Math and phonics with our names and the alphabet!

Hi Everyone!!

Whew!! Week two of school flew by, even with it being INCREDIBLY hot!!  We had a lot happen last week, including beginning our Reader's and Writer's Workshops!! The kiddos have been doing SO WELL with both subjects, I'm very proud!

Ms. K has taken over Writer's Workshop and has been doing an AWESOME job.  This week, the lessons focused on encouraging the students to try their best and work independently.  The class also spent a lot of time talking about how our pictures and words can work together to tell a story!!  (Teacher;s- Click here to access Deanna Jump's Writing Through the Year, Unit 1)

Starting our workshop time with a mini lesson!!

Our pictures and words tell a story as we add to our writing portfolios.

During our Reader's Workshop this week we learned all about being respectful, to our teacher, our classmates, and the books in our classroom.  We practiced good listening skills, proper book handling techniques, and how to read without disturbing others. We also got to look at some of the really cool books in our classroom!!  (Teachers- This link takes you to "Blasting Off With Reader's Workshop" by Kim Adsit)

.

Mini Lesson!!  Are you a book lover or a book bully??

Reading groups with our book bins :)

We also started Daily News, Calendar Books, AND Word Explorers this week (we had a lot of new stuff happening!!)

Each morning, we will complete a Daily News before Calendar Books.  The Daily News helps us review skills we have been working on in class.  It's a great way to warm up our brains and start our day!!

Word Explorers are one way we practice sight words and word families.  We complete a Word Explorer sheet four times a week (we were a little light last week).  Each time we do Work Explorers we will start with four "Word Family" words or Sight Words.  We spell the words, box them, and cheer them (the fun part!!).  Then we will play one of the four games at the bottom to give us further practice with the words.  Look for these sheets to be coming home, A LOT!  (Teachers- check out this great resource from Deedee Wills here.)

We also had some thematic fun this week with our names and the letters in the alphabet.  (Many of these activities came from Deanna's Alphapalooza and Fun with Names units!!  The Chicka Chicka measurement trees were an original idea from me.)

We read the book "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom", drew our own Coconut trees, and then used letters from the alphabet to practice nonstandard measurement.

We read the book "Chrysanthemum" to kick off our names activities.  I love this story!!

We created cub trains and paper trains with the letters in our names.  After we were finished, we used words like "shorter" and "longer" to compare and contrast our names.

We worked with partners to complete this fun Venn diagram, comparing the letters in our names and our partners names.

We worked so hard and did a great job using our fine motor skills to create these fun rainbow names.  After we made the names we compared all of our names to each make our own graph!

FINALLY, we finished our Pete the Cat drawings that we started last week in art!!!

Tomorrow, we will begin a unit on apples that will incorporate math, science, and literacy.  This is one of my favorite units of the year and I am really looking forward to it (I'm also looking forward to some cooler temperatures!!)

:) Mrs. Rogers

Back to School!!

Hello All!!

What a fun week we had getting back into the swing of things!  Ms. K has been a HUGE help and has done an amazing job working with the kiddos, I'm so glad she is a part of our classroom family this year!  Here's our back to school photo!!

This week we spent a lot of time working on routines, rules, following directions, and proper use of school materials.  I was so impressed by how well the boys and girls have transitioned back into school this week :)

On Monday we drew pictures of ourselves, we will draw pictures again the last week of school so we can see how much we have grown!!  (Teachers- I can't remember which back to school unit this came from, sorry!!  I will check Monday when I get back to school and update with a link :))

Tuesday was "Monster Day"!!  We read the story, "The Day a Monster Game to School" and learned about above and below the line behaviors.  We also read some monster books, made a glue monster, and did a "directed drawing" of a monster that we later water colored.  (Teachers- These drawings were inspired by Deanna's blog post and the glue monster is from Caitlin Clabby)

We finished off the week with some "Pete the Cat" fun!!  We started off on Wednesday reading some Pete the Cat stories and made our own class book based on the stories!  (Teachers- This one was my idea but I don't own the license to the shoe Clipart so I can't give it as a freebie, please feel free to steal the idea though!!)

We also made "Colorful Cat:" glyphs.  We will make glyphs at least once a month all year, they help us work on our fine motor and listening skills.  They also help us practice following directions AND we are able to analyze and (eventually) write about the data when we are finished!!  (Teachers- these are from Deanna's Colorful Cats Unit!!)

In art, we completed a directed drawing of Pete the Cat, next week we are going to work on coloring him!!  (This idea came from Heidi's Songs, that link is an AWESOME and FREE Pete the Cat resource!)

Finally, in science we did a super neat rainbow experiment (just like Pete's shoes!!).  We used milk, food coloring, dish soap, and cue tips to observe a chemical reaction!   (Teachers- this experiment is also from Deanna's Colorful Cats Unit!!)

Next week we are doing two "mini themes", we will be doing activities with our names on Monday and Tuesday and will be doing a "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" unit Wedneday, Thursday, and Friday!  Can't wait to see you all on Monday!

:) Mrs. Rogers

PS- A little brag moment for me, here's our (tiny) new house!!

Getting wordsy!

Hi parents!

I hope everyone made it home safely today! We've been working really hard to hear up for first grade! I tried switching up our morning work last week from handwriting to sight word work. The kiddos were given a word (or two) to use in a sentence and then illustrated their sentences! (Teachers- this great idea came from Chalk Talk!)

We also made these fun snowmen with our names and did a graphing project! (Teachers, this fun idea came from Growing Kinders)

Finally, I can't wait for you to see the ADORABLE Abraham Lincoln project they have been working on, coming home tomorrow!

Looking forward to our Seuss Week next week!

:) Mrs. Rogers

New centers and some winter fun!!

Hi Parents!!

We started new Valentines Day centers last week! We're working really hard to cooperate as a group and work together. Here are a few pictures:

Unscrambling and writing sentences.

Sorting pictures by medial sound.

CVC word board game.

Reading color words.

Roll the dice, stamp above the matching blend.

Reading and writing sight words.

Some other things that went on last week:

We finished our Reader's Workshop Unit, "Discovering Patterns" (Kim Adsit)!!!!  We celebrated all our hard work on Friday by making these super cute pattern detectives!

Fridays have become "Fun Fridays" in Kindergarten!  We made these snowman glyphs on Friday (for you teachers, this idea came from Growing Kinders).  The kids had fun expressing themselves through their snowmen :)

The PTL Silent Auction is next Saturday evening!!  Our class made this super cool mirror that will be up for bidding!  Come and enjoy this fun time!!



I hope you had a GREAT 3 day weekend!!  :)  Mrs. Rogers