I want to thank you all for your meaningful holiday gifts. I will be giving each student a thank you card to take home and share with their family this week but I know those things do not always make it home. I also don’t mind over thanking you all for your generosity. I love that you made a classroom donation to Dwankhozi Hope ~ the opportunity we have as a school community to partner with the Dwankhozi Basic School community is such a gift, and I am honored you all chose to support that partnership as a gesture of appreciation. Thank you! or as they say at Dwankhozi, Zikomo!
I hope you all had a restful winter break and that you are as excited as I am about the learning days ahead of us. Last week, I was excited to see how quickly the students were able to get back into our learning routines. Your kids came to me last fall as young children needing to adjust to a new classroom, new friends, a new school… They are returning from winter break as “grown up” kindergarten students who know how school works and understand how to be kind, safe and fair friends. We will spend some time during these first few weeks back re-establishing our classroom learning routines, spending extra time on our social and emotional learning (Kelso’s Choice) and holding classroom meetings. We will be talking about “grown up” independence, and how we can work effectively with our learning partners. Keep reading for specifics on what we will be learning.
I hope you all had a restful winter break and that you are as excited as I am about the learning days ahead of us. Last week, I was excited to see how quickly the students were able to get back into our learning routines. Your kids came to me last fall as young children needing to adjust to a new classroom, new friends, a new school… They are returning from winter break as “grown up” kindergarten students who know how school works and understand how to be kind, safe and fair friends. We will spend some time during these first few weeks back re-establishing our classroom learning routines, spending extra time on our social and emotional learning (Kelso’s Choice) and holding classroom meetings. We will be talking about “grown up” independence, and how we can work effectively with our learning partners. Keep reading for specifics on what we will be learning.
Celebrating the life and work of |
kind_safe_and_fair_song_lyrics.docx |
Math
This month, the students will be engaging in activities that will help them become experts at composing and decomposing the number 10.
The expectation is that they will be fluent in knowing combinations used to make 10 by the end of the year. The games Pig 10 and Go Fish (where matches are combos of 10 like 7 and 3) are both great ways to practice this at home. Students will continue to use math menus that help them learn to be collaborative, self-directed learners.
The expectation is that they will be fluent in knowing combinations used to make 10 by the end of the year. The games Pig 10 and Go Fish (where matches are combos of 10 like 7 and 3) are both great ways to practice this at home. Students will continue to use math menus that help them learn to be collaborative, self-directed learners.
Readers' Workshop
It is so exciting for me to see how much growth the students have made as readers. During back to back reading time, our class can read independently for 10 minutes, staying focused on their books and using voices
that work for all readers. Many students are starting to get "lost in their reading", having a hard time stopping when I ask them to transition to hip to hip shared reading. It is wonderful to see this level of engagement! This month,
I will be focusing my mini-lessons and guided reading
instruction on the following teaching points:
that work for all readers. Many students are starting to get "lost in their reading", having a hard time stopping when I ask them to transition to hip to hip shared reading. It is wonderful to see this level of engagement! This month,
I will be focusing my mini-lessons and guided reading
instruction on the following teaching points:
- Readers ‘warm up’ our reading muscles with a picture walk ~ looking at the pictures, saying what we see happening and thinking about what the book might be about.
- Readers figure out new or tricky words by looking at the picture and the first letter of the word and thinking, ‘What in the picture starts with that sound?’
- Readers use the letters in words to read our books.
- Readers make sure our reading makes sense.
- Readers make sure our reading sounds right.
- When readers get to a part that doesn’t sound right, we go back and reread.
Writers' Workshop
This month, the students will continue writing true stories
that readers can really read. The students have learned that writers make writing easy to read by including spaces between words, using mostly lower case letters unless a capital is needed, being neat and using word walls to spell words like they are spelled in a book. They have also learned to use tools such as personal word walls, vowel charts and editing checklists. This week, I will be meeting with each writer to assess their writing (using our editing checklist) and help them set a writing goal.
that readers can really read. The students have learned that writers make writing easy to read by including spaces between words, using mostly lower case letters unless a capital is needed, being neat and using word walls to spell words like they are spelled in a book. They have also learned to use tools such as personal word walls, vowel charts and editing checklists. This week, I will be meeting with each writer to assess their writing (using our editing checklist) and help them set a writing goal.
Fabric Science Unit
We launched our first science unit this week ~ Exploring Fabric! On Friday, we used our senses to explore the properties of 10 different kinds of fabric: organza, corduroy, seersucker, fleece, nylon, burlap, satin, terrycloth, knit & denim. The students noticed how the fabrics looked (shiny, sparkly, see through) and felt (soft, smooth, slippery, scratchy, rough) and sounded (like the ocean) and smelled (like flowers) and recorded their observations in their new science journals, using pictures and words. This coming week, we will be using feely boxes to compare how our fabrics are the same and different and will go on a fabric hunt to help us match different fabrics. We will also be putting different fabrics together to make fabric collages.