Kindergarten
September 8th
Math
Reading
Our independent reading time has gotten better over the week. Each child is at a different level in regards to their reading readiness. During independent reading time, we encourage students to look through books and try to use the pictures to read the story. We also ask students to try to find sight words we have taught in their books or count the words on the page. Our main goal is to have books in students hands so that they develop the concepts of print needed to become readers. These would include, identifying the title, author, and illustrator; identifying parts of the book; reading left to right and top to bottom; and understanding the difference between a letter, word and a sentence. We are still building stamina during independent reading time by focusing on our three goals: stay in your seat, look at a book, and read quietly.
Writing
Another topic we focused on this week relates to our writing goal - I can think of my own writing ideas. In order to help students meet this goal we created a writing topic chart. Students listed ideas into the following categories: animals, people, events, and places. We encouraged students to think of their OWN ideas. Often they will write the same story as a friend even though it never actually happened to them. When we modeled this writing topic chart, we told students that they needed to pick ideas that really meant something to them. These charts will stay in their writing folders so that they can pull them out when they are struggling to think of a topic.