What's happening in Room 132?

FIRE SAFETY
We had a special visit from the Prior Lake Fire Dept last Friday. The kindergarten classes learned about fire safety and that it's a firefighter's job to keep us safe. We got to see what a firefighter wears--it sure is a lot of heavy stuff, especially the oxygen tank and coat. Then we went outside and checked out their firetruck! It was huge and had lots of different equipment. Did you know a broom is one of the tools they use? I learned (along with the kids) that firefighters use brooms to help "sweep" or put out small grass fires. They also have a bowling pin to break open the fire hydrant. How random, but cool!

MATH
The class is learning about 2D shapes, including squares, rectangles, circles, triangles, trapezoids, rhombuses, and hexagons. We cut our own shapes to make jack-o-lanterns and counted how many of each shape we used. In addition to ;earning about shapes, this lesson focused on how well your child can follow directions, trace with stencils, cut with scissors, and glue pieces together to make a complete picture. 

READING
The class has been practicing buddy reading. There are lots of ways your child can read with a buddy. 

• Buddies can take turns reading each page (using the pictures and the words, if they can read them).
• Buddies can re-read the book over again, noticing things they may not have seen the first time (such as how the character is feeling).
• Buddies can look for letters or words they know. 
• Buddies can re-tell the story in their own way. 
• Buddies can read their own books and share with their buddy whenever they want to point out something (shown in the photos below).

WRITING
Your child used colored paper to make their face and finished the sentence "My name is _____ and I like ______." This was our first guided writing lesson that we've done. I wrote the first letter of everyone's name on the Smartboard and we brainstormed together what words begin with their first letter. For example, A = apples, alligators, astronauts. Students chose one word and copied it onto their paper. Next week, your child will be encouraged to draw pictures and label them, either with the first beginning letter or they can try sounding out the whole word. I will be working on building their confidence up as we start writing in kindergarten. It is not about spelling correctly (which I know may not feel right for us adults). Instead, I want my kinders to start using their phonics skills of being able to hear different sounds in words and writing them down on paper. The only words they are expected to spell correctly are our sight words. 

SCIENCE

We went outside and used our sense of sight to write down what colors we saw on the trees. 

Lots of Learning!

Here's what we've been up to...

Over the last five days, the class has discussed what their "Hopes and Dreams" are for kindergarten. I asked them, "What do you want to learn? What do you want to get better at?" At first, their ideas were very broad such as "I want to be a vet" or "I want to learn how to play hockey with my dad." As the week continued, we fine tuned our "Hopes and Dreams" to only school-related goals, such as learning how to read or doing science experiments. Some of their dreams included play-related actions, such as balancing on the balance beam, going across the monkey bars, or climbing the rock wall. Those are still school-related since part of kindergarten is developing gross motor and fine motor skills. Other goals were social-related such as making friends. Take a look at everyone's dreams. (Nidhi's is not listed since it needs to get laminated...it will be posted next week!) 

In order to achieve our "Hopes and Dreams," we need to have consistent expectations. We have different matrices to hold everyone accountable for making good choices. The class helped me think of ways we can all be safe, responsible, and respectful throughout our day. My goal was to keep it simple and easy to remember! 

In science, I introduced science journals. This is where students will be writing and drawing their hypotheses and observations. I briefly discussed the kinds of things we will be learning as "kindergarten scientists" including weather, night and day, living and nonliving things, plants, animals, and landscapes. 

As scientists, we need our five senses to observe things. We used our sense of sight, touch, hearing, taste, and smell to observe an apple. 

I introduced pencils to the class and modeled how to use them. We practiced writing our uppercase and lowercase letters with our new pencils. 

In reading, we practiced two different ways of how to read a book: 1) By reading the pictures and 2) By reading the words. I introduced the sight words I and SEE. The class practiced pointing to words as they read aloud and used pictures to help them figure out unknown words. The kind of text your child is reading is pattern text. For example, the first book we read this week was called "School" and it was about different items you see at school. "I see scissors. I see crayons. I see desks. I see books." 

I am working with the class on what it looks like to be a reader. Behaviors include: keeping your eyes on the book the whole time, talking out loud about what's happening (It is age appropriate for kindergarteners to read out loud to themselves. Some students prefer whispering or reading in their head. Everyone is different), taking their time looking thoroughly at each page (it isn't a race to finish the book!), and thinking about what's happening. I also ask students questions as they're reading to make sure they're comprehending the book, such as "What do you think is going to happen next? Why is the character doing that? How do you think they feel? What's your favorite part?" You can do this with your child at home when you read together. 

In math, we learned how to use our red math boxes and math trays. We are practicing how to use objects (red and blue tiles) to represent a number. During math lessons, we also use "Math Talk" to discuss our learnings. For example, "I used 2 blue tiles and 1 red tile to show the number 3." 

We had bus safety on Wednesday. At the end of the day, we got to make a special bus snack. Thank you for the donations! The kids LOVED the special treat. 

On Friday, we got to play outside at "Nature Park" which is one of Jeffers Pond's outdoor learning areas. The three main safety expectations I have for when we are outside is that students have to be able to SEE me, HEAR me, and keep their bodies to themselves. Part of our outdoor learning may include slipping on the dirt, scrapping themselves on the bark or sticks, and getting some mud on their clothing. This is what happens when we are outside, immersing ourselves with nature! When true accidents happen, such as those that include blood, that is when I step in. Otherwise, we wipe ourselves off and continue playing. Kind of an old school way of thinking, I guess you could say. The class and I will continue to go outside throughout the week to play and learn. I can easily say that the kids loved being outside over being inside for playtime. They got to be LOUD, they weren't confined to one specific space, and they were able to be creative with what they found in nature (using trees to balance and climb on, using sticks to build with, finding bugs).