Today we reviewed the letter P, listening for words that have p's at the beginning and at the end of them. We made sentences up containing the sight word the. Then we worked on our very own "The" books. Students practiced writing the word the throughout the book. Next they found 3 friends to read it to. After this activity the students listened to Mrs. Mary read a story. The students then got to read another book ("The Park), with a partner sitting elbow-elbow-knee-knee.
In math we reviewed position words and worked on number stories that we could represent using our vertical graphs ("Last night I ate 6 pancakes and 4 glasses of juice!). We worked on mathematical language describing our graphs as greater than, less than, fewer, more, taller, shorter, etc.
Then it was time to celebrate filling our brownie tray--the first time this year! Each day the students get a brownie point if nobody had to move their clothespin. We made it! :) The boys and girls took turns painting pumpkins. Then we made a spider craft out of marshmallows and pretzels, with chocolate syrup (just a little :) ) for the spider web. They loved making/eating these! Tomorrow we will finish our celebrations by carving the pumpkins (I have already cut them open, so they will just need to scoop out the insides). I will save a container of seeds and bake them for the students to sample next week. I'm so proud of how hard they have been working. They really earned this extra fun day!
Tomorrow we also will be walking across the street to the fire station. This will be a great Fun Friday!
Today the students had a substitute teacher while I was in meetings discussing our benchmark data. I had a chance to talk with the sub before she left, and she had only good things to say :) The students even earned their last brownie point, so we'll be making plans to have a mini 'party' here soon.
In the classroom the students worked on reviewing the letter P and the word the. They did a writing activity practicing their P's. They also made a number book and read it to three classmates.
For math the students reviewed position words (beside, next to, under), and moved a bear around the room accordingly (they have done this before). Then they did a review activity practicing their numbers 1-5.
Looking forward to being in the classroom all morning tomorrow! I've missed my kindergartners this week :)
Today the students had a sub for the first hour of the day. They did calendar and then worked on a connect the dots activity that I introduced yesterday. When they finished, they 'wrote the room.' Then they colored and traced a picture of a fireman, to prepare for our fire station field trip on Friday.
When I got back to the room I showed the children a website that the teachers at esko use with our math curriculum. On this website (think central...mega math) there are interactive games to play that go along with our math lessons. The students and I tried out a few and they really seemed to enjoy them. Today I set up an account for each student, and I will be sending home directions on how to use the site along with a password for each student. You will also have access to workbook activities that go along with our lessons as well as other games. Feel free to explore if you choose to do so :)
Exploring educational games on thinkcentral; mega math.
For language we reviewed the sight word the. We talked more about the letter N, and listened for words that have an n at the beginning or an n at the end.
Deciding if they hear N at the beginning of a word or at the end
We sang and danced to a few songs, then listened to a story on the carpet.
Tomorrow I will be gone. I introduced a few of the activities they will be working on. They hope to be able to do a turtle craft if everything goes well throughout the morning!
We had a pretty good Monday. We began Language Arts by reading a poem about grandparents. The students helped me clap for each word in every line of the poem. This was tricky because we are used to clapping for syllables and not whole words. We got better as we practiced. The students then came up to the smartboard and helped find the letters r, t, s, and m in the poem.The letter n was introduced. We practiced writing an uppercase N and lowercase n with our magic pens (our fingers). Then we learned the word the. We practiced using it in a sentence.
For station work the students did a handwriting activity with the letter N. Then we worked on tracing N and coloring a picture to uncover a photo of a nut. Then the boys and girls walked around the room and got autographs of their classmates, working on penmanship and name spelling :) I pulled small groups of 2-3 students aside to read a book to me called The Park.
For a brain break we danced to the songs Animal Action and Freeze Dance. Then we got into math. We practiced our horizontal graphs, this time making up stories to graph about (i.e. Last night I had 5 apples and 3 oranges. Show this on your graph). Students helped me come up with short stories like these. We worked on our math vocabulary by using words to describe our graphs such as more, greater, fewer, less then, how do you know?
We had just enough time for a quick snack of goldfish and a story before we headed home.
Tomorrow I will be out of the room for an hour to work with other teachers and our math curriculum, and Wednesday I will be in the school but at benchmark meetings. I talked about this with the students, and they are ready to show our subs how great of a class we are! :) :)
Today we worked really hard to get most of our things done to prepare for fun friday. We did our morning calendar routine, and then jumped into language arts. We worked on our oral language development by playing "I Spy." Then we practiced syllable deletion (ex. picnic without pic-....nic). We are almost there, but will keep practicing. We reviewed t and r and then listened to a read-aloud. This was the first time the students listened to a story where I didn't have pictures to show for it. They did a great job paying attention.
We took a break and boarded a bus to talk about bus safety. Then we practiced an emergency exit, climbing out of the back with the bus driver and principals assistance.
In math we worked on forming 5's. After this the students had the opportunity to finish up unfinished work, or work with pattern blocks on the carpet.
We ended the day by reading Apple Trouble. To go along with our story, we made apples using paper plates and tear art.
What a wonderful day! We started language by sitting in a circle and rolling a ball to one another. When the ball was rolled to you, you said your name and something you can do (ex. "My name is Miss Voigts and I can drive a car"). Then did such a great job listening to one another and waiting their turn. We worked more on syllable segmentation. This time we broke words into parts then said the word without one of its parts (ex. sunny without -ny (sun), bookshelf without book- (shelf), doctor without -tor (doc). Of course, I was impressed like usual with how smart we are! We quickly reviewed T and M. The students had to decide if the photo card I held up began with a t or an m. This was easy for us. We talked about what a sign is-that it tells us information. We then made our own signs for playground rules, revisting what it means to label something. We talked about the word inference. We read a book and the students practiced making inferences about story events from the clues the book told us ("We see that the racoon is holding a ball. What can you infer?" "That he likes to play soccer!" --the book never told us this, but we made an inference). We are some smart 5-year-olds :) :) One of our station rotations today was "Write The Room." The students walked around and found words in the room, then practiced writing them. They really enjoyed this activity, and made them aware of all the places we see words in our classroom.
Making a sign and practicing the letter T In math we reviewed vertical graphs. Then we did a listening/counting exercise where the boys and girls closed their eyes and had to listen for how many paperclips I dropped into a cup. They had fun with this as well. We had a quick snack, read a story about bullying, and were on our ways home :)
Today we finished up our benchmark math tests. The boys and girls did a great job working through a 1st grade test! In language arts we got out our whiteboard and worked on segmenting words. The students drew 2 boxes at the top, and three at the bottom. I said a word and if they heard 2 syllables, they put two cubes in their top boxes. If they heard 3 syllables, they put 3 cubes in their bottom boxes. They are quite good at this :)
We reviewed the letter T. The kindergarteners helped me read a poem about a teddy bear, and then they came up and circled the t's they could find in the poem.
In math we practiced writing a number 4. Then the students worked on math stations that had to do with the number 4 (drawing 4 triangles, practicing their 4's, finding pictures of 4 things in a scene). They worked so hard today that we had time for a craft! We read the book The Very Busy Spider by Eric Carle. Then we made our own busy spiders.
I introduced a special friend that will be joining our class: Sponge Bob. He sits in the back of the room and watches to make sure we're all working hard! Then he chooses someone at the end of the day to sit with him while we read a story. I reminded the students that usually this person Sponge Bob chooses hasn't had to move their clothes pin and has had a wonderful day.
Looking forward to the rest of the week!
Today we started off with some math benchmark testing. I stressed to the students that these are beginning of the year first grade tests, so to just do their best because we have not learned any of this yet. They surprised me with the things they already knew. :) These will take another day or so to finish up.
We took a quick brain break and Mrs. Mary read Apple Trouble to us.
In language arts we talked more about how words are like puzzles and can be taken apart and put back together again. We practiced segmenting words into syllables ("Elbow. el-bow. Elbow. 2 claps!") We practiced the ABC song and the students got out their lazor eyes and really worked hard to see the letters they were saying, in order to create a mental picture. The letter T was introduced, and the students came to the board to help me practice making a upper case T and lower case t the correct way. The boys and girls learned the word my. We practiced using it in a sentence. Then we went into station work while I worked in small groups with several students.
Working with students during station time. We also celebrated Piper's birthday (yesterday) today.
In math we quickly reviewed representing numbers 1-10, this time using shapes. We worked on relating shapes to one another by talking about which shapes can be put together to make another shape (two big triangles can make the big square). This helped students practice their shape and size vocabulary and become more exposed to the language.
The students were hungry, like usual :) , so we had a quick snack while we listened to the classbook we made Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Look Who's in Our Room! I will be sending this book home overnight with each student. They can read and share their classmates with their families, and return the next day.
Today our class along with Mrs. Boese's kindergarten section traveled to Harley Nature Center.
We listened to a short presentation by one of the naturalists. We talked about trees, their parts and what they need to grow. A volunteer from Mrs. Boese's class came up and he turned her into a magic tree. We added all the ingredients a tree needs to grow into a bucket. Then he magically pulled out a mini tree.
We split into groups and walked around the nature center doing a variety of activities. One included making pretend cameras out of play dough, then using them to take pictures of things we explored in nature.
The students really enjoyed walking around the beautiful park!
...and I think they'll sleep well tonight! :)
Today we worked really hard to do a little extra work in both reading and math in order to not get behind with our field trip tomorrow. The boys and girls have just been having an awesome week and handled the extra workload wonderfully.
During our oral language part of reading, we talked about what it means to describe someone. We discussed how you can describe someones clothes, or physical appearance, interests, or personality. We took turns describing a few of our classmates. We continued working on syllable blending, and most of the students have 2-3 syllable words down ("draw-ing....2!" "Let-ter....2!" "vege-ta-ble....3"). We quickly reviewed r, m, and s. Then I gave the students 3 stations to work through while I pulled others for individual and partner reading enhancement. The students made "Mm," books. They highlighted every word that began with m, then found 3 friends to read to. They did a 'r' activity where they had to decide how many syllables were in the word the picture represented (picture of a rat....1 syllable). They went above and beyond my expectations, as they have been doing all week :)
For math we quickly reviewed the shapes cone and cylinder. Then we revised horizontal graphs using numbers 6-10. The kindergarteners described the graph talking about which tower had fewer, less, or more. How do you know? (taller, shorter, higher, more tiles, etc). They have this down pretty well now!
We ended the day with our last MAP test in the computer lab. Then we came back and read two books by Leo Lionni; Swimmy, and Fish is Fish. We admired his wonderful art work on each page.
Everyone is very excited for our field trip! I'm looking forward to a warm day and an outdoor classroom to learn in tomorrow.
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