Wait, there are books that have real things in them?!

Since the beginning of school, kindergarten has been learning about different genres of literature. First we had Fiction, then came Animal Fantasy,  next was the all exciting Folktale, and last, but not least, poetry. This month, we're learning all about nonfiction and...

What are the differences between FICTION and NON-FICTION?

To begin, last week we discussed what we noticed about nonfiction books and made an anchor chart.

This week, we looked at the differences between fiction and nonfiction stories with a partner. The students looked at the books and discussed what they saw. Then, we came up with a new anchor chart: fiction vs. nonfiction.

The students noticed really wonderful text features of nonfiction books including photographs, table of contents, index, word list, and most importantly, that the books we thought were nonfiction had all real things in them. Last week, one student even saw that nonfiction books can teach us things!

When asked which book their group thought was fiction, they held up the books on the left.
When asked which were nonfiction, they held up the books on the right.

Now that we're a bit more familiar with nonfiction books, we did a fun activity with Scholastic book order magazines. We cut out books we thought were fiction and nonfiction and sorted them accordingly.

The student's LOVE learning about this genre mainly because they're in love with the National Geographic animal books. If you don't have any in your home library, Scholastic has them available to order through the monthly book order!

Tell Me How It Made You Feel..

It's been a while since we've shown you all our writing, so I thought ...
"what better time than now?!"
Now, as we move into the spring of kindergarten, we know how to be writers: stories have words AND detailed pictures, we write about things that happen to us, and we're using our own inventive spelling (went may look like wet OR because may look like bcuz). These skills show how far your student's have come as writers and how much they have learned so far. Just look where we were in September here!

Each time we begin Writer's Workshop we come together and help Mrs. I. write a story making sure we use what we know about letters and sounds and our sight words!

This month, we're beginning to focus on making sure we add in a sentence that tells the reader how it made the writer feel. In the above story, I used my opinion (the food was yummy) to tell the reader how I felt about my story. I am trying to help students move away from the old standbys: it was fun, it was good, it made me feel happy, it made me feel sad, etc. 
Now it's the student's turn to tell us how they feel...

I have a wiggly tooth. Hannah wiggled one of my teeth. My one tooth felt like it was bleeding.
[This writer is exploring adding in details about feeling physical things (which is still a feeling!)]

I went bike riding with my sister. It made me happy. And my mom (was there).

I saw the movie Big Hero Six. I went with mommy and daddy and Mary. I love it.

Keep a look out for more details in your student's writing. Ask them to make sure they tell you:1. Where they went2. Who they were with3. How it made them feel

This is a writing Common Core Standard: W.K.3 - Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to narrate a single event or several loosely linked events, tell about the events in the order in which they occurred, and provide a reaction to what happened.

Thank You, Mystery Reader!

We want to send a BIG thank you to Mr. Winfrey for visiting us last week as our Dr. Seuss Mystery Reader! The kids loved hearing you read and about your wonderful work as a volunteer firefighter in Topsfield!

 

Happy 100th Day of School!

We finally made it to the 100th day of school! 80 more to go before first grade!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Magnetic Fields

We're back to exploring properties of solids (after a brief visit with liquids for the bubble workshop)! This week, we've discovered magnets and explored how they work.

Why do we study magnets? 

To begin, we read the book What Makes a Magnet? (It's a great book with lots of ideas on how you and your student can make magnets at home!) The book helped us to understand why magnets are such a special type of solid.

The students learned that magnets pick up other solid things that have iron in them. Then, they brainstormed what types of things WOULD be picked up by a magnet (paper clips, staples, other magnets, etc) and what WOULDN'T be (paper, elastic bands, plastic).

Also, the students learned that each magnet has two poles - a north and south pole. I asked the students to try and observe their magnets' poles. Some were successful in finding that some magnets didn't want to come together easily and we discussed that it was because it was the same pole (north to north or south to south) they were trying to connect. Once the students turned over the magnet, they stuck together easily. The students who found this happening during our exploration were really fascinated by it!

Then, it was off to exploring magnets on our own.

Here are a few pictures of the students in action!

Bubbles, bubbles and more bubbles!

Kindergarten scientists at work.

Kindergarteners are scientists. They view the world with wonder and excitement and ask such amazing questions! Your kindergartener is currently learning about what makes up the world - Matter! 
We've discussed that there are three types of matter - solids, liquids and gases. We explored a bit with solids and now, with the Bubble Workshop, we've started to explore liquids! 
The students loved learning that bubbles are all spheres no matter how you create the bubble, whether it's with a straw, funnel, square, dinosaur cookie cutter, or a spatula! 
The Bubble Workshop is always full of fun and excitement! Below is a slideshow of our time with Miss. Stella from The Discovery Museums. 
Bubble Workshop 2015 by Slidely Slideshow

You can visit The Discovery Museums' website to explore more science fun at home with your student.