Embedded Files
Week of December 1st
English Language Arts~ In Knowledge, we learned about Johnny Appleseed before our focus shifted to deciduous and evergreen trees. The easiest way to remember the difference is evergreen trees are always green. They learned that plants provide 2 very important things for humans and animals to survive: oxygen and food. We saw pictures of corn and wheat fields, a rice paddy, and cotton crops. They learned about sap from rubber trees and maple trees. Lastly, we heard about George Washington Carver, who became famous for his love for and work with plants. In Skills, we went over the letter sounds we've learned so far and continued to work on chaining words.
Math~ During Number Corner this week, we've been tracking a bear every day on our calendar to see what position it will be in (inside the box, outside the box, to the left of the box, etc.); collecting pattern blocks in 4 different shapes; and counting down the days until winter break on a paper chain. They played a couple of games where they were adding 2 numbers together to find the total. We're also learning about the concept of doubling.
Science/Social Studies~ We began talking about the upcoming holidays and this week we started to learn about Hanukkah~ a Jewish celebration also known as The Festival of Lights. They learned about the menorah and how a candle is lit during each night of Hanukkah. The books Chanukah Lights Everywhere, Eight Candles to Light, and The Borrowed Hanukkah Latkes were read. It was a chilly week so the children colored in a hat and mittens to hang in the classroom.
Thank you all so much for the donations for our gift baskets!
Enjoy the weekend!
Week of November 24th
Here's a peek at our short week~
The /e/ sound was introduced and the children practiced writing lowercase e.
In honor of Thanksgiving, we listened to some read alouds~ Turkey Trouble, Bear Says Thanks, Feeling Thankful, and The Night Before Thanksgiving. The children also thought about their favorite thing to eat on Thanksgiving, something they were grateful for, and the ways they get ready for Thanksgiving. On Wednesday morning, we had a gratitude parade showcasing the things they created in their Explorers class with Mrs. Serafino.
The class was excited to meet with their 5th grade buddies and work on a craft as well as a turkey booklet.
Next week we'll resume our CKLA Knowledge unit about plants.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving break!
Week of November 17th
English Language Arts (ELA)~ In Knowledge, we revisited the life cycle of a plant. The story The Gigantic Turnip was read before working on a sequencing activity about the life cycle of a turnip. As our week continued, we learned more about flowers and the pollination process. They listened to a couple of stories about Polly the Honeybee where she shared the many ways honeybees help flowers and learned what the fruits of someone's labor meant. Some of our vocabulary words included nectar, pollen, pollination, and produce. During our Skills time, the following sounds were introduced~ /f/, /v/, /z/, and /p/. They practiced writing these lowercase letters, read words in a word bank before matching them to the correct picture, worked on a fish craft, and made paper plate pizzas.
Math~ In Math, we explored the concept of one more when we looked at a book titled Munch, Crunch What a Lunch! We also compared this book to Butterfly Countdown from last week. They learned how to play a few games that focused on the concept of one more and/or one less. The concept of equations was introduced as we looked at regular five frames with a combination of red and blue dots. We used numbers and symbols to write the number of dots of each color as an equation. They learned the meaning of the plus sign (putting 2 groups of objects together to form a larger group) and the equals sign (the same as).
Science/Social Studies~ Our reading lessons about the life cycle of a plant carried over to some of our Science lessons this week. In Social Studies, we looked at a Let's Find Out where we learned more about Indigenous people and some of the things they invented.
Enjoy the weekend!
Week of November 10th
Here's a peek at our short week:
In Knowledge, we began to learn about plants. We talked about how all living things have certain things in common such as needing food, water, and air and how plants can make other plants. Our world is filled with many different living things and some plants can only grow in certain environments. We explored what types of plants live in the forest, desert, underwater, and even inside our homes. They learned about the parts of a plant and practiced labeling them.
During Skills, we started a new unit. We learned about the sounds /n/, /h/, /s/and practiced their formation. During literacy centers the children made a nest for /n/ and a snake for /s/. Their Unit 3 books came home and there are some pages that can be completed for extra practice. You'll also see some pages for our first 3 tricky words~ one, two, three. Tricky words don't follow the typical sound patterns and can't be sounded out.
In Math, we talked about counting backwards or counting down as we listened to The Butterfly Countdown book. They also learned how to play a game called Butterfly Race.
In honor of Esme's birthday, her mom and dad came in to read They All Saw a Cat.
Have a fantastic weekend!
Week of November 3rd
English Language Arts (ELA)~In Knowledge, we continued to explore fiction, folktales, and introduced trickster tales this week. Trickster tales are stories about a character who outsmarts larger, stronger characters. Some of the stories we listened to included The Story of Jumping Mouse (Part 1 and Part 2), Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Tug-of-War. We reviewed the sounds we've learned thus far during our Skills time and continued to work on building words and reading them. The sound /i/ was introduced along with the formation and the kids made a letter i iguana.
Math~ We've started to compare 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional shapes during Number Corner. We're learning 2D shapes are flat while 3D shapes are solid. We started a new unit with an exploration of bicycles and wheels. As a class, we counted by 2s to 20, which was a bit tricky. They each drew a bicycle too, which we used to create a large graph and talk about some of the things we noticed. Everyone also tried to guess how many wheels it would be if everyone in our class rode their bikes to school.
Science/Social Studies~ In Social Studies, we talked about Veterans Day and checked out a special Let's Find Out about the Blue Angels. The children each colored an American flag and glued it to a popsicle stick. They were brought to some of our veterans at The Veterans Home in Holyoke. A huge thank you to all of the veterans!
On Friday, Molly's mom and sister Anna, joined our class for a special birthday read aloud. The class listened to Sheep in a Jeep and A Plump and Perky Turkey.
Enjoy the weekend!
Week of October 27th
English Language Arts (ELA)~ In Knowledge, the children listened to a few stories (The Three Billy Goats Gruff) and a folktale (The Wolf and the Seven Kids; Bremen Town Musicians ). They learned stories come from a person's imagination and folktales are stories that are passed from person to person orally or by word of mouth (instead of being written down). We reviewed character, plot, and setting and practiced retelling the stories we heard. During our Skills time, the sounds /t/, /d/, /o/, /c/ and /g/ were introduced. We worked on some fun crafts to help reinforce the sounds the letters make. Now that we have 2 vowels, the children have been practicing sounding out and reading CVC words (i.e. mat, dog, mad, etc.). They also worked on learning the formation of these lowercase letters.
Math~ We wrapped up Unit 2 and reviewed ordering numbers 1-10. The class learned how to play 2 new games Which Bug Will Win? and Beat You to 10.
Science/Social Studies~ We took a peek at 2 Let's Find Out papers~ Up All Night and Shine Bright Like a Diamond. Up All Night featured 2 nocturnal animals~ aye-ayes and bats. While Shine Bright Like a Diamond was about changes in the fall sky as it gets darker earlier and checking out twinkling stars. The class also listened to a couple of Halloween stories.
The class saw their buddies twice this week! On Monday, Mrs. Robinson (5th grade teacher) read Room on the Broom to both of our classes before the kindergarteners worked with their buddies on a sequencing activity. They saw them again on Friday when they came to our class before we walked together in the Halloween parade.
Have an amazing weekend!
Week of October 20th
English Language Arts (ELA)~ We wrapped up The Five Senses during our Knowledge time before starting a new unit a new one. Our new unit is all about fiction stories and it will focus on story elements (characters, plot, setting). This week we listened to Chicken Little and The Three Little Pigs. During our Skills time, we started learning about sounds which is really exciting! The sounds /m/ and /a/ were introduced. The children used mirrors to see what their mouths did when they made these sounds. They also worked on learning the formation of these lowercase letters.
Math~ The class learned about tallying this week and explored various groupings using craft sticks. We learned what we can do when we make a group of 5 (5th stick is placed diagonally across the other 4) and it’s called a "gate". The children thought about whether using this method made it easier to count (yes!). They practiced building numbers up to 10 using math mats and craft sticks. They've also been working on putting the numbers in order from 1-10 and matching various quantities to the correct number.
Science/Social Studies~ We wrapped up fire safety and started learning more about leaves. They listened to I Am a Leaf and The Leaf Thief. We also talked about some of the things that make us happy and started making a self portrait.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Week of October 13th
English Language Arts (ELA)~ We reviewed the five senses during the Knowledge portion of our day. The children were introduced to biographies and learned they are true stories about a person's life written by another person. They learned about Ray Charles, a famous musician who was blind. They watched a short video clip of him singing with Elmo on Sesame Street and listened to the song "Georgia on My Mind", written about the state of Georgia. We also learned about Helen Keller, a woman who was blind and deaf. We noticed many of the signs in our school have Braille. We've been working really hard on introducing literacy centers and this week we tried putting it all together. The children independently rotated between making a craft, having a working snack, exploring Boost (digital literacy program that's a component of CKLA) on their iPads, and doing some handwtiting (name practice). We love seeing their independence grow! During Skills we continued to work on blending sounds and focused on beginning sounds in words. We practiced adding a sound at the end of a word to create a new word. The children made loops using their pencil and played Roll & Write to review the various symbols we've been practicing (zigzags, x's, +'s, etc.).
Math~ We explored two color ten frames (some red dots while others were white) and practiced building what we saw using unifix cubes and individual ten frames. The number rack was introduced to the class, which places emphasis on the combinations of 5. They learned how how to use one as we focused on pushing the beads in groups rather than by 1. They also independently used number rack and explored them with a partner.
Science/Social Studies~ This week was all about fire safety! The children listened to several books including No Dragons for Tea; Stop, Drop, and Roll; and Pete the Cat: Firefighter Pete. The children looked at a Let's Find Out titled Be a Fire Safety Expert. We also had the opportunity to meet with our 5th grade buddies and work on a fun candy corn craft!
Have a great weekend!
Week of October 6th
English Language Arts (ELA)~ We continued to explore our 5 senses during our Knowledge lessons. This week we learned more about our sense of hearing, smell, and taste. While exploring our sense of hearing we learned that sound travels through the air in sound waves. When sound waves travel into your ear, they bounce off your eardrums. Once your eardrums get bumped by sound waves, they vibrate back and forth. It's also important to keep your eardrums safe from loud noises. We learned about smell receptors in our nose. The smell receptors tell our brain about the molecules we sniff. People can identify between 4,000 and 10,000 different kinds of smells! Our sense of smell works closely with our sense of taste too, especially when it comes to enjoying the food we eat. The tiny bumps on our tongue are called taste buds and there are over 10,000 taste buds in your mouth. In Skills, we worked on making zigzags, wavy lines, and spirals. We continued to work on sound blending and began to focus on initial sounds in words especially in our names.
Math~ This week we continued to focus on one to one correspondence and investigating the ten frame. The children worked on comparing and contrasting five frames and ten frames. We introduced the terms "more" and "less" when comparing 2 quantities. In our October Number Corner, we're noticing a pretty complex pattern and are using the terms up, down, left, and right. Some new math games were added to our math workplaces~ Pumpkin Bump, Roll a Pumpkin, and Count & Compare. We also finished up our number books and sent them home.
Science/Social Studies~ We continued to explore pumpkins this week. The class watched a video and learned about how to grow a really big pumpkin. Really big pumpkins can be turned into a boat because they float! They learned about the parts of a pumpkin and felt the inside of a real one. The children also used watercolors to paint paper pumpkins.
Our field trip to Brown's Harvest was so much fun and the weather was beautiful! Thank you to all of our chaperones for joining us!
Enjoy the long weekend!
Week of September 29th
Here's a peek at our short week together:
In Knowledge, we wrapped up Nursery Rhymes and Fables with a quick review. Our new unit was launched and it's all about our Five Senses. We started a new unit in Skills which focused on blending "chunks" of speech sounds.
In Math, we looked at five frames with 2 color dots and explored showing 5 with their fingers, but using 2 hands. They also looked at irregular 5 frames that showed red and blue dots in a different way (i.e. 2 blue, 1 red, 2 blue). We ended our week comparing a 5 frame with a 10 frame and looking at 10 frames before building what they saw.
Science was all about pumpkins! We listened to Pumpkin, Pumpkin and learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin. They also looked at a Let's Find Out about growing a square pumpkin.
In honor of Victoria's birthday her family joined us for a special read aloud, Buffalo Fluffalo.
Enjoy the long weekend!
Week of September 22nd
English Language Arts (ELA)~ In Knowledge, we wrapped up nursery rhymes before moving onto fables. Our final nursery rhymes included "Little Bo Peep"; "Little Boy Blue"; "Baa, Baa Black Sheep"; and "Humpty Dumpty". We talked a lot about beginning, middle, and end and continued to sequence our nursery rhymes. By Thursday we moved on to fables and learned they've been around for hundreds or thousands of years. Fables always have a story and a lesson to be learned, which is called a moral. The characters in fables are often animals. Fables usually have a problem that needs to be solved and as they solve the problem, they learn a lesson. The 2 fables we read were The Lion and the Mouse and The Dog and His Reflection. We also looked at the wordless version of The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney. We wrapped up our first unit in Skills. The children continued practicing various types of lines and explored making squares and triangles on vertical surfaces using Playdoh. We kept listening carefully for and counting words in sentences.
Math~ Patterns with up to 3 elements were explored this week. They listened for patterns and used their bodies to create (clapping, tapping, stomping, etc.) them as well as explored unifix cube patterns. The children continued to play games and use math manipulatives during their work place time. In our number booklets they've learned the formation of the number 1-5.
Science/Social Studies~ We explored some of our Let's Find Out papers~ Good Morning!; Can You Hear an Apple?; and Will You Be My Friend?. We're continuing to talk about our feelings and the feelings of others during our RULER lessons. The class has independently started to look at our Mood Meter and think about how they're feeling as they come into the classroom. The book When Sophie's Feelings Get Really, Really Hurt was read as well.
Enjoy the weekend!
Week of September 15th
English Language Arts (ELA)~ During Knowledge we explored more nursery rhymes including "This Little Pig Went to Market", "One, Two, Buckle My Shoe", "Star Light, Star Bright", "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", "Hickory, Dickory, Dock", and "Diddle, Diddle, Dumpling". The children looked at various objects from specific nursery rhymes to help us review them. They also added a picture from "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" into their notebooks before singing it to themself or to a friend. The vocabulary word "wonder" from this nursery rhyme prompted us to talk about some of the things we wondered about. They included how to build house, flying in a plane, going to the moon, how many people are in the world, how to drive, how the Earth was formed, and so many more. In Skills, we started listening to words in phrases and sentences. Breaking phrases and sentences into words sets the stage for breaking words into sounds. The children used playdoh to create vertical and horizontal lines as well as circles. We practiced writing circles with our pencils before learning about diagonal lines.
Math~ We wrapped up talking about fives and began introducing numbers up to and including 10. The children talked about the things they noticed about a 10 frame and how it was different from a 5 frame. We explored the number of dots on a set of ten frames and practiced using 2 hands to show the numbers we saw. As a whole group we matched numeral cards to a corresponding ten frame with the same number of dots. They learned how to play the game Beat You to 5 and it was added as an option to our math bin activities. In Number Corner, we've finished our 3rd week of collecting unifix cubes. This week there were 13 unifix cubes collected and the children compared it to the amount collected during week 1 and week 2. The cubes were also placed on 10 frames and we talked about counting on from 10 when a 10 frame is full.
Science/Social Studies~ In Science, we began talking about apples. The children listened to The Apple Pie Tree and sequenced the life cycle of an apple. Apples and More Apples was read and everyone shared their favorite apple. During our Social Studies time, the class worked really hard on finishing up our class charter and were so excited families were able to check it out at Open House. In honor of Xander's birthday, his mom came in to read the book Stuck. The kindergarteners were also excited to meet their 5th grade buddies this week!
Have a wonderful weekend!
Week of September 8th
English Language Arts (ELA)~ Our ELA is broken down into 2 components Knowledge and Skills. In Knowledge, we're exploring nursery rhymes and reciting them to help develop an awareness of language that will help them become better readers and writers. The traditional rhymes also help the students learn vocabulary and build phonemic awareness. Some of the nursery rhymes we listened to include "Roses are Red", "Ring Around the Rosie", "Rain, Rain, Go Away", "It's Raining, It's Pouring", "Jack Be Nimble", "Little Jack Horner", "Jack and Jill", and "Little Miss Muffet". During our Skills lessons, we've been working on auditory activities and prewriting activities. The auditory lessons are intended to increase awareness of environmental noises and/or words while the prewriting activities are intended to prepare students to write letters, words, and sentences. This week we worked on left and right discrimination, learning the tripod grip with our writing tools, and counting sounds. When we were discriminating between our left and right, we practiced shaking hands with our friends as we greeted them.
Math~ This week we focused on working with quantities within and including 5. Students will work on decomposing within 5 (5 is 1 and 4, etc.). They will also learn to subitize within 5 (quickly identify unstructured and structured quantities). We listened to some rhymes to help us write the numbers 1-5 and had some practice writing them.
Science/Social Studies~ We're continuing to work on building a classroom community and identifying our feelings. The Mood Meter was introduced~ it's a visual tool to help us identify and understand our emotions. There are 4 quadrants on the Mood Meter with each one a different color (red, blue, green, and yellow). The children thought about the feelings associated with each color and how they were feeling. It's a great tool to help them identify how they're feeling, understand how they're emotions are impacting them, and manage emotions effectively. We also listened to I'm Happy-Sad Today and Meesha Makes Friends. The book Chrysanthemum was revisited and we talked about how the main character was feeling in the story while she was at school. It was a great springboard for exploring how we would like to feel at school. Many friends said they wanted to feel happy, calm, comfortable, and have fun. This week we'll continue our conversation as we work on our class charter.
On Friday we had our first school-wide assembly and the children did such a great job!
Have a fantastic weekend!
Week of September 1st
English Language Arts (ELA)~ The book Listen Buddy by Helen Lester was read and we talked about what it meant to be a good listener. The children were excited to make and wear their "listening ears" headbands! We listened to Alma and How She Got Her Name and some friends even shared how they got their names. Your child may ask you about it this weekend. The book Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom was read and we thought about what a letter was (they make up our alphabet and help us build words). After the read aloud, they went on a scavenger hunt and wrote down all of the letters they found in our classroom. Talking about the alphabet continued before creating our first class book, Who's In Our Class?, with all of our friends' names.
Math~ We started Number Corner for September which includes our daily calendar, collecting unifix cubes, and exploring the number line. This month's calendar is all about shapes. The activities in Number Corner provide ongoing practice with counting, comparing sets and numbers, reading numbers on a number line, etc. In small groups the children continued to explore math manipulatives. Mrs. Salvatore brought in an extra pair of shoes and put it in the middle of our meeting group. The children took a look at the shoe and thought about ways we could describe it. We looked at the many colors of the sneaker, thought about whether it had velcro, or laces and compared it to our own shoes. We explored the many ways we can sort shoes (laces, velcro, color, type, etc.) and played the game "Guess My Rule". As our week went on we looked at 2 shoes, 5 shoes, and then 12 shoes. Every day we listened to the same Jack Hartmann song as we counted to 100 while moving our bodies.
Science/Social Studies~ We're continuing to work on building a classroom community and identifying ways to be kind to each other. Some of our read alouds included Be Kind; Try a Little Kindness; Have You Filled a Bucket Today?; and The Sandwich Swap.
Have a great weekend!
Week of August 25th
Wednesday~ What a wonderful first day of school! Our day was spent making new friends, using 2 of the tools in our kits (pencil and crayons), coloring our crowns, and learning about some of our routines. The morning was super busy and we even had 2 specials~ Explorers with Mrs. Serafino and Art with Mrs. Dembkowski. The day flew by in a snap and so many friends said they were exhausted by the end of the day. They all seemed to have a great time!
Thursday~ Using our mystery box, we introduced another new tool~ glue sticks. The children loved trying to guess what was inside the mystery box by how it felt and sounded. The book Too Much Glue was read and we talked about glue expectations. The class listened to The Family Book by Todd Parr and each drew a picture of our family. This work was saved as their first writing piece. We're working on using our pencils to write our name and draw our pictures, then using our crayons to color them. Chrysanthemum was also read and we talked about the importance of being kind to each other. We practiced writing our names and counting the letters in them.
Friday~ We listened to The Rainbow Fish and what it meant to be a good friend. Afterwards the children created their own rainbow fish to hang in our classroom. Mrs. Salvatore read Eating the Alpahbet, and we talked about the abc's. After our story, the children cut out paper letters and glued them in ABC order on a bowl to make alphabet soup. In their small groups they explored a new math manipulative (unifix cubes, pattern blocks, geoblocks, polydrons) with their friends. Various feelings were talked about and the children were able to list so many (mad, sad, angry, shy, excited, frustrated, etc.). We watched a short video featuring Riley from the movie Inside Out and tried to name the feelings we saw. The children also shared a time when they felt happy, sad, mad, disgusted, and scared.
Enjoy the long weekend!
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