In reading the children have been practicing all the skills and strategies they have learned this year.  They are working on sustaining reading for longer periods of time and working independently to try and figure out unknown words.  They are very excited about our class pets- hermit crabs we have named Luke and Fred.  They sign up and are eager to practice their reading skills on a captive audience.

 In writing we finished our unit on opinion writing.  The children did well with this unit since it was a chance for them to voice their opinions and give reasons to back them up.  During the end of the week, the children had the opportunity to practice the various types of writing that we worked on this year; remembering details and working on conventions.  Their writing folders are going home today.  They are very excited to share their work with you and I heard comments such as, "My mom and dad are going to be so proud of me!"  I know that I am proud of how hard they have worked this year and what great writers they are becoming.

 In math we reviewed addition, subtraction, and problem solving.  We worked on fluency of facts through 5, and addition through 10 and 12.  The children had fun playing addition bump with a partner and practicing adding through 12.

 We did water play and worked on a unit about sinking and floating.  The children collected 5 objects from around the room and guessed whether they would sink or float.  They then asked their peers whether they thought the object would sink or float.  Finally, they tested their objects and recorded the results.

Friday was very exciting.  The children had to design boats out of clay and test them to see if they floated.  This was a quite challenge.  If they floated, they then tested to see how many bears their boat could hold.  There were many different designs and many failed attempts.  We talked about how Thomas Edison tried thousands of times before he was able to make a light bulb that worked.

It was thrilling when their boats floated and could hold bears!

On Monday we celebrated "I" day by eating ice pops outside.  It worked out great since it was such a warm day .

In reading workshop we continued to read books in which the main character is writing letters.  We talked about author's craft and why the author wrote the books the way that he/she did.  We discussed what we learned about the main characters by reading the letters that they wrote.










In writing workshop we worked on writing letters that are really convincing.  We worked on including strong feelings and writing as if we were talking to the person we are writing the letter to.  We also discussed thinking of convincing reasons why you might want something and how to tailor those reasons to your readers.  It has been a lot of fun listening to their reasons!

In math we have been practicing adding numbers with sums to 10 and working on our addition and subtraction fluency through 5.

 

We learned more about the parts of a bean seed and how beans grow.  The children are so excited that some of our beans have sprouted!

We have also been practicing daily for our end of the year play with all our kindergarten friends.

This was a quick, yet busy week in kindergarten!  On Wednesday we had a great opportunity to listen to presentation about raptors.  We even got to see a screech owl, a falcon, a red tailed hawk, and a barred owl!  It was very exciting!  We learned a lot about these birds of prey and had a chance to touch a snowy owl foot and a barred owl wing.  Here are some of the facts that the children dictated after we got back to our room.

In writing we continued to work on persuasive pieces, focusing on letter writing.  We read books about characters that wrote letters to their owners requesting things.  We noted that they stated their request in a positive way, then backed it up with reasons.  We discussed how the reasons should appeal to the person that they are writing the letter to and that the more reasons they can come up with, the more convincing they will be.  I was the scribe as the children dictated a letter to me stating that it would be better if we had a class pet and the reasons why.

In math we have been reviewing decomposing numbers, problem solving, and working on our fluency of addition and subtraction facts through 5.  These facts should be automatic.

We learned about the parts of a seed, read about a pumpkin seed growing, and had a chance to plant our own seeds.  We planted red kidney bean seeds and watched a video of bean seeds growning.  This was fascinating to the children so I have attached a link to the video.

Time lapse video of beans growing

Our resident spider catchers

This week in reading workshop we talked about characters.  We talked about how identify the main character and the supporting characters, how you can learn about what the character might be like based on how he/she looks.  We talked about making inferences- noticing what characters are doing and saying can also help you decide what a character is like.  We discussed how you can learn more about the main character in a book by the way other characters act around that main character- how do they talk to each other, what are they doing..
In writing workshop we talked about revising.  Writers don't wait around for someone else to tell them how to make their writing better (in this case more persuasive), they reread what they have written and think, "How can I make this even better?"  Then they add and change their piece so it is even better. We discussed that writers don't say, "How do you spell?"  Writers spell tricky words the best they can so that readers can read them.  Writers say the word as slowly as they can, stretching the word out like a rubber band and listening to every sound that they hear, then write them down.  Writers also use all the ways they know to write words.  We read The Lorax and discussed the fact that it is a fiction story, but it has a real message.  It talks about a problem and what needs to be done.  We added this type of writing to our list of possible persuasive styles/pieces to choose from.
In math we worked on sorting things by more than one possible attribute.  We have been practicing addition and working on automaticity of adding and subtracting numbers through 5.  We worked on story problems than involved 'how many more...' and adding on.  We also practiced filling in missing numbers through 20.

This week in reading workshop we practiced reading strategies with a partner.  Partners can help each other to become better readers.  They help figure out unknown words using strategies such as: using picture clues, stretching out words, using context clues, looking at parts of the words, and asking if it makes sense.  Partners can listen to each other read, then retell the story to make sure they both understand what is happening.

 In writing workshop we continued our unit on persuasive writing.  We talked about how writers keep writing more and more to tackle the problems they've seen.  They write different types of pieces in different ways and they keep at it.   Did you know that some writers write songs to persuade people?The children found that idea quite interesting.  We also discussed that another way to make writing more convincing is to write about how the problem might get worse if they don't do something about it.

In math we worked on comparing objects by length and by height.  We also practiced measuring many things around our room using nonstandard units of measurements.