Week 4

Here's what's happening in kindergarten this week.

In Writing, we started focusing on organization. We talked about the tools of a writer after we read this book. We liked how this was very similar to the song, "The Lady with the Alligator Purse".

Pigs in the Corner taught us that our writing needed to be organized, or it would turn out to be a big mess. The pigs in this story were not organized when they were square dancing and then ended all tangled up. If we don't write our letters in an order, it makes it difficult for the reader to read.

This book taught us to stop at the end of the page and to return sweep and finish our writing underneath. 

This book taught us that letters represent beginning sounds. The letters in this book chose a present to give to their mothers that all started with the same letter as their name. We have been working on our Name Chant poem this week and we had to find words that start the same as our name too.

Our focus book this week was Jazz Baby. We noticed a pattern in this book. We also noted rhymes too.

We continued reading fairy tales this week. We started off with several versions of Jack and the Beanstalk.

And a new one to us, Kate and the Beanstalk.

We made our own Jack and the Beanstalk out of a clothespin and planted lima beans. We can't wait to take them home. Some of them have just begun to sprout.

We read a few versions of the Three Little Pigs.

Then we read the true story of the three little pigs.

But our favorite was this one!

Little Red Riding Hood is also a great fairy tale.

It was fun to act out the story using puppets.

Once Upon a Time, princesses, princes and Happily Ever After are very common in fairy tales such as Rapunzel.

Here is a silly version of the story. We thought it was funny when Rapunzel could not hear and threw down wrong items to the prince (instead of her hair, she through down her underwear).

We enjoyed the Princess and the Pea.

Another funny princess was in this story.

We have continued working on our phonemic awareness and have enjoyed the letters sounds and motions to this book.

We read the book Hop on Pop to reinforce rhyming words.

In math, we started the question of the day with a yes or no survey. We interpreted the data after recording information.

We continued using the counting jar. We count the objects in a jar, double check our answer and then find ways to record and represent the number.

We had fun sorting, especially sorting our class. After we were sorted, we had to guess the rule for why we were sorted. That was a lot of fun. We learned how to play the attribute train game. We could only change on attribute in our shape train at a time. This game will soon be in our centers to play.

We worked on more problem solving in our math journals. When we got done, we were able to go to our math work stations with our partners.

In science, we continued talking about our five senses. We read a book about taste and talked about parts of the tongue that can taste different things (sweet, sour, bitter and salty). 

As a culminating activity, we got to tastes several things and write about how we used our five senses for each food. This was a very yummy activity.

We read about hearing and learned about the different parts of the ear.

After reading this book, we decided it would be fun to take our own listening walk.

We learned that the sense of touch is not just in our hands, but is a very important sense. It can save us from being hurt. We felt different textures and recorded them.

In social studies, we learned about the Pledge of Allegiance and what the words mean.

We learned some important symbols of our country after reading this alphabet book.

It was Constitution Day and we talked about what the constitution is. We decided to make and sign one in our classroom, just like our forefathers. 

Another important document is the Declaration of Independence. This is also old, like the constitution.

Mrs. Phillips came for a guidance lesson and brought her friends Can Do and Will Do.

We started going to the computer lab this week and learning basic keyboarding. Mrs. Langham will try to remember to take the camera next week. We were very excited to use our headphones and get on the computers.

We have been doing a better job listening and earned center time several days this week. Here are some of our favorite things to do.

We will begin a color unit for the next two weeks. Please wear the following colors on these days:

Monday 9/23- red
Tuesday 9/24- blue
Wednesday 9/25- yellow
Thursday 9/26- green
Friday 9/27- orange
Monday 9/30- purple
Tuesday 10/1- pink
Wednesday 10/2- black and white
Thursday 10/3- brown
Friday 10/4- rainbow