KB is 100 Days Smarter!
Our first day back from February vacation was the 100th day of school! We celebrated by having a whole morning of 100th day math centers:
Center 1: Playing 100th day path game
Students took turns with a friend to play the 100th day path game. The first to move their playing piece around the board and get to the finish line first was the winner. Along the way if they landed on a square labeled “100” they had to stop and skip count by tens from 0-100 before moving on.
Center 2: “I can skip count to 100”
Students had the chance to make a counting wheel from 0 to 100.
Center 3: “I can sort a 100 objects”
Center 4: “I can roll to 100”
Students rolled a dice and then colored the corresponding number of squares on a grid until all 100 squares were colored in.
Center 5: “I can build a structure with 100 cubes”
Students used teamwork to build 1 structure together using 1oo cubes.
Dr. Seuss Day!
This past week we celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday! We were lucky to have Mr. Tynes visit our classroom as a guest reader. He shared Fox in Socks with us…what a silly book full of tongue twisters! We talked about how Dr. Seuss is an author who writes in rhymes. We learned that rhyming words have the same sound at the end. We spent time this week generating our own list of rhyming words. Some of these rhymes were real words while others were made up silly words!
March Newsletter
BALANCED LITERACY
Phonics: This month in Fundations we will learn the following letters and their sounds: Hh-hat-/h/, Kk-kite-/c/, Vv-van-/v/, Ww-wind-/w/.
Writing: This month we will continue writing personal narrative stories. We will continue to focus on adding details to make our stories more interesting for our readers. We will also start a new unit called “How-To” books. In this unit, students will be writing procedural books that tell step by step how to do something.
Independent Reading: We are enjoying independent reading every afternoon. Each child is matched up with a collection of books that is “just right” for him or her. Students are learning how to use a variety of reading strategies when they come to a word they don’t know:
Source: http://mrsriccaskindergarten.blogspot.com/search/label/Literacy
We are also monitoring our own reading to make sure it makes sense, it sounds right, and that it looks right.
Most kindergartners have been using their Raz-Kids account. It is a great way for them to practice their reading skills at school and at home. Please remember that they should listen to the story, read it and answer the questions (if there are any). It would help students best to complete the tasks of one book before moving on to the next. When they read the book, they should point to the words and read aloud so you can hear them. They can also record their voice and listen to their reading. If they cannot read the book, you can help them by reading the title and first page, encouraging them to look at the picture and first letter of the word. They might need to listen to the story one more time before reading it on their own. I love seeing the progress they are making using this great tool!
MATHEMATICS
This month we will work on the Bunk Beds unit. This unit introduces students to number combinations and the idea that numbers can be broken up into 2 parts in a variety of ways (4 can be broken up into 2+2, 3+1, 4+0, etc.) Students will be working with a variety of numbers to try to find all possible ways of making that number as well as exploring how they know they have found all of the ways.
SCIENCE
This month, we will begin a new science unit: Exploring Properties of Objects and Materials. In this unit we will investigate the physical properties of water, sand and other sediment. We will work on formulating questions to investigate, we will classify objects and materials, and we will use scientists’ tools (hand lens, Proscope, and pan balance).
CONFERENCES
The spring conferences are beginning on Thursday, March 12th. Please be sure you have signed up for a time online on VolunteerSpot. During the spring conferences we will talk about your child’s progress and look at some of your child’s work.
