Toys for Tots

Monday starts our annual Toys for Tots community service project.

For more (and fun!) information watch this student performed video:

Toys for Tots at Discovery
Once you get to the site, watch each clip and then click on the right arrow at the bottom right corner of the page.

Read Around the Room

Read Around the Room is a new activity children can do when they are done with all their work.  Most children will read around the room using a pointer stick.  As they point to heart words, posters, letters, numbers, anything at all... they quietly read the word, letter or number to them self.  If a child needs support from another student, the two of them use one pointer and read around the room together.

Kudos to You, Parents!

Today was our first day of major 'dressing' for recess.  Almost all children had snow pants, boots, hats and mittens.  EVERYONE had hats and mittens which is excellent!

The best news is that I did not have to help zip one single coat today.  I believe that is a Kindergarten record!!!!!  I am impressed!

Thank you for any and all practicing you did to help your children learn to get themselves ready for recess.  Today was a great success!

The Daily Three

Each day we try to make sure we do three things that help us grow as readers.
1.  Read to Self  (reading stamina)
2.  Word work  (e.g. making -at words:  cat, sat, hat)
3.  Read to someone  (Buddy Reading)

When the children do Buddy Reading, many good things happen!  To begin, they do rock, paper, scissors to see who gets to pick a book from their tub first.  They share common interestes with others in the class, they look for heart words together.  They search for the book's meaning together and learn to love books together.   It is one of their favorite times of the day.

Our Thanksgiving Story

This is my first attempt at posting something like this.  This is a story written by our class:

Beginning Sounds

Students develop their writing skills right along side their reading skills.  Reading practice improves their writing, and writing practice improves their reading!  Currently in writing I am encouraging children to put down the beginning sounds of things they are drawing.  e.g. F by face, M by mountains, etc.  Our goal is to have people better understand the story we are trying to express in the pictures.  Adding beginning sounds gives reader's a clue about the picture story.  It also reinforces the connection between letters and sounds to make words.  Sounding out spelling is a great way to practice sounding out in reading!

Kinds of writing to do at home:

add things to the grocery list
Christmas list
Love notes between family members
written reminders/memos
events on a calendar
the supper menu
taking orders for food or beverages on a pad of paper
letter to the tooth fairy
etc, etc, etc!

The first sound might be enough or someone may have to finish the word for them.  Either way it builds skill and independence!

We are READING!

Today the children were given a paper book that was made up of the, on, and -at words.  Basically, sentences like:  The cat sat on the mat.

Every single student in the room read the book to me one at a time!  Almost all of them were noticing the words and not just the pictures to read me the story.  We are very excited as a class that we are building -at words and READING!!!!!!!

We are telling the good news to everyone who will listen!

Art Adventure

It is time for our fall series of Art Adventure.  Each year, parent volunteers study and learn about pieces of art held at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  They then share those pieces using picture boards, photos, replicas and hands on artifacts to explain the art piece to the children.  It never ceases to amaze me how insightful and interested 5 and 6 year olds are when presented a piece of art and some interesting information!

Students learn about a transforming animal mask

We will have three more presentations before this series is completed.  Each child gets a chance during grades 3-5 to visit the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  Their favorite thing is seeing the real pieces they have studied in school!

The Rainbow Fish

Moral of the story:  Sharing makes you happy AND can help you make friends!

Children use glue, brushes, and tissue paper to make their own Rainbow Fish

Students were SUPER cleaners when we were done!

The Rainbow Fish are drying and waiting to be hung on their lockers!

Letter/Number Update

Many of the children know most or all of their letters.  We are also gaining ground on all the letter sounds!  Research says they learn much of what they know about letters from each others' names.  Plus we do focus on one letter each week.  These are the letters we have studied so far this year:
Mm    Ss    Ff    Hh    Tt    Pp

 Cc as /k/ and Cc as /s/

Next we will be doing our first vowel:  Aa


In Math we have studied making numbers up to 9.
Here is one example of way to make 5 that the children brainstormed:

Show your child this picture below and ask them how it is used as a tool in math!

More Pictures

More pictures of our class working with Ms. Schroeder's class:

Have Chairs Will Travel... for Learning!

Multi-Age Experiences:

One of the benefits of being in the all day every day Kindergarten program are the planned activities with other classrooms.  This month we are paired up with Mrs. Schroeder's class.  They invited us to come and do a paired reading with them.  Pairs put together a book, practiced reading it, and then shared more stories together when they were finished.

In order to work at constructing the book, we needed to take our chairs for table work.  The children did an excellent job of moving their chairs quickly and quietly so we could get to our work.

A big Thank You to Mrs. Schroeder's class for inviting us!  We plan to get together with them again this week.

Math-A-Thon