2017 Goals, Dr. Clifford Visit, & More!

This week we had a busy week full of learning! We worked hard in Literacy Lab, finished our last color mosaic, worked on more lowercase letters for our alphabet wall, wrote about our 2017 goals and winter words, and changed out the rest of our workstations. We even had visits from Dr. Clifford & our preschool reading buddies. Check it out below for more details!

We have continued to work hard on our reading skills in Literacy Lab. When the students worked with me this week, we read a book about going to a baseball game and discussed sequencing. We discussed what happened first, next and last in the story. As we read the story, the students practiced using their pointer finger to point to each word. Then we went over our sight words that we noticed throughout the book and practiced writing them down. 

Mrs. Arnold worked with the students on sounding out words and writing the sounds that they hear. Mrs. Boyd worked with the students on stamping their sight words and making them with play dough.

Ms. Roland read a story with the students about a dog. They highlighted the sight words throughout the book. Then they filled in the last page with something their dog could do and draw a picture of their dog, real or made up. You can see Tommy wrote below "My dog can bark.".

At the listening center, the students listened to "The snowy day" and drew a picture of what happened in the story. They were encouraged to label their pictures and write words below as well.

The students also finished our white mosaic this week which was our last one! I forgot to get a picture of all the mosaics on the wall so I will post one in next week's blog post. They have all turned out so great and the students are very proud of their work. Having them hang up on the wall along with their color words have helped the students add them to their work during writing time in case they forget how to spell them.

 We completed 5 more lowercase letters for our alphabet wall this week but I forgot to get a picture of Z. We only have 5 more left to do so we will finish them up this week!

In writing this week we discussed what goals were and how people usually make them at the beginning of every year for things they want to do this year. The students came up with their own personal goals, what they want to learn, food they want to try, and what they want to read. The students tried to sound out their ideas, drew a picture, and I helped them write their ideas down. They came up with some great ideas and they turned out awesome!

We worked on patterns with gingerbread men. The students had to look at the pattern, figure out what comes next, cut the appropriate gingerbread man out and glue it next in the pattern. 

We also worked on reading our color words in a gingerbread color by number. 

In "My Book of Winter Words", the students had to write the winter words on each page and write their own winter word on the last page. The students came up with their own winter words at the end as you can see below like hot chocolate & scarf.

 Dr. Clifford came to talk to the Kindergarten students on Friday with 4 high school seniors. They discussed what their favorite things about Kindergarten were, what they plan to do after graduation, and gave some advice to the students. We ended by singing the "We are the Pirates" song of course! The students really enjoyed hearing from Dr. Clifford and the high school students.

 Our preschool reading buddies came to visit us on Friday. The students shared their 2017 goals, winter words book, and their "I Like" writing pages that we have been working on. We also sang some songs with them as well! 

I finished changing out the rest of our workstations this week and the students have really been enjoying working with them. In this math workstation below, students can put the ants in order from 1 ant to 10 ants, use them to add, or subtract. Below you can see the students working on addition since we have been practicing it. Gabriel made 10 by using 1 & 9. Then he wrote 1 + 9= 10. They worked on making other numbers as well. 

 Below you can see the students working on number puzzles and matching the number of buttons to the number cards.

 In some of our new literacy workstations, the students worked on putting letter cards in alphabetical order, putting together letter puzzles, and beginning sound puzzles where the students match letters to the picture that begins with that letter sound.

 In these workstations, the students put together the pictures to make a sight word and then practice reading the words, using the letter beads to make sight words on the pipe cleaners, and put the picture cards in sequential order from what happened first to last. 

 In these workstations, the students use the picture blocks to create their own story, sound out the words on the cards and sort them into real or nonsense words, and alphabet dominos where they match the pictures to the letters they begin with. 

Thanks for stopping by. Check back again next week to see what we are up to!

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant

MLK Day, Caring Rally & More!

The students were wondering why we had school off on Monday so we read stories and watched different videos about Martin Luther King Junior in order to find out why he was so important.  

 The groups who worked with me read an easy reader book about Martin Luther King Junior and we discussed how they wanted to change the world such as in the picture below (give people money). 

Groups that worked with me also read an easy reader book called "Getting Dressed". We practiced recognizing them in the story as well as writing them.

 In the other groups in Literacy Lab this week the students worked on sounding out words, writing the sounds they hear and making sight words with play dough.

 They also discussed rhyming words, listened to the story the snowy day and completed a color by numbers picture.

In writing this week, since we were discussing Martin Luther King we discussed our dreams. The students wrote about their dreams as you can read about below. Anes dreamt that we go to school everyday, Mila dreamt that everyone gets jellybeans, Elisa dreamt that friends are nice, and Gabriel dreamt about having a play date with Adasen. 

 Kendra dreamt that everyone is respectful, Alena dreamt that girls will be queens and boys will be kings, Bentley dreamt that everyone has two dogs, and Brooklyn dreamt that she gives people cookies.

 The students also started writing sentences about things they like. Gabriel wrote "I like riding my scooter.", Adasen wrote "I like Jellybeans.", Alena wrote "I like hot chocolate.", and Dakota wrote "I like bikes.". The words I & like are sight words so they should be spelled correctly in their writing but the other words they write are sounded out. The students are getting so good at sounding out words and we are going to start working on adding spaces between words next. 

This election was very controversial and the students talked a lot about the process. One of the standards that we focused on this quarter was recognizing symbols such as the statue of liberty, bald eagle, American Flag, and The White House. We talked about how the new president was going to move into The White House on Friday and we read an easy reader about the Inauguration. The students had to draw Donald Trump in the book so as a class we looked up his picture and then they got to color their books and take them home. 

On Friday we had our 3rd caring rally. The first rally focused on people who care for us in our school, the second one focused on how to care for ourselves, and this one focused on how to care for our classroom, bathroom and playground. Mrs. Scherch's class taught us how to take care of our bathrooms. We discussed things that we should and shouldn't do and sorted pictures under yes or no.

Mrs. Vogt & Ms. Milano taught us about how to take care of our classroom. There was paper on the ground, our friend Gabriel was chosen to help clean up and we discussed why it was so important to clean up after ourselves. They also discussed other things such as throwing away our dirty tissues, not just leaving them on the ground, etc.

Mrs. Sanner & Ms. Kolberg taught us how to care for our playground. They showed the students pictures and they gave thumbs up if it showed taking care of our playground and thumbs down if it didn't.

 I am slowly changing out our workstations so there are a couple new ones to learn each day. Below you can see a new shape workstation where the students match the shapes to the templates on the animals bodies as well as a new writing numbers workstation where the students are practicing writing their numbers on mini number scrolls.

We have also been working hard on our last color mosaic, white. We will be finishing it up next week.

We also completed 3 more letter cards (I forgot to take a picture of our Gg card from Friday).

Thanks for checking in. Stop by next week to see what we are up to next.

Mrs. Garrabrant

Winter Books, Letter Cards, Literacy Lab Activities & More!

We had another busy week in Kindergarten! We read a book as a class, worked on more lowercase letters for our letter cards, did literacy activities in Literacy Lab, read some Winter books, finished our pink mosaic, and had a visit from our preschool reading buddies. 

Take a look below to see more details!

We have been reading the story Mr. Popper's Penguins as a class and the students really enjoy it! It is a very funny story, ask your child to tell you about what is happening!

 We also worked very hard this week on matching these lowercase letters to their uppercase letter. We are getting close to being done and will continue to work hard for the next couple of weeks until we have the whole alphabet finished!

The students got to take home lots of letter books to practice reading them at home. We watched videos about the letters, the sounds they make, and practiced writing both the upper & lowercase letters in the air as well. 

 In literacy lab, I worked with the students on practicing reading a simple version of the story, "The Mitten." We read different levels and the students also got to take them home to practice reading at home. We practiced recognizing our sight words that were in the story!

 Once we found our sight words in the story, the students went through their books and highlighted them.

In the rest of the Literacy Lab groups, the students worked hard in various literacy activities as you can see in the two pictures below. Mrs. Arnold worked on practicing stretching out words with the students and writing the sounds, Mrs. Boyd helped the students use stamps to practice making sight words as well as making them with play dough. Mrs. Roland worked with the students on reading a snowman story then creating a melted snowman. In the listening center, the students listened to the story "Tacky the Penguin" and then fed the penguin sight words. 

We read the story "My Snowman" and the students had to cut out the appropriate pictures and glue them on the correct page to match the words.

We also read a story called "Getting Ready for Winter" about things that happen in nature to prepare for winter like a bear going into hibernation. This story brought up many great questions from the students about what happens during the winter time. We practiced pointing to the words as we read and afterwards the students colored their books. 

 The students also worked hard this week and finished the pink mosaic! Next week we will begin working on our last mosaic, white. 

 Our preschool reading buddies came to visit on Friday and the students shared a couple pieces of their best writing and they read one of the winter books from the week.

Thanks for stopping by. Check back again next week to see what we are up to.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant

Lowercase Letter Cards, Snowflake Sorting, & More!

Even though we had a short week, we were very busy! We worked on many different letter & sight word activities in Literacy Lab this week. Below you can see more details about the different areas. The students rotate throughout the week and work in different areas. We also worked on matching 4 lowercase letters on our letter cards, did a math activity with Cheetos shaped like snowflakes,  finished our black mosaic, worked with our preschool reading buddies, read a winter book, and wrote about hot chocolate for writing! 

In literacy lab, students who worked with me read our last 3 letter books (Q, V & X) and made sure we used our finger to point to each word as we read. 

My group in Literacy Lab also read the book "You Can Go!" and focused on the following 6 sight words while reading. The students highlighted the sight words in their books and took them home to practice.

 Around the rest of the room in Literacy Lab, students played letter games with Mrs. Arnold, a sight word popcorn game with Ms. Roland, and a sight word stamping activity with Mrs. Boyd.

 The last group in Literacy Lab worked at the listening center. They listened to the story "Tacky the Penguin" and then fed the penguin fish cards with letters on them.

We matched 4 of the lowercase letters to their uppercase letter on our alphabet wall cards, D, L, S & T (I forgot to get a picture of our S card!). 

After we have completed each letter card, the students receive 2 books full of words that begin with that letter. We practiced reading the books together (and pointing to each word as we read!) and then the students took them home to practice. Ask them to read their books to you!

 We also did a math activity with Cheetos shaped like snowflakes. The students had to sort the Cheetos they had by shape, graph them, and document which ones they had the most of and the least of. Then they got to eat them! 

We finished our black mosaic also. Below you can see Kendra working on it. We only have our white & pink mosaics left to complete!

For writing, we wrote the steps to make hot chocolate. We have been working on sounding out words and writing the sounds we hear during writing so if you see things coming home that are missing letters don't be worried! You can see my example below. Together we sounded out "Microwave water" for the first step. Then we sounded out "Pour powder, mix it & put marshmallows in" for the other steps. 

 On Friday, our preschool reading buddies came to visit our classroom. The students shared a few pieces of their writing with them and then we sang some songs together.

We read a Winter book called "Snowman, Snowman, What do you See?". It is formatted like the story "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?". The students really enjoyed reading the book, coloring it, and then taking it home to share. 

Thanks for checking in. Stop by again next week to see what we are up to. Have a great week!

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant