Happy Tuesday!

So, we get outside for one recess....however, the children were so excited to make pattern bracelets that they didn't want to go outside! Oh goodness. So is the life of a kindergarten teacher. I guess pattern bracelets are pretty fun!

The reason we revisited this problem is because almost ALL of us got stuck on the last one. I want them to learn how important it is to revisit things that you get stuck on....you shouldn't skip over them or move onto the next thing. It was funny when I asked them if they remembered that problem too. There was a resounding, "OH YEAH!!!!" So they were eager to prove that they would take Jace's advice and listen to what the problem says. 

Good news too! We had 3 kiddos who acted the problem out with Mrs. Minnich because they got stuck. Then everyone moved on to pattern bracelets.

Here was a friend who got stuck because, as you can see, during her first attempt she put red/blue/blue as the core unit. The problem said red/blue/red/blue.

Here is a friend who got it! They got into this discussion about why some friends didn't draw the whole bracelet. It's funny how they think about that stuff. I wouldn't have even thought to have asked that. They explained that they only drew 6 beads, because the problem asked what color the 6th bead was. 

Oh this is fun! This made me think of vocabulary  and how essential it is that you talk with your children as much as you can. Encourage them, as people and as readers, to ask about a word when they don't know it's meaning.
We started out the day by writing our morning sentence together. It had the word chilly in it. Then a student says, "I know! It's like a kind of food you eat." So that made me think of a chili pepper (look below).....

Then another student knew of a country in South America named Chile. Then.....yet another student says, "Well you can also eat chili on a hotdog!"
Oh my GOODNESS! That's four different meanings for a similar word. Wow. Vocabulary. Huge. You can't talk enough about stuff like this to your children. I told my students to make sure that when you're reading together---they should be stopping you if they hear a word they don't understand. This is key to their development of reading comprehension and understanding what they read. 

We learned more about the setting of a story today. We read, The Three Bears. Very fun fairy tale! Then they illustrated the setting. One student asked me what the 'when' means. So we had a good discussion about how the bears ate porridge--which is a breakfast food...and this resulted in many sunrises in our illustrations of the setting.

Oh yes! We also had a student ask what 'takes place' means. So I crossed it out and wrote 'happens' instead. They seemed to understand this better.