Week of June 14, 2010

Sadly, the school year has come to an end. How time flew! I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for a wonderful year. I will always cherish the memories from this class. Enjoy the summer vacation, and I look forward to seeing everyone in the fall.

Overhead workstation: counting by 5s

Library workstation

Writing workstation: writing about our favorite season

Computer workstation

Pocket chart workstation: sorting pictures using final consonants

Handwriting workstation: practicing n and m

Math workstation: playing an exchange game with 1s to 10s and 10s to 100s

Week of June 7, 2010

What another exciting week in Kindergarten! The students excitedly participated in Move Up Day, and they had a great time. Ms. Mahoney and Ms. Zargiel are very excited for next year.

We also had our Kindergarten Celebration! Both classes did such a wonderful job with reciting the poem and singing, "You've Got a Friend in Me" by Randy Newman. I couldn't be more proud!

We had really short week because of Move Up day and the Celebration, so we couldn't cover as much as I would have liked. In math, we made Name Collection posters for the numbers six and seven. This activity requires that we list different ways to make a given number using addition/subtraction, drawings, or representations (dominoes, tally marks, popsicle sticks). We also learned about number pairs. For this activity, the students were introduced to function machines. Each function machine has a given rule, for example, plus two. The students put a number into the machine, apply the rule, and determine what number comes out. If the number one was put into the function machine, the rule is plus two, the number pair would be 1, 3.

In writing, we wrote in our journals. We also learned how to write the lowercase n and m.

In phonics and word study, we learned that you can hear the parts of words. For example, you can hear the /t/ and /ake/ in take. We played a game called, "Follow the Path," which a copy of the game board was sent home on Wednesday evening. The students rolled a die, landed on a picture, said the name of the picture, said its parts, and said its name.

The students also had their workstations.

I wanted to thank everyone again for making the first Kindergarten Celebration such a wonderful event. I will always remember it.

Week of May 31, 2010

We had a short week this week because of Memorial Day and Field Day. The students had a blast at Field Day this week. I am sure they all slept very well Tuesday night. I took some pictures, which will be seen at the Kindergarten celebration.

In math, we learned the "Ones, Tens, Hundreds" game. In this game, the students rolled a cube to determine how many popsicle sticks to pick. The cube was labeled with 1, 3, 5, 10, 10, and 10. When a student had ten single sticks, he/she had to trade them for a bundle of ten popsicle sticks. When a student had ten bundles of popsicle sticks, he/she would trade it for a bundle of 10o popsicle sticks. The first person to get the bundle with 100 popsicle sticks wins the game. We also learned about the hour hand on a clock. To practice telling time to the hour, we made our own clocks with paper plates. To practice telling time, I would tell the students a specific time, such as 7 o'clock. They had to move the hour hand to the seven.

In reading, we learned about inferring words that we don't know the meaning of. To practice this skill we started reading the story, "The Magic Gourd" by Baba Wague Diakite. I modeled how to infer with the words drought and famine by re-reading the text to find clues that would help me. I also inferred the meaning of gourd by using the pictures in the story. In phonics and word study, we learned about consonants and vowels. With our magnetic letters, all of the consonants are blue and the vowels are red. I made the word, "sit" on the easel with magnetic letters, and the students had to identify the vowel and the consonants.

In writing we wrote in our journals. We also learned how to write the lowercase p and r in handwriting.

We also practiced the poem and song we are going to perform for our kindergarten celebration. In addition, we finished our decorations. The children's excitement is continuing to grow.

Also, please make sure your child has his/her library book for tomorrow. This Monday will be their last day of library.

Workstations:

Handwriting Workstation: the students were practicing the lowercase y and e

Writing Workstation: the students were writing about their favorite toy