Happy Monday!

Today we started to learn how to read like writers! What this means is that when we look at a book or a series of books by one author, we start to pay attention to that author's style, use of words, color, etc. Reagan remembered that one of our favorites, The Wave is a wordless book! So we're putting that up on the wall. I hope this writing unit helps our students continue to develop their understanding of what writers actually do!
Hopefully, we'll begin to see them really blossom as they come up with ideas about real life to write about! 

Dawson was super excited to show us his non-fiction books from home! I love to let kids bring in stuff from home to cement their learning. Non-fiction books have facts in them. Last Friday we had a reading celebration (video to come). The kids made people and wrote about what they like to read about. Please continue to take your child to the library and ask them to look at the front cover/inside pages to decide whether or not the book looks interesting! 

Playing Count and Color to practice adding the dots on two dice! They knew some of them in a flash--like 3 and 3! WOW! They know their doubles :) Other dot patterns had to be counted. Miles was very smart and asked how we could possibly get 12 when we're rolling a dot dice?! Will was quick to answer that if you roll a 6 and a 6 it will equal 12! 

Happy Friday!

Here we are working with 5 frames. One of our K standards is to be fluent adding numbers within 5. It's easiest to memorize the parts of 5 first (4+1, 2+3 and 5+0). Then we work with the other numbers (1,2,3,4).

Today was Natalee's 6th birthday! You are a very sweet and special little girl Natalee. I just love having you in K02! 

Natalee's dad came today! He brought us special treats and the book, Little Mouse's BIG Secret!

Happy Thursday!

So I hope you read my previous blog post about grading! Today we worked on handwriting and our numbers through 10.
We worked on each number and as we worked I told the kids to remember which letters were tricky for them! It was a whole new approach. For a change, I'm telling the kids to be self-aware of what is a challenge! What do you get stuck on? What do you need to practice? I also kept a close eye on which numbers were hard for them. 

I gave each of them a sticky note and told them to record the specific numbers that were TOO hard...including the numbers that are just a little hard. It was so fun for them to see that each card is different. There is NO need to compare yourself to a friend. That's nonsense. They were SO accurate in their recording.
I took their choices and sent home some homework. I hope that you will practice their numbers for about 10 minutes each night. I told them that once they think they have it down, that they should tell me and I'll make them prove it :)

Four friends wrote nothing on their cards. The knew they could do it. So I made them PROVE it...and they DID! Yay! Oh, but the learning doesn't end with that grade. Now they'll work on advancing to 11-20! 

We also worked on number before and after. VERY tricky! Working on that (especially what number comes before a number) is a good idea for home! 

These were the four friends that felt ready to prove their numeral writing today! WAY TO GO! 

A great math journal sample today. The question said: There were 5 kids on the monkey bars. Some are girls. Some are boys. Draw the kids.
I am SO impressed with how they recorded their thinking so that they could explain it to the whole class! Here you can see Jenna recording a 'b' for boy and 'g' for girl! 

Where's Miss Dunker?

I don't know if you heard....but I was gone yesterday! Sad. :( I do love returning to wonderful sub notes! We had a great day....without Miss Dunker! Yes, I think they're getting it: We do not behave because the teacher is watching! We behave because it's good for us! (You know, we learn and make friends and stuff like that). 

Anyway....I was at this amazing conference given by RICK WORMELI! Whoa. I know. Who is that? Well, you can youtube him if you really want to watch videos on grading, differentiation and teacher stuff like that...or you can just read the bullet points below. Take it from me, it's AMAZING. 

He reaffirmed a LOT of what I was already thinking...
*The Common Core standards are BASIC! AH! Yes, most of our students will surpass them! 
*We must NOT let go of teaching creativity, innovation and problem solving! These skills will put your children at the top of the job market someday!
Get this...in Kindergarten, 70% of children show remarkable creativity. It goes down to 30% in 4th grade and 10% (eek) in 10th grade. SAD! 
*Our grading system is NOT about techniques and behaviors (clean desks, neat papers, group work). It's about whether or not they can specifically show a skill that is stated in our standards.
*Just listen to this quote: Calm waters endanger sailors. LOVE! I am sooooo beyond frustrated when I see quiet rooms. Sorry to vent, but rooms full of learning should be noisy and even, ah, a bit crazy! Learning is a disorderly enterprise. As a hopeful future parent, I would be very concerned if my child were in a room that required silence. Is this what their future workplaces will look like? 
*Did you know that 40% of high school kids are retaking high school classes in college because of inaccurate grading? 

One of the most important things your child needs to learn in school is this.....

Teach your child how to recover from failure...because

The expert in any field is the one who has had the most mistakes in that field. Push yourself. 

F.A.I.L=First attempt in learning

A little snipit of our artist in residence...

Busy Tuesday :)

Oh this morning was SO fun! We had our Artist in Residence visit. Her name is Vickie Fuller. She is an actress in town and does a lot of local community/theatre things. 

Vickie taught us about body language. She says, "Your body speaks louder than your voice." She is SO entertaining! I'll post a video next! The kids go crazy and just love seeing her each year!!!

We also learned that drawing and painting are not the only ways to do art. Actors, actresses, musicians and dancers are all artists too! 

Just LOOK at the smile on Layla's face! So cute :) 

Happy 6th birthday Miles!!!! We had a blast and your dad was an awesome reader! No wonder you are so bright and talented! We were given a Piggy and Elephant book by Miles and his family. Thank you so much for the donation! 

Singing happy birthday in 'underwater' style! 

Calling All Parents!

We decided to set a goal for all of us! Here it is....

*We know 52/52 letter names by Halloween (uppercase and lowercase tested separately)
*We know 26 letter sounds by Halloween (this is a challenge for those who are ready)

You can help at home parents! 

We will be making our names out of junk from my junk drawer. 

It's a fun art project called... 

Names with Junk! 

When a friend masters his or her letter identification, he or she gets to make this art project.
We will, of course, be blogging as each child reaches this very important reading/writing goal. 

Happy Monday!

Bryanna brought in her library book and told me how she found a word with the -oo chunk in it. Do you see it?
So we made her the -oo chunk expert (look below-YAY Bryanna) and made these great pictures (that you've probably seen) of clouds with wooshing wind! 

Jaxon donated his to our windy corner window so we can remember that chunk all year as we write!

If you want to practice things at home...have your child WRITE! Not drawing pretty pictures, but writing about real life!!! Encoding (or saying words slowly and writing down the sounds you hear) is the BEST WAY to teach your child to read :) Really. I just read the most fabulous blog post by Richard Allington (a writing guru). 

Here was our morning sentence! We'll be adding another sentence tomorrow!!!! 

We heard the -all chunk in the word Fall! 

Oh, and Will already knew the snap word it. WOW. A lot of kiddos said you're practicing snap words at home! GOOD for you! 

Ha. Clara's fabulous barbie story! Just LOOK at all of those barbies in the barbie house! 

We are playing Teddy Bear Walk. I paired kids who have mastered their counting with kiddos who haven't and they worked on developing that one-to-one (being able to touch one object at a time and say the number).

Just had to post this picture. Eve was book shopping. She is doing what readers do. She is looking at the pages inside of the book to determine if it looks interesting or not.

Please take your child to the library and ask, "Let's go check out some books today! How will you know if the book is one you want to read? What parts of the book will you look at?" (You'll be amazed) 

Our independence is growing....continue to encourage and foster it at home :) :) 

Clara's Story

GOODBYE SUMMER!!!!

We've been learning facts about our hermit crab friends! We have two crabs in K02--Orlando and Franc! 

They are super friendly and very used to kindergarten kids :)

Facts are what you find in non-fiction books. We wrote 3 facts today in our very own non-fiction books! 

Hermit crabs sleep at night! Great writing! 

Hermit crabs live by water....written by Will :) 

Hermit crabs like peanut butter...also written by Will! 

They sleep in the night...written by Jenna :) 

Hermit crabs live on a beach ....  by Nora! 

Today Nora suggested that we hang our 'value' chart by the COUNT CAREFULLY sign! 

We practice moving objects as we count. This is GREAT practice at home! 

We got out small rekenreks today (bead racks of 10 beads) and used blue/green beads to show the number I called out. Then we recorded all of the numbers (or parts).
They decided that the numbers were a little confusing, but they knew how to show it on their rekenreks. I love how we can have this honest communication about what they get and what is still tricky! 

On Sunday we say goodbye to summer and hello to a new season! 

We celebrated by making Eric Carle suns and then dancing around with them to Soak Up the Sun!