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!