Photo Gallery for Week of 2/21

There is much to capture during a week of kindergarten and some of it is best accomplished with photos rather than narrative or video. Read each caption to learn more about the photo and the point of me sharing it. As always, AMA (ask me anything)!

This was a short week due to Presidents’ Day and me being out sick today (Friday).

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Students worked together on these at the independent center one day. Some students are able to read the words, others just match the pictures. Whether it’s reading, matching, sharing, or working together, they are all getting something out of it.

During the Busy Bee name game, we had a last name that ended with ey. One student asked why ey wasn’t on our long e card. I hadn’t put it up there—or y by itself—because I was trying not to overwhelm them with too many choices. The conversation led to the two sounds that y can make at the end of words, something we’ve talked about a lot since one of our word lists has words with y at the end. I ended up adding these three cards to the picture alphabet. This is one of the benefits of the name game—discussions about phonics.

What our long e card looks like now.

And our long i card.

Our school slogan is ROARing to GROW. We’ve talked a lot about the components of ROAR. On this day I introduced the GROW part of it. We’ve been talking about goals and how to reach them for a few months now, but I need to start emphasizing the ownership part of learning more. Ownership is a powerful word, even for kindergartners. Grit is the same as persisting, which is one of our Habits of Mind.

Speaking of Habits of Mind, one reader asked what resource I use and how I access the videos. I thought I would share that with all of you. I don’t use a whole lot from this book other than the coloring sheets (the reading is too hard and encourages guessing), but the videos on the accompanying DVD are really good.

Our theme this week was the U.S.A. and presidents. Students love this topic. We watched a couple of videos that introduce them to the U.S.A. During writing time one day, we worked on this book together.

In math right now, we are working with pennies and nickels and the whole school is involved with the penny war fundraiser, so this ties in well. And we had one whole day later in the week learning about George Washington.

On Thursday, the students watched two videos about George Washington. I told them they were information videos and that they should listen for information and facts that they could use in their George Washington writing later in the day. I paused the video and reiterated each fact that would make sense to them. I’ll do a post about this tomorrow; today I’ll share one high, medium, and low writing sample.

Since they need at least three facts for information writing, I put a star next to each fact as they were writing them. This was motivating and kept them going.

Every year, my students love learning and writing about George Washington.

The last page of My Book about the U.S.A. Today—when I was absent—the students learned about the Statue of Liberty and then got to make one (cut it out) and use it to “measure” around the classroom.

This week in whole group phonics we talked about vowels and consonants. I want the students to be able to answer these types of questions: What are the vowels? What is the short sound for a? What is the long sound for u? What is i’s short sound? What is o’s long sound? etc.

Students took turns reading a word with the short sound and then using the silent e pointer to change the word.

Students made American flags. One day, they put the stripes on with Miss Lori; another day, they try to draw 50 stars on a blue rectangle and then glue it to the corner of their flag. Miss Lori taught them to make stars a few weeks ago when they were learning -ar.

Students practice writing the words on their current word list at the independent center.

Working on illustrating equations with Miss Lori.

I was eavesdropping on these two boys as they were furiously trying to write (and read) all of these heart words and other high frequency words during their 15-minute center.

This is proving to be a quick and effective way to practice our heart words at the end of the day. It is a word sort. Students look at our heart words, choose a word and tell me where to write it. Then we count the sounds and talk about where the hearts go. This also gets them ready to do word sorts on their own at the independent center.

Another day of illustrating equations.

That’s it for now. Look for a video tomorrow about our George Washington writing!

Randee