Fun Friday

With today being "Fun Friday," I did a directed draw pumpkin with the class today. They all did such a wonderful job following the step-by-step directions until their whole pumpkin was drawn on their paper! These activities help my kindergarten friends in many ways as learners such as developing their fine motor skills and helping them to strengthen their ability to follow directions and problem solving skills. They were so excited about this activity and they had so much fun adding their own creative details when they were done. They couldn't wait to bring them home to show them to you!

In math, we are finishing up Chapter 2 and will take a math assessment on Monday to see what they have learned. This unit focused on numbers 1-10 helping them to understand the quantity of each number and how to write the numbers the correct way. They learned how to show each number in a ten frame and that each number can have many combinations to equal that desired number. We also learned about ordinal numbers too. This unit brought a great challenge to them and I have loved seeing how much they have grown in math. Way to go, K-1!

In structured literacy, we have learned some more letters and sounds that they make. With learning more letters, they are growing as readers and writers. I am amazed with how quickly they are able to blend the sounds together to read and write! It's so fun to see! We are also learning about the structure of a sentence. Today's lesson focused on how a sentence is a group of words put together to tell a complete thought or idea. We also learned that sentences have to start with an uppercase letter and have some type of punctuation at the end. If a sentence is asking a question, there will be a question mark at the end. If a sentence is written to show excitement there will be an exclamation point at the end. If a sentence is written to share an idea or thought, it will have a period at the end. We learned that when we read sentences with a question mark or exclamation point our voice fluctuates to represent that when we read it. My kindergarten friends are growing so much as learners each day and I am amazed each day as I have the amazing opportunity to teach them! I am so proud of all of them! Have a great weekend, everyone!

October Already?

We have been busy owls in K-1 today! We made our October calendars where it was good practice writing numbers 1-31 in order. I wanted them to make sure they were forming the numbers the correct way from top to bottom and that the numbers were facing in the right direction. They all did a GREAT job! They LOVED making this calendar because they got to use their own creativity into turning the backside into a jack-o-lantern with black and white paper. They all turned out so cute! They couldn't wait to bring them home to show to all of you!

In math, we are learning about ordinal numbers. This concept was "tricky" for them so I have been doing a little extra with my kindergarten friends to make sure they are understanding it. They did great on our ordinal number activity today! Great job, K-1!

In structured literacy we have been learning more letters and the sounds that go with them. We are learning to blend them together to read words and write them on their own. I am AMAZED with how well they are reading and writing words with the learned letters/sounds we have learned so far! It has been so exciting seeing them grow as readers and writers! We are also continuing to work on rhyming, syllables and identifying what sound they hear in the beginning and end of words.

In reading, we are continuing to learn about parts of a book, authors/illustrators, and identifying the characters, setting, and main idea of books we read together. We are also continuing to solidify their knowledge of nouns, verbs and adjectives. I am amazed with all they are learning and how much they have grown as learners! Remember we have a day off tomorrow (Thursday) due to Yom Kippur but school will resume back on Friday for our pajama/stuffie day. Have a great night, everyone!

What a week in K-1!

We have had a fantastic week in K-1! In math, we have been learning how to compose and decompose numbers within 10. We have learned that different combinations that make up a certain number such as 8 can be made of: 1 and 7, 2 and 6, 3 and 5, 4 and 4, 8 and 0. They are doing great learning this new math concept and showing me what they learned in their math workbooks!

In structured literacy, we have been learning more letters and sounds and have begun blending them together to read new words. I LOVE hearing them read words all on their own and seeing the pride in their faces as they realized they are readers now! It is so exciting! I am thrilled with the progress they are making learning their "new" heart words too. We practice them daily here at school and I love hearing them read with confidence as I flip through all the words. Please continue practicing the heart words and letter names/sounds with your child each day! It helps to build automaticity which in turn helps them becoming strong, fluent readers. During this part of our day too we have been working on rhyming, syllables, and writing too. They are learning how to write the uppercase and lowercase letters on the lines the correct way from top to bottom. They are doing a wonderful job!

In our literacy block in the afternoon we have been learning a lot in HMH about nouns, verbs, adjectives. We did a little noun/verb sort this week and I was so impressed with how well they did sorting them in the right column. They definitely know what a noun and a verb is! Great job, K-1! We have also been reading some informational text books and talking about what features those specific books have. They love reading them! They like seeing all the real pictures and learning about things in the world! I LOVE the connections my kindergarten friends are making with the things we are reading in class! We have also continued to learn about the features of a book and what a good reader does while reading a book. They have been learning so much in our reading block in the afternoon and I am so proud of them!

Today is Johnny Appleseeds birthday so I took some time to teach my kindergarten friends about Johnny Appleseed and we did a little project to go with it. They made themselves as Johnny Appleseed and they got to choose what color apple they wanted to put on their project. To make the apple, they put glue on the image and they tore the color construction paper that matched that apple. They added the paper until the image was filled in. It was great for building on their fine motor skills. Next they made the face on top and got to pick hair that was the same color as their hair. I asked them to cut the hair a specific way following my step by step directions. The boys had one strip and the girls had 3 to make long hair if they wanted to. They turned out so cute! They are drying over the weekend but I will send them home with your child on Monday.

Middle of the week fun

We’ve been making wonderful progress in our kindergarten curriculum, and one of the most exciting milestones has been learning three letters and their sounds through our HMH program. Even more exciting—we’ve started blending those sounds together to read words in different combinations! The kids are doing a fabulous job, and they were so proud of themselves today when I told them I couldn’t stop smiling because they were all reading! Their faces lit up with the biggest smiles as they realized—they're readers now. It was absolutely adorable. In addition to learning how to read words, we’ve also been exploring the parts of a book. We’ve talked about what we see on the front cover and back cover, and how to hold and read a book the correct way. The class has been so engaged during these lessons and is really starting to understand how books work. We’re also continuing to reinforce what we’ve learned about nouns and adjectives, helping to build a strong foundation in language. It’s been such a joy watching their confidence grow each day!

In our HMH structured literacy book, we’ve been reinforcing those letters and sounds with a variety of fun activities. My favorite was an activity where the students rolled a die and read a word from the column matching the number they rolled. After reading the word, they colored in that space on their work mat. I had so much fun walking around the classroom, listening to them sound out words and read them independently—it was amazing!

In math, we’ve been working on putting numbers in order up to 10 and also practicing counting backwards. Counting backwards is a bit tricky for them, but with continued practice, they’re getting better and better at it. I’ve also started introducing different ways to make each number from 1 to 10 using various combinations. They’ve really enjoyed the challenge of this concept! It’s so rewarding to see how well they’ve grasped these math concepts when they complete the independent pages in their math workbooks—I’m so proud of their progress!

This week, I began using Amira, an AI reading assistant that’s part of our literacy program. Amira is available to students on their iPads, and when they open the app, they connect with her using headphones and the iPad’s microphone. The program listens to students as they read aloud and then provides personalized reading instruction based on their fluency and skills. We only spend about 15 minutes with Amira at a time, but even in that short session, she offers valuable, individualized reading support that helps students grow as readers. The students LOVE their time with Amira and really enjoy the personalized coaching they receive! We'll continue using this app a few times a week in short sessions to support and encourage their reading development.

In Social Studies, we are continuing with our Civics unit, but today we focused on the question, "How Do I Make Friends?" During the lesson, we explored various scenarios that the characters in the story faced, and we discussed different ways they could problem-solve and build friendships. The students came up with so many wonderful ideas! This class is incredibly caring, kind, and very in tune with their feelings. We've had many meaningful discussions through our Social Emotional Learning (SEL) lessons and Social Studies. They are excellent at identifying ways to turn negative emotions into positive ones, as well as figuring out how to support others who may be experiencing difficult emotions. It's been a great week and I am so proud of everything my kindergarten friends are learning!

Monday Fun!

In HMH reading, we have been learning all about adjectives. We learned that authors use adjectives in their writing to help readers create a detailed picture in their mind while reading. They have gotten a lot of practice identifying adjectives in sentences and have a good understanding that the adjectives describe and provide more information about the noun. I am amazed with my kindergarten friends' ability to identify the noun and the adjective in a given sentence. Today we also learned about article adjectives which are a specific type of adjective (a, an or the) that come before a noun to indicate if the noun is general or specific. After the lesson today, we did some work in our HMH workbooks to show me what they learned. My little owl are like sponges soaking in each and every thing I am teaching. So fun to watch them all growing as learners each and every day!

In math, we learned all about the number 10 today learning how to write it the correct way and understanding the quantity as well. My kindergarten friends are learning that when they are counting they have to be careful so they don't miss one when counting. I have taught them to cross out things when counting to ensure they have counted all the objects correctly one by one. I told them that math his tricky because if they make one little mistake when doing the math problem, it can throw the whole answer off. They just have to be careful when working with numbers. They all did such a great job learning about 10 today!

In structured literacy, we reviewed the two letters and sounds we learned last week which are the letters "Mm" and "Tt." We did a few pages in our structured literacy workbook to check for understanding and provide a little more practice solidifying these sounds. In HMH, we are learning the letters/sounds slowly to ensure they are learned, practiced and solidified. They did great showing me what they learned about these two letter sounds! Yay, K-1!

In social studies, we began our Civics unit titled "How I get along with others?" To help us understand this concept, we helped guide two monsters in the lesson through various senerios identifying who should be doing the talking and who should be doing the listening. After identifying that, I asked them to tell me why they thought that. They did a great job with the lesson today. This lesson helps my friends learn the following: 1. Understand what it means to get along, 2. Identify helpful, courteous, fair, compassionate, and responsible behaviors. 3. Identify reasons for rules at home and at school. Tomorrow we will be continuing to learn more about this concept. Have a great night, everyone!