Happy Reading!

Hello Kindergarten Families! 

I left all of the Read-a-Thon photos at school so I will fill you in on Friday's event later this week...Promise. :)

The students have been very busy working hard in math, reading, and writing. I introduced writing by reading the book Rocket Learn to Write a Story. It's about this dog who is very eager to write a story and has lots of ideas in his "word tree" (similar to our Word Wall in our classroom), but when it comes to writing his thoughts on a piece of paper, he gets stuck. So he decides to go for a walk to get inspiration. I stopped reading at that part and had the class come up with ideas for their own story. Some of the topics included: friends, family, going to a special place, and imaginary characters (like dragons and robots). Most of the class was able to generate an idea all on their own. Others needed a little nudge from me. One of the kindergarten writing goals is for students to be able to brainstorm ideas independently and tell, write, and draw about it. All of their writings included drawings. A few students tried sounding out words or writing sight words from our Word Wall. 

A rainbow forming in the sky

Me and my mom in New York City

I'm getting corn from the corn stalk. I bring the corn to "show and tell" at school and everyone likes it. 

Space with Ms J. and classmates. Taxi driver is driving the spaceship.

Robots

I like school. School is the best thing ever. I am excited.

Audrey and Taylor looking at the rainbow

Going to the zoo

Me and my friends sneaking up on a wolf

Robots at Mall of America

At the end of Rocket Learns to Write a Story, he sees a pine tree and a nest with a bird inside. Rocket gets his inspiration from there and starts to write down words and then later sentences. Each day, he goes back to the tree and adds more to his paper. Once his story his finished, he reads it to the bird in the nest and they become friends. 

In math, we've been doing a lot of practice with proper number formation and writing. Each student received their own math book that they are responsible for. Other math skills that we are working on include same and different, drawing pictures to represent numbers (i.e. draw 3 circles, draw 5 houses), and showing numbers using "fast fingers." 

We also started math homework. I told the kids that the drawings do not have to be detailed or fancy. (That is what art class is for hehe!) In math, we want to use a simple picture to show a number.

With number writing, make sure your child starts "high in the sky" with their pencil. Then go "down to the ground."

In reading, we started WORDS OF THE WEEK! This is where I introduce new sight words. The class has learned three of them so far: I, see, am. I like to introduce sight words by using mini readers that have very simple text and include our kindergarten sight words. The first book was called School. All of the sentences have the same pattern. In the book School, each sentence starts with "I see ______." Kindergartners practiced pointing to each word as they read, used the illustrations to help them figure out the last word, and popped the first letter sound. Popping the first letter sound means sounding out the first letter in a word. For example, if they see the word begins with an S...they say sssss and can refer to the illustrations for further help so the word could be "scissors." Once we begin Lending Library where students bring home books at their reading level and practice reading them independently, those three skills will be key to their beginning reading success. 

Kindergarten Reading Strategies
1. Point to each word as you read.
2. Use the pictures to help.
3. Pop the first letter sound. 

I am so excited to see the class using these skills already! Take a look at all of our budding readers. 

Jack

Taylor

Cameron

Riley

Mia

Kate

Cameron

Lauren

Liz

Jared

Andres

Beckett

Audrey

Henry

Leo

Max

Xavier

Gavan

Last week I noticed a very special visitor was on my blog and left a comment. The author of The Pout Pout Fish, Debbie Diesen, left me and the class just the sweetest note ever! I am floored that this popular children's book author stumbled upon our classroom blog and took the time to wish my kindergarten students happy reading. How COOL!