Well, next week we will be focusing on the letter W. Where the Wild Things Are, Mrs. Wishy Washy, and Wacky Wednesday will be just some of the great books we will read during the week. Students will work on prediciting and retelling stories as they pick out details from the beginning, middle, and end of our stories. It is important for your child to be able to identify the characters, setting, and details from each story we read. It would be beneficial to ask them about these things while reading to them at home. We want to eventually have the kindergarten students able to write their own stories with a beginning, middle, and end.
In writer's workshop we will continue to focus on speech bubbles. I will also talk to them about revisiting stories and adding details to make them longer. When your child brings home books or papers they have written during writer's workshop, please ask them to read them to you. It gives you a great opportunity to celebrate their writing and encourage them to take more writing risks.
In math this week we will revisit reading/writing large numbers. By the end of the year we want the students to be able to read and write numbers up to 115. Many of the children can already do this, we just need to practice on not reversing the numbers! We will also revisit graphing and work on the vocabulary of greater than, less than, bigger, smaller, larger, etc. Students have been solving word problems every day at calendar. We are no longer working on just knowing the answer, but on HOW we got the answer, and HOW we knew what to do to solve it. I ask them to explain their thinking and pick out key words that helped them solve the problem. For example, if the problem was...5 birds were in a tree and 3 flew away, how many would be left? I ask them to first draw a picture of their thinking (a tree with 5 birds and an x through the 3 that flew away), then I ask them if they need to add or subtract (subtract). Next I ask them which words in the problem told them to do this (how many left). Finally I ask them to give me the answer in a number sentence. (5-3=2). At the end we label the answer and circle it (2 birds). You can practice problems like this at home.
This week we welcomed a new staff member to our K team. We now have an enrollment aide. Her name is Mrs. Bohanek and she will be working with all the classrooms from now on. Sometimes she will work with small groups in or out of the classroom and sometimes she will assist in the classroom. Since she is a certified teacher, she may even teach a lesson here and there. We are very lucky to have her with us and look forward to all the ways she can help our students prepare for 1st grade!
All the Great America reading forms that were turned in were given to Mrs. May in the LMC. She wants you all to know that your ticket will arrive sometime in May and will be passed on to you then. In 2 weeks we will have our school Fun Fair. There are many volunteer opportunities available! Please consider helping out during this fun school event!
On Thursday there will be a sub in our classroom as I attend the Illinois Kindergarten Conference. I look forward to meeting with other kindergarten teachers from around the area and going to sessions packed with new and innovative ways to teach young kids. I will be back on Friday hopefully with some cool new stuff! Have a great week!
