How can it be March 1st tomorrow?

With today being the last day in February, we made our March calendars. The class LOVES making these and there are a lot of important skills imbedded in this fun project. Cutting practice, problem solving, coloring in the lines, writing numbers in order the correct way, and learning how we can create different shapes with one shape by making a few strategic cuts. They were so excited about making their March calendars because they were pots of gold with a rainbow. They all turned out so cute and my kinders did an EXCELLENT job following my step-by-step directions!

In math, we have begun learning subtraction within 10 and I am so proud of how quicly they have picked up this challenging new math concept. I have been teaching it in a hands-on way so that my kinders are understanding what subtraction truly means and are understanding the concept by manipulating objects understanding the quantity of each number in the equation. They are also understanding how to write a subtraction sentence too and how to read it properly as well. They have become subtraciton experts already and we just started learning it on Monday. I am so impressed!

In Literacy, we have just finished up reading information text books about how to keep our bodies healthy and are now reading books around the theme "I can do it!" With each story, we have been discussing the characters, setting and main idea of the book. We have also discussed what genre the book is in whether it's fiction or non-fiction and why they believe it is that genre. We have learned about fables and how we can identify if a story is one such as it has talking animals and it teaches the reader a life lesson. We are loving our literacy time in kindergarten and learning so much as readers with each story we read together! In structured literacy, we have been digging more into digraphs and understanding them more. We have been doing many activities where my kinders are asked to plug those "tricky" digraphs in their writing or they are getting a lot of practice reading words/sentences/stories with those digraphs in them. Digraphs and vowels are ALWAYS hard for my kinders to understand and with practice, they will come! With all our literacy lessons and word work time, I am amazed with how much my kinders are growing as readers and writers! They truly are AMAZING!! I have enjoyed meeting with my guided reading groups each week where they all get to show off what wonderful readers and writers they are becoming! Way to go, K-1! In SEL, we are learning how to recognize and regulate our emotions and have been doing a lot of lessons focused on helping them to realize how very special they are and how everyone is unique and different. We are learning how we can treat eachother with kindness and be good helpers and listeners to everyone around us. I have a wonderful class of 18 friends who bring me such JOY everyday! I am so amazed with all of their growth and feel very thankful I get to be their teacher this year!

Fun week!

With it being President's Day this week, we have been learning about some of our very important presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. Earlier this week, we made Abraham Lincoln and today we made George Washington. This project had some difficult pieces to make and I was SO PROUD of how well the class did cutting the pieces and putting it all together. Here are some pictures of my adorable K-1 friends with their George Washington projects.

In math this week, we wrapped up our unit on addition within 10. They have LOVED learning addition and I am so amazed with how quickly they are able to tell me the sum of two numbers without using their fingers to help! Inside of this unit, we have also learned addition stories and they have done a great job listening to the stories, plugging in the numbers and figuring out the total. Next week, I will begin the subtraction unit and I have a GREAT feeling they will learn it fast too! I have taught them the concept already and next week, they will get a lot of good hands-on practice learning it and showing me what they learned.

In literacy, we have been reading a lot of non-fiction, information text books where we have learned about all the wonderful features of them. We have discussed how they are different from fiction books too. The books we have read, have all been about how we can keep our bodies healthy. With each book we have read, we have had a lot of great discussions about the information we have read. It's been fun doing this unit with the class. We have learned nouns and verbs, open and closed syllables and we have also learned about poems too. Some of the information I have taught the class seems very challenging and I am AMAZED how quickly they are learned it and can put it into practice on their own! In writing, we have continued to work on the things that "good" authors and illustrators do. Their journals are the time in the day when they get to use their creativity and show me how much they are learning and growing as writers. They are all able to draw a very detailed picture, color it with "realistic" colors and label it with their "brave spelling." They can also write 2 or 3 very good complete sentences to match the pictures they have drawn. They are doing such a good job starting their sentences with a capital letter, ensuring they put finger spaces between the words and add punctuation at the end. They have been writing their HEART words with the correct spelling when adding them in their sentence and doing a fabulous job sounding out the words they want to write using their "brave spelling." I LOVE seeing how well they are recognizing and writing the digraphs within the words they want to write. Those digraphs are "tricky" and we have been working on them alot! Way to go, K-1!

During our school day, the room is full of smiles, giggles, laughter and AMAZING learning! I could not be more proud of my kinders! They blow me away with all they are learning each and every day! I also LOVE the playtime we have with one another! The all treat eachother with such kindness and you can see the joy in their faces with the fun they all have together! I play with them during this time too and it fills my heart! Today I played Candyland with a group of 5 friends and I loved the turn-taking, the fun they were having and the care they showed eachother when someone won and other were sad. We have so much fun spending time with one another and they learn SO MUCH through play here at school! Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Happy President's Day!

In honor of it being President's Day today and having school on this special holiday, we learned a little about Abraham Lincoln and George Washington. After we learned about them, we made a paper Abraham Lincoln project that was a listening and following directions activity. Their projects turned out AMAZING! They had so much fun learning about these very important presidents today!

100th Day Fun!

We had such a fun 100th Day of kindergarten today! The room was full of smiles, giggles and lots of fun energy! They kept telling me it was the best day ever! It melted my heart! We did a lot of 100 day activities to celebrate our 100th day. We read the story 100 Day Worries, made a necklace with 100 beads by making groups of 10 by color until the necklace was complete, drawing what we'd look like if we were 100. We also made puppet where I took their picture and we created what they would look like if they were 100 too. The puppets turned out SO cute and they LOVED them! We also did a Jack Hartman video where we exercised counting to 100 counting by 1's. It was such a fun day! With 100th day fun in the morning and the valentine's day party in the afternoon, I know this will be a day they will remember forever! Thank you to all the room reps and all the parent volunteers who came today to host an AMAZING Valentine's Day party! It was so much fun! Here are some pictures I took of our 100th Day fun today:

We made puppets of what we would look like if we were 100. They LOVED making these!

We counted our 100 day collection by making 10 groups of 10 and skip counting up to 100 when they were done sorting. They are all experts at counting to 100 by 10's now! Wow!

We made 100 day necklaces where they made 5 groups of 10 (50 beads) and put on the "100th Day" medallion and then added the next 50 beads by making 5 groups of 10 to total 100 all together. They were so proud to wear their finished necklaces when they were done! Way to go, K-1!