New Pocket Chart Choices

We got some new pocket chart choices today! We have really been focusing on reading CVC words (words with a consonant, vowel, and consonant, like cat). For this choice we have a picture card and the letter scrambled next to it. We have to sound out the word and put it in the correct order. 

We are also focusing on being able to read our color words quickly! We can match the color word with the color card.

Ask your child if they did one of these pocket charts today! 

Morning Work

Every morning your child does morning work. This is so that their brains can go from home brain to school brain. Each child has their own packet that focuses on things that they have been working on in reading group. There is a review of reading and math in each packet.

Here is what a page from the yellow packet looks like.

Here is what a page in the red packet looks like.

Alana works hard on her morni work.

Look at the focus of Ben, Brooks, and Hannah!

Kampbell, Noah, and Sofia work on waking up their school brains.

Fun Days!

Yesterday, we had a few extra minutes while waiting for our behavior expectations review to begin, so we practiced some yoga! On gonoodle.com Masimo helps us through different yoga positions. We did, The Scooper, and the Flamingo Stretch. 

Today, we finished our gingerbread unit. We read a bunch of versions of the Gingerbread Man, Gingerbread Girl, Gingerbread Pirates, Gingerbread Cowboy, and The Runaway Pickle. Ask your kids about these versions. To finish off our week, we created a gingerbread house (like the one in Gingerbread Baby)!

We Love Books!

February is Library Lovers Month! Today we picked our favorite book and decorated a heart to honor this book. We wrote the title of the book and our name with pencil, then went over it with Sharpie! We then decorated the heart with pictures from the story. Everyone in our school will be decorating a heart and they will all get put up in the big display case by the gym.

Ben loves the story, What if an Alligator Ate an Avalanche.

Kaden loves his Pokemon book.

Reid loves the book, Riley's Believe It Or Not.

David loves, The Snowman.

Brynne loves, Dumbo.

New Math Concepts

We are now working on addition! We have been practicing using our many strategies to solve an addition problems. We know that we can use our fingers (that's right! We have 10 math tools connected to our hands!), manipulatives, number line, pictures, and mental math. Take a look at some of our work with these strategies.

Here are the math symbols we use now! We sound like fancy mathematicians when we use our equation vocabulary! 

Music Class

Our kindergarteners are so lucky to have Mrs.Beyer as their music teacher! This week we started playing instruments! We get to play drums, many different xylophones, tambourines, and many other cool instruments! How cool!

As I watched our class play the instruments it is amazing so see how focused they are. They are matching Mrs. Beyer's beat and repeating her words to the tempo. It sounds great too (well, as great as 26 five and six year olds can sound when they are fist learning to play new instruments)! 

Responsible Behavior

We are focusing on what positive responsible behavior looks like. We know that when the clean up music, or another quiet signal happens, we stop immediately and listen to directions. We know that we must push in our own chair and clean up our own mess. Then we come calmy to the carpet. Today, if kids did that, they earned the chance to be the "teacher." 

Audrey got to point to the sight words...

 

And Alana got to dismiss quiet kids to recess! 

I hope we all get to have turns being the teacher! 

Handwriting

Today was our first day using our handwriting books. We have been practicing on our iPads with LetterSchool, but now we must practice with paper and pencil now that our hands know the direction. We worked on letter A. We know we start at the top and the big A goes from the top to the bottom (it's  a "sky" letter), and little a starts at the middle line and goes around, back up, and then we add a tail (this is a "grass" letter). 

Here is a visual of the sky, grass, and dirt letters.

Michael took his time and made sure he did his best work!

Reid used one finger space between his letters! Good job!

Reading Job

Today we got a new reading job. Every day we have one job that we have to do before we can make Daily 5 reading choices. Today we got our sight word dobber page. We have a big word in the middle (one of the sight words we are focusing on), and a bunch of words around the sides. We have to use a bingo dobber to find the sight word. We had fun doing this!

Afterwards we got to make reading choices!