kindergarten recently!
Reading
Reading
- Our Informational text unit came to an end a couple weeks ago. During that time, the kids were given several books on a certain topic and used the books to become "experts". Some kiddos learned about spring, butterflies, pets, frogs, penguins, dinosaurs, and more! They went on "Reading Adventures" and became really good at exploring new topics and information through nonfiction books. The kids acquired lots of skills to help them navigate these "Adventures", like using the title or back of the book to preview the topic, using pictures for clues, accessing their schema, noticing patterns in pictures and text to find the most important information, sharing our new learning with partners/groups, and making inferences...and that's just scratching the surface!
- Now, we've shifted our focus to Close Reading. The kids are moving beyond simply sounding out the words and summarizing what they've read. They're tracking their thinking by using post-it notes (an awesome skill that will, some day in the not-too-near-future, transform into note taking in text books...or books read for pleasure!), thinking about the reactions and emotions that our books create in us, and using our "Reading Super Powers" (i.e. not getting stuck on sight words, using picture clues, using our Reading Buddies, and pointing to words as we read) to make us strong readers. Later in this unit, they will explore some more nonfiction books, have "book play dates" with partners, and read poetry. The goal in this unit--and we've been talking A LOT about this, so feel free to ask them--is to become Avid Readers. So far, I think we're well on our way to achieving that!
Math:
- As you saw on Dr. Seuss's birthday, we were working on addition for a while. The kids worked on adding up to 10 (and sometimes beyond 10, because they can't be stumped!). While we do not emphasize speed in math facts at this age, we do aim for fluency, and we worked hard to attaining that goal together! I continued to try to make the math as hands-on and kinesthetic as possible through the hop scotch and activities like it.
- We've now moved into subtraction, which the kids are doing a great job with! It can be tricky at first to shift your thinking from making bigger groups to taking groups apart, but our class was more than up for the challenge. Again, getting out of our seats and interacting with the math has helped a lot at motivating the kids to tackle the tasks presented to them each day. A current favorite activity during our math game rotation is Subtraction Bowling. Since we're subtracting within 10 as well, the 10 bowling pins serve as a great manipulative! The kids set up the pins, bowl them over, and subtract the fallen pins from the original 10. It's great to watch the subtraction take place, and they are definitely having fun with it!
- Last week, every grade from 1st-8th went to a field trip to the Flynn. While they were gone, it was our math period. I took the opportunity of an empty school to set up a subtraction scavenger hunt. Every classroom had a subtraction problem on the door, the answer to which represented the next grade we needed to go to. While one group stayed to do our pages from the workbook, another group came around the school to explore and solve some problems, and then we switched once we got to the end!
The final card congratulated them for their hard work and told them they would be getting a surprise, which was "The Magic School Bus Gets Lost In Space" episode during morning work time the following day. Which leads us to...
Science:
Science:
- This is one of my favorite units. We're only about a week in, but we're going full steam ahead. We started the unit off reviewing some of what we already learned about the Earth...it is where we live, it is made up of water, air, and land (all of which provide us with life-giving resources), it is a planet in outer space. Out attention then shifted to the daytime sky. After spending time observing, drawing, and recreating the clouds, we're now talking about the sun. Yesterday, despite the rain, we tracked the sun (or the "brightest spot in the sky", since that's all we could see) at various times throughout the day, noticing that it seemed to move in the sky. Today, we cleared that notion up, learning that the earth is the thing that's doing all the moving! We used flashlights and a globe to recreate the earth's orbit around the sun, as well as the rotation on the axis.
- Soon, we will learn about the moon and the stars! I can't wait for all of the awesome experiments and activities that this unit will bring. We'll be discussing the phases and replicating the dusty surface of the moon, and finding constellations in the stars...all in the day time. It's really going to be a blast!
Stay tuned for more on these awesome units and the extra awesome learning these kiddos are doing! They're working (and playing!) so hard, and it really shows! I can't wait to show you what we're up to next...