Learnings

What's going on in Room 132? 

Last week, the students learned how to rainbow write with our sight words. You take a red writing utensil (i.e. markers, crayons, we wrote with colored pencils) and trace over all of the letters in a sight word. Then you take orange and trace. Next, you use yellow, green, blue, and purple. When you are finished tracing, the word looks like a rainbow. 

In Math, we worked with pattern blocks and went over the different shapes: hexagon, trapezoid, rhombus, and triangle. We used these shapes to create different designs in our math books.

We reviewed the math sentences 10 + 1 = ___, 10 + 2 = ___, 10 + 3 = ____. etc. I introduced to the class the reversal of that equation where the sum comes first. For example, 11 = 10 + 1, 12 = 10 + 2, 13 = 10 + 3. It was a difficult concept for the students to grasp since they're used to seeing the equal sign near the end of the addition sentence. However, the class and I have gone over together that the equal sign means "the same" and I drew pictures to represent both numbers on each side of the = sign. We will be doing more practice with writing addition sentences using both ways.

We are using ten sticks and centimeter cubes to represent each teen number. 

Conflict Resolution
The class has been practicing a specific dialogue for when they encounter small problems in school. Small conflicts can include: someone budges in front of you in line, a friend isn't sharing materials, someone is telling you to do something you don't want to do, or someone is saying unkind words.

The dialogue students are using on a daily basis is "STOP! I feel _______ when ________. I want you to _____________."

My kindergartners are very good with saying "STOP!" because it's natural. However, it is important for them to express their feelings and why they feel a certain way because it helps them deal with their emotions. Hearing others' emotions also helps them develop empathy for others.

Telling someone that they feel sad or angry or frustrated and WHY they feel this way lets the other person know specifically how they're feeling and what the conflict is. The last part of the dialogue is equally as important because it lets them decide how to solve the conflict. They can say, "I want you to go back to the end of the line" or "I want you to say nice things to me." or "I want you to share your toys. How about you play with ___ for a few minutes, then I can have it."

You can practice this dialogue at home as well (for reinforcement), especially if your child has younger or older siblings. It is simple for five and six year olds to understand and the class has had practice with seeing the dialogue displayed on the Smartboard and communicating it themselves (with assistance) at school.