Hooray for the hard working kinders!! We are working hard to make smart choices at school (keeping hands, to self, using kind words, following school rules, etc) while being ready to learn AND to listen when others talk. The kinders are also working hard to put their eyes on the teacher so that all directions/instructions are heard. I think a 5 star award day might be happening next week. 🙂 Thank you so much to Mrs. Voss for being able to be with the kinders this week as I recover at home. I am SO looking forward to seeing everyone Monday afternoon!!!
MATH: This week we worked on teen equations (10+6) and teen totals (16), writing teen numbers, identifying partners of 6,7 & 8 and showing numbers by using 5 groups. For example: to show 7, we drew 5 circles in a line and then drew 2 more circles underneath. Telling and solving addition and subtraction problems are also part of our daily routine. Our Friday math games were TEEN NUMBER MEMORY (matching teen equations to the total) and SCOOP UP THE SNOWBALLS (identifying = and not = symbols and writing addition equations)
POPCORN WORDS: MAKE SAID We found them in our day’s messages and within our popcorn books. We learned about “Magic e” who quietly tells the hard worker (vowel) to say their letter name (long a) instead of their letter sound (short /a/ sound) in “make”. We had fun playing with letters to create more words using -ake. We also learned to look for “talking” lines (quotation marks) to let us know that a character is talking. Identifying “said” helped making this task easier. Many kinders noticed that “ai” in the word said made the short /e/ sound but in other words like rain, sail, “ai” work together to say a. How silly and sometimes confusing! 🙂
WRITING: More HOW TO….writing took place this week. This time the kinders drew pictures and wrote out the steps on how to do something. The kinders are experts on many things so choosing topics were a bit hard but we settled on writing How to make a pizza, How to make a snowman, How to eat cereal and How to eat an orange. We had fun acting out the steps before writing. The kinders are doing a great job remembering to include capital letters, spaces, sentence stoppers and to use as many popcorn (sight) words as possible.
READER’S WORKSHOP: This week we learned that careful readers check their reading. They ask themselves “Does it make sense? Did it sound right?” If not, they don’t just keep going. Readers try to fix it. Wise Owl, a beanie baby, is a fun visual reading strategy the kinders met to help them remember this. They also learned that PATTERN POWER doesn’t only help you read the words in books but patterns can also help you think about your whole book. Does the ending go with the pattern? What is this book really saying? It is so exciting to see the kinders becoming readers!
It is a good thing that we know our letters & sounds because that helps readers read words and figure out unknown words. The kinders used ABC books to be encouraged to think, talk, play and sing the alphabet. They were able to get to know all of the fun ways that letters and sounds go. We also were reminded that we can activate our sound power in a bigger way to try a word they may not know by looking closely at the beginning sounds in it. Then think, “What word could this be?” We also enjoyed reading Move Over, Rover! by Karen Beaumont, a fun story about animals climbing into Rover’s doghouse. We made a text to text connection between these two books by noticing that animals climbed into a mitten and a doghouse.
MYSTERY READER: Ellery gave her grandmother, whom she calls Situ, and her little sister, a sweet hello. Sorry about the lack of pictures again this week. I will post them next week when I get back to school. Thank you so much for coming in to read the kinders a story. There are still open spots available. Go to the Mystery Reader link on the side bar of the blog to sign up. We would love to have you visit again or grandparents or older siblings visit too.
REMINDERS:
WINTER GEAR: It looks like we will get some snow again this weekend. Please remember to send your kinder with snow pants, boots, a hat, gloves/mittens and coat every day!
SNACK: Please remember to send 2 healthy snacks with your kinder each day.
TAKE HOME BOOKS – Please remember to return TAKE HOME books every Monday and Thursday. Look for new books to be coming home on those days too! Happy Reading!
UPCOMING DATES:
*Monday, January 20— STEAM, Bring back TAKE HOME books
*Tuesday, January 21—MUSIC
*Wednesday, January 22—GYM; LIBRARY Don’t forget your book! Homework packets due
*Thursday, January 23—ART. Bring back TAKE HOME books
*Friday, January 24—STEAM
*Friday, Jan 31–Fast Friday (Early Release) @ 12:15pm
*Winter Break—February 1-4
*Wed. Feb 5—Day 100 celebration Details coming soon!
*Friday, Feb 14–Valentine Day Party 2:00-3:00pm Please email me if you have NOT attended a party and would like to attend. If you would like to attend again, I will be happy to put your name on a waiting list.
Have a great weekend. Mrs. Bohl