K001 News

Science/Writing

On a perfect fall day last week, our curious Kindergartners went out on a nature walk to collect tree artifacts! They found leaves, bark, pinecones, and sticks.  We have been studying and observing our artifacts this week to further our knowledge about trees and the significance of their parts.  We have been integrating our tree inquiry into writing.  We are learning how to write like a scientist by adding lots of details to our pictures and labeling all the parts. Next week, we will create informational booklets to record all that we notice about our tree artifacts.

Math

We continue to explore counting.   We read counting books and will begin to notice how they are different from one another.  We played a whole class game called “Counting Around the Circle.”  We sit in a circle.  We go around the circle counting up by ones, each person saying the next number in the counting sequence. For example,  I would say “1” the person sitting next to me says “2” then the next person says “3” and so on.  You can try this at home, around the dinner table, in the car or anytime you have a few extra minutes.  Challenge yourself to see how high you can count up to.  Try starting at a number other than one, or try counting backwards.

We do our daily math routines of adding a bead to the bead string, a marker to the number line and a dot to the 10 frame.  These are all the ways we keep track of how many days we’ve been in school.  It’s hard to believe that it’s been 33 days already!  We are keeping track so that we can celebrate the 100th day of school.

Reading

Our reading workshop has been focused on building many skills to help us become readers.  Our current unit features emergent storybooks.  These storybooks are often favorites for our young readers and help them feel successful at reading even if they are not yet ready to read the words.  The emergent storybooks include detailed pictures that help students tell the story while looking mostly at the pictures.  We are learning to change our voices when the characters speak, to use our bodies to match what is happening and to practice story language. Some of the emergent storybooks include Caps For Sale, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Harry the Dirty Dog, The Carrot Seed, Corduroy, The Three Bears and Henny Penny.