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

I Know an Old Lady...

Before Thanksgiving break, the class began to practice retelling stories in a group and to a partner. I always kick-off this learning by having the students retell a familiar story we've read a few times and one that has repetitive language.

There's no better story to start them with than...I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Pie! 

This story is funny, catchy, and a perfect finish to our Thanksgiving learning during November. 

Once we've read the story a few times, the students color and cut out their own Old Lady, we add a clear plastic baggie to her stomach, and then we add her meal in one food at a time! The students have SO much fun retelling the story to each other and making sure they get the sequencing correct.

 

 

Make sure to have your student retell you the story I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Pie, it's a ton of fun!

Where Are All The Turkeys?

A HUGE thank you to all of the families who took the time to create a disguised turkey for our classroom! These are some of the best and most creative turkeys I've ever seen! We had a dog, Elsa, princesses, police officers, superheros, and Golden State Warriors!

Here are all of the amazing turkeys from our classroom this year!

All of our AWESOME turkeys!