Another great week is in the books! While we continue to focus on building routines and expectations, we have also begun the academic side of Kindergarten. Our daily schedule is listed in the rainbow colored flip book you received from me at "Meet the Teacher" night, but I wanted to take some time to explain the various parts of the day mentioned.
We begin our day by unpacking our backpacks and going to our assigned tables for morning work until 8:25. This past week they have been working from morning tubs. The tubs rotate daily. This week we had the following tubs: building uppercase letters with snap cubes, building lowercase letters with snap cubes, making shapes with play-dough, copying patterns with popsicle sticks and puzzles. These tubs work on various things: fine motor skills, letter knowledge, shapes, patterns. The tubs will change to match new skills we are focusing on in the classroom. As we get more into our academics there might also be days where they work from tubs and days where they do a handwriting worksheet to reinforce what we are learning during Fundations time or math fact worksheets later in the year when we learn those. Ask your child what morning tub they worked on this week!
We then listen to "Radio BEU", the morning announcements via our intercom system. Dr. Majerus and 2 older students who auditioned at the beginning of the year make these announcements. During this time we also say the Pledge of Allegiance as a whole school. Once this is over we clean up our morning work and come to the carpet for calendar time. Below I will explain the rest of our day.
Fundations: Students learn handwriting, letter formation and letter sounds. As the year progresses we will use these skills to learn how to spell and read words. Fundations is the name of the program we use to teach this; it is essentially spelling/phonics/word work (any of which term you might be familiar with).
Shared Reading: This is an interactive reading activity where children join in on the reading of a big book (real book or one on the SMARTboard), poem or other text. This week we learned the word "a." We have learned that "a" can be a letter AND a word. We read the big books Baby Animals and Little on the SMARTboard this week. We became experts at reading from left to right, using our pointer finger when reading and being able to recognize and read the word "a" when we saw it in those books. At the end of each week, when we have proven we are experts at these books, the children receive small copies to keep in their individual book boxes. They will begin to re-read these familiar books at "Read to Self" time next week. We also read the poem Color Song daily because it has the word "a" in it many times. Each child now has a copy in their poetry folders as well. Next week we will learn about the word "I."
Daily 5: This is a chance for the teacher to pull small reading groups and to provide reading instruction at each student's individual ability. The students not meeting with the teacher will be practicing literacy skills with a partner or two at various centers. These centers might include listening to books on cd, literacy games or apps on the computers and ipads, rhyming games, using magnets to spell simple words, sorting activities at the pocketchart, etc. These are just a few of the many things they will be doing and it changes throughout the year. The goal is to meet with every child, every day during this time. While we have started Daily 5 in Kindergarten, reading groups don't typically begin until October or so.
Read to Self Time: This is a quiet time where students read independently from their book boxes. They re-read the familiar books they have learned (like the ones mentioned above from Shared Reading), familiar poems in their poetry folders and eventually books from the guided reading groups that will begin in October. They also have 2 "wish" books in their book boxes. These are books from our classroom library that they might not be able to read the words, but can most definitely read the pictures and enjoy the story that way.
Math: The teacher will provide math lessons to the whole group. Students will then practice these skills through individual, partner and/or group work in the forms of games, paper/pencil activities and more. This past week and for the next couple of weeks we are learning about 2-D and 3-D shapes.
Writing Workshop: The teacher will provide writing lessons that will guide the students as they make meaning in their illustrations and writing composition. Their writing will evolve as does their knowledge of letters and letter sounds. We encourage their "best guess" phonetic spelling of words. For example: if they are only writing a "c" for the word "cat", that is more than ok! They will learn more as time goes on! This week and next we are focusing on drawing, as that is an important part of writing. We are learning how to use shapes to help us draw people, animals, etc. Ask your child about their small writing notebooks and what shapes they used to draw a person this week!
Centers: This is a free choice play time that is so important for Kindergarten age students. We have many free choice play centers in our room: kitchen, Legos, dollhouse, board games, car rug...these are just a few! It allows the children an opportunity to engage in social play to learn cooperation, give and take, and sharing. It also allows them time to use their wonderful imaginations! Ask your child what center they went to this week!
Every other week our counselor, Ms. Harris, will visit our room for a 30 minute lesson. This week we learned all about what a school counselor is with a little help from Mrs. Potato Head!
Mr. Frerick's is one of our school aides. He helps with supervision duties before/after school, playground/lunchroom supervision and in classrooms. For the first few weeks of school he has been helping out in our classroom. He will soon move on to help other classrooms, but we sure enjoy our time with him! Kolten and Mr. Frerick's were twins this week!
Have a great 3 day weekend!
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