Happy FRIDAY!

I'm sorry for missing a day here and there....but I never miss snapping pictures of our cute kiddos and all of their work!
Biggest news of the week--we are sad to see our friend Max leave Pettigrew. He is moving to Flandreau and we wish him the BEST of luck! We'll all miss you Max!
Notice (above) that Carter is our 2nd chunk expert! 

We are working using snap words like "I" and "can" to write simple sentences. Do not sound out or stretch out snap words with your child. Instead, cover the word up and have them spell it from memory. Many words, like "the" can't be sounded out. 

Look at Nayeli's AWESOME work on our math story problem this week. This class is doing a great job at showing their answer in more than 1 way! 

We are also continuing to work on problem solving at recess, in our classroom, etc. Words like responsible and independent are words your child is hearing from me a LOT. Here is Kiera, being responsible for a lost toy. 

Great strategy for our math story problems Noah! 

We write the date each day in our Chicken Soup with Rice calendars. 

We did another counting jar and this time....every answer made sense! We had tallies, circles, objects, 10-frames and numbers to show how many.

Hahaha! This picture makes me laugh. Kiera was SOOOO excited that we had FOUR copies of a loved, old favorite storybook--Where the Wild Things Are. Some parents always seem nervous if they buy a book we already have, but if it's a favorite....we want more!

Did you get your letter? Have you been practicing at home? I hope so! 

Tip: Never cover up pictures for your child with storybooks. You WANT them to use pictures to help make meaning, read the story, etc.

They love making me and their friends 'smoothies' during choicetime. Play is a valuable time for learning...believe it or not. It helps foster imagination AND vocabulary development. 

The flag! A symbol of the USA! 

Happy Monday!

We were able to break out our chunk poster for the first time! Chunks are a very important part of learning to read and write. Our friend Kiera knows some chunks already and yesterday she was using this 'ch' chunk to write the word tree. :) They always do that. But anyway, she is our FIRST CHUNK EXPERT! Yay!!! 

Just had to show these two little cuties who gave ME a picture to KEEP :) Lucky me! They're on my computer now, making it look all fancy! 

Some snapshots of us doing our very first story problem during math problem solving. It went SO well! They had quiet think time and then we gathered up to talk about the problem. I'm sure you've heard a lot of parents talking about new math, etc. One of the ways you see that in our classroom is by having children solve a problem in more than one way. We want them to learn to be flexible, find efficient strategies, etc. As the problems get harder, I'll post more and more! 

See? Tally marks, circle and writing the number. Ariana solved in THREE ways. WOW. One day 1? 

Happy Friday Everyone!

Our new vocabulary word is United States of America (or should I say 'words?') Haha.
We learned that the American flag is a symbol of our country.

In math, we are still working on counting carefully....and learning different ways to record an answer. Today they had to count the stars in the jar. Then they recorded their thinking on a sticky note. You can tell, below, that there were 3 ways that made sense: 

1) Write the number
2) Draw that many objects
3) Draw a 10-frame
There were 6 friends (at the top) who did not understand and the kids decided their sticky notes didn't make sense.....so we'll be doing another counting jar next week. 

What a GREAT Thursday!!!

We had a WONDERFUL day today! They were really with it....and learning so much!
We are still working on sorting and talking about attributes each day.
Today, the attribute of thick and thin was a bit confusing. We weren't sure if the size mattered or not...so we had some good math discussion.

Of course, learning to wash your hands is a very important kindergarten skill. We even set up an experiment today...to see if germs will grow on 'touched' bread and/or 'untouched' bread.

Look at that finger space! Finger spaces go between words. This friend is actually left-handed....so we have to have talks about how it's a bit harder for left handed friends to use a finger space. 

We are learning about sentence starters...or easy ways to start a sentence, like "I love" or "I see"......I expect to see more tries with sentences soon!

Take a look at the way pajamas was spelled today parents. This is called inventive spelling. Don't correct your child's attempts at home...instead praise them for approximations! The only time a word should be spelled perfectly, is if it's a snap word. I'm sending home a list on Friday. 

We just started learning about Owen and Mzee today. It's a really remarkable, true story about a friendship that developed between a baby hippo and a 130 year old tortoise after the devastating tsunami. 

Happy Monday Everyone!

We had a busy day full of learning yesterday! This time of year never ceases to amaze me. All of our kiddos are in such different places in their learning. I will try my very best to differentiate what I'm teaching through small groups, individual conferences and parent/teacher communication to help your child continue in his or her learning. Just to give you an idea....we have some kiddos who can't write their name, don't know the letters in their name and get numbers/letters mixed up! On the other end, we have kiddos writing SENTENCES and knowing different digraphs (like ch, sh and th). It's unbelievable...nothing new...this happens every year!
Well...here we go!

Here is a lovely picture of Ava, showing us her writing from yesterday. She has awesome labels on her story! She's definitely ready to try some sentences soon. 

Here's Will working on 9-the number of the day. We're learning how mathematicians show numbers in fast, quick ways like with circle, tallies or 10 frames.