February 25th, 2011

Needed

-3 oz dixie cups (used for snack)

Wild Learning in Kindergarten

-Heart word of the week: said

-The reading strategy we focused on this week was retelling stories.

-For writing this week, we worked on a visitor's guide for our city.  We created a map and a key to go with the map.  We then wrote what each place in the city was.

-In math, we continued developing and solving story problems.

-During our social studies time, we worked on distinguishing between needs and wants.  We were also introduced to the difference between goods and services.

-Our city continued to be open this week during our community center time.  This week, we added a train station.  At our train station, we practiced writing train tickets and writing a train schedule.  We also opened a car dealership.  We were then able to drive our cars around the city.  Before we could drive the cars around the city, we had to take a driver's test in order to get our driver's license. 

February 18, 2011

Needed

-3 oz cups

Wild Learning in Kindergarten

-Heart word of the week: little

-The reading strategies we worked on this week included summarizing and figuring out the main idea/details. 

-Our writing project this week involved main idea and details.  For our main idea, we picked a job that we would like.  We then came up with two details about what we would do if we had that job.

-In math, we continued with story problems.  This week, we started writing our own and then solving the problems that we make.

-We celebrated our 100th day of school on Thursday!

-During our social studies time, we continued to evolve our city.  We decided our city needed roads, so we taped some down on our floors.  We then realized that we would need some road signs.  We brainstormed some signs we needed and then made them. 

-Our community centers is when our city is open.  This week, we opened Pizza Hut, a post office, a school, a bakery, a vet, a fire station, a police station, an art museum, a pet store, and a construction zone.  We have really enjoyed learning about these various jobs through play.  Next week, we look forward to adding some more businesses to our city. 

February 11, 2011

Needed

-3 oz cups


Wild Learning in Kindergarten

-Heart word of the week: what

-With our focus book this week, we practiced the reading strategies of summarizing and recognizing the main idea/details.

-In writing, we wrote about something that we love.  We also included a detail sentence about why we love it.

-In math this week, we were introduced to story problems.  We acted out some problems about seals, whales, and sharks.  We also practiced solving story problems using white boards.

-During our social studies time, we started talking about turning our classroom into a city.  We decided to name our city "Star City."  We also brainstormed some different businesses we could have in our city.  We then made business signs for some of the businesses.  Next week, we will be opening up our city for business.

-During our center time, we enjoyed some valentine activities.  We made folders to hold our valentines.  We also graphed and sorted candy hearts.  Also, our igloo is finally finished!  We enjoyed reading books inside our new special area.

February 4, 2011

Wild Learning in Kindergarten

-Heart word of the week: and


-In math this week, we learned a new math center called Spin and Write.  With this center, we are practicing writing numerals 11-19, comparing quantities, graphing, and counting strategies.

-Our focus book this week was called, Mole and the Baby Bird.  With this book, we discovered the story structure was beginning, middle, and end.  We also talked about plot and characters with this story.

-Our theme for the week was teeth.  We wrote about how to keep them clean.  We also did an experiment where we put some "teeth" (eggs) in pop and kool-aid.  We discovered what would happen to our teeth if we drank to much of those drinks without brushing our teeth.

-During our center time this week, we had a few teeth activities.  In our construction area, we built a dentist office and dentist chairs.  We then used puppets and acted out going to the dentist.  At out art center, we had a yellow tooth and we used a tooth brush and white paint to "brush away the plaque".  We had another center where we used egg cartons as teeth and then practiced brushing and flossing them.

January 27, 2011

The Mitten

-Our play, The Mitten will be taking place Friday, February 4th at 2:30 in the Library.

-Please have your child where his/her costume to school on Friday.

-I will set up 2 chairs for each family.  Please let me know if you need additional chairs.

-On Thursday at 3:40, I will be setting up the library for the play.  I would love some help.

-If you would like to donate any of these items for our play, please let me know.
        *Cheese (Gordons has bags of cheese already cut into cubes)
        *Crackers
        *Juice boxes
        *Small plates
        *Napkins

A Wild Week of Learning in Kindergarten

-Heart word of the week: do

-We read an ABC book this week about baby animals.  With this book, we worked on recognizing the story structure.  We discovered that it was an ABC book.  We also practiced classifying and categorizing.  We learned that this means to put things into groups.

-In math, we were introduced to two new math centers.  Both involve pennies and nickles.  Beat you to 20 cents gives us practice recognizing the coins and their values.  We can also practice comparing quantities with this center.  Our other center is called Race you to 15 cents.  With this center we are practicing exchanging five pennies for a nickle.

-In science, we learned about animals.  We talked about where they live, what they do, and their body coverings.

-We kept many of the same centers this week as last week.  We continued building hibernation homes and building with our ice bergs.  One of our new centers was acting out our play, The Mitten.  Our science center was also new this week.  We had the opportunity to experiment with ice.  We also had a "blubber glove" so they could see what it was like to have blubber and touch ice.

January 21, 2011

Needed

-Milk jugs
-3 oz paper cups 

Wild Learning in the Kindergarten Jungle

-Heart word of the week: this

-The reading strategies we practiced this week were making predictions and recognizing the story structure.  In the book we read, we realized the story structure was like a pattern.  Almost the same thing happened on each page of the story.

-In math, we practiced counting strategies for amount 10-20.  We also practiced recognizing numerals and matching them to the quantity.

-During our science time, we started learning about animals in the winter.  We learned that animals hibernate, stay active, or fly south for the winter.

-Our community centers consistence of many of the things animals do in the winter.  We built hibernation homes for animals.  We pretended like we had to stay active and dig in "snow" to find food.  We also had a center where we had a map and created routes for the birds who were flying south.  We then used cubes to measure how many cubes long the journey was.

January 14th, 2011

Needed

-Please keep sending gallon milk jugs


Wild Learning in the Kindergarten Jungle

-Heart word of the week: you

-This week, we practiced using the reading strategy of making inferences.  We used our brain and clues from the book to come up with an idea.  We also practiced summarizing some of the books we read this week.

-In writing, we were introduced to using the words around the room to help us spell some of our words correctly.  We also wrote a winter story this week where we practice again using adjectives.

-During our math time, we were introduced to some new centers.  One center helps us practice counting and comparing quantities and is called Beat You to 20.  Another is called: Which is heavier?  With this center, we are using a balance to compare weights of various objects.  The last new center of the week is sea creatures.  With our sea creatures, we practice counting, sorting, patterning, and much more!

-We had many winter related centers during our community centers this week.  We had snow in our science center and we made many discoveries on how to make ice, how to melt it, etc.  We also practiced our building skills with our boxes that we turned into ice bergs.

-We did a science experiment to figure out the fastest way to melt ice.  We used a hammer, a hair dryer, a lamp, our hands, hot water, our breath, and salt.  We discovered that the hammer was the fastest because it broke the ice into small piece, which melted faster.  Salt was the slowest.  We then discussed why they use salt out on the roads instead of one of the faster methods.