Exploring SoundI am sure last week your house became a bit noisier as your children came home with musical instruments they made at school. All last week we spent time exploring how sound was created and the different pitches sounds could make. We used tuning forks, rubber bands, cups of water, straws, toilet paper tubes, ping pong balls, our voice boxes and Boomwhackers to explore sound, We concluded that sound is created through vibrations and that it can travel. Ask your child about some of the neat experiments they did with sound. Flexible Problem SolversIn kindergarten, students are expected to solve addition and subtraction word problems within 10 using drawings or objects. Over the course of this year, we have explored many ways to find solutions to various word problems: drawings counting acting it out counters number sentence equations whole/part/part boxes number lines 5 or 10 frames number bracelets The kids have been working on solving one problem using as many of the above ways as they can. This work is helping the kids move from one tried and true method to being able to flexibly use multiple methods. This is not easy work, but the kids have not shied away from the task! It also helps us to get to the core of what your child truly understands regarding Number Sense, Addition and Subtraction. Often the answer to a problem is easy to find and they can do it mentally. That is great! As the students represent their solutions in the above ways, however, we can really see their thinking and where we need to support them in their problem solving work. We talk everyday about how mistakes help us learn and that we will all make mistakes on our path to understanding. Take a look at a chart we created together and some of our work.
Keiko Kasza and Mo WillemsThe kids have really enjoyed reading books by Keiko Kasza and Mo Willems! Just before spring break we dug into Keiko's books and we noticed a lot of similarities between her stories. We think she must really like animals and food! Ask your child to tell you about her books and explain which was their favorite. After returning from Spring Break, we took another look at a class favorite author, Mo Willems. Mo wrote Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and the Piggie and Elephant series. So far, we have enjoyed the three books in the Knuffle Bunny series, Leonardo the Terrible Monster and the Cat the Cat series. Mo's books always make us giggle and we will continue to explore his stories as well as a biography about him. Click on the pictures and it will take you to Mo Willems and Keiko Kasza's websites!
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