Learning Experiences

Reading: We focused on learning the name, sound, and formation of a and g this week. Each week we also review the letters we have learned previously so each child can easily and automatically name letters, say their sound, and form the letters “the kindergarten way”. If children are fluent with these skills- reading will come more easily to them. Each day, we continue to play sound games to break words apart and put them together in different ways like beginning sounds, ending sounds, rhyming words and syllables. We worked on basic reading skills by reading a simple book as a class. We focused on predicting as well as using the pictures to give us clues about the words. We focused on the sight words I and see. The kids are keeping these little books in their book boxes to practice reading them but in a few weeks they will bring them home to read to you!

Writing: We continued checking our writing with our writing checklist to see if it is done or if we need to continue working on the same piece another day. If a piece of writing is done the writer has written their name at the top, thought and planned, drew in pencil, labeled, added details, and colored.

Math: We played games with 10 frames this week and practiced representing numbers on a 10 frame in different ways. We practiced counting objects in different arrangements which are trickier to count that objects in a straight line. We also continued our work with shapes and attributes by studying rectangles.

Science and Social Studies: We enjoyed a Mystery Science video about why people have different accents. We answered the question, “What direction is the wind blowing” by using grocery sack kites. We learned we can observe with our sight and also with our sense of touch. We also worked on science process skills like observing and recording in a science notebook. Our cool tool this week was service learning. We watched a video of the kindergarten service learning project from last year. We will learn more about what service learning is in the coming months and complete a service project of our own.

Today we continued learning about the weather by observing the clouds! We used our sense of sight to observe the sky and see what we noticed about the clouds.

We noticed the clouds were low, thick, and almost covered the whole sky! We also learned that a science notebook entry should have a title and the date at the top. We drew what we observed in the sky.

We enjoyed reading a few books to help us learn a little more about clouds and our sense of sight.

Reading: We focused on the name, sound, and formation of c and o this week. We played sound games to help the kids learn to break sounds in words apart and blend sounds together orally, to prepare them for using the same skills with letters to read later in the year. We learned different ways to read a book like looking at the pictures and telling yourself the story.

Writing: We worked on adding details and labels to our writing. We also focused on making sure our picture shows who is in the story, what is happening in the story, and where the story is happening.

Math: We played to fun math games with dot cards. We played Match Up (like memory) and Top it (like war). These games help the children compare quantities as well as count, and see numbers as different groups. We continued describing shapes and learning attributes of shapes.

Science and Social Studies: We enjoyed a Mystery Science video about how gold is made. As a grade level, kindergarten focused on dismissal procedures to help this process go smoother and be calmer and quieter each day.

Mrs. Davison came to teach us about feelings. We all have feelings and they can change. Sometimes people have different feelings about the same things. The 4 basic feelings are happy, sad, mad, and scared. There are lots of other feelings as well.

Reading: We focused on the name, sound, and formation of i and u this week. We played sound games to help the kids learn to break sounds in words apart and blend sounds together orally, to prepare them for using the same skills with letters to read later in the year. We began read to self time and literacy stations.

Writing: We wrote in our science notebooks for the first time this week. We also focused on adding details to our writing. We have one person share their writing at the end of each writing time and we give them compliments and wishes to help the child celebrate what they are doing well and also improve their writing.

Math: We played to fun math games with dot cards. We played Match Up (like memory) and Top it (like war). These games help the children compare quantities as well as count, and see numbers as different groups. We continued describing shapes and learning attributes of shapes like triangles.

Science and Social Studies: We enjoyed a Mystery Science video about hurricanes and tornadoes. We had a great time studying the weather this week as well. Our cool tool (school-wide behavior lesson) was about showing our Timber Wolf Pride with our school pledge and our school song. We celebrated our class’s helpful behavior with a Bubblegum Party!

Today the little meteorologists went outside to study the weather!

We noticed it was warm, windy, and sunny. There were lots of clouds in the sky!

We recorded what we noticed in our new science notebooks. It was fun to use our new pavilion. It was a great place to work!

We are finally setting into our schedule here at school as well as building focus and concentration skills to work and learn for longer periods of time. Today we had our first “official” read to self time. This is an independent reading time. The kids have a book box with books of their choice as well as an alphabet chart and other materials I choose. They find space around the room where they can focus and get comfy. They enjoy their books while following our work time expectations which are:

Get started quickly.

Stay in your spot.

Work the whole time.

Let others work.

Use a whisper voice.

Raise your hand for help.

Today my goal for the class was to read for one minute, but we managed 3!

Reading: We focused on the name, sound, and formation of m and n this week. We played sound games to help the kids learn to break sounds in words apart and blend sounds together orally, to prepare them for using the same skills with letters to read later in the year. We also talked about favorite books, book care, and how to choose books we like. We are gradually filling our book boxes with books to read so we can start book box time or read to self time next week.

Writing: We shared what we did over the weekend to get ideas for things to write about. We practiced planning what we are going to draw or write on our paper and adding details to our pictures. We introduced labeling our pictures.

Math: We focused on the basics on numbers 1-10 and understanding quantity and building number sense. We learned about the 5 frame this week to continue our work of representing numbers in different ways. We also work on describing shapes like “it has 4 corners” or “it has sides” or “it has a curve”.

Science and Social Studies: We enjoyed a Mystery Science video about putting out wildfires. Our cool tool (school-wide behavior lesson) was about how to ask for help. We also continued our work learning classroom expectations. This week we focused on being helpful and we are collecting stickers on a 10 frame each time the whole class makes helpful choices. When we get 10 stickers, we will celebrate how helpful our class is.