February has been a busy month with Valentine's Day and the 100th Day of School.
In math we have been done a variety of activities to help students understand the concept that the teen numbers are ten plus some more. We played a Teen Frame spinner game and created teen paper chains. Students also learned about the addition sign and equal sign. We have played a variety of games to practice addition.
During Writer's Workshop we wrapped up our Small Moment stories. Each student chose one book to revise and fancy up for their portfolios. Now we are writing how-to books.
During Reader's Workshop readers have been practicing reading their snap word cards. They all seem proud to have their own box of words they can read. We have also revisited Stretchy Snake and have been practicing sounding out words with short vowel sounds. So far we have practice a, o, and i.
Our theme has been winter. Students made melted snowman out of shaving cream and glue and wrote about how they melted. This are hanging on the bulletin board outside of our classroom. Be sure to take a look the next time you are at Rowe.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Happy 100th Day of School
Today was the one hundredth of school. We started the day with a community meeting where we counted one hundred students, sang 1-0-0, and counted how much money we have raised for the Rowe School playground. Ms. Honan also read a book about the one hundredth day!
In our classroom we shared what we would eat 100 of, completed a 100 day puzzle, and made special crowns. We also did the "100 Macarena" and 100 exercises.
In our classroom we shared what we would eat 100 of, completed a 100 day puzzle, and made special crowns. We also did the "100 Macarena" and 100 exercises.
Monday, January 18, 2016
January 18
The children came back from vacation well rested and ready to learn!
In math we have been learning about combinations of ten. We have played a variety of games, including Spill the Beans and Bears on the Bus to practice this skill. Knowing different combinations to make ten will help students as they practice addition and subtraction in kindergarten and beyond.
We have also been focusing on shapes during math time. Students looked for different shapes in pictures and made recording of these shapes. They also created shape collages. These collages are hanging on the hallway outside our classroom.
During Writer's Workshop, writers have been writing personal narratives called small moments. Writers have learned to plan a story before writing by touching each page and telling the story aloud. They are working on including a beginning, a middle, and an end.
The students are beginning to add spaces between words. Have your heard your child talk about spaghetti and meatballs? Spaghetti spaces are small spaces between letters in words. Meatball spaces are the bigger spaces between words.
Upon returning from vacation the children were asked to write a small moment story independently. It was exciting to see the children telling stories with pictures and words across pages. I will share these stories with you during parent conferences in February.
The kindergarten teachers had a release day to look at all the kindergarten writing prompts. We were able to celebrate all the wonderful writing our students are doing. We were also able to collaborate to decide what to teach next in writing. We collected work samples to show a range of typical kindergarten writing for this time of year.
During the month of January there is a lot of assessing happening. Students are assessed so we can share progress with you during conferences. We also use the information to make sure all students are making progress. If there are students who need extra support or enrichment we use the assessment data along with our knowledge of our students to create a plan. There are a team of ed techs and support staff who help with the assessing so the classroom teachers can continue to teach. Therefore your child may report that another staff member took them out of the classroom to complete some activities.
Do not worry! We are also finding time to play outside and enjoy the snow! Thank you for making sure your children are prepared to play outside each day.
In math we have been learning about combinations of ten. We have played a variety of games, including Spill the Beans and Bears on the Bus to practice this skill. Knowing different combinations to make ten will help students as they practice addition and subtraction in kindergarten and beyond.
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| Bears on the Bus |
We have also been focusing on shapes during math time. Students looked for different shapes in pictures and made recording of these shapes. They also created shape collages. These collages are hanging on the hallway outside our classroom.
During Reader's Workshop the students were introduced to Chunky Monkey. Chunky Monkey helps us decode words by finding chunks we know in words. We have focused on at and an so far. The students also picked out new read to self spots.
I have introduced twenty sight words to the students. We call them snap words because they
are words we need to know in a snap when reading and writing. Keep an eye out for the the kindergarten sight word lists coming home in backpacks this week.
During Writer's Workshop, writers have been writing personal narratives called small moments. Writers have learned to plan a story before writing by touching each page and telling the story aloud. They are working on including a beginning, a middle, and an end.
The students are beginning to add spaces between words. Have your heard your child talk about spaghetti and meatballs? Spaghetti spaces are small spaces between letters in words. Meatball spaces are the bigger spaces between words.
The students love getting to fancy up their work on Fancy Fridays!
Upon returning from vacation the children were asked to write a small moment story independently. It was exciting to see the children telling stories with pictures and words across pages. I will share these stories with you during parent conferences in February.
The kindergarten teachers had a release day to look at all the kindergarten writing prompts. We were able to celebrate all the wonderful writing our students are doing. We were also able to collaborate to decide what to teach next in writing. We collected work samples to show a range of typical kindergarten writing for this time of year.
During the month of January there is a lot of assessing happening. Students are assessed so we can share progress with you during conferences. We also use the information to make sure all students are making progress. If there are students who need extra support or enrichment we use the assessment data along with our knowledge of our students to create a plan. There are a team of ed techs and support staff who help with the assessing so the classroom teachers can continue to teach. Therefore your child may report that another staff member took them out of the classroom to complete some activities.
Do not worry! We are also finding time to play outside and enjoy the snow! Thank you for making sure your children are prepared to play outside each day.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Sunday, December 6, 2015
November 30- December 4
During the month of December our social studies unit focuses on holidays around the world. We focus on the common theme of light. Some of the holidays we discuss are Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and St. Lucia Day. We will be reading books, singing songs, and creating art activities about traditions.
I am looking forward to seeing your handprint projects and learning about everybody's family traditions. If you have a special tradition you would like to teach the class about, please let me know. This week Cecilia's mother will be visiting to teach us about Christmas in Italy.
At Rowe school we have two kindergarten traditions in December which I love. One is to build and decorate gingerbread houses. The other is our performance based on Jan Brett's Gingerbread Baby. Our performance is on December 17 in our classroom. No costumes are needed. We will making special headbands at school.
Can you believe that our gingerbread man, Ginger, ran away? Mrs. Cote let us know she saw him run out the door with a book of maps. Sounds like he is planning quite a trip! Rumor has it that he has been spotted in New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. He has plans to travel as far away as Hawaii with stops in Nebraska, North Carolina, Arizona, and Louisiana. Thank you to everyone who has reached out to friends and family members to help with this activity. I am excited to see where he travels!
My bookshelf is full of books about gingerbread characters.
Here is a list of books we have read so far:
Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett.
The Gingerbread Man retold by Jim Aylesworth
The Gingerbread Man retold by Karen Schmidt
The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School by Laura Murray
The Gingerbread Man Goes to School by Joan Holub
The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst
We have been discussing the different characters, settings, endings, and refrains in each of the different versions.
We are in the process of wrapping up our pattern book writing during Writer's Workshop and are publishing books for our classroom library. On Thursday, students wrote rough drafts of pattern books. They made revisions and then handed them in. I typed each book up and the students will illustrate them. We will read them to our first grade buddies next week. After the winter break we will be revisiting personal narratives.
During Reader's Workshop we have been discussing setting. I have been encouraging students to notice where the stories they are reading are happening. When you are reading aloud at home you can ask your child about the setting. Before reading look at the cover and ask them to make a prediction about where the story takes place. Ask them what clues they see. During read them check in about the setting.
During math, mathematicians have been learning about teen numbers, ten frames, and different ways to make hexagons. The also explored calculators.
Mrs. Gross visited on Tuesday to teach us about telling in and telling out. Telling in is when you are telling to get someone in trouble, while telling out is telling to get somebody out of trouble. She discussed strategies for working out little problems on their own.
Here is a list of books we have read so far:
Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett.
The Gingerbread Man retold by Jim Aylesworth
The Gingerbread Man retold by Karen Schmidt
The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School by Laura Murray
The Gingerbread Man Goes to School by Joan Holub
The Gingerbread Girl by Lisa Campbell Ernst
We have been discussing the different characters, settings, endings, and refrains in each of the different versions.
We are in the process of wrapping up our pattern book writing during Writer's Workshop and are publishing books for our classroom library. On Thursday, students wrote rough drafts of pattern books. They made revisions and then handed them in. I typed each book up and the students will illustrate them. We will read them to our first grade buddies next week. After the winter break we will be revisiting personal narratives.
During Reader's Workshop we have been discussing setting. I have been encouraging students to notice where the stories they are reading are happening. When you are reading aloud at home you can ask your child about the setting. Before reading look at the cover and ask them to make a prediction about where the story takes place. Ask them what clues they see. During read them check in about the setting.
During math, mathematicians have been learning about teen numbers, ten frames, and different ways to make hexagons. The also explored calculators.
Mrs. Gross visited on Tuesday to teach us about telling in and telling out. Telling in is when you are telling to get someone in trouble, while telling out is telling to get somebody out of trouble. She discussed strategies for working out little problems on their own.
Monday, November 16, 2015
November Update
I cannot believe it is already mid-November! Time certainly flies.
This month during Reader's Workshop readers are reading pattern books and learning that good readers have super powers. These special powers help readers when they are stuck on a word. The first super power I introduced is called "owl eyes." Readers use their owl eyes to look at pictures for clues. Readers also use "Lips the Fish" and get their mouth ready to say the first sound. Next up will be Stretchy Snake.
During Writer's Workshop writers are writing their own pattern books. Students are beginning to write simple sentences. We started the unit by writing a class pattern book about the playground. We wrote the book together and the students worked in pairs to illustrate it. Now they are all working on their own books.
Mathematicians have continued to work on a variety of skills during math time. Our activities included comparing and describing objects of different lengths, creating an obstacle courses to practice positional words and sequencing numbers. We also played Spin a Number to practice counting and one to one correspondence.
The students have been introduced to the correct formation of all the digits 0-9. We will continue to practice as reversals are still common.
We now have first grade reading buddies. Students from Mrs. Warren's class come and read with us each Thursday afternoon for about 15-20 minutes. The students take turns reading to each other in a pair or triad.
This month during Reader's Workshop readers are reading pattern books and learning that good readers have super powers. These special powers help readers when they are stuck on a word. The first super power I introduced is called "owl eyes." Readers use their owl eyes to look at pictures for clues. Readers also use "Lips the Fish" and get their mouth ready to say the first sound. Next up will be Stretchy Snake.
During Writer's Workshop writers are writing their own pattern books. Students are beginning to write simple sentences. We started the unit by writing a class pattern book about the playground. We wrote the book together and the students worked in pairs to illustrate it. Now they are all working on their own books.
Mathematicians have continued to work on a variety of skills during math time. Our activities included comparing and describing objects of different lengths, creating an obstacle courses to practice positional words and sequencing numbers. We also played Spin a Number to practice counting and one to one correspondence.
The students have been introduced to the correct formation of all the digits 0-9. We will continue to practice as reversals are still common.
We now have first grade reading buddies. Students from Mrs. Warren's class come and read with us each Thursday afternoon for about 15-20 minutes. The students take turns reading to each other in a pair or triad.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
No Turkeys Here!
Thank you families for helping us to disguise all our turkeys! I am confident the farmer will not be able to find them. If you are at Rowe School be sure to take a walk down the hallway to see all the clever disguises.
Here is a preview.
Here is a preview.
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