character, setting, and important events

During our Readers' Workshop we have been talking about character, setting, and important events in a story. These important story elements lend themselves to greater comprehension of text. Students are doing a phenomenal job at grasping these concepts. This morning I read aloud Chester and the Big Bad Bully and we completed a story map together. This afternoon I read aloud Harry and the Lady Next Door and students completed a story map individually by drawing pictures with just a little support. I then conferenced with students so they could tell me about their pictures. Tomorrow I will be reading a different book aloud for students to complete a story map on their own. This will give me an idea of what to teach next and who needs more time with these skills. When reading with your child, be sure to stop and ask who is in the story, where does the story take place, and what are some important things that happen in the story. Students are becoming familiar with the language of character, setting, and important events. You may be amazed by their skill level!

Chicken Soup With Rice

One of our favorite shared activities is reading the Chicken Soup With Rice poems by Maurice Sendak. This collection of poems has a new poem each month. Students start by listening to me read the poem as I point to the words. Next, I read a line or two and then they echo read the same lines. Lastly, as they get to know the poem well, we read through it a few times together. Students can hear the rhyme and pick out a few familiar words as they read. We are excited to see the new poem each month. Look for some of these monthly poems to come home soon.

with our buddies

On Friday we decorated cookies with our buddies. Thank you to Mrs. Garol and her 5th graders for making it such a fun time for us. I hope the cookies were yummy! Next week we will play outside with our buddies. We are fortunate to have such a responsible, caring older group to spend time with each week.

counting

Thank you to everyone who has donated food for our Kindergarten Food Drive. It truly feels like the giving season with your generosity. There is still time to send in a donation if you want. Today we continued our Ways to Count strategy list. Students added many ideas to our poster. I chose making a line and counting one at time for us to count how many food items we have so far. Students worked together to form a food line and we counted each item to reach 50! We will choose a different strategy tomorrow to count.

Saying Good-bye

Today we said good-bye to a classmate who is moving out of state. She got to be the leader for the day and we made a book for her to remember us by. Her family sent in a special snack that we shared in the afternoon. While saying good-bye is sometimes hard, it was good that we had the chance to provide some closure for everyone. We will definitely miss her, but wish her the best of luck in her new home and school. We are hoping we can be pen pals with her and maybe her new class. We'll let you know if this happens...

Math in December

This month in math we are continuing to work with numbers to 10 as well as rote counting to 50. We are continuing our work with 2 and 3-dimensional shapes as well as beginning to talk about describing position words, such as above, below, beside, in front of, behind, and next to. Our calendar pieces are of a bear and where it is in relation to a box. The picture below shows what our finished calendar will look (on the correct days of course!). We also played a partner game where students had to find someone who had the same position card as they did. Partners projected their findings on the Smart board using the Elmo.

Happy December!

It is hard to believe December has arrived and we have been in school for 64 days. This means we have completed more than a third of the school year already! As most of you probably know by now, I was away Monday and Tuesday at a Kindergarten Conference in New Hampshire. I went with Mrs. Chase and Mrs. VDC. We had a great time and learned a few new teaching ideas. I can't wait to use what I learned! I missed the children a lot, but knew they would do well in my absence. We were super-excited to see each other today :)