Kindergarten is the LAND OF ONES!

We had some incredible learning going on this week that just warmed my teaching heart!  We were working on the “sticky” vowel “U” this week.  I completely let the students take the reins in creating words that had the sticky vowel “U” in them.  One student decided “FUN” was a word that used the sticky vowel “U”; I had the students help me sound out the letters in the word “FUN” and write the letter F and N.  Another student shouted out “UP”.  I was about ready to have two groups use the same word “up!” until an unexpected student excitedly shouts “I know another word! RUN!”, then another student chimes in, “Hey!  Run and fun rhyme!”  That’s why students are so fabulous, if you give them the room to grow, they will…and even more than you had anticipated! 

 

For reading comprehension this week, we worked really hard on mastering telling what happens at the “Beginning, Middle and End” of a story.  Ask your student to show you the action we do when working on the beginning, middle and end!  You will see students watching the animated book “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”.  We also acted this out in class.  Great book!  (There was also some counting to do!  Mrs. Kressin’s favorite!)  The writing activity was organizing the beginning, middle and end by drawing what happened in the correct sequence on the graphic organizer. 

 

Working on Independent Reading.

At the phonics technology center.  One student is using the SMARTboard while the other student is listening and using the desktop computer. 

Number Power is the word on the street in Kindergarten.  Last Tuesday I had to attend a Professional Development Conference on teaching our young ones numbers.  Really the biggest goal was to give students not only number sense, but number power.  We want our Kindergarten students by the end of the year to have an unshakable number line from 1 all the way to 100 and beyond.  We want students to be able to visualize their number line without any gaps.  The speaker for the day even coined the phrase that Kindergarten is the land of “ones”.  After going to this conference I revamped my Math centers to go along with the latest and greatest of what research says best practices are in Math.  Our new math centers include “Cups and Cardinality” where students can work as a team or individually to build their own cup tower.  The only catch they must be able to count as high as they build their tower.   It is pretty interesting to watch what students can create without any interference from an adult.  One student was absent and the previous day students cycled through the centers and the highest anyone was able to build their tower was 15.  The student who was absent sat down at the “cups and cardinality” center the next day and built a tower totally different than anyone else in the class and her tower was made of 21 cups.   What was even better was the rest of class was just as excited for her, ran over and immediately began congratulating her on her success!  That is what is so great about this class, they really are a community of learners and it is really fun to observe every day. 

Another math center we are working on is “Counting Up”.  This center focuses on number sequence from any number 2-20 through 100 (or less depending on what is appropriate for that student’s level).   We see many students really struggle with the numbers THIRTEEN, FOURTEEN and FIFTEEN.  I wrote those in CAPS because when we say those numbers in class, we do not just skim right over them (you know the LMNOP effect), we enunciate and raise our volume when we address these three numbers.   With our half day, we fit numbers in anytime and anywhere we can.  When we are waiting in line we are always working on counting 1-100.   Of course, we also have whole group instruction on Math, but these are some of the new practices we have put into place last week.

The students worked so hard this last week and part of the “FUN FRIDAY ACTIVITY” they earned included some more counting..but to camouflage the  counting, we used a parachute! J  The students loved it!  They got to get some energy out and completely wore me out!  Playing with a parachute is a workout!

 

 

GROUP HUG!

We have had a couple parent volunteers so far this year and they have been great help in the classroom!  I welcome any volunteers in the future!  As always if you ever would like to discuss anything regarding your son or daughter, my door is always open.  (As well as my email inbox and cell phone!)  I apologize for the delay on this blog update.  My goal is to update every Friday night on the previous week, but I forgot my camera at school and you just can’t update a blog without photos!  (This is why I have so much patience with Kindergarteners I forget things, I spill food/drinks on myself,  it takes me more than one try to get good at things, I can’t sit still and I love to be goofy and silly….we are a perfect fit!)

And yes your child's appetite was ruined last Friday, but we had a birthday celebration!  How can you turn these faces down?? 

 

Have a great week!

 Sincerely,  Mrs. Kressin