This week, we were so lucky to have out practicum teacher, Miss McCleary, begin in our classroom. She is kind and helpful, and the students love showing her all the things they can do, telling her stories, and making her pictures.
In literacy, we worked on the letters Qq and Rr. Lowercase q gave some of us difficulty when printing. A Qq word we talked lots about was quilt. Many students thought they had a quilt in their house. In math, we continued working on patterns. We've been going hard on 3 element patterns and trying to use proper pattern language such as element and core. We also started out modified parent-teacher conferences this week. We switched to phone meetings this year instead of conducting the meetings in person. So far, using the phone, along with pictures and documents on Google Drive has worked well. These will continue through next week. What a crazy winter storm! All this snow has brought much of Swift Current to a halt. Monday, all schools were closed in the entire school division. I heard this was the first time this has happened since the 1970s. The rest of the week saw schools open, but with buses cancelled and many people still snowed in. Having buses cancelled for an entire week is also unheard of! This was definitely a weather event for the history books! With Remembrance Day happening on Wednesday, we had a short, 3 day week that saw lots of absences and just a strange week overall. We did have lots of fun playing in the snow at recess though.
We got a break from the snow clothes this week. It's interesting talking about the season of fall and getting ready for winter while the weather outside is contradicting everything we're learning! But the winter weather will be back. We worked on extending patterns, and filling in the missing elements of patterns. During these activities, we discussed pattern rules. We know that if the rule is that red must always come after yellow, then we can use that information to help us complete and extend patterns. We also focused on the letters Oo and Pp. Most of us found these easy to write. We also liked making octopus arms and popping fingers during our alphabet chant for these letters. Finally, the even day class had their very first fire drill. I was really impressed at how well they caught on to the procedures for the fire drill. We all agreed that the alarm bell is very loud and maybe a little scary but it's important to know how to stay safe.
It was a busy week in kindergarten! We were working hard to finish up our pumpkin project. We measured the pumpkin's weight and circumference. We also cut it open, cooked the seeds and carved it. For each of these activities, we made a page in our books. On Friday, we finished the books and students were excited to bring them home. We also finished out the week with an orange and black dress-up day and some Halloween-themed songs, video clips, and treats.
On Thursday, the even class got to meet Miss McCleary - our student teacher who will be doing a practicum in our classroom from mid-November until Christmas break. She came in for an orientation day, to see the school and classroom and to meet the students and staff. We were very excited to spend the day with her and are very much looking forward to her return. We continued practicing patterns in math, and also incorporated numbers into some of our lessons so we can start to build our understanding of them. In literacy, we have now practiced up to the letter Nn. We learned about letter Nn words such as nap, nest, net, and nose. This week brought some cooler, wintry, weather which meant full snow clothes. Putting on, and taking off snow clothes independently is an important life skill for students to learn. We learn about why we need to wear snow clothes (because it sure is easier to not wear them!), how to put them on correctly, and what to do if we run into a problem with putting them on. We watched videos of other kids putting on their snow clothes, and Mrs. McLeod even brought her snow clothes in to show. After some practice, students were challenged to get dressed in and out of their snow clothes all by themselves, without any adult help. Those who were able to do it, got their picture taken for proof! These photos will be posted on SeeSaw soon so families can see if their child is able to do it.
In math, we learned and practiced 3 element patterns (ABC and ABB, AAB). These were tricky for some students so practice at home if you're able to. These are repeating patterns that go red, blue, green, red, blue, green, red, blue, green, or red, blue, blue, red, blue, blue, red, blue, blue, or red, red, blue, red, red, blue, red, red, blue. A reminder that these are examples of colour patterns, but the same rule applies for shape, kind, and action patterns. We have studied all the letters from A-L as of this point. Please quiz your child at home on these letters in random order to ensure they are continuing to be reinforced. Don't forget to also work on the sound of the letters, words that start with these letters and printing them. I was so happy to be back at school. And I felt very welcomed by all the students. We continued on with the letters Hh and Ii. We also started out guided math jobs in math. Students learned how to read the job board and move through 4 different jobs. Some of the jobs focused on patterns, others helped us practice numbers, and one job is a lesson with the teacher. Both classes really impressed me with this. Moving through our guided math jobs can be hard to catch onto, but students seemed to really get the hang of it quickly this year. We have also started to learn some of our kindergarten sight words. This week we practiced 3 words: my, name, is. We will continue to read, write, and spell these words for the next couple of weeks. You can practice them at home too!
The back-to-school cold hit me at the beginning of the week four followed by a bout of laryngitis causing me to miss 2 weeks of school. While I don't like being out of the classroom, I was at ease knowing that we have such a strong group of students this year. Updates I received from the substitute teachers stated how well students adapted, how well they knew routines, and how helpful they were. That is so amazing for it being so early in the school year. During this time, students continued to practice AB colour patterns, and we introduced to AB shape patterns. They continued exploring the alphabet letter names and sounds, getting all the way up to the letter Gg. Apparently, Gg was a tricky for some of them to write - which is typical. Students also continued to practice spelling and printing their names. Over the 2 weeks, there were many students who couldn't previously write their name, who are now able to do it! Very exciting times!
I'm a little behind in posting this. This post is about the 3rd week of school. This was the first week that we had our full groups for each class everyday. We also started our formal alphabet instruction this week. I've read a lot over the years about whether to teach the letters in order or not and the research is fairly mixed. Some people say it's better to teach the letters in order, while other experts say it isn't. Taken this research into consideration, plus using what I've seen in my 12 years of teaching, I take the approach to teach the alphabet letters in order - at least at the start. I find that many students start school with little or no awareness of the alphabet. They don't know what letters are or that there's even an order. I have found that a stronger foundation is built if we begin with the basics. For students who do come with some knowledge of the alphabet, a review of the basics tends to strengthen their alphabet awareness and allow them to develop deeper skills. So we started with the letter Aa. We learn both uppercase, lowercase, the sound, and how to write it at the same time. We sing songs and chants about the letter, talk about words and names that start with that letter, practice recognizing it around the classroom, and practice writing both forms of the letter. We will do this with all 26 letters in order (usually runs into January), then we go back through the entire alphabet but in random order, and move a little more quickly. In November/December, we start assessing individual students to see how their alphabet knowledge is progressing. If students are struggling to grow, we will provide extra alphabet activities for those students in addition to continuing our regular instruction. Students who are showing excellent growth with alphabet awareness, still participate in our whole group letter practice, however they may have alternate activities to work on at certain times to extend their thinking.
Other highlights from this week include a fire drill. We didn't use the real alarm for the first drill. There will be another drill later in October, where students will hear the sound of the alarm. One thing that this group of students did an amazing job with was the attendance when we arrived out our class meeting spot. Way to go! In math, we continued exploring colour patterns. Students are really starting to get the hang of these! Our second week of school had staggered groups for the first four days and then we had our first day of the full class for the odd day group on Friday. I was so impressed with how much students remembered from their first day of school. Students showed up on their second day of school remembering our rules and other routines that we learned. It was great because the second day had a few more new things to learn so we could build off of the foundation from the first day. Students also go to meet more friends from their class that they didn't meet on their first day. We also added in our morning meeting time and math time on our schedule. In math we have started exploring colours, sorting rules, and patterns. Some students are already 'pattern crazy' making and find patterns everywhere they go! Overall, I feel the second week went very well and sense that students and staff are settling into the our school routines nicely.
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Mrs. McLeodKindergarten teacher sharing updates from our learning adventures! Archives
December 2020
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