What a fun day!

During our snack time today, we had our class jar celebration! The kids were SO EXCITED! They got to wear their pajamas today, bring a stuffed animal and they got to eat snacks and read books in forts with flashlights! They LOVED it!! It was so cute to see them all having fun in the forts with all their friends and reading books to one another!

In structured literacy today, our lesson focused on reviewing and solidifying the letter Ss and Bb sound. We did a few practice pages in our workbooks and I was so impressed with how well they did on them and the BEST page was the "Roll and Read." I LOVED hearing them read words on the page that contained the letter sounds we have learned so far! They were smiling ear-to-ear reading the words and it was fun to see the confidence they are finding in themselves as beginning readers! Way to go, K-1! Today we also learned what a verb is and they got to practice identifying them in a sentence. A verb is an action word such as: running, sitting, eating, laughing, singing, etc. The kids have been doing such a good job identifying nouns, adjectives and now verbs in a sentence. I am amazed they were able to learn these concepts and apply them so well already! They did great showing me what they learned about verbs in their HMH workbooks today!

In math, they are learning number combinations to make up the number 5-10. Such as: 4 and 2 make 6 OR 5 and 2 make 7. They are doing a great job learning this new concept and applying what they are learning in doing the math workbook pages.

Since it's Johnny Appleseed's birthday tomorrow, we spent some of the afternoon learning about him and why he's so important. We listened to a Johnny Appleseed read aloud and they made a Johnny Appleseed project that I hung up the hallway. On the project they were able to show everyone what color apple is their favorite to eat: yellow, green or red. In this project, there was a lot of following directions to make the finished product and a lot of practice with fine motor skills (cutting with scissors and ripping paper). I was so proud of how well they all did. They turned out so cute! Way to go, K-1! Have a great weekend, everyone!

In structured literacy in the morning, we have continued to learn more letters with the sounds they make. We have learned the letter sounds for Mm, Tt, Aa and Ss. Tomorrow we will add letter Bb to our letter sound vocabulary. With each letter lesson, it has words that contains the letter sounds we have learned and it has been so exciting to hear them decode the words and read them outloud to me! Yay, K-1! We also have learned some heart words that they have gotten amazing at learning quickly! With learning these letters sounds and heart words, they are on their way to becoming wonderful readers!

In literacy, we are reading books about school and the parts of a book (front cover, title page, back of the book and pages). They are learning what they find on each part of the book and what it means. They are getting really good at telling me what an author and illustrator do. They are also learning that when they read the words on the page they should look at the picture to help them understand more what the words mean. We talked a lot about how letters make up words and words make up sentences. They are starting to learn about different kinds of punctuation too. In grammar, we have learned about nouns (singular and plural) and now we are learning about adjectives. They learned that adjectives are words that describe a noun. With some practice today, they did great identifying the noun and the adjective that described it. We did an adjective activity today and they did wonderful with it! Yay, K-1! They amaze me how much they are learning and how fast they are understanding taught concepts!

In writing, I have done a few directed draws with the class where I teach them how to draw an object and they follow my step-by-step directions until it's complete. When we have finished drawing, I ask them to add their own creative details and color it. I then walk around and ask them to tell me one complete sentence that goes along with their picture and I write it down for them in their journal underneath the picture. When everyone is done, I pick 4 friends (2 boys and 2 girls) to share their journal with the class. They tell us what they drew and read their sentence to us. They each get to call on 2 friends (a boy and girl) to give them a compliment about their journal entry. They LOVE getting to share their journal and it's fun to hear the cute compliments they give their classmates who are sharing.

In math, we are learning about numbers 5-10 and how to show those numbers on a ten-frame. They are learning how to write the numbers the correct way from top to bottom and understanding the quantity of each one. They LOVE math and are really enjoying learning the rhymes that help them form the numbers the correct way such as: For number 5 they learned " neck and tummmy with a hat on top." In social studies, we are continuing our civics unit where the topics have been: How do I get along with others? How do I make friends? How do I solve problems with others? and How can I be a good helper at school? My kindergarten friends are learning so much and with each day, they are becoming more and more independent as learners. I am so proud of all their progress and how much they are learning! Yay, K-1!

Learning letters

Today in class, we learned our 3rd HMH lowercase letter along with the sound it makes. My kindergarten friends are having so much fun learning the letters by learning the HMH motions and seeing the adorable little Alphafriends videos that go along with each one. So far we have learned all about the letters: Mm, Tt, and today we learned Aa. The motion for these letters are: For Mm you pretend you are a mouse eating cheese and say m, m, m, m. For Tt, you pretend like you are holding a taco with one hand and eating it saying t, t, t, t, t. For Aa, you pretend you are eating an apple with one hand and say a, a, a, a, a. Aa makes the short Aa sound NOT the long Aa sound. It makes the short sound like in apple, ax and astronaut. They are loving learning the letters and sounds and with these three learned letters, they were able to read a few words such as: a, as, am. To solidify the knowlege of these newly learned letters, they practiced writing how I taught them how to form the uppercase and lowercase letter correctly on the alphabet letter mats. On the back side of the mat, they had fo find things on the page that began with the new letter sound and circle them. If they finished early, they could color the things they circled. Next, we glued the letter we learned for the day in their soundbook and drew four things that began with the letter. They are excited to show you their work they did with learning these new letters and show off how well they can identify the letters and tell you the correct sound it makes. They even want to teach you the motion for the letters too. In the lesson today with the letter Aa, we learned two new heart words that we added to our word wall in the classroom. The new heart words we learned are: a, the. We practiced chanting the letters and we practiced using the heart word in a complete sentence. They all did such a great job learning both words and we added them to their heart word bag that contains all the color words too. Please practice these heart words and having your child say the letter name/sound with your child each day. The more they practice, the easier it will be for your child to recognize them quickly when they are reading and writing on their own. This helps build fluency and comprehension the quicker they are able to decode a word. This homework should only take a few minutes. Today, it took 7 seconds to run through all the heart words in their bag and say the letter name and sound of the letters we learned. Practice, practice, practice! Practice makes. better!

in math, we are continuing to learn all about numbers 6-10. Yesterday we learned all about 6 and today we are going to focus on learning about number 7. They are understanding the quantity of the number and how to count objects correctly so they get the right total. They are also learning how to form the numbers the correct way from top to bottom with cute rhymes I teach them! They are having so much fun in math and learning so much! Way to go, K-1!

In reading, we have been reading a few read-alouds from our HMH curriculum that are about school. The one yesterday was a poem book called Kindergarten Kids. This book contained many poems and we read a few of them to learn about what a poem is. They thought they were fun to read and some of them were silly. We learned that poems often have rhyming words, they don't always have complete sentences, can be about anything and often use the 5 senses when written such as how things look, taste, feel and smell. We also learned that poems can have a rhythem and you can have a beat on your knees as it is read out loud. They thought that was fun! With this book, we also learned about what context clues are and we practiced using that skill when reading some of the poems. We used the pictures to help us understand some words in the poems and we also look for words inside of words to help us understand a newly learned word. They loved this book and we had a great lessons with it this week! We are learning so much and I am blown away! In writing, we got our first journals where we have begun journaling. I have been doing directed draws with the class where I teach them how to draw something and they draw it in their journal following my step-by-step direction. They LOVE these! When we are done drawing, I ask them to add their own detail with pencil and color it with realistic colors. They are so creative and have such wonderful imaginations. As they draw in their journals, I walk around and I write down a sentence they dictate to me that goes with their drawing. They are learning that their complete sentence has to match their picture. They are having so much fun being authors and illustrators in their monthly journals. Today, I asked two boys and two girls to share their journals with the whole class where I projected their drawing on the whiteboard. When they were done sharing, they got to call on a boy and a girl to give them a compliment about their journal entry. Then we all clap for the person that shared! I love hearing the cute compliments they give one another and seeing my kindergarten frineds amazing work. They are also getting great practice sharing in front of the class so they are learning that talking in front of a group of people isn't scary! Yay, K-1! They are loving kindergarten and each day, they are growing more and more as independent learners while having so much FUN!