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!
1 Comment
Polar Bears, Whales and PixieThe kids worked together to make multipage book using Pixie about polar bears in Mrs Knostman's class and whales in Miss Scott's class. We worked on laptops in groups of two or three. They loved working with Pixie! They made title pages for their books, then did at least information pages that taught others about whales or polar bears and then put an ending. They created backgrounds that matched their words and then recorded their voices as well. Pixie is a wonderful program and app. I know it is a pretty pricey App, but it is a great open ended opportunity for the kids to create and write. When we were all done the students in Mrs. Knostman's and Miss Scott's class shared their books with each other to teach one another about whales and polar bears. Polar Bear and Whale PlungeAs we read books and learned about whales and polar bears we learned that both mammals have something called blubber. To help us understand what blubber is we did an experiment where we had to put one hand in cold water without blubber and then the other hand in cold water with blubber around it. It was really neat to see how different our hands felt. It helped us to understand the importance of blubber for both whales and polar bears. Ask your child about what they learned!
Opinion WritingThe kids had fun thinking about which season is their favorite and then writing about why. They spent a lot of time thinking and writing about why they liked the season they did. It was fun to see all the different opinions about why kids like the season they do! Counting & Comparing our 100 Day CollectionsThe kids have been having fun counting and comparing their 100 Day collections. Take a look at how they made it easy for others to quickly see that there were 100 items in their collection.
Comparing LengthWhen comparing length, we discovered that we need to use the same number of items. We also need to begin at the same spot and make sure the pieces in our line are touching each other.
Comparing Weight & Recording our FindingsIt was a lot of fun to use balance scales to compare the weight of our collections! Again, we made sure that we were comparing the same number of items. We also recorded the results of the comparisons.
Investigating 3D ShapesWe have been talking about the attributes of 3D shapes. We described a cube, cylinder, sphere, cone, rectangular prism, pyramid, and triangular prism. We also noticed where we see these shapes in our classroom and home. We experimented with how the shape moved on a ramp. We predicted how the shapes would move and why we thought that, and then tried it out. As we talked about 3D shapes we used new vocabulary to explain our thinking about how they would move. Ask your child to tell you about the faces or vertices of a particular 3D shape. Valentine's Day Fun!We are so appreciative of our room parents for organizing wonderful parties for all the kindergarten kids. Thanks also to the parents who were able to volunteer to run the party, send in supplies, and support kids at home as they completed their valentine cards. Thank you! Mrs. Knostman's AM & PM Classes Miss Scott's AM & PM Classes
We had a lot of fun on the 100th day of Kindergarten! After reading the story The Wolf's Chicken Stew, we went on a hunt to find 100 chicks hiding in our classroom. As we collected the chicks we counted them by putting them in groups of 10 and the remaining 1's. We used an abacus to help us determine how many chicks still needed to be found. We also collaborated together in small group of friends to build something with 100 plastic cups. This was tricky! Take a look at some of our work.
Building HousesWe had so much fun investigating different materials with which to build! On the first day, we worked with partners to make houses from paper. Then, on another day, we worked together to build houses from cardboard. We discovered many things about the materials we were using to build. In some ways we thought the paper was easier to work with, but the cardboard definitely made stronger houses. We had to persist in our work. It didn't always work out the way we first intended. We had to go back to the drawing board on many occasions. Our teachers wouldn't tell us how to make the house, so we had to really think and problem solve! We talked with other teams and learned from them. This collaboration was very helpful! Creating and innovating is GREat fun! Take a look at a few of our creations!
Run, run, run! |
| |
Shape Puzzles
We have been working with pattern block shapes to solve shape puzzles. Each puzzle can be solved in multiple ways. First we solving the puzzle with blocks and then we record our solution with paper pattern block pieces and note how many of each kind of block was used. We also determine the total amount of blocks used. We are working to be accurate in our counting and recording. This work takes a lot of organization and planning skills, as well as, focus on the task.
Thinking about Characters
Can you name a favorite book character? Can you tell something about that character? Readers think about characters to help them understand the story and make predictions. We met a fun new character named Petunia in the story A Pet for Petunia by Paul Schmid. We talked about what we learned about Petunia from this story. Then we read another story about her. We were curious to see if what we learned from the first story about Petunia might also be true in the next story, Petunia Goes Wild, and it was! We hope Paul Schmid writes more stories about Petunia!
Upstairs, Downstairs and Basement Letters
Since coming back to school in January we have been thinking about how letters are formed and how they look. You may heard your child referring to different letters as upstairs, downstairs, and basement letters. This is in reference to imagining the letters in a house. This terminology has helped us to think about which letters should be the same size(downstairs), which letters are taller(upstairs) and which letters drop down(basement). We will continue to work on this thinking throughout the year.
Salute to America AM
Salute to America PM
| |
It was so nice to see so many of you at the Salute to America program. Thank you to everyone who provided refreshments for after the show. We appreciate your help. If you were unable to catch the show, you can see it here! Enjoy!
Shapes
We worked a little bit with 2D shapes. We are developing the vocabulary to talk about different shapes. Circles are curved. They do not have straight sides or corners. Take a look at our first work with water colors. We looked at Wassily Kandinsky's paintings and then used water colors to make our own paintings.
Salute to America
The kids are really excited to perform songs and poems about our country and Thanksgiving on Friday, November 20th! All are welcome to come at 10:15 for the AM class and 2:15 for the PM class. We will have refreshments in the room following the show. Did you see the program invitation your child brought home?
Thinking about Number
We have been doing a lot of work composing and decomposing numbers from 0 to 5. This foundational understanding is very important to the children as they problem solve and it also supports them in learning basic addition and subtraction facts. We want the kids to be able to tell the parts that make up a number (5 can be 2 and 3, or 1 and 4 or...) |
Harvest Party Fun!
Thank you so much to our room parents who organized and executed awesome Harvest Parties for each of the kindergarten classes! The kids had so much fun!
| |
Reading Poems and Books
We have added many new poems and books to our reading binder over the past several weeks. We are locating our "popcorn" words in all that we read. Reconstructing poems and books on the pocket chart is another way that we read in our classroom. This calls the kids to really look closely at the text as they reassemble familiar books and poems. We are making sure that we point under the words as we read. Pointing under the first letter is helpful because it ensures our eyes are right where they need to be when solving tricky parts of a text.
Metro Park Visit
We had a wonderful visit to Glacier Ridge Metro Park. Miss Chrissy helped us learn about the gifts of trees and how seeds travel from place to place. Park Ranger Sargeant took us on a nature walk on the red oak trail and we discover so many cool things! We found an old wasp nest, deer antlers, toads, spiders, leaves and nuts! It was fun observing the forest in the fall!
| |
We Can Subitize!
What does it mean to subitize (soo bi tize), you ask?! It is an important early math skill which means that you can tell how many without having to count. You subitize when you use dice. Take a look at the slide show below to practice subitizing.
Pixie Counting Books
This week the kids worked on making counting books on Pixie. They worked with partners and collaborated to choose a theme for their book and put it together. They made pages for the numbers 0-10 and on each page included the numeral, stickers representing the number/theme, and circles aligned just right for subitizing. They had a blast creating their books and have become pros at using the computer and Pixie. We will be printing all of the books and keeping them in our classroom for the children to read. Check out these pictures of the kiddos working hard!
Drawing and Writing Books
We have been sharing stories about us since the start of school. Each day we have a chance to share a quick piece of news during our Headline News Circle. The kids share things like, "I had soccer practice last night and we go rained on." or "I went to the park with my friend and we pushed each other on the swings." We have learned a lot about each other through this routine at the start of our day. During Writing Workshop time we are also sharing stories about ourselves. We each have a Drawing and Writing book where we are collecting stories. Ask your child to tell you about the stories they have added to their Drawing and Writing Book so far.
Reading Notebook and Word Wall
This year we will be using a white binder that we will fill with poems and easy to read short books. These white binders that we call our "Reading Notebooks" will be used regularly and added to throughout the year. We will use them during reading time at the beginning of our day and during reading workshop. We have already added a few favorite poems and soungs like "Willoughby Wallaby Woo", "Big Black Buy," and "To the Bus." These songs, poems and stories will also helps us think about and look at the high frequency words we will learn to read and write through kindergarten.
Along with our "Reading Notebooks" that help us think about high frequency words we will also be using a word wall in our room that we can go to and pull words off to help us when we are writing. We will refer to these words as "popcorn words" because these are words we just need to know. We can't try to stretch them out, we just need to know them quickly and right away. We will work on these words and add to our word wall through the whole year!
Along with our "Reading Notebooks" that help us think about high frequency words we will also be using a word wall in our room that we can go to and pull words off to help us when we are writing. We will refer to these words as "popcorn words" because these are words we just need to know. We can't try to stretch them out, we just need to know them quickly and right away. We will work on these words and add to our word wall through the whole year!
Super Heroes on Parade!
Thank you for everyone's support in helping and supporting every kindergartener, even if they couldn't make it to the parade. We will continue to be brave, safe, and kind in kindergarten!
Tiger Research
Over 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!
Comparing
We 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 Names
Chrysanthemum 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!
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!
Dot Day
On 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.
After reading the book each child created their own unique dot and thought about how they help at home or at school. Each dot now has a message that tells how they are helpful! We will continue to think about and work on being helpful to others.
We read the "The Dot" online on Tumble Books. You can get to Tumble Books by going to the library web page. It is on the the right hand side of the screen a little ways down the page.
| |
Inventory Bags
Accurately 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 Promise
So 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
Pixie 4 | We have heard from quite a few of you regarding marching in the Jerome Homecoming Parade on October 2nd. Please return the pink form whether you can or cannot participate. If you are marching, be sure to keep the pink form so that you have all the important information regarding times and places. We are looking forward to seeing our kindergarten super heroes for this fun activity! Remember, you don't need to buy anything. Use what you have at home. Blankets and beach towels make perfect capes! Take a look at your super hero teachers! |
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.
If you are interested in learning more about Pixie, just ask! This is a great educational program.
Blocks
At 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!
Author
We are thrilled to be in Kindergarten working, playing and learning alongside your child. Check the blog to see what we have been up to in Kindergarten!
Archives
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015