2 and 3 is 5

Up to this point, we've been working on identifying our numerals in kindergarten and understanding that the number 5 means that we have 5 of something - cupcakes, balls, fish, or friends. As we move into our new topic, Understanding Addition, we will slow down a little and take our time to really understand the relationship numbers have with each other and practice putting numbers together to make a bigger number.

I begin our addition learning telling the students that addition is taking two smaller groups and putting them together to make one big group, or part - part - whole. We use the below visual, a number bond, to practice that concept. (When we get into subtraction, we will also use number bonds but will call them whole - part - part.)

The two smaller groups are called the part,
the bigger group is called the whole.

We use visuals A LOT during the early stages of learning addition to help the students see the parts of the whole group. Today, we colored in groups of objects in two different colors, recorded our two smaller numbers, then what our big number is. 

Language is also very important at this stage of our addition learning. We use the language 2 and 3 IS 5 or 2 and 3 MAKE 5 to help the students understand that these numbers, when put together to make the "big" group or the "whole", we will ALWAYS get 5.

Here, we counted the first group of circles,
recorded the number, counted the second group and then put them together.

We use one-to-one correspondence (pointing or crossing off objects as we count)
 to make sure we count correctly.

Then, we record the number of objects before putting them together.

Eventually, we will move towards recording our number equations (or sometimes we call them sentences) in the traditional way, 2 + 3 = 5. We will focus more on the operations of writing number equations after the winter break!

Let's Eat Pie..and Bread...and Squash...and a Pot?!

I know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie!

It's my favorite time of year again! It's time to begin learning how to retell stories in kindergarten AND what better way to start than with the silly Old Lady who eats EVERYTHING at Thanksgiving dinner!

If you're familiar with the song I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, then you'll pick up a slightly revised version of her eating her way straight through Thanksgiving. The students read the story today and worked on creating their Little Old Lady and all of the things she eats during dinner.

We colored in our Little Old Ladies....

Then, we cut out all of the things she ate...pie, turkey, bread, cider...

Then, we get together in groups and retell the story to a friend so that we get the practice remembering what elements of the story came first, next, and last. This is an important skill we will continue to work on throughout our time in kindergarten and is very important to their overall reading comprehension and writing skills.

Retelling the Little Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Pie.

Groups got together to retell their versions of the story.

She even ate a pot! Imagine that!

Ask your student to use their Little Old Lady to retell their version of the new classic!

Letters and Sounds

Over the past two months we have been working on learning the names and sounds of letters using the Fundations curriculum. As of this week we've learned 17 letters and their sounds!

You may have noticed that your student has begun to identify letters and their sounds, but that they also use a keyword to help them remember the sound the letter makes. Like....

A - apple - /a/.....B - bat - /b/

I try to remind the students to "cut off" their letter sounds and not add the "uh" at the end of each sound. So, C really just says c  and not cu! They really love this idea when we get to the letter P and they tell me that P says pu and I say "oh, no! That's stinky! P U??? It's just p!" 

We also challenge ourselves each week we learn new letters to come up with as many words that begin with that letter as possible. This week we thought of the most ever - 38 P words! Here are a few of the lists we've been able to create together!

We thought of 26 words that begin with the letter J!

Sometimes letters also make the sound of the letter we learned like the
soft G or our consonant blend, dr, can sometimes be confused for the J sound.

20 R words! And.....

The most EVER!!! 38 words that begin with P!

I hope your student is bringing home their learning and sharing with you all of the sounds that they've learned so far. It may sound like it's taking a long time to learn our letters and sounds, but it sets us up for really great work in the winter with decoding new words, writing CVC words (I'll have another post about this later), and reading our Just Right Reading Books in the coming months.

Weather Scientists

This year, Stoneham has adopted a new science curriculum and we're LOVING it in kindergarten!!!

We always begin learning about weather in kindergarten, but this year we've learned that some scientists love weather so much they made it their job! We know that a weather scientist is called a Meteorologist we can see them every day on the news with our families.

We've also started to learn about the different tools a meteorologist uses to do their job like thermometers, radar, anemometers, and rain gauges.

An Anemometer measures the wind.

What Does a Thermometer measure? 

As we began our learning, one of the essential questions I asked was "what does a thermometer measure?" I haven't given the student's the answer yet, we're going to explore the weather and weather measurement tools together over the next few weeks and learn together what a thermometer really does! Some ideas were the heat, the cold, the weather, how hot you are....great ideas!

This week, we read a story about Ravi and the weather he experienced throughout his day. It was rainy and windy in the morning on his walk to school and by the afternoon, it was sunny and he could have his soccer game! On his way home from soccer, he and his family saw a rainbow on their walk home.

Rainbows peaked the student's interests and we watched the below video on how a rainbow is made and had a HUGE conversation on what a prism is and how it "breaks" the white light from the sun apart.

We found a fun video to help explain the how and why of rainbows!

The kids were still a bit confused about white light and how it "broke" apart, so I made a 3-D prism with our magnatiles, stuck it on the board, and showed them a little closer how the prism breaks apart the light into the ROYGBIV colors of the rainbow!

Here is our finished rainbow/prism/white light conversation drawing!

And...a close up!

I cannot WAIT to continue our science learning this year.

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Hello Kindergarten families and friends!

I am SO excited to start this year together. We've already been in school for 5 days (we count how many school days we've had EVERY day during our calendar!), and I can tell this year is going to be wonderful!

I hope that your family will be part of our blog posts for the 2017-2018 school year. It's a great way to take a glimpse into your student's day and classroom. It also is a great conversation starter with your little one if they don't remember (haha!) what they did in school. I will try to post 2 to 3 times each month with math, science, reading, writing, and art activities.

If you have any questions about the blog, please comment or send me an email any time!

I can't wait to see you all next week at South School's Curriculum Night!

<3 Mrs. I

Opinions Are GOOD!

Which pet would you get?

As we move into the spring, your students are REALLY flying with their personal narrative writing. This is writing that focuses on an activity, event, or experience that is true, that has happened to them, and they feel they can write a full story about.

During this time, they are also REALLY flying with their sight word knowledge, letter/sound correspondence, and writing many sounds they hear in their words. It's time now to explore and experience new styles of writing.

Right now, we're focusing on writing our opinions and using the word because to tell the reader WHY they think one thing is the best or better than another.

One of our first attempts at writing our own opinion was writing which pet they would get and why. They had to use the word because to let the reader know they were giving their opinion and the pet had to be real - no dinosaurs, dragons, or unicorns!

The writing was outstanding! Here are a few examples of their writing and which pet they would get if they could.

I want a chihuahua because I can dress them up. They are small.

I want a cat because they are cute and let me pet them.

I want a puppy because they are little.

Tricky, Tricky Math!

As we move into the spring, our math concepts become increasingly complex, but REALLY fun! Recently, we began working on understanding how addition works and what we do when we add numbers together.

The first idea we work on is knowing the when you put two small numbers "together" they make one bigger number.

Sometimes we use what is called a number bond (below) to show the students our two small numbers coming together to make a bigger number. This is also called part - part - whole (and when we work on subtraction later this year, we'll call it whole - part - part).

This is a number bond where the students see the Whole - Part - Part of a number.

A skill we've worked on A LOT this year is SHOWING our work and thinking. The students are encouraged to create a math model - drawing, ten frame, number line (in older grades), tallies, whatever works for them! - to show their thinking. Here is what that looks like...

Math models help show a student's thinking and how they reached the answer of a problem.
So far, we've focused a lot on drawings AND using 10-frames to help show their thinking.

The last concept we work on, and will continue to work on through the rest of the year, is the idea of finding ALL number combinations that make up a number. For example, we focus on the number 5 for much of our time. My goal is for the students to become fluent in their number facts to at least 5 by the end of the year and know that 5 can be 0 +5, 1+4, 2+3, 3+2, 4+1, and 5+0 (illustrated below with the staircase).

Staircase showing ALL the ways we can make 5.

Addition is the basis of ALL our math skills, so creating a solid foundation and base for their math skills is such an important part of our work together this year.

100 Days Smarter!

On Friday, February 3, we celebrated our 100th Day of School!

The kids have been working very hard on counting to 100 and have been able to count in a big group to 100 by ones in just 2 minutes and 43 seconds! They're still working on beating this record.

To celebrate, we made lots of 100th Day projects including what we will be doing when we're 100 years old, what our favorite thing has been in 100 days of kindergarten, and a 100th Day crown where we counted by 10s to 100.

Happy 100th Day!

Below are a few highlights of our day.

When I'm 100 Years Old, I will...

Watch TV

Get a New Pet.

Be rich.

All of our 100 Year Old Wishes!

What Does 100 Look Like? Homework Project

100 Small Black Beans

100 Gold Fish