Wrapping up Pushes and Pulls in Science

In science today, the kids had so much fun being scientists and wrapping up our last lesson with pushes and pulls. I had them work in a small group today where I asked them to create something that would help a ball to hit a plastic cup that was far away from it. When they start with a single push to the ball, the ball can change direction and will miss the cup. It is hard to push the ball hard enough on the carpet so it goes in the exact direction you want it so it can knock over the cup. It most instances, the ball will change direction when pushed and be hard to hit a target. Therefore, we talked about what they can build so their ball goes in the right direction when given a harder push and will be successful in knocking over the cup every time. They thought of building a pathway with books, blocks, etc. so that the ball had an edge to guide it down a pathway right toward the cup and will end with the cup knocking over. They all did such a great job problem solving and figuring out a successful solution together as a group. When they found something that worked, I asked them to draw it in their science journals. I asked them to make sure they did their best to draw what they designed so it looked close enough to what they built and to color it with realistic colors. Then we met as a class and talked about what they made and things that were successful and some that weren't. To end our unit, I read them a book called Pushes and Pulls to pull everything we learned all together in one book. They had so much fun being scientists today!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day, everyone! Our day today was filled with a lot of fun St. Patrick's Day activities and their favorite was making our paper leprechaun project. They did such a GREAT job following my step-by-step directions in making their own! They LOVED them so much that they were all giving their leprechauns'names. It was such a fun-filled day today!

Happy Friday!

In class today, we did a directed draw leprechaun today! I taught the class how to draw the leprechaun following my step-by-step directions until our drawing was complete. They all did a great job watching and listening to my directions to ensure they were drawing the right shapes on their papers. Way to go, K-1! When we finished drawing the leprechaun with pencil, we traced it with a black sharpie marker. Next, they colored specific things on their leprechaun specific colors. When we were done coloring, they got to use watercolor paints to paint the blue background. I was AMAZED with how wonderful ALL the leprechauns turned out! To finish the project they got to use their creativity to finish the prompt of: "At the end of the rainbow, I would find....." I loved reading all their responses and I was so proud of how well they sounded out the sentences they wanted to write! Way to go, kinder friends!

In math, we have been finishing up subtraction. We have been taking the concept of subtraction and practicing using it in subtraction stories within 10. They are loving the challenge of learning subtraction and have enjoyed showing me what they know when we use whiteboards on the rug during our group lessons or in their math books at their table spots. Wow! Way to go, K-1!

In literacy, we have been learning more about information text and learned some important features of those types of books. They have sometimes have a Table of Contents, Glossory and include digrams and lables to teaching you imoortant information about a topic. The recent book we read was about music and we got to learn about some different types of instruments and what parts they have such as: the violin, drums, trumpet, and keyboard. With reading these books we are also learning about what the "main idea" is of the book and we have practiced the things good readers do while reading books. They are things such as reading from left to right, top to bottom, paying attention to unknown words and stopping to figure out what the meaning is to a word they don't understand. This is important so that the text they are reading makes sense and they are understanding what they read which in turn helps them with comprehension. We also have learned about using our reading finger to "frog hop" to each word as they read to ensure they are reading every word on the page and not skipping any by accident. It's important that when they read, they use these skills so that the text they are reading makes sense and they are able to comprehend and remember what they read. In phonics, we are learning about all the "tricky" digraphs in more detail. We are getting a lot of great practice re-learning the sounds and having a lot of opportunity to read and write words that have the learned sounds within the words. I am amazed with how well they are remember these tricky digraphs and how well they are recognizing them quickly while reading and writing on their own. AMAZING! We have also been practicing writing letter on whiteboards as well to ensure we are writing them correctly on the lines and forming them from the top to bottom. Way to go, K-1! During this time of day we have also been learning about the long e and short e and practiced finding them in words. We have discussed how words can have multiple meanings too such as the words: bat (the animal or something a baseball player uses to hit a ball) and bark (the cover of a tree trunk or the sound a dog makes). We have learned about when have a group of objects you add an -s to a word to show there is more than one and in some cases you add an -es. We did a few activities with learning this concept. They are learning so much in kindergarten and it's truly amazing!

We have also been getting a lot of great pratice learning our heart words. The class especially LOVED the "Roll and Write" activity they did with heart words yesterday. They were so excited to see what heart word would make it to the top first!

In science we are continuing to learn all about pushes and pulls. They are loving this science unit and all the hands-on science experiments we are getting to do along with it. They are all WONDERFUL scientists and are doing such a great job recording their observations in their science journals. WOW!

What a fun week in K-1! I am so PROUD of what wonderful readers, writers, mathematicians, and scientists my kinders have become! THey are all doing amazing and I am so very, very proud!!