"I..."statements, Setting, Sequence of Events, Adding +1

THIS WEEK IN…

Phonics:  Students were completing RHYMING activities.  The super secret password was the sight word “MY”, and review of the letters Kk, Ll, Mm, Ee.  Some students are asked to tell the sound, some students tell words that begin with that sound or words that end with that sound, etc.”  Each week we have a new password to enter the classroom. 





Above:

Students sharing the sequence of events of their own bedtime routine. 

Writing:  The students worked on visualizing what they wanted to write about.  First we visualized an event that they had experienced in the past, an event they look forward to in the future, something that happened recently.  They wrote “I…” statements like “I had a big cake.”  Or “I had a red belt” or “I love leggo land.”  I have to share; one of the students said the most adorable thing.  During journal writing we have been working on “I…” statements.  In reading we have been working on sequence of events, so for the reading homework, students were suppose to use the “IMPORTANT” words to help organize their writing of: First, Second, Third, Next and Finally.  One of the students came to me in the morning and said, “I’m sorry Mrs. Kressin I told my Mom we need to start every sentence with a Capital I, but she wasn’t getting it and she made me write it like this.”  (Which of course, Mom was right!) That just made my week, and it was so precious.  I couldn’t help but laugh.   So during journal time I explained that this week we were just working I statements but we can change how we start off our sentences.  This is why I LOVE teaching Kindergarten!  They are so sweet and ready to soak up learn anything you put in front of them!



Partner Teaching

Reading:  We spent a majority of our week on: sequence of events, determining text importance (not every detail), and review of setting.   Setting can be tricky for students.  Setting is not only where, but also when.  The setting could be in the 1800’s or in the future!  Setting can change within a story.   Setting can change from page to page sometimes and other times the setting stays the same through the whole book.  Good readers are investigators though, and are always looking for and thinking about the clues they see, hear or read!



Setting and Smiles :)

 I am so excited to hear the students answering questions with complete thoughts (complete sentences). For example if I was asking the students where the setting of the book was, they would respond, “The setting of the book is in the forest.” If a student responds“In the forest”, I always say, “WHAT is in the forest?” It didn’t take long for them to catch on!  

Partner Reading

 

MATH: Addition!  We started off as a whole class looking at what happened to any number we add one to.  One student shared with the class that “…any time you add one to a number, it is just one number bigger!”  We split up into our Math Centers and worked on our individual needs.  Some students were working on mastering counting to 50, others worked on mastering comparing numbers with greater than,  less than or equal to, others were writing their numbers after counting a certain number of objects, some student were working on addition problems up to 5. 

There is an INCREDIBLE WEBSITE we use in class for our technology center. 

ü http://www.ixl.com/math/kindergarten

If you click on the link, it will take you directly to a page that shows most of the standards that Kindergarteners are required to learn throughout the year.   If you click on any of the links, it will have practice questions that pop up to test that specific standard.  For example if your son or daughter is working on Counting to 20, you would click on that link and 10 stars would pop up for them to count.  If they got it correct they would move on to another question and the questions would slowly increase in difficulty.  If they got it wrong, it shows how to figure out the answer.  It is amazing.  Towards the end of  the year I hope to have all of students working on 1^st grade math from this website!  (I just ask please do not have the student begin skip counting until they can count forwards and backwards by ones to 100 with ease.  Skip counting can really confuse students when they are building thier understanding of numbers!)

The students in this class are always on “Outstanding!” for our behavior chart.  They try their best every day. 
What coming next week???

ü Writer’s have a lot to remember.  We are going to practice putting a capital letter at the beginning of each sentence, space between words, ending with a period or exclamation and including the who and what in their complete sentence!  Mrs. Kressin is also going to start using the word verb in our every day vocabulary!

ü Reading/Science: Build academic vocabulary as we learn about the life cycle of a frog.  Continue to determine text importance and sequence of events.  Identify and discuss nonfiction text features (table of contents, glossary, sidebars, bold words, etc.)
 

ü Math: Adding numbers up to 5.  Some students I may bump up to adding numbers up to 10.  We’ll see how the week goes! 

ü http://www.ixl.com/math/kindergarten Check it out!  Kids love anything on the computer!