What a FUN week!

What a fun week in K-1! My little owl friends have been doing AMAZING and have learned so much! Here are some things we have been learning this week:

In literacy, we have been learning more letters with their sounds and have practiced these newly learned sounds into reading more and more words. I am amazed with how well my kinder friends are recognizing the letters in new words and how quickly they are able to blend them to read. I am also SO PROUD of how well they are writing now that they have learned so many letters/sounds! They are doing such a great job beginning to write words on their own with their "brave spelling!" I am blown away! Way to go, K-1! They are also doing a great job recognizing and writing their heart words too! I can tell they are practicing at home! Yay! We have also been reading many books where we have been learning about fiction/non-fiction, informational text, verbs, nouns, and learning skills that good readers do when reading a new book. 

We have been learning about word families too and practicing sorting words in the right word family. They have also LOVED having the chance to read the word family words on their own too. I LOVE any chance I get to hear them read new words! Yay, K-1!

In social studies this week, we have been learning about American holidays and the importance of each one. They have enjoyed learning about them and telling me what they have learned in our lessons this week!

In math, we finished measurement last week so we began a new chapter this week about comparing numbers to 10. We have been working on the skill of comparing two sets of objects using more than. They are doing a great job learning these new math concepts. One of the activities we did this week was a counting "Write Around The Room." They LOVED this activity and had so much fun finding all the hidden pictures around the classroom and recording on their sheets how many objects there were on each picture card. This helped them strengthen their skill of counting along with writing the numbers the correct way. 

We are plugging along here in K-1 and I can't tell you how proud I am of ALL of them! They have all begun reading and writing and are doing such a great job implementing what they have learned into their school work! They have all really grown too as learners and are doing such a great job with listening, following directions and trying their very best every day! We filled our class pom-pom jar last week so we came up with ideas and voted on how we wanted to celebrate. The idea that won was to have "show and tell." We had it today and they were so excited to share their special item with everyone in the class. Everyone was a great audience as each friend shared and I allowed each person sharing to call on one friend to ask them a question about what they brought. They all did great speaking in front of the class and answering their friends' questions. Way to go, K-1!

Measurement

 We have been busy owls this week! We have been learning so much with our literacy curriculum, math, and social studies. The highlight of our day today was doing a hands-on lesson where my kinders got to measure objects we had in the classroom with cubes. They had to measure things on their own and record ABOUT how many cubes long they were. We learned that when they measure things with cubes it may not be exact. They loved having the opportunity to take what they learned in our math unit and show me by completing this activity in class. They did so much better than I expected and I was so proud of them! They measured things perfectly and got all the right measurements. I was so proud of them! Way to go, K-1 friends!

Five Little Pumpkins

It was a fun filled Friday in K-1! All my little owls have been very busy learning letters/sounds, "new" heart words, parts of a book in literacy, measurement in math, handwriting, and "how to solve problems" in social studies. Today I did a fun "Five Little Pumpkins" project with the class and they had so much fun following my step-by-step directions in making their own! We learned the rhyme with the motions and did this fun step-by-step little pumpkins project. I am SO proud of everything my kindergarten friends have learned already! They are growing a lot as learners and I couldn't be more proud of ALL of them!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

What a Wednesday!

 We have been plugging right along in K-1 and learning LOTS and LOTS!! They have come a long way since the first day of school and sometimes I have to remind myself that they are still kindergarten. They have become the BEST listeners and are doing such a wonderful job working independently at their seats to show me what they have learned in each lesson. I am so impressed with their ability to follow directions as well to show me their best work! Way to go, K-1! I am also so proud of the way they treat eachother and how kind and respectful they are with one another too! It's a great group of kiddos and I feel very lucky I get to teach them ALL DAY! 

In literacy, we have been studying poems and we have discussed how some have rhyming words and some don't. We have been finding the rhyming words in the poems and I am impressed with how quickly they can identify them and tell me why they rhyme. We talked about how poems have a rhythm and we clapped a rhythm with a few of the poems we have read. We talked about how poems don't have to follow the rules where some don't have complete sentences. We have had a lot of fun learning about poetry this week! We have also learned about verbs this week too. Yes..I said that right! We learn about what a verb is in kindergarten. We learned that a verb is an action word and we did various activities to practice finding verbs or naming verbs. We did a cute pumpkin activity that goes along with it and I hung them all in the classroom to enjoy for this month. We have also learned all about syllables too!

In phonics, we have continued to learn a few more letters and sounds and how to write the uppercase and lowercase letters so they are sitting on the lines the correct way. My kinders LOVE watching the Alphafriends videos to learn the names of the animal that goes with each letter! They have learned the letters and sounds quickly and I am impressed with how well they are starting to blend them together to read words! Yay, K-1! Along with learning the letters/sounds, we have also learned some new heart words that we have added to our heart word rings! Remember that I want my kinder friends to practice these words daily so they become automatic for them. I want them to be able to name each word within 3 seconds. The quicker they recognize these words, the more fluent they will be able to read which in turn helps with comprehension. 

In writing, we have been working on learning how write our newly learned letters on the lines the correct way and we have also begun journaling. I have done a few directed draw lessons where I have taught them how to draw something in their journal and then I have asked them to add their own detail so that they have the opportunity to grow as illustrators. They LOVE adding detail to the pictures, coloring them with crayons and trying to label them using their "brave spelling!" Some of my friends have even begun to try to write a sentence too on the lines below their drawing. I am so proud of them! The more we write, the more confident they will become and the easier it will get too. Today, I did a directed draw lesson where I taught them how to draw a frog and then they added their own detail, color and labeling. I was so impressed with all of their drawings and how nice and neat they colored their pictures and what brave spellers they are becoming!

In math, we have been learning all about measurement! We learned about the concept of "shorter and longer" and they have been doing a great job practicing this skill in their math workbooks. We have also learned how they can use objects to measure other than just a ruler such as cubes, paperclips, or blocks. If they use objects to measure they have to use the same object to measure both things to ensure they get an adequate answer of height or length. For example: if they were measuring a book and a glue bottle they couldn't see how many paperclips high the book is compared to how many cubes the glue bottle is. They have to measure the book and glue bottle with paperclips to see how many paperclips high both are to get a good measurement. We practiced this new skill and they are enjoying learning about measurement this week!

In social studies they are learning about how to solve problems with others. We have had a lot of great discussions as we have done the social studies lessons together! We learned that when there is a problem we should do these 4 things:

1. Stop and calm down.

2. Say what the problem is.

3. Solve it by thinking of solutions together.

4. Vote on what solution is the best and try it.

It's been a great week in K-1! They are growing as learners and learning A LOT!!! I am so thrilled with all their amazing progress! Have a great night, everyone!

Happy October!

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 can't wait to bring them home to show to all of you!