Literacy Lab, Salt Paintings & Special Guest

This week we started literacy lab. We will work on learning and implementing reading strategies to help us figure out unknown words such as finger tracing as we read, using picture clues, looking at the beginning and ending sounds of a word and many more.

Some groups worked on making their name with beads, matching upper case and lower case letters together, letter sounds, and guided reading.







When the children brought back their reading logs this week with their time reading documented, they got to choose a prize from our treasure box! I think reading at home is so important and I hope this is a way to encourage that. The children were so excited to get a prize from the treasure box! I shared with them what they could choose from (things like bracelets and rings, stickers and book marks, dinosaurs and bugs, etc.) and when it was their turn, they could choose what they wanted.

We continued working in our workstations and focused on being organized, putting things away just like we found them, and respecting our materials. We were having problems with these skills and after our discussion, we did a much better job!

Last week we made green lemonade with Mrs. Atkin's class and this week we documented our experiment. We talked about how we were scientists and scientists document their observations and outcomes from their experiments. We documented in our exploration journals where we drew the yellow lemonade, blue ice cube, and green lemonade as well as labeled our color words. Here are a couple of examples of our documentation.

We also did a salt painting activity. We made our names with glue and then poured salt over the glue. Once they dried we discussed what happens when we paint on the salt with watercolor paint. I modeled so the children could see that you don't paint it like you normally do with paint but you dab the paint on the salt and it spreads! The children loved this and they could not wait to try it themselves! So far we have only had four friends try theirs but we will finish up the rest next week!

 
On Friday, we got together again with Mrs. Atkin's class and we also had a special guest! One of our Kindergarten friends from last year, Kristen, came back to read a couple stories to our classes. She goes to Harold Schnell and they were on their 3 week fall break so she wanted to come visit! The students really enjoyed listening to a child close to their age read with confidence and accuracy.

 

Also on Friday, our superintendent, Dr. Clifford came to talk to the students about assets and how to 'learn how to learn'. They also learned the West Carrollton song, "We are the pirates!"

 
Here are the friends that shared their treasure blocks this week:

We learn how to spell our friend's name in sign language.  

 

    

I model cutting apart our friend's name and using our web as a resource to figure out how to glue their name back together correctly. I also model drawing an illustration about something that they discussed when sharing their treasure block as well as labeling my picture. We have been discussing how we can tell stories with our illustrations and some of the illustrations they have come up with have been so creative! Here is an example of one of the students illustrations for Reiley's treasure block.

Here are some of our word wall cards. They are turning out really awesome! I had the children help me by being hand models and modeling the sign language alphabet which I printed this weekend and they will go up on the cards as well. Here is our number line, which we count the days we have been in school every day. I can't believe we have been in school for 20 days already!

Here is our money that we are counting every day. One paper clip and one cent each day!

Learning about the letter h and it's sound. Shelby practicing making an uppercase and lowercase H before writing it on our word wall card.

Thanks for checking our blog! Have a great week!
Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant

Don't forget about our literacy night NEXT WEDNESDAY, October 9th from 6:30-8:00. Please mark this in your calendars because it is going to be a really fun night! If you plan on attending, please send back the bring pink paper with your RSVP's so we can plan accordingly.

Literacy lab, Money & Green Lemonade!

This was another BUSY week for us in Kindergarten! We started Literacy Lab and working on activities to practice recognizing and making our names as well as making letters. In one of our centers we glued cereal onto our names to help practice saying the letters in our names as we did so.

Hayden making the letter 'T' and Destiny making the letter 'R' with pipe cleaners.

 

Tracing their names and then making the letters with Wikki Stix.

We have been working very hard to complete our alphabet cards for our word wall which are made by the children. First we listen to a song about the letter and try to think about what words begin with that letter and we practice drawing it in the air. Then we make a list of the words that begin with that letter and then the students choose which word they would like to draw. Once we are finished we chose one drawing of each word to go on our card for our word wall. The pictures as well as the letters on our cards are all done by the children and they have been noticing that their pictures are being used. We have heard them say, "Hey, I made that picture or I wrote that letter!"

Sharing our treasure blocks has also been a big part of our days as well. It has been a great way for us to learn about our friends, how to spell their names, and how to draw illustrations with appropriate colors and details.

We also added something new to our calendar time. For everyday we are in school we added a paperclip and a penny and we will continue to do this for everyday we are in school. We talked about how a penny is worth one cent, a nickel is worth 5 and a dime is worth 10. Once we got to 10 days of school we were able to 'go to the bank' to cash our 5 pennies in for a nickel and 10 pennies for a dime. This is still a hard concept but we will continue to work on it and it will get easier for them!

Practicing our sight words in fun and interactive ways!

Our friends love the library area and are very interested in reading books to each other. I love to see this enthusiasm!

We sang Happy Birthday to Sebastian in sign language and we thanks him for sharing a birthday treat with us.

On Friday we were invited back down to Mrs. Atkin's class to join in being scientists and participate in a fun experiment with colors. We have been learning the color songs for the colors red, yellow, blue and now green. Each student received a glass of yellow lemonade and a blue ice cube. Once we discussed and tried to predict what would happen when we dropped our ice cube into our lemonade we observed to see what color we made! The children loved this experiment and really enjoyed spending our afternoon with Mrs. Atkin's class! It was a nice way to cool down from the muggy weather we had at the end of the week!

 We talked about how when you are celebrating something you 'cheers' each other and the children had fun practicing with their friends.