Happy Thanksgiving!

Taking Numbers Apart

This week in kindergarten, we've begun to look at numbers in a new way. We've started to compose and decompose numbers. These are strange terms, but it's pretty easy - it looks like this:

4 is 0 and 4.

4 is 1 and 3.4 is 2 and 2.4 is 3 and 1.4 is 4 and 0. This concept can feel pretty frustrating for some students at first. So, today before delving into composing and decomposing numbers, I equated decomposing numbers to learning how to ride a bike without training wheels. It feels like you'll never learn how to do it, but all of a sudden, you're peddling down the street with only two wheels! They really enjoyed hearing that! (CC.K.OA.A.3 - Understand addition as putting together and adding to, and understand subtraction as taking from.)Here are a few of the Math In Focus workbook pages we completed today.

Here is how we start out. Tell how many cubes of each we have and then how many do we have all together?

Then we choose our own combinations to 4 and 5. The students have to tell me how many of each they chose to color, how many of each they have, and then 5 is ____ and _____. This is the part that feels like that bike without training wheels!

This student decided they were going to put 3 blue and 2 yellow cubes together to make 5.

This student's first combination to 5 was 4 and 1.

Getting to Know Raz-Kids

We're really getting excited about reading books in kindergarten! I sent home information in your student's folder last week about a new program we'll be using both in school and at home called Raz-Kids. This program is password protected and the students will need to use that password each time they log in.

In kindergarten, reading is an important skill we begin to develop and practice each day. Raz-Kids makes reading more interactive, fun, and focused on a student's "just right" reading level. I will be using Raz-Kids in the classroom each week with the students and hope that you can find some time at home as often as possible for your student to use Raz-Kids to read. (Common Core RF.K.1, RF.K.2, RF.K.3, RF.K.4)

To get to know the program, we joined Mrs. Klipfel in the library on Thursday to learn more about Raz-Kids, how to use it, and to get some time using the iPads, too! Here are a few photos of our time together on Thursday!

Mrs. Klipfel and the students getting set up on the iPads.

Mrs. Klipfel teaching the students how to locate Raz-Kids on our iPads.

We had LOTS of questions while working on the iPads and learning Raz-Kids. If you have a question, Mom and Dad, feel free to email me!

Thank you Mrs. Klipfel for teaching us how to use Raz-Kids!

Reading Workshop for Parents!

Hello 309 Parents,
This Thursday there will be a presentation here at Steward School for parents focusing on reading strategies you can use at home with your student(s). This presentation will be about an hour long. Here are the details for the event:
November 20, 20146:30-7:30 pmS.T.A.R.S. - Strategies to Accelerate Reading Success - For kindergarten parents in the Steward library. Presented by Sarah Lacourciere (ELA Coordinator), Jessica Minnaar and Marianne Monbleau (Reading Teachers) and Lisa Martin (Kindergarten Teacher).
Thank you and I hope you can make it - the presentation is very informative!

Literacy, Art, and Shapes - Oh My!

As you may recall, we recently read the book The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Toriano. At the end of the story, the farmer finds that Spookley was an unusually special pumpkin who not only saved his pumpkin patch, but was a new wonderful shape - square!The farm then decides to plant Spookley's seeds the next year and ends up with a pumpkin patch that is nothing short of amazing with many different shaped and colored pumpkins from triangular pumpkins to rainbow colored pumpkins. (CCSS RL.K.10)To practice identifying our shapes, we chose one shape to trace and create our own special Spookley pumpkin (CCSS K.G.A.2, K.G.A.3) and identified our shape by writing the correct shape word on our papers. 

Students chose their shapes!

And were asked to write the shape word on their paper that says "My pumpkin is a ______"

The best part of our activity? Using oil pastels to color and decorate our pumpkins!

The students had so much fun decorating their pumpkin shapes in all different ways.

Here are some of our finished products!

Here is our pumpkin patch! The students did amazing work!

Spookley Story Retelling

One of our goals in kindergarten is to have each student be able to retell a story using these five areas:
*What is the setting?
*Who are the characters?
*What happening in the beginning/middle/end of the story?
*What was the problem in the story?
*What was the solution?
(RL.K.2 and RL.K.3)

This week, we read the book Spookley the Square Pumpkin by Joe Troiano. We discussed the story using our above questions. The students worked together in small groups on one of the above areas of story retelling. Right now, we're focusing on characters, setting, problem and solution.

The students worked together to draw pictures for their part of the story retelling.

We talked about adding the right type of details to their drawings - like making sure they only added the farm, scarecrow and pumpkin patch to the setting drawing.

The groups worked really well together to create their drawings.

The characters were...the farmer, Spookley and the pumpkins.

The setting was the farm.

The problem in the story was that there was a storm that blew a hole in the fence and the pumpkins were rolling out into the sea!

But in the end (or the solution to the story), Spookley the Square Pumpkin saved the day by plugging up the whole in the fence. The farmer was so impressed by Spookley's square shape saving the day, he planted seeds the next year that turned out to be all different shapes, sizes and colors!

Go Away Big Green Monster!

Today we read the book, Go Away Big Green Monster!, by Ed Emberley and discussed how the author carefully chose his descriptive words like sharp, squiggly, and scraggly. We talked about how those descriptive words add lots of details to the story.

The students created their own Big Green Monsters and wrote about their favorite part of their monster using descriptive or color words.

I hope that you can find your student's Big Green Monster in the photos below and ask them to tell you about what they chose to write about. Then, I'd love for you and your student to comment back to me about what they liked best about their monster!

The students loved creating their Big Green Monsters!

Here are the final products! Try to find your student's Big Green Monster!

Have you found yours yet?