Week of November 3

This week in computer lab we started Lexia--a literacy program. The children LOVE it!  The program tracks each child's use and progress. With this, children play literacy games that correspond with each student's literacy needs.

You should able to access your child's Lexia account from home. Please be on the lookout for an email with these details. Your child will enjoy working with Lexia at home.

We worked on November calendars this week. This month there were lots of numbers for children to fill in on their own.

The children practiced writing 'v' and 'w' this week in FUNdations.

Literacy/them work 

Literacy/theme work.

Sight word practice in ABC station during Work Board.

An example of a Morning Message from this week. We are working a lot on teen numbers, with the main idea that "teen numbers are made with ten and some more". The children filled in the ten frames to make the corresponding teen number. We also counted the words and punctuation marks in the message.

This week in Bridges we worked with tallying.

The main ideas were that we could make a group of 5 and count on by 1's. This makes counting efficient.

The children practiced combinations of 5, for example the combo above is 5 and 3, which makes 8 all together. Some children know just at a glance that 5 and 3 is 8. Some children used the "counting on" strategy (seeing the group of 5, and counting on 6,7,8). 

Working with tallies.

You SKills with Mrs. Nelson: Inviting to play is an example of being an "up stander and ally".

We are working hard during Writer's Workshop. This week children practiced stretching out words sllllooooooowwwlly in order to hear sounds in words.

I did a mini-lesson with the core idea above. The children LOVED the story of the Little Engine That Could. I related the moral of the story to our jobs during Writer's Workshop, which is to try even though it might feel hard to sound out words and write letters.

The children worked on their November self portraits this week. I read the book above to highlight the important idea that we are all different and unique on the outside, but we are the same on the inside: we like to feel loved, respected and taken care of.

I really appreciated this particular message.

Looking in mirrors....

...to add all the important details...

...that make us each special and unique.

Later in the week we worked more with tallies.

I quickly flashed tally display cards and the children built what they saw with their own tallies.

We enjoyed kindergarten community time with Mrs. Cota's class by playing '5 Across'---it was a bit hit.