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