Run, run as fast as you can

We have had a fun filled retelling unit based on the Gingerbread Man!

We practiced sequencing the story throughout the week. Together, we shared the pen and practiced summarizing the events in the story.This was  also a great opportunity to work on capitalizing the beginning of a sentence and writing our best letters. 

Here we are practicing our mapping skills looking for that sneaky Gingerbread Man. I think they asked everyone they passed..."Have you seen our Gingerbread Man?"

Reading all the clues he left behind!

Hippest in the House for the 1st Nine Weeks

September: Responsibilty

Allison & Joshua

October: Courage/Integrity

Saanvi & Xander

November: Respect

Landrey & Tyler

Great work guys!!! I am so proud of the great example you have set for others. You rock!

Stone Soup

Great readers think about what they are reading! As Kindergarten readers, students need to be able to retell familiar stories. We read the story Stone Soup and students did an amazing job retelling almost all of the events in order! I was amazed. Together we got cooking and made the most delicious pot of stone soup. You can find the story on YouTube.

Star Readers!

After learning all about strategies to use as we read, our readers have really focused on trying to get in those stamina minutes. They are so excited to show their skills! I know that we love to see it as well! It's great to see them shine! 

We have long passed 10 minutes of independent reading, and have begun really working on building our reading stamina for 15 minutes!

Our Fabulous Fall

We have had a blast this fall from our trip to the Big Orange Pumpkin Patch, The Boosterthon Fun Run, and our Thanksgiving program.

The much anticipated bus ride!

Feeding the animals

Fun on the hay ride!

Yep, this one's perfect!

Thanks to all of the parent volunteers that made our fall so fabulous!

Subtraction Stories

There was a lot separating happening during Math Workshop. We had a great time with some of our favorite storybook characters. We learned that separating stories have clues that tell us to subtract. Students used Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons to act out subtraction his subtraction story! Pete is class favorite! We saw what the matching equation as each button popped off and rolled away.

The kiddos also had a great time acting out Five Speckled Frogs with hand puppets. 

Schema

We learned that schema is everything we know about a topic. We talked about how our brains work like file cabinets. When we read or listen to a story our brain "pulls that file" or topic and immediately begins to use the information we already know to help make sense of new info. For example....we read a nonfiction book about pumpkins. As soon as we identified the topic (pumpkins), we began using our pumpkin schema. It was interesting to see the wide variety of background knowledge. 

The seeds show our schema! 

After sharing each other's schema, we then read the book. We put our new learning on the leaves and found that we had we can use our schema to help make sense of new information. Our schema grows as we read, read, read!

Building Our Reading Stamina

Students have worked really hard building their reading stamina! We have reached 8 minutes of solid reading time. What makes this so special is that they worked together as a class! When we build stamina, we read books that we can read, on our own. Students learned that when we read, we will build up our reading brain a little at a time...just like a weight lifter would or a runner. This called for a celebration! A reading celebration! Students wanted to read with their shoes off and use the special pointers. That's exactly what we did!

Math Workshop

As we have been working with numbers 0-5, students have been problem solving, thinking about numbers flexibly, and counting! 

Here we are playing Break the Train. One partner holds a 5 stick of cubes behind their back and then breaks it. They hold one part behind their and show their partner the remaining part. The partner has to determine how many cubes are behind their partner's back!

We have also been learning how to show different ways to make the same number. Students matched as many dominoes as they could to show each number.

We have also been comparing sets of numbers throughout the past couple of weeks. We played One Less Bingo to show that we can think about numbers mentally. Students had to mark the number that is one less! Our brains were definitely on to play this challenging game!

Great job mathematicians!