We've had an action packed few weeks! Between the Book Fair, Groundhog Day, Global Day of Play, the 100th day of school, and Valentine's Day, we have had so much fun!
Reading Workshop
We are now working on our next Reading Workshop unit, which focuses on poetry! We learned that when we read poetry, we think about the title and what we see in the illustrations to make predictions. As we read, we make connections and also spot interesting features that poems sometimes have. We think about how the poem looks and how it sounds, as well as how it makes us feel.
In some of the poems we've read so far, we've discovered that poems sometimes have lines that go in directions other than what we typically see to illustrate a concept:
repeat words to sound like a song:
follow a pattern with rhyming words at the end of lines:
or use sound words to help us imagine what we would hear in such a setting:
Writing Workshop
One special writing assignment we worked on recently was a group effort with all Kindergarten, 1st, and 2nd grade students. In the spirit of Valentine's Day, we wrote about reasons we love Dryden School!
Math
As we explore shapes in this unit of our math curriculum, we first focused on 3-dimensional shapes, or "solid shapes". We learned that some shapes have flat faces, edges, and corners, and some do not. We also practiced identifying cubes, cones, cylinders, spheres, and pyramids. Next, we worked on describing solid shapes, and identifying which "flat shapes" (such as circles, triangles, squares, and rectangles) were part of each solid shape.
We did a fun shape hunt using QR codes where we identified 2D shapes inside of 3D objects found in our everyday lives.
We also worked on identifying and continuing patterns!
After reading a book called The Shape of Things, we each created our own page where we chose one shape to transform into an object by adding to the shape.
A rectangle is just a rectangle, until you add leaves. Then it becomes a tree.
An oval is just an oval, until you add a head, legs, and tail. Then it becomes a pig.
A triangle is just a triangle, until you had head, arms, and legs. Then it becomes a girl.
A circle is just a circle, until you add a line. Then it becomes a lollipop.
A square is just a square, until you add a head, arms, and legs. Then it becomes a robot.
Groundhog Predictions
In honor of Groundhog Day, we read a couple of Groundhog stories and watched a video from last year of Punxsutawney Phil making his prediction. The class was so excited to return to school on Monday and see who had predicted correctly! Hooray for an early spring!
Global School Play Day
Global School Play Day is intended to bring attention to the importance of unstructured play time to help students foster relationships, practice problem solving skills, innovation, and imagination. We had a great time learning together through play! When we reflected on our play afterwards, we discussed what sorts of things we learn or practice during unstructured play time with our friends. Students identified discoveries that included cooperation, taking turns, using their imagination through pretend play, and playing with lots of different friends!
100th Day of School
It's hard to believe we have already completed 100 days of kindergarten! We had a blast celebrating our 100th day by playing Race to 100, writing about what we would buy with 100 dollars, and sharing our water bottle collections of 100 things.
Our Hello Helper loved switching our place value pockets over to the hundreds place...
and finishing our collection of ten frames!
We were amazed by how different collections of 100 items could look, depending on what item was chosen. We had fun identifying which bottles were the heaviest, lightest, most full, and least full.
Valentine's Day
We had a fantastic time celebrating Valentine's Day! We are so thankful for our amazing room rep, Mrs. Tyler, for coordinating our party, and our wonderful volunteers, Mrs. Scalzo, Mrs. Cossentino, Mrs. Kukulka, Mrs. Minero, and Mr. Henkel for helping with our party. Thank you for the sweet cards and thoughtful gestures. You all made my day that much sweeter!
LMC
In preparation for our upcoming author visit from Saadia Faruqi, we practiced our coding skills by using the Beebots to sequence a Yasmin story to help Yasmin find Mama!
All About Me Weeks & Guest Readers
We loved learning more about our friend, Evelyn! She showed us a narwhal she won from a claw machine at a hotel where she recently stayed. We know Evelyn loves Minecraft, and she brought in her favorite Minecraft cube that lights up. She likes glittery things, like the glitter cube she showed us! We learned the Evelyn loves mermaids, and her favorite crystal is prismarine. Her favorite bracelet was also on display, one that was made special from her butterfly wings artwork in art class. The most adorable part of Evelyn's presentation was the picture of her with her beloved kitty, Mufasa!
We loved having Evelyn's mom in to read the classic Dr. Seuss story, Green Eggs & Ham!
Next up was our friend Sam, who loved telling us about tee-ball and sharing the picture of him holding his bat! We also met his Chicago Bears stuffy bear that he sleeps with. Sam enjoys building with Legos, and decided that his favorite Lego creation is the Batman double motorcycle! Sam also shared with us a special photo of his family, including his mom and dad, little sister, and baby brother. It sounds like Sam is an outstanding big brother!
It was so fun having Sam's mom and dad join us to read the stories, Perfect, and Fly High, Fly Guy!
