It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Hello there! Hope everyone has been having a great holiday season so far! We sure have in kindergarten! We have been doing lots of fun projects, but we have also been learning a lot. The first thing I wanted to share with you is our math journal. We usually do these a couple times a week, but lately we have been doing an entry every day. Each day for the past week we have had a different "Christmas" themed word problem to complete. These really get the kids thinking and using their skills. I try to lead them in the right direction, but don't give them any hints as to what they need to do, until they have worked on them for awhile. Check out a few of their strategies...

 

Our math curriculum has been focused on numbers 6-10, but we have been doing much more than that. Look at this last number sentence! We are starting to add and think about number equations already...yay!!!

 

Although, we are learning a lot check out these cute Christmas projects (I forgot to take a picture of one...so that will have to come later)

 

 

This last Christmas Tree activity is always tricky for kinders. They have to cut out the trees, count the ornaments, put the trees in order from 1-10 and then add the numerals. Lots of things to think about!

 

I wanted to share this next activity with you because it shows what kind of reading we are starting to do in kindergarten. We have started blending words with the short /a/ sound, but the curriculum will begin blending next week. The kids have been ready to start this and doing well. After the winter break we will be doing even more of this in the classroom. If you have some time over the vacation practice reading and writing some of these words. Thanks!

 

 

The kids had to read the words on the ornaments and color them the correct color.

 

In my kindergarten classroom I always make word family houses. The kids love this and are learning so much! This is more practice for us to read and blend short words together.

 

 

Thank you so much for reading about what he have been up to in room 6! I will post one more time about our December happenings. It will probably be over the break and I will include some photos of our holiday celebration days.

~Darci

 

 

Turkeys, Pilgrims, and Mayflowers

We have been so busy this past month learning about the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. We started the month making calendar squares with pilgrims and turkeys. Then we jumped right into the story of the Mayflower.

 

 

 

Next, we learned all about the Pilgrims and what life was like in America when they hit Plymouth Rock! The first winter was very hard, the Native Americans helped them plant food, hunt for meat, and build their homes. These Pilgrims are so cute...

 

 

The kids wrote about what they would have taken with them on the Mayflower...everything from blankies to brothers;)

 

And What would November be without TURKEYS!!!!

 

 

 

 

We made this graph...Do you like to eat turkey? Then we made long-legged turkeys with signs saying "Save a Turkey, Eat more______!" The kids had some cute ideas! Eat more ice cream! Eat more pizza! Eat more jerky!

 

 

 

Lastly, we made these cute turkey glyphs. Kids had to answer certain questions to make their turkey. The number of feathers is how old they are and straight legs meant they are staying home for Thanksgiving. Folded legs means they are going somewhere else for dinner.

 

 

Look at the floor after this project...

 

 

What a mess!!! Just had to share;)

 

 

This was definitely a fun week in Mrs. Craig's kindergarten class. We will be watching Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving tomorrow and enjoying pumpkin pie. Hope you all enjoy your families and have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend! We will continue with our usual routines next week and will focus on the letter P and the sight word "to." We have started to read and blend short three-letter words this week. I will share a bit about that next week!

 

Thanks for reading, Darci

 

 

 

Kinder Centers and a few other things...

Hi Everyone! It has been awhile since I've been able to post about the kindergarten class. We have been super busy though! I wanted to share a little about centers with you. Most Fridays, your child will bring home their yellow center paper with the weekly centers (which they finished) stapled to the back. It should look something like this when they bring it home...

 

If you child has all eight centers crossed off then they finished their centers for the week. If kids finish on Friday, they get to play ipads during center time...they LOVE this!

 

Here are a few examples of centers from last week...

 

 

Spot the sight word - Kids needed to read and write each sight word correctly.

 

We have been talking about vowels in kindergarten for the past couple weeks. We call these our "sticky letters" because every word has at least one vowel and they stick the other letters together. You might talk about these letters at home too and practice writing words with a specific vowel. For example, words with short a.

We also practiced writing the vowel we heard at the beginning of the words.

Each week, the kinders get to use dobbers (which they LOVE!) to spot all of one letter on the page. Last week we found T's. This week we are finding C's.

 

This was a hard center for us. We have been practicing reading and recognizing the number words. Last week we had to match the correct word to the correct number.

 

 

Something else we do each week are "Chit-Chat's." Every Monday we introduce the letter of the week and complete our morning chit-chat. We have to figure out the missing letters, complete the words, practice writing the letter of the week, and think of some other words that begin with the new letter.

 

 

One last thing I wanted to share with you today is our "scribble art." We practice our letter of the week in these little books at carpet. We read a list of words that begin with the letter of the week, and then we do our scribble art step by step to create a picture of something beginning with our letter. The kids love these and it helps with following 2- and 3-step directions.

 

Thanks for taking a look at our hard work in kindergarten! I will try and stay up on things through the holidays;) Darci

 

 

Spiders and Pumpkins

For the past two weeks we have been learning about spiders and doing some fun pumpkin activities!

First we read about spiders and learned a few interesting facts. We made these cute spiders with 8 legs, 8 eyes, 2 fangs, and 2 body parts!

 

Next we made a spider graph and discussed the data afterward...are you afraid of spiders?

 

 

We worked on this next  project for a week! First we had to paint a pumpkin and cut it out. Then we painted a piece of paper green for the grass and stem. After all that was finished we made these super cute and SILLY jack-o-lanterns!

 

 

Halloween just wouldn't be the same without "Five Little Pumpkins" in kindergarten. We sang the song, read the book, and made these adorable pumpkins sitting on the gate!

 

 

We talked about the attributes of a pumpkin and came up with a lot of great describing words. Then we made these little pumpkin books and even cut open a pumpkin and made these pumpkin reports.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for taking a look at what your kids have been up to the past couple weeks. We have squeezed a lot in between testing and getting ready for report cards. We will continue with some pumpkin things next week and then lots of fun Thanksgiving crafts and centers during November!

 

 

What do you want to be when you grow up?

This week we read different books about jobs people can have. In our journals the kids wrote about what they would like to be when they grow up. Here are a few I thought everyone might like to see...

 

 

 

Firefighter

 

Another firefighter!

 

Police officer

 

Veterinarian  (so cute!)

 

Painter

 

 

This is one of the books we read from our reading curriculum this week.

 

 

We also spent time wrapping up our apple unit this week. We made these super cute Johnny Appleseed people, read more apple books, and finished apple centers.

 

We practiced listening for beginning sounds in words. We played this spinner game together. Spin the spinner and color the apple with the letter you hear at the beginning of the word. They kids did great!

 

The following pictures are from centers this week. This first center, kids had to match the tree to the apple. The tree has the number word and the apple shows the numeral. Kids had to find the word on their paper, color the apple to match, and write the numeral. Kinda tricky;)

 

 

This next center, kids read the color word and found it on their paper. Then they had to color the apple to match and write the word.

 

How many apples? Count the apples on the apple tree and write the number.

 

Trace the sight word, stamp it, and then write it by yourself.

 

This next center will continue each week throughout the year. These are our ABC Journals. We started our letter of the week last week, with M. In our journals we practiced writing the letter M, drew a moose, and made a moose with a capital M. Next week we will be doing S!

 

So far, our sight words include the following:

 

I

the

and

like

 

This week we will add the word "see." Please practice these words at home with your kids. We will be doing assessment for report cards this week and kids need to be able to read these words fluently. By the end of kindergarten we will have over 80 sight words! WOW!

 

Hope you all had a great weekend! Darci