Current Happenings in 235
Week of October 21st
Upcoming Dates
10-28: cycle day 5
10-29: cycle day 6
10-30: cycle day 7; return classroom book bags
10-31: cycle day 8
11-1: cycle day 9; harvest activities planned throughout the day
Applesauce
Did you hear we made applesauce in our classroom on Wednesday? To go along with our nonfiction unit, we followed a recipe and used some of the information found in our text to use the apples. Our room smelled of cinnamon and the consensus was we want homemade applesauce in our room every day!
Number Writing
For now, we have wrapped up number writing from 0-10; we will continue with teen numbers in January.
Writing numbers using our EZ Write font is key to making them quickly and so they are easily readable. By the end of quarter one, the expectation is for kindergartners to write from 0-10 in order with correction formation (no backwards numbers).
Beginning Sounds
Throughout our whole group phonics time and during small groups, we are heavily focusing on identifying beginning sounds in words we say and read. This is such an important skill to help beginning readers and writers. At home, you can practice identifying these in every day things! In our room, we say the word, the sound and then identify the letter.
IE:
Picture--mouse
Sound--mmmmm
Letter--m
What we learned
Take a look into our class
Reading:
- **BOOK BAGS** came home for the first time Friday afternoon. An email with information was sent home on Monday, but there will also be a note inside each book bag with ways you can help at home. Keep this note on your fridge or wherever you do your reading.
- Kindergartners continued to learn the difference between reading a nonfiction and fiction text. Nonfiction texts gives facts and often times, new information; fiction texts are books we read for enjoyment. To help tell the difference between nonfiction and fiction texts, we read a variety of fall books surrounding pumpkins, apples and leaves. These books then transferred to part of our theme time as well (continue reading).
Writing:
- You'll find our writing updates are the same for some weeks at a time. This is not uncommon and is to be expected at the beginning stages of writing! I continued to model the five steps of writing, and the kinders clapped and counted the words in their sentences while I watched them draw lines to represent the words. Writing beginning sounds for each line is HUGE right now and something that is very much so stressed in our room.
Handwriting:
- New masters of letters: l, t, b and k.
Poem/Phonics:
- Poem: Hickory, Dickory, Dock
- New HFW: up, did
- Beginning sounds--many of our activities surround this skill and will continue to do so in the weeks to come.
Math:
- Kindergartners practiced subitizing up to the number five.
- Number writing from 0-10 is complete (see above).
Theme:
- We did activities surrounding our learning from nonfiction texts. We made our own nonfiction pumpkin book, made applesauce and did a special leaf activity--all surrounding the season of fall.
- Mr. Bjerken joined our class for a bit on Wednesday afternoon to read aloud a story and talked to us about what it means to be a studious kindergartner. :)
Kaitlin Wermerskirchen
Email: kwermers@shakopee.k12.mn.us
Phone: 952.496.5802
Twitter: @Kindersin235