Wow, we have accomplished so much this week. We just finished our 7th day of school. Only 93 more until our 100th Day Celebration! It will be here before you know it! Here are some highlights from the past two days.
Morning Work - Math Style
 |
| Children use tanagrams to make pictures. This is an introduction to geometry! |
 |
| These puzzles are also a great way to fine tune their visual discrimination skills which they will use for math, illustrating stories, forming letters and words and reading. |
 |
| Patterning and color recognition are also important math concepts. |
Now presenting: Reading and Writing Workshop!
 |
| We read Mo Williams Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! The children fell in love with the book. Mo Williams is like David Shannon from the No, David! books. They both author and illustrate their books. |
 |
| The children were asked what else should the pigeon not drive? There answers were amazing! They wanted to go write and illustrate their ideas. Who am I to tell them no? So, I scrapped the lesson plan and went the the children's idea. It was an amazing lesson. |
 |
| Are you as amazed at their illustrations as I am? I was blown away! This is definitely going to be my class of authors and illustrators this year. I can't wait to see what class books they make this year. |
 |
| This child said that the pigeon should not drive the bus! |
 |
| This one said the pigeon drive the train. |
 |
| Look at the detail this child is putting into his illustration! |
 |
| Look at the windows and tires and use of color. |
 |
| Mo Williams would be proud. Ask your child to draw the pigeon for you and to tell you the story. Check it out from the library if you have never read it. I am sure your child would read this to you! |
During Math time we did some work with patterning. This is a first quarter common core standard skills every child needs to have mastered by the end of October. Work on patterning at home.
This is another tanagram activity that the child love! They think they are just making pictures but really they are solving complex puzzles and developing critical thinking and problem solving skills.
We really started working on "Stamina" within our Reading Workshop. Stamina means being able to do something for a long time without getting tired. We are working on stamina to get through the Kindergarten day and we are working on stamina to sustain reading for longer and longer periods of time. I will introduce them to the word and the concept of stamina. Work on stamina in reading at home by asking extending questions about characters, plot and details from the story.
We all were able to choose five books from our classroom library and we placed them into our large zip lock bags. These five books remain with us all week long. We keep them out our desks and whenever we finish our work early we can always pull out our books and read. We are going to work a lot on reading to ourselves and reading with a partner. I recommend that you take a large zip lock at home and let them place three to five books in it to keep for "bored" times, to keep in the car or to just enjoy reading for no reason. This way they can model to you what they do at school. Let them teach you how to sit EEKK. Ask them this weekend to show you how to read EEKK. I bet they can show you!
We are working on the letter Ll this week. We are learning how to draw it and how it sounds in the beginning position of words. This is the list of L words the class generated. Pretty impressive!
The children love to sing along to songs that support math and reading concepts. Some of their favorite songs are by Jack Hartman. Go to YouTube and look him up. The kids love the Letter Sounds Song, The Vowels Song and The Pirate Song. You will laugh at how much they love these songs and how loudly they sing them. Another favorite is the Chicken Counting Song. If you show them this picture I bet they can sing it for you.
I will post more soon. As always, Read!
