Week 19

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!  We had an exciting week finishing our reading unit "Discovering Patterns."  We made pattern detectives, got a bookmark of pattern books and ate donuts.  Now we are in a unit called "Revving Up."  It is going to look at strategies for reading words.

We are finishing up our math module called "Comparison with Length, Weight, and Numbers" and are getting ready for "Number Pairs, Addition and Subtraction of Numbers to 10."

This week we were listening to the Frozen song "Let It Go" with the lyrics on the screen.  This reminded me of a great reading tool that you have on your tvs: Closed Caption.  Put it on while your child is watching his or her favorite show.

As we prepare to learn about addition and subtraction, you can help at home by telling number stories.  For example, look over there, I see 3 cows in that field.  On the other side of the road, there are 2 cows.  How many in all?  Or  how many more in the first field?  You can also do it during dinner.  There are 3 chicken nuggets on my plate.  I ate 3 already.  How many did I start with?


Wednesday, Miss Kathy from the Derry Public Library will be visiting us.  She reads us a story, sings songs, and shares events coming up at the library.

Have a great week!

Week 18

Happy New Year!  I hope you were all able to enjoy the extended break.  I loved the extra time I had to spend reading and playing games with my daughter, but I am glad to be back.

The kindergarteners have done a great job getting back into the routine.  In Reader's Workshop we are finishing up our unit on patterns.  The patterns we found in our books are repeating, question and answer, growing or shrinking, and patterns using things we know like the alphabet or numbers. Knowing the pattern of a book helps us to figure out words and predict what is going to happen next. We are talking about how to talk about patterns with our partners.

In math, we are working on number bonds which we use to record our thinking when we compose or decompose numbers.

You can do this at home with coins.  Give your child 10 coins and have him or her drop them.  Have them record the number of heads in one of the small circles and the number of tails in the other.  Then record the total number in the top circle.  As an extension, have your child figure out all the possible ways to make 10.  

When the temperature is above 20 degrees and it is not too icy, we will be going out for recess.  Please send in boots, snow pants, hats and mittens with your child.  

Have a great weekend and enjoy the warmer weather!