"Inchies" (as the kids like to say) Inchworms were everywhere on the playground for a couple of weeks, so we started a habitat for them inside. Everyday during Guided Discovery many of the children enjoyed taking them out to observe, draw, and measure them. We discovered that most are much shorter than an inch! Natural Inspiration We just wrapped up our unit on persuasive/opinion writing. During that unit we enjoyed taking many trips to the nature trail and garden to observe nature and write about what we like best about being outside, and also why we think it's important to show respect to nature and help preserve it. Dance Party! As I've mentioned in a previous blog, writing petitions became very popular during our persuasive writing unit. Here's one in action: Dorothy and James wrote petitions to have a dance party with instruments. Obviously the motion passed. This went on for a full 30 minutes one day....your children have some great moves! +/- In math we are getting quicker every day with our adding and subtracting facts. We are practicing using many different strategies for solving equations: number line, "math hands", drawing a picture, picturing it in your head, and more. Give your child an equation and ask how he/she would solve it!
Writing and Sharing Animal Books
Since finishing persuasive writing, we have been working on writing nonfiction animal books in Writers' Workshop. The first step is researching an animal chosen by the student, using the website PebbleGo.com, and taking notes. Then each student uses his/her notes to create a book with different sections (such as Body, Food, Habitat, Life Cycle, and Fun Facts), complete with a Table of Contents and Glossary (defining some of the words in the book, which we are bolding to show their importance). Each day the students who have completed a book get to share their book with peers who are interested in learning about that type of animal. Happy Earth Day! Have a wonderful weekend!!!
0 Comments
WRITER'S WORKSHOP: NATURE, ICE CREAM, SCRUBBING TOILETS, AND MORE
We had our first Writers' Workshop in the woods this week and everyone was excited to experience and write about what types of things we love to do outside. We are planning to spend some time on the nature trail again next week to write more! In our unit on persuasive writing we have learned that there are different formats for writing when you see a problem and want to make a change. One of the formats we've learned about is petitions. As you might have guessed, children get really excited when you tell them they can make a change through their writing...and then it gets interesting to see what they truly care about changing. :) We did a little math and figured out that in order for a motion to pass in what we call the "laws of room 101", a petition must have at least 15 signatures (25 students + 3 teachers=28, 1/2 of 28 is 14, so 15 makes a majority). Here are some examples of petitions that have been written (and there are oh so many more), each complete with reasons: Passed (at least 15 people signed)
Yesterday I wrote my own petition about how we should keep the room really clean. I went around to all the tables during Writers' Workshop and said "Hey, I wrote a petition about how we should keep the room clean. Will you sign it?" No one looked at the fine print. Everyone signed. Of course, they were all shocked when I read it aloud later and they heard the part stating "If you agree to help scrub the toilets and clean the floors with your toothbrushes, please sign below." They tried to revolt, but I told them it was only to teach them a lesson, and toothbrushes could stay clean and at home. So, the lesson we learned yesterday was: Don't sign anything unless you have read it and understand it. Hopefully that one will stick with them past kindergarten. STUDENT-LED CONFERENCES: WHAT TO EXPECT We have reviewed this format a number of times, and each child has practiced leading a conference for an adult acting as the parent. Below is what your child should do in his/her conference. A guide with these steps will be on a clipboard on the table with him/her, but you may need to point to the next step if your child seems lost (everyone did well with practices, but some children are nervous and may need a little prompt to keep on track).
Please use the blue "Parent Prompts" sheet to guide conversation with your child during the conference as needed. Let me know if you have any questions before Monday. We can't wait to see you! EXPLORING OUR BIG BACKYARD! This past Monday while your children were out of school, teachers had a professional learning day in which we prepared for Student Led Conferences and did a variety of other things. One of those things was touring the woods behind Westchester with an expert in outdoor education from the Wylde Center. On this tour I got all sorts of ideas about how to use the nature trail space as an outdoor classroom to support our content standards, and wanted to let you know that between now and the end of the year, we will be visiting the woods frequently as I find ways to incorporate our learning into this space. Since parents signed permission slips for walking field trips at the beginning of the school year (which you all did), this covers walks through our woods (since we will be off of school property). Please know that we will not be crossing any roads, we will always have a walkie talkie and a first aid kit just like we do on the playground, and we will not take to the woods unless we have 3 adults with the class--which we normally do with Ms. Ivey and Ms. Curl and myself. If you volunteer for Writer's Workshop, be aware that we might be doing our writing outside some days, starting next week. Being in the woods makes persuasive writing about environmental topics all the more meaningful too :) Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this. WORMS, WORMS, WORMS! Last week an outdoor education expert from the Wylde Center (same person as above, Westchester parent Allison Ericson) taught our class a lesson on rocks and soils in the woods just past the playground. We got to dig up soil samples to compare them, look for decomposers (like worms), and examples of things that were decomposing (like old leaves and such). Well, it spiked a whole lot of worm talk in our class, and since then I have taken buckets, shovels, and magnifying glasses out to the playground daily where our kiddos are becoming work scientists. We've also been reading some books to learn more about our wiggly friends and why they are important for plant growth. LEPRECHAUNS??? Yesterday was quite exciting. In case you didn't hear about it, this is the short version. Though there is some skepticism going around, there is also belief that a leprechaun may have jumped out of the girls' bathroom ceiling, run across the floor, and climbed back up to the ceiling in the boys' bathroom yesterday while we were at lunch. He also left us some gold coins and a note. This of course sparked a hunt on the playground for evidence of his whereabouts (i.e. trash the kids found, which according to them could only have been left by a mischievous leprechaun). Then many children wanted to make leprechaun traps during center time, which involved a lot of sign-writing (shown below: "No traps", "Welcome leprechauns", and "Come inside leprechauns"), collaboration, and creativity in trap building. Marlowe and Kala decided trapping leprechauns was cruel and decided to secretly write letters to warn the leprechauns and tape them up in the hallway :) Then we all wrote our "opinions" about leprechauns during writers' workshop (whether or not they are real, whether people thought we would really catch one, how we feel about the idea of leprechauns sneaking around, etc.). Though I did not at any point tell the children that leprechauns were real (or not real...magical things are a touchy subject at this age), I did assure them that they definitely will not be back this year because St. Patrick's Day is over, so the hunt is off, and the traps are being taken down...and the footprints have been scrubbed away. COMMUNITY CIRCLE STUFF
Save the dates! Our class will be leading Community Circle on April 1st and April 22nd. We hope you can make it! I will try to remember to send out names of which students will be making announcements on stage for each time once we get that planned. The first date is the same week as Student Led Conferences, so if you haven't heard from me the week of the 1st, feel free to ask! Thank you to so many of you who have come to Community Circle this year! If you came this week or last, I hope you enjoyed moving up closer to our class since we did away with the backpacks. This definitely makes it feel more like a "circle", so thanks for squeezing in. I also want to thank you for your help with saying goodbye to your children prior to Community Circle so that they don't feel the need to jump up for a hug and kiss when it's time for parents to exit. Keeping everyone seated helps us transition quickly back to the classrooms to start our day. Since we are working on coming closer together and feeling more like a true Community Circle, I would like to invite you to join us when we are singing and dancing. Just to let you know, I don't ever know the PE dance either (I have my planning period when the kids have "specials", so a lot of the dances and songs from music are new to me on Fridays), but it's usually simple enough to catch on to by watching Coach Henry and the students. As for singing, lyrics are posted to help us all sing along. The more participation we have, the more it feels like a celebration of community. Thanks in advance for your support. I hope to see you there soon! New unit in writing and a suggested App In writing we are now working on persuasive/opinion writing. We have made a list of "Issues" that matter to students in our class. Some hot topics (that they came up with...not me!) are broken pencils, poaching, pollution, admission to the Georgia Aquarium costing too much, wanting a roller coaster or carousel on the playground, and other classes talking too loud in the hall outside our room. We are learning that when you write your opinion it has to be supported by reasons. This week some students have written me letters trying to persuade me to get a pie in my face (along with lots of other Decatur teachers) on Friday night at the Tour deCatur EXPO (at Ebster gym at 6pm). They had some pretty convincing arguments, so I might just do it :) Last week we tasted green eggs in honor of Dr. Seuss and the students wrote about whether or not they liked them, supported by reasons...only one person was not a fan! I can't recall if I have shared this in the past, so forgive me if you've heard it before... If you would like to help encourage writing at home and are interested in the App we used to publish books on the iPads (which you saw at our Celebration of Learning), it's called Book Creator. It is very easy for kids to navigate...except that it autocorrects, so phonetic spelling can be a little tricky. If you have an iPad at home, this would be a great App to add to encourage creative writing with your child. I highly recommend it! U.S. SYMBOL PROJECTS I tried something new this year to teach the students about U.S. symbols...I let them teach each other, and the results were amazing! Each child chose a symbol (U.S. flag, Statue of Liberty, bald eagle, White House, Washington Monument, or Lincoln Memorial) and could either choose to work independently or with a partner. Then they used a website (a simple one!) to research their symbols and take notes to record the facts they learned. Each student/group got to choose how to present their information. Some made costumes, others made posters, one group wrote a song, one built the Washington Monument, and someone else made a video! We have practiced being a good audience as we've listened to these awesome presentations over the last week. Ask your child to tell you more if you haven't heard about this already. NEW YEAR, NEW STUFF We've enjoyed playing some new games this week during morning meeting to share the many fun things we did over the break. We have also had fun learning some new board games and challenge games (shown below) during Guided Discovery centers. ![]() USING OUR SENSES This week in science we have been exploring our senses and using them to make observations. We have done several experiments and will continue with more next week. To the left is a type of thinking map called a "bubble map" that we made to record our observations (using adjectives) of popcorn. Notice the sense-to-color-coded key at the top. If some words seem odd, ask your child how we made that observation. This would be a great activity for you to do at home using another food! If you choose to do this, please take pictures and send in your bubble map for your child to share with the class! (Maddy gave me this idea when she excitedly told me she was going to do this with her family this weekend. Thanks Maddy!) Here we are playing a "feeling relay" (matching objects in 2 bags strictly by feeling)...no peeking! SHAPES ALL AROUND Thanks everyone for sending in items for the 3D shape museum! We've had a great time sharing our shapes. If you haven't sent in shapes yet, please send them Monday (sphere, cube, cylinder, cone, rectangular prism). We have also played a number of games this week to refine our understanding of faces, edges, and vertices with 3D shapes. Next week we will begin measuring in math. SIGHT WORD UPDATE We have added a LOT of new words to our sight word wall. Below are pictures showing ALL of the words on our wall, but the newest words are: an, as, from, how, look, no, on, they, this, that, was, with. Please make flash cards at home to practice all of the sight words with your child. When you go through them at home, make 2 stacks: words your child knows "quick as a snap", and words he/she has to think about before reading. Continue to practice daily with words that your child does not know immediately. Thanks in advance for your support! SEE BELOW!
I've added pictures to my last post that I didn't have at the time I posted. Thought you might like to see... Happy new year to you all! CELEBRATION OF LEARNING The celebration of learning was an enormous success! Thank you so much for taking the time to join us in support of all we've learned during our expedition. The work samples that you saw will hang up for a while, but ultimately will end up coming home for you to keep. HOLIDAY FESTIVITIES I hope by now that your child told you about the day we made gingerbread cookies and they all ran away. Long story short...we had a great time making the recipe from scratch, discovering the cookies ran away from the kitchen, going on a scavenger hunt around the school (temporarily lifting the ban on running in the halls because it was too darn exciting), and eventually discovering, decorating, and graphing how we ate our delicious cookies...all thanks to a handful of amazing volunteers! Thanks so much to everyone who made the magic possible that day!!! Here are some pics from the hunt and decorating... ![]() In addition to learning about some of the customs of Hanukkah and Christmas in class, we were honored to also have Saleem's mom (thank you!!!) come in and share with us how their family celebrates Kwanzaa. We put a big focus throughout December on finding similarities in family celebrations (including those not held in December): eating special foods, getting together with family, lighting candles, giving gifts, etc. We played some fun games to help us recognize these similarities. If your family celebrates a holiday that you would like to share the customs of any time throughout the rest of the school year, let me know. We would love to hear about it! ![]() SUPER READERS!!! What an amazing week! Thanks to your support and your dedicated readers...we are excited to announce that our class read the most minutes for kindergarten!!! Next week we will find out who the tip readers were for the school. Thank you so much for your help at home. The children are more excited about reading than ever, which is so important right now as many of them have just come over the hump of learning how to read. I really really appreciate your support! WHAT'S HAPPENING NEXT WEEK? I look forward to seeing many of you at the Thanksgiving luncheon next Thursday 11/19 at 11:00 am. All of the kindergarten classes will eat at the same time. We will spread out between the cafeteria and the auditorium and have a longer lunch time than normal, so there will be plenty of time for eating and conversation. Friday 11/20 is our field trip to the Decatur square to learn about goods and services and some of the workers who provide them at various businesses in our community. One of our stops will be Butter and Cream, which has graciously offered to give every child some ice cream along with our tour of the shop. We would like to offer a tip for the workers who are coming in early to serve us. If you would like to donate toward this, please have your child bring in $1 on the day of the trip. We have all the chaperones we need. Thanks to everyone who volunteered! Here are the students I've reserved a sack lunch for: Hanna, Alana, Malia, Hazel, Gavin, Kate, and Ryan W. If your child's name is not on this list, please plan to send in a lunch from home on that day. SHAPES ALL AROUND In math we are working on identifying shapes, describing their attributes, finding shapes in our environment, and making shapes using materials from around the room. A fan favorite for building shapes was marshmallows and uncooked spaghetti (try this at home to get your child talking about sides, "vertices", "right angles", and more)! MORE MATH AND AN ACTIVITY FOR HOME
In math we also have done a lot of work with teen quantities to understand that teen numbers are made up of one set of ten and some extra ones. We are extending this into understanding other 2-digit numbers and how their quantities correspond to how they are written: first numeral tells how many tens, second tells how many ones (i.e. 84=8 tens and 4 ones). You can talk to your child about this at home by doing the following activity:
A NEW WAY TO READ AT HOME We are totally stoked about the read-a-thon! Folders for tracking minutes the students read will come home today. Please help your child set a specific goal for how many minutes to read each day (more than normal) and remember to write down minutes and SEND THE FOLDER TO SCHOOL EACH DAY NEXT WEEK. If our class reads the most minutes on any day, there will be prizes, and of course I also get to wear a shiny cape all day...and you know we all want that. Thanks in advance for your help! In an effort to read a lot, I wanted to share with you a website that our class uses for online reading where each child has a login and books that are specifically on his/her independent reading level. Your child should know how to use this site, but here are the details:
LEARNING MORE ABOUT SCHOOL WORKERS This week we toured the school and made a map to show where everyone in our school works. We also interviewed Ms. Susie in the front office, and Mrs. Nation from the library. Mrs. Nation is out on maternity leave, so we got to do a video interview, which was a new learning experience for most of us! TENS AND ONES
We have done so much work with teen numbers and understanding that each teen number is made of one set of ten and some extra ones. Write down some teen numbers and ask your child to tell you what they mean (in tens and ones) to check for his/her understanding. Last week we made these math monsters with partners to work on teen quantities....and to have a little fun. WORKERS IN OUR SCHOOL We have moved from learning about being a helper at home to learning about being a helper at school. Last week we discussed ways that children can help our school and this week we are learning about how adults who work here specifically help. We've interviewed Ms. Gwaltney (music), Nurse Nancy, Mr. Bryant (ESOL), and Mr. Starr (custodian) this week. In our interviews we are learning about the jobs these people perform, the tools they use, and also some personal information like what they do in their time off. Some have had funny stories to tell us too! BUDDING AUTHORS We have just completed our unit on writing narratives with beginning, middle, and end. One of our favorite parts of writing our own stories is getting to share them! We like to celebrate writing by listening to student authors read and then offering compliments about each book. Your child should be bringing home some finished (and unfinished) narratives today. These can stay at home for you to enjoy! NOT AFRAID OF A LITTLE SLIME
This week in math we've been estimating how many items are in a set by making wise guesses. We've written down our estimates and then counted objects into groups of ten with some left over to determine how many items there really are in that set (for ex: 5 sets of 10 and 3 left over is 53). Then we looked back to see who guessed more, who guessed less, and who got the number just right. We did this with spider rings and insect toys, and today we had a blast trying it again with pumpkin seeds...of course we had to get a little slimy in math today! Our pumpkin had 738 seeds! Good thing we know how to count by tens!!! ![]() DRESSING UP Thanks for participating in homecoming week by dressing your children in lots of fun ways! We had fun learning together in all our special outfits. Here we are on my personal favorite day, Wacky Tacky Day!
TINY TOWN
What's cuter than the sweet little box house your child made? 25 sweet children playing with 25 sweet little box houses in a tiny town complete with street signs, and child-made roads and people cut-outs...that's what! They have had a blast setting up roads with their neighbors (kids who live on the same streets), driving down roads to get to each others' houses for "play-dates", and going to the pretend Westchester school that we made. Thanks for helping make this possible! Though it's been fun, these houses are taking up some serious room, so we started sending them home today. The rest will come home next week. If your child's house is GIGANTIC (there were quite a few), please arrange to come by the school and pick it up...or let me know if it needs to make it's way to the recycling bin (I can only bring myself to do that if your child knows and agrees this is ok). Have a great weekend! Allison Mansfield |
AuthorWelcome to my classroom website. Archives
April 2016
Categories |