Tag Archives: split lit

News of the Week—Nov 9-13

It is hard to believe that it is mid-November and we are looking forward to Thanksgiving. We had some fun making some silly looking turkeys to help decorate your home.

POPCORN WORDS OR FOR

READING: We continued learning about our Super Reader Powers! We learned that PARTNER POWER can help make our reading stronger. When using this superpower, one partner reads and the other partner points to each word. We learned that PICTURE POWER helps readers figure out unknown words or tricky words. Pictures are helpful when reading. We learned that SNAP WORD POWER helps readers read snap words (popcorn words) quickly. We practiced using this superpower by reading the nursery rhyme The Itsy Bitsy Spider. We learned that SOUND POWER is needed when readers need more help than just looking at the pictures. We looked at a pictures of a beetle and guessed what the word would be. Then we uncovered the first letter and made that sound. Finally we uncovered the whole word learning that it was a beetle.

WRITING: We reviewed what a small moment story was. Mrs. Bohl explained that a really big story is like a watermelon. We want to pick just one seed out of the watermelon and tell a seed story. Our Fun Fall Friday could be a watermelon story so we picked one seed to write about….making our marshmallow spider webs. We practiced writing a beginning, a middle and an end. The kinders drew pictures on each page and wrote words to on each page. They even added a speech bubble to tell what someone in their picture was saying, just like in Piggy and Elephant stories! The kinders are taking risks writing and doing a fabulous job!

HANDWRITING: We practiced writing SLANT lowercase letters of k,v,w,x,z

PHONICS: We practiced hearing for syllables, sorted pictures by the final sounds, spelled sight word by movement and more.

MATH: The kinders worked on showing the -1 pattern. They practiced identifying their shapes and learned about a new shape…a hexagon. We learned that hexagons have 6 sides and 6 corners while singing a fun song about hexagons.The kinders had to find certain shapes and color them the correct color. We also helped Puzzled Penguin learn the difference between number 6 and number 9. We wrote our numbers in order and helped Puzzled Penguin do the same thing. Good thing we helped him, he gets puzzled sometimes. Next week we will be taking our Unit #2 math test. We had so much fun playing FIND THE TURKEY when he was hidden behind numbers 1-20.

WANTS AND NEEDS: We reminded ourselves the difference between wants and needs. Wants are things we wish we had (doll, baseball). Needs are things that we need to have. (food, water, clothes, shelter) We sang a fun song about wants and needs before completing a coloring sheet.

SPLIT LIT: This week we started our new Split Lit. center activities. After getting a chance to assess and re-assess the kinders, I was able to create a group of activities that enables them to work on the skills they need to practice the most. The kinders spend this time with working in small groups either with Mrs.Bynum/Mrs. DeGroot, myself or working independently on literacy activities such as identifying and writing letters, reading emerging books, rhyming words, beginning sounds and more. The kinders love using their Reading Binders. These binders have literacy skills inside them that they get to decide what to work on during literacy time.

REMINDERS

It was announced today through a district email, that Nov. 23 and 24 are now remote learning days for Hudsonville Public Schools. I will be sending home a learning packet with your kinder next week for each of these days. This packet must be completed over these days home and returned to school the following week.

In preparation for snow session, please remember. When snow is on the ground, please have the following in your kinder’s backpack:

Snow pants
Boots-designed for the snow
A Warm Coat
Mittens/Gloves
A Hat

SNACKS – Please remember to send your kinder with 2 snacks and a water bottle each day. We have a morning and an afternoon snack. Due to COVID restrictions, we can not use our drinking fountain.

Our annual P.E. C.A.R.E.S food drive ends this week. We are asking for your help in bringing in non-perishable food items for Love Inc. in Hudsonville. Food items to consider are canned vegetables and fruits, pasta, rice, baked beans, black beans, kidney beans, peanut butter, tuna fish, etc. (please no ramen noodles) The class with the most items at noon on Nov. 18 will win a bowling trip to Hudsonville Lanes (if allowed later in the year) and a P.E. C.A.R.E.S t-shirt.

UPCOMING DATES

*Monday, Nov 16—GYM; Virtual Parent-Teacher Conferences 4:00-8:00pm

*Tuesday, Nov 17—ART

*Wednesday, Nov 18—STEAM; Library–Please help your kinder remember their library book. Homework packet is due Virtual Parent-Teacher Conferences 4:00-8:00pm Book Fair Purchase Day

*Thursday, Nov 19–-MUSIC Birthday celebration for Kole

*Friday, Nov 20—GYM. Birthday celebration for Parker (11/23)

*Monday, Nov 23 & Tuesday, Nov 24–NO IN-PERSON CLASS A learning packet will come home.

*Nov. 24—Nov. 27—NO SCHOOL, Thanksgiving Vacation

Have a great weekend. I am looking forward to meeting with you next week to share your kinder’s progress. . Mrs. Bohl

NEWS—Jan 27-31

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POPCORN WORDS: with big

WRITER’S WORKSHOP: This week the kinders wrote their last their HOW TO… stories. Monday, the kinders put the steps in order and wrote the words to explain How to make a peanut and jelly sandwich. Tuesday, the kinders used the one page format to draw and write the steps of How to get hot lunch. Wednesday and Thursday, the kinders were able to choose their topic of How to get a library book or How to get ready for recess. They did an amazing job! They are becoming awesome writers!

MATH: We spent Monday reviewing math concepts we learned in this math unit. On Tuesday, the kinders took their job seriously as “office workers”. They stayed focused and did their best in answering the math questions. These tests will come home soon! We started Unit #4 by looking for partners of numbers 1-10 and telling math stories.

READING: This week the kinders learned that when reading challenging books you need to use picture power that has extra strength. That means you really need to spend time looking at the pictures, noticing more and more details while making sure the words match the pictures. They also learned that snap words (popcorn words you can identify in a snap) can be disguised with endings of -ed, -ing, -s. The kinders also worked on remembering what we read by retelling who was in the story, where it took place, and predicting what might happen. The kinders are developing this skill as their reading level grows.

SPLIT LIT: We worked on our sight words, we added another book to our blue book box with our popcorn words (with, big) in it and we sounded out 3 letter words (CVC – consonant, vowel, consonant words). We also sorted upper and lower case letters, listened for medial sounds in words and sorted words in the word families -at and -am.

GROUNDHOG DAY: In preparation for Groundhog Day, we learned a few fun facts about groundhogs, we made a groundhog craft and predicted if the groundhog would see his shadow and go hiding for 6 more weeks of winter OR would he not see his shadow and stay outside for an early spring. Watch the news on February 2 and have fun coloring the correct groundhog on the paper that was sent home. For me….I am hoping for a cloudy day so that we have an early spring! 🙂 . According to our classroom graph, many of the kinders are predicting a cloudy day too. How about you?

THESE KINDERS ARE BOOK LOVERS:

Ryan likes to collect gemstones so he brought the non-fiction book Mega Gemstones.

Isla has a unicorn bedroom so Thelma the Unicorn was the perfect book to share with the class.

Gabriella likes to read I’m a Big Sister because she is a big sister.

Kylie brought Room on the Broom because she also likes to watch the TV show.

Amin enjoys reading Jack B. Ninja because he likes playing ninja.

UPCOMING DATES

*Monday. Feb 3 & Tuesday. Feb 4—Winter Break

*Wednesday, Feb 5—School again! GYM; Day 100 celebration Bring in 100 collection! (see note that was sent home) LIBRARY Don’t forget your book!

*Thursday, Feb 6–ART; Bring back TAKE HOME books; Mail Valentines…bring in 5-6 valentines

*Friday, Feb 7–STEAM; Mail Valentines….bring in 5-6 valentines

*Friday, Feb 14–Valentine Day Party 2:00-3:00pm Click on this SIGN UP LINK if you wish to donate supplies.

Have a great weekend and a wonderful Winter Break! Mrs. Bohl

NEWS OF THE WEEK—Jan 7-11

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WELCOME BACK!

Oh, it is good to be back with my kinders. I missed seeing them each day. 🙂

We jumped right into learning this week. We talked about setting goals for what we might want to learn or do this coming year and wrote them down. We added our writing pieces to a fun Happy New Year craft. We thought of goals that we can accomplish at school. For example: to add numbers, to be kind, to learn more popcorn words, to read books, to share. Our ‘party people’ will come home soon but for now they are decorating the hallway by our room for the first part of January. Welcome 2019!!

POPCORN WORDS: WAS AT THAT We added three more words to our growing list of popcorn words that we are working on identifying in a snap. Many of the kinders noticed right away that “at” is hiding in “that” and that they rhyme. We also talked about how some letters make different sounds like in “was”. We read 2 books using these words and added the books to our blue book bins. The kinders are doing an amazing job identifying “new” and “old” popcorn words.

WONDERFUL WINTER: The snow outside was the perfect backdrop for learning inside. We read another book by Jan Brett (she wrote The Gingerbread Baby) called The Mitten. This is a great story about animals climbing into a mitten to stay warm. We used our retelling skills to sequence the order of animals crawling into the mitten. 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.

MATH: The kinders are working on telling and solving addition and subtraction stories by using objects or their fingers. As the kinders are beginning to learn this math skill, manipulatives are helpful in solving these problems. They also are working to see 5-groups for numbers 6-10 (ie: 5 and 2 more = 7) and to tell why that is useful when counting.

The kinders practiced sorting and classifying objects while giving reasons why they classified the items that way by using pictures of shapes and animals/people.

During Friday math games, the kinders played a game using paper snowballs, because real snowballs would melt in our room. The game focused on writing number partner equations and the identifying = and not = symbols. I am sorry about not being able to show you a picture but here are the directions. Scatter paper snowballs on the floor. While counting up to 3, have 2 people pick up as many of the snowballs as they can hold in their hands. Lay and count the number of snowballs each person picked up. Write out the correct number equation (5+4=9) or write each number and write = or not = between the numbers to compare the numbers. Ask your kinder….they can show you how to play.

HANDWRITING: We focused on learning the proper formation of the STRAIGHT AND SLANT letters N,M,K,Z in their booklets and with play dough. The kinders are doing a super job writing letters in isolation but transferring the proper formation during ‘regular’ writing time is not consistent. Extra encouragement as they write at home is always helpful. 🙂 The kinders were excited to find a paper with their last name added to their pencil box. I will be exchanging their names on their pencil boxes soon to include their last name. They will begin adding their last name to their papers, working towards writing their full name by memory.

READING: We continued working on using our super powers during reading. Readers learn words and practice them so that they can read them in a snap. Paper and a pencil were added to the kinders’ book bins so that they can practice this. We also added SOUND POWER to our chart. Readers can’t always rely on using just PICTURE POWER when they encounter an unknown word. They need to make the first letter sound to figure out the word. For example: Did the author use “rabbit” or “bunny” in the writing. By seeing a “r” and sounding it out, a reader can say “rabbit”.

SPLIT LIT: The kinders worked on writing lower and upper case letters, identifying the middle sound in words and identifying and writing popcorn words during their independent centers. It is challenging for some kinders to stay focused during this work time so if papers like these come home incomplete, it is likely because they are not using their time wisely. In the time alloted for each center, the kinders should be able to complete most if not all of of the task. With Mrs. Rossback, the kinders practiced making more words by taking away “th” from “that” and adding different beginning letters to “at”. (cat, fat, sat, mat, etc). Have fun at home using your Cat slider to practice this skill. The kinders read books using whisper phones while I reassessed them on some literacy skills.

WRITING: We began a new unit about writing Small Moment stories, otherwise known as Personal Narrative. I introduced the kinders to the difference between a “watermelon” story and a “seed” story. A watermelon story like what happened over winter vacation is too big for us to write. However, seed stories of specific events like opening gifts, visiting family, watching a movie are considered small moment stories. These stories are easier to write.

We started our learning by creating a simple bubble map of the many things we did over vacation…opening gifts, going on a trip, taking down the Christmas tree, playing with friends, visiting family, etc. We decided to write our first small moment story about “opening gifts” during our book exchange. The kinders practiced telling what happened first, next and last and stretching those details across their fingers.Then we drew pictures depicting this event. We worked together to stretch out sounds in unknown words and used popcorn words as much as possible. They did a FANTASTIC job!! We will begin another new story next week.

MYSTERY READER: Wednesday afternoon Zander was very surprised to see his grandma. She read us the classic book Petunia. It was different to see some pages were black & white and others were colored. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Zander turned 6 on Sunday but we celebrated his birthday on Monday. Thank you for the birthday treat!

REMINDERS

*BACKPACK SNACK: Thank you for remembering to pack TWO quick, healthy backpack snacks each day.

*CLASSROOM TEMPERATURE: The temperature in our classroom changes daily….sometimes it is warm and sometimes it feels a bit chilly. Please dress your kinder in layers so that they are comfortable throughout the day.

*OUTSIDE CLOTHES: Thank you for dressing your child in warm outside winter gear. Sending an extra pair of mittens or socks inside their backpacks might be helpful and more comfortable to wear later in the day.

*JANUARY CALENDAR: The January calendar has been posted under CALENDARS at the top of the blog. It contains information about specials, birthdays and monthly events. A paper copy was sent home prior to break.

*TAKE HOME BOOKS PROGRAM: A schedule has been created and was sent home with those who have volunteered. This exciting reading program WILL BEGIN MONDAY, JANUARY 21! Thank you for volunteering and being part of your kinder’s education. Practice reading the book that will come home on Jan 17 and RETURN THE BOOK INSIDE OF THE BAGGIE ON MONDAY, 1/21.

UPCOMING DATES:

*Monday, January 14— GYM; Book orders due (online or paper form with a check)

*Tuesday, January 15—ART

*Wednesday, January 16—STEAM; LIBRARY Please remember to return your kinder’s book

*Thursday, January 17—MUSIC; TAKE HOME books sent home

*Friday, January 18—GYM

*Monday, January 21–return and read TAKE HOME books

~~~Have a great weekend and welcome back to the school routine! Stay warm this weekend. Mrs. Bohl