Love these smiles!!! Happy learners!
Above pic:Student is identifying cause and effect. She underlined in green the effect, and in blue the cause.
The students this week have been rocking the reading comprehension strategy of identifying “cause and effect”. This can be difficult for students because many times, authors will write about the effect first and we later find out the cause. The effect is what happened in a situation and the cause is why it happened. To add movement to this strategy, we would throw our hands up in the air and loudly say “WHAT HAPPENED?!” when talking about the effect. For the cause, we would put our hands on our hips and say, “WHY?! Tell me the cause!” We use clues in pictures and texts, and our own experiences to help us identify the cause and effect. Many times we talk about cause and effect in our everyday life and don’t even realize it. Most people want to know what happened and why. I was soo shocked to see how well student s picked up this concept. Students were then given two options for the writing portion of our Literacy Workshop. They could either write a sentence explaining what they know about cause and effect or they could try to create they own sentence that had a cause and effect within it. Check out two of our writer’s reading what they wrote! I swear these boys came up with these sentences all on their own, they came over to me when they were done and wanted to share! I was helping other students!
Above video: "Effect is what happened. The cause is why it happened. I go to school because I like to learn."
Above video: "My sister is asleep because my sister is sick."
A teacher’s
work, much like a parents, is never done! :) The last two weeks I had the pleasure of attending two after school
workshops for Math. The presenter spent
a lengthy part of the training discussing equality. What does the = (equals sign) mean to our
students? Most students believe the =
(equals sign) means “give me an answer” or “answer goes here”. When in reality the = (equals sign) means
“the same as” or “equal to”. Even at the
young age of kindergarten we need to start teaching students this. Research shows that the number one reason
students fail algebra is because they do not understand what the = equals sign
means. And I have to say I think my own
Math experience would have been easier, if I had learned to look at math
equations the correct way. The longer
the students are exposed to the = “equals means put answer here” way of
thinking, the more difficult it is for them down the road to understand complex
concepts. I know it may sound silly to
worry about it in Kindergarten, but it truly is important. We are building these children’s foundation
and understanding of numbers and math.
To be able to look at the equals sign for what it really is, showing
that whatever is to the left of the equals sign must be equal to whatever is on
the right side of the equal sign. We can
show this in a variety of ways.
To begin
teaching our students this, we have started a TRUE vs. FALSE math station. Students helped me decide whether different
math equations were indeed true equations or false (not equal) equations. Initially we started with an easy one
8=8. All the students agreed, yes this
was a true statement, what was on the one side of the equal sign was definitely
the same as what was on the other side.
We then moved on down the line in difficulty and I was getting all
different kinds of responses. I was able
to capture two students at first thinking that the equation was FALSE (not
equal) and then realizing wait a second, it is a TRUE equation.
Let me tell you in the beginning of this
lesson, even writing 5=2+3 made the students really unsure! They are use to
seeing it written like 2+3=5. But that what
is soo amazingly wonderful about these young people, they are open to learning
and easily able to change their way of thinking. (VERY UNLIKE the poor high school kids who
have been trained for 9 years to think “equals means put answer here”, then it
is a little harder to get them to wrap their head around the fact that equals
means “equal to” or “the same as”. I
like to tell the students that they can be the same even if they don’t look
just alike! Meaning 3=1+1+1.
Even though one side of the equals sign has one digit and the other side
has three, they all equal three if you follow the operations making it a true
equation. Believe it or not, the
students were getting it!
Check out video and pictures of other Math happenings this week. :)
Above video is students partner teaching what makes up a group of tens.
Back by popular demand....FRUIT LOOP SUBTRACTION! We start off with a whole number, students grab that many fruit loops and put them on their plate. Then we take away part(into our bellies), and are left with??? Students always show me with fingers how many we are left with and I record it on the board.
This was 10-4=6! Our whole number was 10, we took away four and were left with six!
Reviewing sight words on smart board. Students tap each cookie and the cookie gets a bite taken out of it to reveal one of our many sight words! It's a big hit. :)
Have a fantastic long weekend with your family! This weekend may be busy for many families, so don't worry if you don't have time to get to the homework! It's just there in case you would like your son or daughter to practice their skills! Take Care!
Mrs. Kressin :)
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