Vacation Fun

Happy New Year!  I hope all of you are having a wonderful vacation with your families.  The week has gone by sooo fast!  I can't wait to hear about all of the exciting things you did this week.  Add to the padlet below a picture or two or even just a sentence about something you would like to share about your vacation.  On Wednesday, each of us will be choosing one special vacation moment to write about.  This padlet can help with our brainstorming when we're all a little tired as we settle back into our routine. :)

Comfy, Cozy Day

We had a wonderful Comfy, Cozy Day! Children and teachers enjoyed being comfortable in their pajamas. 

This morning, children were excited to learn they each got their own Polar Express ticket that would be hole punched by a Conductor.

We enjoyed watching a read aloud of the Polar Express with the other Kindergarten students in the library.

After, we had a short holiday sing-a-long! "Jingle Bells", "Frosty", and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" were the favorites.

To conclude our Polar Express morning, each Kindergartner received their very own silver bell!  Our conductor and musical guest was a former student's grandfather, Mr. Rhoads.  He truly helped make the event very special and memorable for the kids!  Thank you for joining us, Mr. Rhoads!

This afternoon during math, I gave my students a challenge.  They counted 1 window and 4 wheels on a train I drew.  They had to figure out how many windows and how many wheels there would be if the number of trains kept increasing.  Students worked in groups of 3 or 4 to find a strategy that worked best to figure out the solutions to this math problem.  Some students drew groups of 4 circles, some counted groups of 4 fingers, and others counted on from what they had already figured out.  The groups wrote their answers on Post-its and added them to the class chart.  At the end, we saw most groups got the same data.  We learned that the number of windows is always equal to the number of trains because there is only one window on each train, and the number of wheels will always be more than the number of windows.  Some students noticed the pattern that the number of  windows is always 1 more than the previous number and the number of wheels is always 4 more than the previous number.  There's nothing better than critical thinking, teamwork, and perseverance all while working comfortably in our pajamas.   I had only planned on having students figure out the windows and wheels for up to 5 trains, but some students wanted to challenge themselves to figure out for 9 trains!

At the end of the day, we each shared what our favorite part of the day was and I recorded the responses in the Padlet below!

We had a memorable time today!

Teddy Bear Day

We had a successful Teddy Bear Day in Kindergarten after reading many versions of The Three Bears during our folktale unit.  Children have enjoyed listening to the various versions and have worked hard comparing and contrasting the characters, setting, and events of the different books.  We are also working on retelling the story using picture cards. Last Friday, each child was able to bring in their favorite teddy bear or other stuffed animal and let their furry friends get a glimpse of Kindergarten.  They joined in for morning work, Read to Self, writing, Daily 5, and math!

Our senior citizen volunteer, Ms. Irene,

helped us hide bears in their caves and figure out how many more to make 5.

We love working with Ms. Irene!

Children also worked on labeling the parts of a bear and wrote about their cuddly friends.

In math, we explored describing size, weight, and height with our stuffed animals.  Students worked with partners to measure how tall their stuffed animals are.

They also practiced making comparisons: "My bear is taller/shorter than your bear" and "Your bear is heavier/lighter than my bear".

Students loved figuring out ways to sort their bears into groups....

and using positional words to move their stuffed animals.

I bet our stuffed animals were tired by the end of the day from all of this Kindergarten work!












Children were excited to learn about an app called Chatterpix and thought it was hysterical how we can make our stuffed animals talk!  Have a listen in the iMovie below as students tell what they enjoy doing with their favorite stuffed friends!

This week we have continued to talk about characters and setting as we compare and contrast different versions of The Gingerbread Man. Your child should be able to confidently identify the characters and setting of a story.  Do they have a favorite character?  Is the setting similar to another story they've heard?

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.MD.A.1
Describe measurable attributes of objects, such as length or weight. Describe several measurable attributes of a single object.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.MD.A.2
Directly compare two objects with a measurable attribute in common, to see which object has "more of"/"less of" the attribute, and describe the difference. For example, directly compare the heights of two children and describe one child as taller/shorter.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.MD.B.3
Classify objects into given categories; count the numbers of objects in each category and sort the categories by count.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.OA.A.3
Decompose numbers less than or equal to 10 into pairs in more than one way, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each decomposition by a drawing or equation (e.g., 5 = 2 + 3 and 5 = 4 + 1).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.A
Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.B
Recognize and name end punctuation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.C
Write a letter or letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds (phonemes).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.D
Spell simple words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.