Getting Back into the Swing of Things!

We have had a busy week getting back into the swing of things! Here are some of the important things we learned...

Our literacy centers this week included playing roll and read BINGO with our partner, playing sight word games, finding and writing Spring words around the room, exploring a weather and seasons game, reading and writing words with the pl, bl, and cl blends, building and writing power words, writing all about our Spring Breaks, and more! 

During Reading, we learned more about text features.  We learned that the table of contents is a text feature that lists the different sections of a book and the page where each section begins. We learned that text features help readers find information in books and learn more about topics.  WE looked at nonfiction animal books and compared and contrasted various baby animals.  We also practiced wondering and making predictions. Our vocabulary words this week included bond, predator, careful, and careless.

In Writing, we started our unit on Opinion writing. We learned what an opinion is and discussed an author's opinion and the reasons the author gives to support the opinion. We are learning to form our own questions about topucs, learn to clearly state our opinions, and include reasons to support them. This week, we stated our opinion about an animal that would not make a good pet and an animal that would. 

We started our Subtraction unit in Math! This will continue for the next several weeks. Please work with your child at home on subtracting numbers within 5. This week, we looked at writing and solving subtraction stories by finding out "how many are left?". 

In this week’s Second Steps lesson, we talked about what we have learned about solving problems. We suggested ways to solve problems in different scenarios and drew a picture of themselves using a problem-solving strategy.  If problems or disagreements arise at home, for example, between siblings, ask your child to suggest a way to help solve the problem. WE have now wrapped up our Second Steps program and will be reinforcing everything we have learned over the coming weeks. 

Our Social Studies lesson this unit will teach us the following things: 

Countries have a border.

The United States is made up of different regions that are similar and different.

The United States has leaders. (President)

The United States has symbols.

Citizens of the United States have rights and freedoms.

How the United States has grown and changed

Famous historical Americans. (Washington, Lincoln, MLK, President)

An immigrant is a person who comes to live in a new country. 

That some holidays celebrate our country’s history. (Thanksgiving, MLK, 4th of July,

Veterans Day, etc.)

Looking ahead...

No School- PD Day for Teachers- 4/2

Kid's Heart Challenge 3/14-4/11

Kid's Heart Challenge donations due 4/11

Passport Night 4/12

Kid's Heart Challenge Jump Rope Celebration 4/19 at 2:00pm

World Reading Day 4/23 (more to come)

Kindergarten Performance 5/22 (save the date! more to come)

Thank you, Mrs. Pennell, for coming and teaching us about journalism and being an author!

Have a great weekend!

Jena

We Love Mo Willems!

We have has a fun week learning and reading books by Mo Willems, our favorite author! Here are some of the important things we learned...

Our centers this week were packed with Mo Willems activities!  We found pigeon power words around the room and read/wrote them, played roll and dob a power word, explored blends games, sorted adjectives/describing words, described our favorite toy like Trixie did in Knufflebunny, wrote and drew vocabulary words from our reading unit, and so much more!

In this week’s Second Steps lesson, we practiced solving problems by offering to share and take turns.  Encourage your child to offer to share and take turns with items at home.

We worked on solving addition word problems to 10 in Math. We drew pictures, counted on our fingers, and drew on our ten frames to help us solve the problems. Please continue adding numbers at home with your child. 

We continued practicing reading and writing words with blends and digraphs during Phonics, We worked on long vowels as well. We will start learning about words with silent e in the coming weeks!

During Reading, we continued learning about baby animals by listening to the book Baby Zebras and discussed information we learned.  We wondered about the topic b bay zebras by sharing and writing "I wonder" statements.  We listened to and read a short story called The Little Fly. We made and confirmed prediction s to check for understanding, discussed the pattern in the story to build fluency and develop word recognition, and generated rhyming word lists. 

In Writing, we head, visualized, and discussed various poems.  We explored descriptive words (adjectives) and practiced writing poems of our own! 

Looking ahead...

Parent Teacher Conferences-  3/12 and 3/14

Spring Break- 3/15-3/24

Have a great weekend! 

Jena