School Family Update April 23rd

SCIENCE
Last week, we started our plant unit. We focused on characteristics of plants. Students compared living plants to nonliving plants. This week students planted grass seeds. We are observing them each day. The kids are anxiously awaiting to see something! Students sorted plant pictures by height and color.  We are also talking about taking care of our Earth. Students will record how they will help the Earth next week. They have some great answers.
Standards we are working on:
*SKL1- Students will sort living organisms and nonliving materials into groups by observable p hysical attributes. c. Group plants according to their observable features such as appearance, size, etc.
*SKL2 Students will compare the similarities and differences in groups of organisms. b. Explain teh simlarities adn differences in plants. (color, size, appearance, etc.)

READING
Last week, students visited learning centers while I was assessing GKIDS. You will get a final copy of your child's GKIDS with their repord card at the end of the year. However, I have an earlier deadline for the state. Look for updates on strengths and skills to practice on signed papers this week. Below are pictures of the centers from last week.

 At the ABC center students found the sight word that was missing from six different sentences. They had a word bank of words. This allowed students to practice reading the sight words and thinking about what made sense in each sentence. This was at centers for 2 weeks. One paper will come home in their folder, and one will be in signed papers.

The Activboard center is a favorite. Students go through the flipchart and practice various skills. This picture shows a sight word memory game. They touch the star to reveal the word. Students must say the word. There are new words each week. Other activities include handwriting practice, sorting pictures based on sounds, and writing word family words.

At our computer center, students are working on www.starfall.com. It allows students to practice various reading skills. It can read books aloud to students and highlights each word as it's said.

 At our game center last week, students worked on the IPAD. The REEF foundation purchased these cool pens (I forgot the name....) that work with the IPAD. It is wonderful to use for the handwriting apps so it mimics using a pencil instead of a finder. The app they are using is called BT free handwriting. It models where to start your pencil for each letter, then students trace it and write it next to it.

 Students have accesst to our class library throughout the day. However, during the library center there are a few more activities availalble. Students are reading together in the picture above. There are also puppets to read to or with and reading phones. The reading phones help students hear themselves reading.

 In the listening centers, students listen to a story. This help students hear what fluent reading sounds like. Then, they fill out a book report with the title, author, character, setting, and a sentence about the book. Your child should be able to name the characters and setting of any story that you read. They also should know the role of the author and illustrator.

 At writing center, students created their own book. It could be any topic, and they chose from a few different formats. Here a student is using the word wall to find how to spell a word. This is a skill we have really been working on especially during editing in writing.

 In creation, students had various materials (construction paper, white paper, tissue paper, markers, colored pencils, popsicle sticks, etc.) to make a flower. I chose a flower because we are learning about plants in science. Sometimes students are given more loose directions in creation to explore their creativity.

 At pocket chart, students have multiple bags of different sorts to choose from. Students were working on identifying middle short vowel sounds and above singular and plural pictures are being sorted. Students do not need to know these terms (It's kindergarten!) but they should know dogs with an s means more than one. The word dog just means one.

Here are some examples of books that wrere created at writing center! Hope you enjoyed them at home. I love hearing the stories they come up with!

This week students are doing literacy centers. They rotate through the same ten centers but have different activities. They are listed below.
Computer-starfall
Activboard- sight word games, handwriting practice, sorts with letter sounds, making words
Game- ipad BT Hand...Free
Creation- Make a tree
Writing- Write about a tree
Write the room- record words around the room that have ea or ee to make the long e sound.
Pocket chart- vowel sort
Listening- The Lamb and the Butterfly by Eric Carle.
Library- reading independently, with a friend, or using phones.
ABC- Sorting pictures with their medial (middle) vowel sound.

Continue to read the leveled books sent home with your child last week. Please return the book in a bag on Monday, April 28th. Thank you.

Standards:
*ELACCCKRF3b: Associate teh long adn short sounds with the common spellings for teh five major vowels.
* ELACCKL4a: Identify new meanings for familiar words and apply them accurately (homophones: ex: duck like the bird and duck like the verb. The ball is coming...duck!)
* ELACCKRF2d: Isolate adn pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds. Distinguish between similarly spelled words.
* ELACCKRL3: With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, adn major events in the story.
* ELACCKRF3c: Read common high frequency words.

WRITING
We focus on three genres of writing in kindergarten. They are narrative, informational, and persuasive. The last six weeks of the school year we revisit each genre and get a final work sample. This final sample will be passed to their first grade teachers at REES next year. Last week students went through the writing process with the topic of spring break. All of their hard work went home at the beginning of the week. This week we continued writing narratives. The topic was fun with friends. Students brainstormed activities they do with friends and wrote a rough draft. Today, we discussed adding details to make our writing better and editing. Students did this in a colored pencil so I could see any changes that were made. We are also working on incorporating how they felt into the story. Tomorrow students will complete their final draft and publish. Here is a link to a song we sing often as our hook. It goes through the writing process.

Standards
* ELACCKW3: Use a combination of drawing, dictating, adn writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in teh order in which tehy occurred, and provde a reaction to what happened.
* ELACCKL1a Particpate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about kindergarten topics adn texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.

MATH
Students went to math centers last week. This week students had new math centers. They will visit one center a day. Each center is reviewing skills. The standards that correspond to our centers this week are below.

Standards:
* MCCKOA1, MCCKCC1, MCCKOA4, MCCKCC2, MCCKOA3, MCCKG3. You may go to www.georgiastandards.org to see the full standards. These are too long to type! Basically, review 2D and 3D shapes and their attributes (# of sides and corners). Also, adding and subtracting, finding the missing number in an equation, breaking a number down into parts (ex: 9= 4+5 or 3+6) and decomponsing teen numbers. This means 17 is 1 group of ten and seven ones. We will continue to review this concept as it is tricky for most kinders.

If you made it to the end congrats! Sorry it got so long. I have been working on this on and off for a week...and it just got longer as we kept learning!
~Mrs. Daugherty