Ms. J's Kindergarten Class: New Happenings

There are a lot of new happenings in our room...

We started to learn how to use the equipment in the SMART room!

Here we are doing the alligator crawl.

Overhead ladder

Balance beam: heel to toe

Balance boards

Helicopter spins: spin and count for 10 sec

Stop and count for 10 sec

Not pictured was the fine motor activity for this month: shoe tying and lacing.

We went outside during one of the sunny days last week and searched for different items in nature.

A box elder bug

Cobwebs in the corner

We were able to check off most things except a butterfly and ant.

Some sort of red berry

New Stations
Our reading and math stations change weekly so this week's theme (and part of next) will be "All About Me!" I introduced the new stations near the end of last week; we didn't get a chance to work with math stations so we will get around to those this week.

Roll a letter die and trace that letter

Cut and glue shapes/letter writing

Reading sight words/writing color words

Scavenger hunt around the room for ABC letters

Writing beginning sounds in words

Reading I-Spy books

Alphabet writing

Decodable books (easy to read books for kindergarteners)

Growing as Readers
It's only been 2 full months of school, but the students have developed SO much as readers! It is incredible to see them using their reading strategies as they read their books each day and to see them gain more confidence in their reading. They are using the illustrations, pointing to each word, and popping the first letter sound. Now that we've started Lending Library (where students take books home from school and read with you), you are able to see and hear them read as well. Remember to reinforce our 3 basic reading strategies at home with them.

Here we are practicing buddy reading.

We use post-its sometimes to mark pages in our book that excited or confused us. We shared the marked pages with our buddies!

Here we are independently reading. It is sometimes hard to sit still and focus on our books the WHOLE time, so we are really working on our reading stamina.

Kelso's Choices
In social studies, we have been talking a lot about small versus big problems. Small problems are problems that kindergarteners are smart enough and strong enough to solve on their own. This can include: someone budging in line, not sharing classroom materials, throwing garbage on the ground, feeling left out during recess games. That's where Kelso's Choices comes in. I have posters of these choices that students can refer to when they face a small problem. They can choose one or a few of these choices to see if it'll solve their problem BEFORE they tell an adult. My goal is to have students learn that they are responsible and old enough to try to solve a small conflict themselves instead of solely relying on an adult to fix it for them. It's an important life skill. If you are interested in looking at the specific choices that kids can choose when they face a problem, here is the link. Kelso's Wheel of Choices

Big problems on the other hand are those conflicts where it involves someone getting hurt, is sick, or is being bullied. That's where students come to me directly and report the big problem to me.

We've been role playing different scenarios that students have faced in school; we act them out and discuss what kinds of choices they can do to help solve the problem. This will be something we will continue to do from now until the end of the school year.

In social studies, students get Kindergarten Studies Weekly. This week's was "Follow the Rules." It served as a good reminder on the importance of having and following rules and why we have them. Next week's will be about responsibility.

Playtime
Our class has learned (and continues to learn) about respect and how to cooperate with one another. It is so heartwarming to see our room come together as a "classroom family" and see them be more comfortable and take care of each other compared to when they first came to school in September. Playtime is a valuable time for students to use their social skills.