This week we spent some time learning about 'word work'. The children were able to practice letter, sound, and word reading activities with a partner this week. We will continue to work through those activities next week. Then in November the children will try to do word work independently!
Next week we will be continuing work toward independence during read to self and word work time so that I am able to use that time to work with the children on their reading skills. We will have a visitor during our reading time on Wednesday to see how well we are doing building up or stamina!
We have maintained our 10 minute 'read to self' stamina this week. The children were able to fill their book boxes with books of their choosing. They will be changing those books out weekly so they are always reading something "fresh".
We have been working very hard on become writer's as well. So far our focus has been on learning how to write sounds we hear when we say words, what to do if we don't know what letter to write, and working together to practice different types of writing: including lists, labels, cards, stories, and illustrated sentences. This week we began to talk about how important the illustrations are to our writing. We focused on making sure our illustrations have a good setting (this means there is more than just one thing in the picture) and also on the character's clothing in an illustration. Check out your child's Mary Had A Red Dress poetry page! We combined setting and character today to make amazing illustrations! The children were also able to practice "sharing" their writing and are learning to give compliments to each other. This helps fill each others' buckets and also gives the children more ideas to help make their own illustrations better. We also took a 'gallery' walk so we could see everyones illustration, not just the 3 students that were able to share.
In math this week we spent time learning about the terms more, less, and same. The children worked with their "ketchup and mustard" partner to make towers of the numbers 1-10 using leaves and pumpkins and compared the numbers using their math talk. We are working hard on counting forward to 115, backwards from 20-0, and counting by 10s to 100.
Please take some time to LABEL your child's hats, mittens, jackets, and even their shoes with their name. The lost and found pile is already growing and it's barely into the hat and mitten season. You can buy iron tape that you can write on with a sharpie, use a sharpie, and if it's black use a silver sharpie to write their name. It will save you a lot of money in the long run if you label everything!
It's been a VERY busy week here in Kindergarten! Everyone deserves to have some fun this weekend! So spend some time outside getting those last fall chores done...and make sure that your garage doors have a good seal at the bottom so you don't end up with critters inside like I have at home!
I'm looking forward to some time outside...away from technology and television...and some time with family. I hope you have something you are looking forward to this weekend as well!
