Dear Parents, I can hardly believe Winter Break is right around the corner. This year has flown by and I am truly honored and blessed to be your child's kindergarten teacher. I love watching their reactions as they come into the classroom, frantically searching for Jingle the Elf! Check out some of her hiding spots below :) In Fundations, the children learned the last two letters: z-zebra/z/ and qu-queen-/kw/! Hooray! I explained to the children that we call q the "buddy letter" because it will never ever go anywhere without its best buddy u. Also, u does not count as a vowel when it is with u, it just sits there to keep q company. To make it fun, I called on a student to come up to the front of the room. I then whispered a letter name to him/her and had the student form the letter with their finger on the large writing grid. The other students decided which letter was formed and said the letter-keyword-sound. In Math, we practiced counting by tens. To further practice counting the children sang and counted along to the "Snowflake Song" and a Penguin Counting Powerpoint presentation I displayed on the whiteboard. Check them out below! The next day, we played Top-It! We picked two cards from a deck. The children read the numbers and told me which number was more and which was less. The child that selected the larger number got to keep both cards. You can play this game at home, too! All you need to do is log on to Connected! On Wednesday, I introduced the Number Grid. First, we compared the number grid to the Growing Number Line and noted that both showed the numbers in order. We talked about how to read a number grid the same way we read words in a book (left to right). Then, each child used their own number grid to practice different ways of counting (i.e. counting up to a given number on the grid; counting on from a given number on the grid; counting backward from a given number; counting by 10’s....). Finally, the children used their dry erase markers to show some of the following prompts:
On Thursday, the children were given a Dice-Throw Grid and their own pair of dice.The children worked independently to roll and record the sums of dice throws on their graph in their math workbooks. The graphs were complete when one column was filled. Once every child finished, I recorded each child's winning number on the class grid. The children noticed that the middle numbers were more likely outcomes because there are more than one way to make those numbers. On Friday, we worked with ten frames! I told the kiddos to imagine that each square was a seat on a bus and that exactly one bear could sit on each seat. I chose a number card to see how many red bears got on at the bus stop. Then I asked how we could figure out how many blue bears must get on the bus to fill all 10 seats? They were so excited to tell me that I could count the empty seats! After modeling the activity, the children played in pairs, working together to figure out how to fill the bus and to record combinations on their recording sheets. In Literacy, we created a class book all about the month of December. We brainstormed what we see, hear, and smell in December first. Then, the children were given one of the senses mentioned above to write about. Some examples are pictured below :) The next day, I read ANOTHER version of the Gingerbread Man. The children used felt pieces to retell the story in their own words. They did such a great job sequencing the events in order! To conclude, the children cut out parts of the story and glued them in the correct order to show what happened first, second, third, etc. After the sequencing was done, they put together their gingerbread man! To wrap up the week, we discussed Kwanzaa by reading a story, learning some vocabulary words, and reading an emergent reader chorally as a class. Take a look below! During Guided Reading, the children rotated through the following centers:
Well, I'm off to do some last minute Christmas shopping! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Best, Miss Visicaro Dear Parents, First and foremost I want to congratulate your adorable children on a job well done at their music concert this past Tuesday. I was so proud standing in the audience watching them all sing their little hearts out! They all worked so hard to make it so special! Thank you all so much for coming! Jingle the Elf was very sneaky this week. The children could not hold back the giggles as they searched and searched for her whereabouts. It is so much fun taking a step back and watching your children eagerly look for Jingle the Elf as they rush into the classroom with huge smilies on their faces. I have to say, they are really good at finding her (or maybe I'm just running out of tricky hiding spots). This week I even recorded a high pitched Miss Visicaro also known as Jingle so the children could hear her talk! Check out some pictures below! In Fundations, the children learned two new letters: y-yellow-/y/ and x-fox-/ks/. There are only two more letters to go! Once again, the students helped me get the sentence frames I needed so I could write the sentence I dictated . After I wrote the sentence correctly, the students helped me read the sentence as I pointed to each word. In Math, the kiddos used pattern blocks to build hexagons six different ways! On Monday, I gave them some time for exploration. They worked with a partner to create different combinations on their "Building Hexagons" Work Mat. The next day, the children recorded their six different combinations on their recording sheet. Check out the pictures below :) On Wednesday, the children used connecting cubes to "build" numbers from combinations of smaller numbers. First, the children helped me show different ways to build 5 using two different colored cubes. Then, I modeled how to record my combinations on a recording sheet. Finally, I assigned each child a number between 5 and 9 to build and gave each child that number of connecting cubes in each of two colors. They worked hard building their number in as many ways as they could using the two colors. Then, they recorded each combination on their sheets. The next day, I introduced the pan balance and how we compare the weights of objects. To begin, I held up two identical containers that were filled with different objects. One container had marbles and the other had erasers. I passed each container around and asked the children if the containers felt different. They all agreed that the container filled with marbles felt heavier. Next, I showed them the pan balance and asked the children what they noticed. We discussed the word "balance" and I explained that the two empty pans were the same height or level. I placed the container with marbles in the pan and asked for observations. I asked, "Why do you think the pan with the container is lower? What happens to the other pan when one goes down? What do you think will happen if we add the other container to the other side? Why?” I then added the second container with the erasers to the other side. The children noticed that because the side with the marbles was lower, it was heavier than the erasers. Finally, I displayed a variety of objects and selected a child to select two objects. They told the class which object felt heavier as they pretended to be a pan balance. We tested the results by weighting the objects on the pan balance. Finally, the kiddos compared the capacities of various containers using sand! We compared pairs of containers first. I asked the class which container they thought held more sand? I tested their predictions about capacity by filling one container and then pouring the contents into the other. We discussed what it meant if the sand overflowed or didn't fill the second container. Then. I gave the children time to experiment freely with capacity by pouring materials between containers and making comparisons. They really enjoyed this lesson! Finally, the most exciting part of our week was our gingerbread man scavenger hunt! The children heard many different versions of the story (we compared/contrasted them all), and decorated their very own paper gingerbread man. Then, the gingerbread man left us clues to help us find him. These clues brought us to the library, the gym, and the office. The last clue explained that the gingerbread man was tired of running and went back into his book. He even left the children a bookmark! They were so cute during our hunt! Many of them told me they saw his crumbs on the floor! The children also made reindeer hats and created paper stockings! We had 3 birthdays to celebrate this week- Bryce, Ian and Molly! A huge thank you to Molly's Dad for coming in and reading to the class! The children also really enjoyed the goodie bags!
We also welcomed a new student in our PM class- Tiara! Finally, I would like to thank you for nominating me for "Teacher of the Year!" I am so beyond thankful and appreciate your thoughtfulness! The nomination made my week!!!!! I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend! Best, Miss Visicaro Meet Jingle the Elf! She surprised the children this week with her appearance and all her challenges! I had so much fun writing secret letters from Jingle, surprising the children, and hiding her in silly places around the room! It was so cute to see the children spot her when they walked into the room every morning! Check out the pictures below :) In Fundations, the children were introduced to two new letters: v-van-/v/ and w-wind-/w/. They are so excited that we are almost at the end! Just a couple more letter to go! Also in Fundations, I collected objects that ended with the letters taught so far and put them in a big shopping bag. Then, I called on a student to pick something out of the bag. I asked the student what they pulled out and had them find the letter that ended the word. Next, they said the letter-keyword-sound and the class repeated. Finally, the student wrote the letter following my verbalization on our class writing grid. As a follow up from last week, I displayed a sentence using our sentence frames that asked a question. I modeled how to read question sentences, making sure to make my voice go up at the end. Then after we choral read the sentence together, I erased the sentence and put the frames in a column on the board. I selected a student to put the frames in order so I could successfully write the sentence "Do you like candy?" After the sentence was written, the children helped me read it as the student pointed to each word with the pointer. In Math, we identified different shapes by feel. I introduced the "Feely Box" and noted that there were different shapes inside the box that the children will touch but not see. I gave them clues to help them choose shapes from the box. They LOVED this! The next day, we learned about each other's favorite colors! I gave each child a paper crayon and told them to color their crayon their favorite color. When they finished coloring their crayons, I instructed them to stand in groups. Then, we discussed which colors were the most and least popular in our class by counting the children in each group. We discussed how we could share with others what we learned about our favorite colors and how we could save this information so we could talk about it another day or compare it with another class. I was so excited when the children mentioned creating a graph!!! Each child placed their crayon on our graph end to end to create bars. To wrap up the lesson, the class counted the number of children who chose each color on the graph as I wrote the corresponding numbers above each color. Blue and purple were the most popular in the morning class and red was the most popular in the afternoon class. Take a look below! The next day, the children learned how to use a calculator. I asked them some simple questions and they pressed the correct number key and then on/c to clear the display. Take a look at the powerpoint presentation I created to go along with this lesson :) Finally, the children took "quick looks" at ten frame images. I explained to the class that I will be flashing a card with dot images on it for only a few seconds before hiding it. I asked the children to take a quick look but not to count the dots one by one. The kiddos showed what they saw by writing the number on their whiteboards. The children were prompted to describe what they saw and how they saw the dots. They really impressed me! In Science, we tallied the weather for November. The children noted that we had the most sunny days in November. In Literacy, the children learned all about the different holiday traditions. We also spent some time reading stories about Hanukkah and making a cute little Menorah craft. We also read different versions of "The Gingerbread Man" and created our own gingerbread people! They turned out ADORABLE! Unfortunately, I can't reveal everything we did in Literacy but I can tell you that the children have worked super hard to create extra special gifts for each of you! During Guided Reading, the children rotated through the following centers:
Well, that does it for me! I hope you all have a wonderful rest of your weekend. I look forward to seeing you all at our music concert on Tuesday night at 7:00 pm!
Miss Visicaro |
Mrs. NorkArchives
June 2018
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