Tiger ResearchOver the past several days leading up to the tiger trot, we have been making ourselves tiger experts. How do you do become a tiger expert, you ask? Read a lot of tiger books, visit tiger internet sites and check out information from the PebbleGo animal database! We have a long way to go to become full-fledge tiger experts, but we are on our way. We started by sharing what we thought we already knew about tigers and then read/listened to several non-fiction books. We listed ideas that were new to us and then decided on which facts were important to share with the school community. We shared important knowledge by working together to write tiger facts. We created a giant display outside of the GRE library so that everyone who passes by might read our work and come to understand why we need to help tigers in the wild. Please be sure to check out our work below, or better yet, on your next visit to school look at it all up close! Everyone was so excited to make this important work public. It was hard, but we all loved working together to share our knowledge. 10th Annual Glacier Ridge Tiger Trot!Friday could not have been a more beautiful day to trot for the tigers! Thank you to everyone who sent in a donation. We have not heard how much was raised for tiger conservation, but will let you know as soon as we hear. Most importantly, the kids are beginning to think about this important topic and realize that they can do something to help. Even though they are the youngest kids at GRE, they were able to listen and learn about tigers, articulate important facts about tigers and with support, write about those facts. Hopefully, they talked with you at home about what they were learning and why tigers need our help. If you did not get a chance to send in a donation and would still like to do so, you may. Please mark your teacher's name on the envelope and AM or PM class. Thanks! ComparingWe worked on comparing this week. Using one of our math tools, snap cubes, we built a tower of 10. Accurate counting was a must to build our tower. Then we looked around our room to locate items that were longer, shorter, or the same size as our tower of 10. We communicated our findings to our classmates. Comparing sizes and amounts is an important math skill that will we work on.! Comparing NamesChrysanthemum is a long name, but Catalina Magdalina Hoopensteiner Wallendiner Hogan Logan Bogan is even longer! The kids enjoyed stories about both of these characters. We looked closely at our names this week. We built name sticks, again using snap cubes, to show the length of our name. We compared our name to our friends' names and recorded our findings on a paper. We shared what we learned about our name as it compared to others' name. A note about letter formation... OK, maybe it's a novel.The children work on quick and efficient letter formation of lower case letters everyday in kindergarten. Please reinforce what you see us working on at home (check your child's sign-in sheets to see our focus.)
Important concepts to remember: *almost all letters begin at the top *Magic 'c' helps to form the lower case letters of a, d, g, and q *most letters are formed without picking up your pencil (one fluid movement is our goal!) *we pair spoken words with our formation example for lower case 'a'- "magic 'c', up, down" Why do we focus on all of this? This type of formation (De'Nelian) is quicker, more efficient, and more legible. We want the formation to be done with little thought so that the writer can focus on the most important thing-- their message. This is ongoing work! Sometimes even beautiful handwriting is not efficient. Watch your child to see how they are forming the letters when they write at home. If they are inefficient, hop over to a blank piece of paper to practice and then go back to their written piece. We do a lot of letter formation practice during interactive writing. This is when we compose a message together on the large chart paper. All of the students are working on white boards. We are brave as we try to record the sounds we hear in the word we next want to add to the chart. After we work on recording the sounds, we often do some quick formation work. Our letter formation practice is imbedded in real writing. This is what you can do at home! When your child is adding a sign to a Lego or block creation, or making a grocery list, or writing a card, this is a good time to show them correct letter formation. Pick one or two things to work on. Remember the message is the most important thing. Happy writing!
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Dot DayOn September 15th it was International Dot Day. In celebration of Dot Day, we read the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds. This day was started because of this book. We learned and thought about how the book taught us to be brave, try, never give up and most of all to help someone else.
Inventory BagsAccurately counting and representing How Many? is an important math skill. We had a lot of fun with Inventory Bags! We counted, doubled checked to make sure we were accurate and then recorded how many items were in the bag. We had to double check our representations too! We are working on showing How Many? in more than one way. This is an activity that you could set up for your child at home. Grab some brown paper lunch bags and fill them with items from around the house: spoons, uncooked pasta, wrapped candy, Legos, crayons, ... Give your son or daughter blank paper and they can record How Many? The kids also recorded the item in the bag by writing the word. They were BRAVE writers and recorded the words "Just Like a Kindergartner!" Our PromiseSo much reading, thinking and talking went into creating Our Promise. We worked together to write the promise and then we all signed it with a drawing of ourselves as well as our names. Jerome Homecoming Parade
A big part of the learning we do in kindergarten is exploring and creating on our own and collaborating with others. We spent a couple days doing those exact things using Pixie4. Pixie is a program on the computer or iPad that allows children to create pictures, write words, create stories, and record their voice and even take photos. Right now the children have learned how to paint, add stickers to their creations and add some words. This is a program we will continue to use throughout the year. It was very neat to see what each group was creating and talking about together. If you are interested in learning more about Pixie, just ask! This is a great educational program. BlocksAt this point, the kids have all had at least one chance to work and play with the new playground blocks. As the kids create together, they have opportunities to work on their communication and collaboration skills. They are problem solving and revising their work. The are pretending, imagining, and experiencing the joy that comes from working hard and accomplishing something together. We will add photos of block play each time we make a blog post. Click on the Block! page at the top to see what the kids have been up to with blocks!
We are off to a GREat start in kindergarten. We are learning a lot about each other and our new classrooms. We have been reading stories that are helping us think about our classroom and how we want it to be as we work and play and learn together this school year. We are working together to think about our learning community. A few of the stories that are guiding our discussions and our thinking… Ask your child about these stories and what message the author is sending. Bus SafetyWe learned about how to be safe in and around a school bus. We worked together to write a thank you note to Miss O. and Miss Robyn who helped us learn. Writing Like a Kindergartner
Our FlagOn Patriots' Day we learned that a patriot is someone who loves their country. We talked about The USA and how it is made up of 50 states. We looked at our flag and noticed the 50 stars for each state. We noticed the 13 stripes for the original 13 colonies. We each made a small part of the flag and then brought our pieces together to make one big flag. Our flags are hanging in our classroom, the GRE library, and the commons. What Can You Make with 15 Cubes?
MATH GAME- CompareThroughout the school year, we will play many different math games. One of the first games we have learned to play is called Compare. It is just like the card game War that you might be familiar with. Students need to say the number they flip over and then determine if their number is bigger or smaller than their partners. A way to extend this game is to tell how much bigger or smaller your number is than your partner's number. Parents, you received a set of compare cards when you came for the Kindergarten information meeting in April. Please get out the cards and play compare with your son or daughter. If you did not come to the meeting, please let us know, and we will get you a set of cards to cut up and use at home. Thanks! Counting JarProblem Solving on the Farm
If They Build It, They Will Learn So, one of my (Mrs. Knostman's) favorite movies is Field of Dreams. It was filmed just outside of my hometown of Dubuque, Iowa in Dyersville. I love to visit the baseball field, throw the ball around, watch my daughters pitch and hit, and of course, walk out of the corn field that is in the outfield. It is truly a magical place. "If you build it, they will come." and "Is this heaven?" "No, it's Iowa." are the best movie quotes of all time to this Iowa girl! Well, Miss Scott and I can hardly wait to get to recess each day to see what the kids will do! The Community Playthings Blocks that have been added to our playground this summer (Thank you, K to Career DCS Grant and GRE PTO!) are just as magical as the Field of Dreams. Before we can even get our iPhones out of our pockets, the kids have amazed us by what they do and say. The collaboration, kindness, problem solving, and revision that we have witnessed in just a few days has truly amazed us. We will share with you throughout the year pictures of the kids working together to create, collaborate and problem solve. There is no limit to what they can dream up together and we are so privileged to witness it and share it with you. |
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