This week has been an exciting week in KB! Katherine was the first person of the week and did a great job sharing her poster with her friends. We were also lucky to have Katherine’s mom join us on Wednesday morning to be our guest reader. She read a book that has quickly become a KB favorite, Creepy Carrots.
Balanced Literacy:
Phonics & Word Study:
This week students were introduced to the letter Cc (Cc-cat-/c/) during Fundations. We have now learned a handful of letters including 2 vowels. Soon we will begin putting sounds together to create words and learn how to quickly change the initial, middle, or end sound to make new words. We also learned a new word to add to our word wall- the. Word wall words are words that kindergarten students are expected to be able to read by the end of kindergarten. To learn more about our word wall words and about games you can play at home to practice these words please visit the “Word Wall Words” page on our website.
Reading:
Last week we began a new reading unit all about tales of three. We kicked this unit off by reading many different versions of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. We spent time comparing and contrasting the different versions, using picture cards to sequence the story, and making acting out the story in a variety of ways. Through this unit students are learning how to retell. When we retell it’s important to pay close attention to what happens in the beginning, middle, and end of story so we are able to talk about the events in a story in order from beginning to end. We have certainly enjoyed using our classroom puppets to tell the story over and over again.
Home/School Connection: Students came home this week with their own puppets and bridges that they made at school. Have your child retell the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff while acting it out.
Writing:
During writer’s workshop we are continuing to work on writing stories about topics we know a lot about. Throughout the past weeks students have been working on 5 things that “Super Writers” do
1. Think
2. Draw
3. Label
4. Write
5. Add details
These 5 writing strategies are posted on our writer’s workshop bulletin board and students are encouraged to use this chart to help them when they are feeling stuck during writing time. This week we also learned that great writers take time to make a plan for their stories by touching each page and deciding what they will write before they begin their new story. It has been exciting to watch your kindergartner grow as a writer!
Math
This week we have been learning about shapes. We learned the differences between triangles, squares and rectangles. We also learned that these shapes can be combined and rotated to make new shapes and that shapes are all around us. We spent some time looking around our classroom and we couldn’t believe how many triangles, squares, and rectangles we were able to find!
