Week 23 and 24

February is such a short month, but we are so busy.  We celebrated Groundhog's Day, the 100th Day, Valentines Day, and President's Day.  This week we have been thinking about the job of the president.  The class is equally split with half the class wanting to be president some day and half having no interest!

In Reader's Workshop we are working on strategies for figuring out words.  We are learning some animal cues to help us remember different things to try when we get to a word we don't know.  Each day we are learning a new strategy.  The students are taking home little reminders and I suggested they put them someplace safe and start a collection.  Some shared that they are on their fridge or dresser.  Here is a poster to help you help your child.

In math we are working on adding and subtracting.  We are solving word problems with manipulatives and writing number sentences.  By the end of the year, students should be able to add and subtract within five fluently.  When students are able to solve the problem without counting, I have been celebrating that they know that fact fluently.  Throughout this unit, we will be using different story mats to practice word problems.  This week is a farm scene.  We are using cubes to represent animals at the farm.  For example, there are 4 horses in the barn.  There are 5 cows eating hay.  How many animals are on the farm today?  When these story mats come home, have your child show you how we use them.  That is great practice!

I just copied the reading logs for February.  If you have been reading this month, you can go ahead and color in for the days you have already read.  Use vacation time to have your child show how great his or her reading is.  I will collect them and hand out the Pizza Hut certificates after vacation.  Enjoy your vacation next week.

Week 22

We had another great week in Kindergarten.  We had a visit from Mrs. Herr who read a book about just being yourself.  Ms. Clare is  a writing consultant who did a model lesson for the kindergarten teacher.  Our class was lucky enough to be the model class.  She stressed how important it was for kindergarteners to compare and contrast things.  We used the words alike and different.  The students had two different animals to tell how they are the same and different.

In math, we are continue to work on the concepts of addition and subtraction.  We continue to perfect our counting strategies and identification of 2D and 3D shapes.

We read and wrote about penguins.  We are able to write complete sentences.  We still need reminders to put finger spaces between words and a period at the end of the sentence.

In Reader's Workshop, we are talking about all the reasons to reread a book.

Monday is the 100th day of school and we will be celebrating!  Next Friday we will celebrate Valentines Day with an ice cream party.

Week 20 and 21

What a crazy couple of weeks.  That flu is awful!  We still managed to get lots done!  We are learning about polar bears and penguins.  We got new Writing Notebooks and we have already written informational texts about polar bears.  Next week we will write about penguins.

In Reader's Workshop we have been learning strategies for figuring out words.  We are experts at looking at the first letter, but sometimes we have to read all the way through the word because there are words that start with the same letter.  We learned switch it up.  We use that when we see a picture and think it is a frog, but the word starts with t.  We have to switch up our thinking and figure out what other word would make sense, like toad.  We also learned how to stretch out a word like a snake (also known as sound out a word).  Use this chart to help prompt your reader at home.

In Math, we have started working with the idea of addition and subtraction through story telling.  We have been using penguin manipulatives and moving them in and out of the igloo.  

We have some celebrating to do in the next couple of weeks!  If we don't have a snow day, Friday, February 7 will be our 100th day of school.  We will be learning about the number 100 all day!  I would like to make a 100 day trail mix, but I need your help.  We are looking for donations of small snacks like Cheerios, m&ms, raisins, small pretzels, goldfish, etc..  We will celebrate Valentines Day on Friday, February 14 with an ice cream party so we are looking for donations of toppings on that day.  I sent home a list of the children in the class already, but let me know if you need another copy.  Writing out valentines is a great real life writing task for your child, but you may want to break it up and do a few every day.  I have mailboxes for the kids to collect their valentines in and we will read them during Reader's Workshop.

Progress Reports will go home on February 7.  Have a great weekend!