Highlight Reel #19

Something pretty special happened this week.  Our learning goal was to understand what a setting is and identify the setting of a text.  I chose a book called, "The Lion Inside".  

We have read this one before and the kids have recently been requesting to read it again. Because of our previous experience with it, I knew our kiddos could focus on the setting this time around rather than the story (and it is a fantastic one).  We got to a page that showed clearly where the events were happening. 

                                        

One student suggested that the setting might be the woods, because she saw trees. We like to explore multiple ideas in our class so I asked if anyone was thinking anything different.  Another student shared that he thought it might be the Savannah.  He explained that lions don't live in the woods they live in the Savannah.  We went back to the original student to see if her thinking had changed.  She decided that it had not.  On another page another student suggested the jungle because on this page they saw vines.  Thus began the great setting debate...

(Pardon my terrible picture quality)

Everyone was on the edge of their seats(literally) trying to see if they could find clues in the illustrations or words that would tell us exactly where this story was happening.  There was such rich discussion it was uh-maze-ing.  I could not believe how these kindergartners, who still need sometimes need my assistance to help them share toys, listened to each others ideas and respectively disagreed and shared different ideas.  It was a beautiful, safe discussion where it was okay not to know.   By the end of the lesson that day we were a class divided.  Some thought jungle and some thought the Savannah.  And everyone was okay with that.  There was no arguing or complaining.  And even more amazing is that the first student who had originally thought the woods had listened to others ideas and changed her thinking.  I couldn't just let it be a toss up and we surely weren't done.  So the following day, we looked at two pictures.  

One picture was of a real life Savannah and one of a real life jungle.  I purposefully chose pictures that didn't include a lion or a mouse so they could look for more clues.  And wow did they ever.  Those amazing 5 and 6 year olds, compared the pictures to the text, discussed the clues, shared ideas, rejected ideas, confirmed ideas and came to the agreed upon conclusion that it had to be the Savannah.  (Which by the way I was super impressed when someone suggested that as a setting in the first place!)  It was such a cool thing to experience.  What began as a lesson to learn that the setting of a story is where a story takes place turned into a deep thinking, life learning kind of an activity.  I could not be more proud of those little people and I would bet they will be looking for clues about setting in other books too!  

Were doing lots of measuring in math.  We've measured with cubes and paper clips.  We've compared objects to see which is longer.  We made snowmen with a snowball for each letter in our name.  We will use these snowmen to compare the length of our names.  I will post a picture of the final product next week!    

During our Daily 5 literacy time we used magnetic letters to make words.  Some of us even used them to practice alphabetical order.  

We are learning that good writers add sentences to tell more.  Everyone has worked really hard to dig out more details of our experiences and tell them in writing.  

Check out our fun during choice time this week!  

 Always a popular choice!

These two used roads pieces made out of jeans and blocks to build a city for their cars.  

A princess!

We added toss tic tac toe this week to our choices.

(They asked me if I could put a picture of the Eiffel tower up so they could build it.  I'd say they did an amazing job.)

We have a new student in our class and we adore her already.  Welcome friend!  

On Friday we celebrated two of our Beulah Ralph expectations with hat day and matching colors day.  Here's a little cutie with her hat on! 

Check out our matching colors with our buddies!

And just because... here are couple pictures of  fun at recess.

General Announcements:  

• This week we needed to choose for our citizen of the month.  And it was such a busy week that we didn't get a chance to do this in class! To do this, I ask each student who they believe should be recognized for this honor.  Then each student gets a vote.  The student with the most votes is recognized at an assembly.  Since we didn't get to do this in class, I created a survey to have your child do at home this weekend.  Please follow the link to this survey so that your child can cast their vote.  Students who have already won this honor are not included in the survey.  Please read the directions to your child and allow them to choose!  Thanks for helping us support each other and be proud of our classmates.  

https://goo.gl/forms/kaM1QMW5NTzd5AUy1 

• Our first brown bag lunch will be on January 31st.  Thank you to those that have returned your RSVP.  
• We will celebrate the 100 day of school on February 2.  We will be dressing up as if we are 100 years old!  Please see note in the Friday Folder for more information.  
• We are continuing to collect toothpaste to donate in honor of Beulah Ralph's would be 90th birthday.  Thank you to those that have already sent them in! 

Have a great weekend!  

Highlight Reel Week #18

I hope you all are enjoying your bonus day!  I wonder if it will stay as is or if we will see some more ice.  Either way my family sure is enjoying the extra time.  Here are some highlights from our week.  

Writing:  We wrote lots of letters this week.  I decided to have the kids write letters each week to our "Special Me".  We had a few to catch up on so we did quite a few.  The structures of these letters will be the same each week.  We will build on it as time goes on.  The purpose of this activity is for us to focus on writing conventions like word spaces, punctuation, sentence structure and using a capital letter only at the beginning of sentences and for names. In our regular writing workshop we are working on narrative writing.  We are working on telling about a place we have been and telling more by adding more sentences.  We are still working on adding details in our illustrations too.  

Math:  We are learning about measurement.  We are focusing on non-standard measurement.  We compared items in the classroom to see if they were longer or shorter than a pencil.  We also measured things we found using snap cubes and recorded it on a chart.  We used our hands to measure the length of tables and wrote our findings on post-its.  These were gathered and put in numerical order.  Then we talked about why we all got different numbers.  

Reading:  We are in full swing with reading groups.  Some of the strategies for solving unknown words are, check the picture for a clue, tap out the sounds and even reread the sentence and say the first sound of the word and think what would sound right.  We are also practicing saying letters and sounds quickly to work on fluency. 

This week on Thursday, I was able to be principal for the day.  Dr. Majerus and Mr. Woods had to attend important meetings so I subbed for them.  It was great because I got to spend some time supervising the lunch room.  I think the kids were excited to see me during this time!.  Everyone had smiling faces for me.  

I just have to say that something magical happened over the holiday break.  Our kids went home babies and came back big kids.  I am continually impressed by their behavior improvements.  They are listening better and so much better at following directions the first time.  The have calmer bodies and need fewer and fewer reminders.   It just seems that they have turned into little learners almost overnight.  As a teacher, this is such an amazing thing to witness.  I love these kids.  Thanks for sharing them with me.  

General Announcements: 

• I sent home Friday Folders on Thursday.  I left out the word from the week as I was quickly putting them together when I heard we would not have school today.  In the folder be sure to look for yearbook ordering information and an RSVP form for our first brown bag lunch.  

Kindess Week

This week we are learning about one of our Beulah Ralph expectations:  Kind.

  

We met our buddy class this week.  We visited Ms. Ryberg's classroom and met our buddies.  We talked together about what it means to be kind.  

Then our third grade buddies helped us trace our hands onto construction paper and cut them out.  

We are making a tree of kindness.  Our hand prints will become the leaves.  Each day as we spot someone being kind or if we do something kind for someone, we will write about it on a hand print leaf and add it to the tree.  It will grow throughout the week!  If you are at BEU, it is in the commons.  Check it out!  

This Friday we will celebrate kindness by wearing matching colors with our buddy class.  We are wearing Navy blue!  

Highlight Reel

This short week has been wonderful!  We focused a lot on reviewing how to be a learner at school. The kids have settled right into our routines and have done a great job remembering what is expected at school.  

A few quick highlights:

With my fantastic Teachers Pay Teachers gift card I was able to get some QR codes to use for listening to reading.  Using an ipad, the kids scan one of the QR codes and it takes them to a book that is read aloud.  

I was also able to buy another great literacy choice.  It is called write the room.  For this, our kids use a clip board and walk around the room hunting for words.  They match the pictures and write the corresponding words.  They absolutely loved this today.  These will be added to our Daily 5 literacy rotations beginning next week.  

To practice our handwriting we started having our partners check our work.  We try our best to write neatly the kindergarten way.  Then we switch papers with a partner and have our partner choose the best one.  I was super impressed with how neatly everyone was writing! 

We learned a new math game called, Make 10.  In this game the kids put out twenty number cards face up.  They look for pairs of numbers that add up to 10.  When we finished playing this game, we made a list of all the pairs that we made and looked for patterns.  If you have a deck of cards at home this is a game that you can play.  Ask your child if they can teach you!

General Announcements: 

• Kindergarten will be having a brown bag lunch on January 31st from 11:00 - 11:25.  You are invited to bring lunch for you and your child to our classroom.  In our class, we will share some of our fabulous writing with you.  We hope to see you there!  
• We are in need of new markers.  We had been sharing markers as a class, but we hardly have enough to share.  If you could send a pack of markers for your child, we will begin having the kids keep them in their seat sacks.  

I've got some pictures too but I'm having trouble getting them to load from my ipad!  I'll hopefully be able to add them this weekend.  Enjoy your weekend!