Week of September 22

This week seemed to be even busier than the last! We are definitely in a groove in kindergarten with routines and expectations. This makes learning time, social time, and transition time efficient and we are certainly making the most of every minute :)

This 'theme' activity combined some art and literacy skills.

The children made an apple mosaic with paper scraps (great fine motor practice),. They also completed some word work by unscrambling the words and putting them into sentence order.

This math activity involved students rolling a die, counting the dots and coloring in corresponding numerals.

An important math lesson on Turn and Talk took place this week. Research tells us that when we talk about math, we become smarter at math. This fuels the idea of Turn and Talk. Children turn towards a partner and are given a math task to think about, then take turn sharing about. We practiced this all week long, and it's very exciting to see this math routine develop!

Turn and Talk math partners.

Turn and Talk math partners.

By the end of the week, the children were REALLY getting the hang of it :)

Which Numberal Will Win was a new math activity this week. The children spin and record the number they land on. Thy primary math concepts include numeral recognition, and recording and analyzing data (as children record their spins and then evaluate the totals).

Which Numeral Will Win also involves numeral writing practice.

The core math idea of this game, Beat You to Five is: There are different combinations that make 5.

Beat You to Five.

Fundations writing practice.

Fundations Writing Practice

A proud kindergarten writer!

Fundations writing lesson. We focused on o and c is week, and revisited letters from previous lessons.

Reading a class made book together.

Morning message work, filling in numbers for before and after.

ABC sentence work from Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See. 

More apple theme work. In Work Board the children read non-fiction books about apples, colored the pictures realistically, and sequenced the pictures.

Hard at work!

We have been talking a lot about features of non-fiction books. This page from Gail Gibbons' book "Apples" served as a wonderful example of a diagram with labels....

....which I read to introduce this activity where children cut out apple parts and added labels.

ABC Work Board work...matching upper and lower case letters.

Exploring pattern blocks in 123 Work Board station,

Exploring pattern blocks in 123 Work Board station,

We counted our collection of unifex cubes from number corner. The students problem solved this big task by suggesting we use ten frames to help us (that was what I was HOPING they would say!)

You Skills this week was about personal space. Mrs. Nelson read this book to introduce the idea.

Personal space...the children practiced moving through hulahoops as a way to define personal space.

What happens if someone gets in your personal space? You ask, politely, for more space :)

We talked a lot about patterns this week. Above states the big math idea around the work we did.

We learned during a "Road Show" that at CCS, it's everybody's job to take care of ourselves, each other and the school.

Week of September 15

Here are a few snapshots of the very BUSY week we had in kindergarten! We have also been reading and talking a lot about apples, and have been really enjoying Number Corner and some new math games, which will be featured in next week's blog. The children have also been interested in practicing writing letters in FUNdations. So far, we have learned these letters in FUNdations: m, t, f, b, i, u, n.

We started this week off with a great Four Winds lesson on habitats and ecosystems. We watched a play that introduced some big ideas about these topics.

Listening intently to these characters!

Four Winds

We learned that ecosystems are all the living and non living things in a place and how they work together. Producers and consumers make and eat food. Herbivores and carnivores and omnivores are parts of ecosystems. 

The children looked at images of leaves and sorted them based on certain similarities...

...both of these leaves looked like they were munched on....

...both of these leaves showed "leave mining"....

We enjoyed some time in the outdoor classroom...

where we saw firsthand how a leave can serve as an ecosystem and habitat. If you look VERY closely, you can see some teeny bugs underneath these leaves.

The children were given this sheet of paper and searched for examples of these leaves. 

Eggs were found on this leaf.

Looking at leaves that were "skeletonized".

Folded leaves protect insects

We have been reading a ton about apples. This was a follow up 'mosaic' activity that the children loved. This project took lots of concentration, and also fostered some careful fine motor work.

We read the book, Have You Seen My Cat?. The sight word "my" was introduced. The children traced a cat, colored it in, and then completed the sentence strip by adding the words "my cat".

Hard at work.

Mrs. Nelson taught an important lesson this week during You Skiils. She showed the children a picture and asked, "What do you notice about this student listening to his teacher?" The students recognized the traits of the boy paying attention to his teacher. The focus on this lesson was "Paying attention" and why it is an important "skill" to have in kindergarten.

We listened and danced to the Listening Song.

As you focus use your eyes, ears and brain.

Focused and ready to listen :)

We also visited Mrs. Nelson's room and explored....

...puppets....

...and Legos.....

...comfy chairs....