This Week's Stations Activities

This week's Math Stations:

Students must take turns rolling the dice and placing the correct number of manipulatives on their chart. The first one to 20 (without cheating!) wins the game.

The computer is always a station!

Exploring with pattern blocks.

Students take turns rolling a dice and finding a piece of the puzzle they need.

Students line the numbered cups in order 0-20. They place the correct number of beans in each cup. If there's time (there hasn't been yet!), they have a recording sheet on which to place the beans from each cup.

Students match numbers to number words (the color of the paper is a big clue). They must write the number on the penguin's belly on the recording sheet, and the number word in the corresponding box.

Students put the number cards in order, with the question mark card in the middle. They must then write that number that comes "between" in the box and color the corresponding snowflake.

Students measure the penguing using different manipulatives.

This week's Literacy Stations:

Of course, we always have the choice to Read from our book baskets, Write in our journal, and Listen to a story-on-tape or online. Our fourth choice is Word Work. These activities change weekly. The ones we are doing this week are the following:

Students cut out the word cards, arrange them in order, and glue them on the purple paper.

Students match the picture with the word card (again, the color of each card is a big hint!). Then they write the missing sound in the corresponding box on the recording sheet (they must also use the same color marker as the cards, hence the red marker in this photo).

Students draw a popcorn word card, then must make it using the individual cards, and write it on the white board.

Students must gather the matching cards (colorwise), put them in order to make the sentence, and write the sentence on the recording sheet.

Can you tell we're working hard to learn our letters, sounds, numbers, and popcorn words?! We're even learning how to write complete sentences using a capital letter and ending punctuation!

Afternoon Calendar Math Activities

Yesterday, I told you about our Morning Language Arts Activities. Today I want to show you what we do during Calendar Math activities.

I missed a couple of pictures, but first we discuss today's date. We write the date, discuss the month and day of the week, and sing a couple of songs to help us remember the months and days of the week. Then we figure out how many days we've been in school. We used to count them every day, but at this point in the year, it gets a little monotonous to count to 100 every single day, so we like to change it up and count by fives, or tens, or just start from a student-chosen number ("let's start at 57 today"). By the way, your child should be able to count all the way to 100 by the end of the year without help, and without skipping any numbers!

Then we talk about today's weather, and graph it. We discuss the graph, too, with such questions as "How many more sunny days are there than rainy days?"

We represent today's date (number) with ten frames and a seasonal picture. For example, on the 18th of January, we show eighteen penguins. Sorry I missed the picture for this one! Then we show that same number in place-value format using "cubes".

We also show today's date with tally marks.

Next we roll the dice and practice making number sentences and "counting on". By now, your child should be able to figure out which dice has the bigger number, start from that number, and count the rest to find the total. For example, if they roll a 4 and a 2, they would say, "4, 5, 6" instead of starting all the way back at 1!

And of course, reading is snuck in anywhere possible! Here the leader calls on another student to "stump" them with a popcorn word to spell!

Finally, we always graph any birthdays and any teeth lost that day, but we haven't had any of either for quite a while!

Hopefully this gives you a glimpse of what we do on a daily basis!

Morning Language Arts Activities

So what do we do all day? Many people think we "play" (like I'm the babysitter). But that is SO not true! Yes, we play and have fun, but it's all in the name of LEARNING!

Every morning we do Language Arts on the Smartboard. This is when we do a lot of phonics activities to learn the letters and sounds, and to practice reading our "popcorn" words. Here she is sounding out the "medial" (middle) sound in the word "bed". While one student comes to the board to write, the others are kept busy by writing the words on their own white boards.

Sometimes I ask a student to come up and find a certain word. Here he had to find the popcorn word "my".

Sometimes we make our own words. Here she made the nonsense word "tim".

Sometimes student-leaders guide us as we read together.

So you can see, every morning we are immersed fully in reading activities. There are several other things we do that we don't yet have pictures of. Ask your child about the letter songs ("C is a consonant, a letter in the alphabet!"), and what we do with the alphabet every day. Tomorrow, I'll fill you in on our Calendar Math activities.

OK, Parents, I'm so sorry I have gotten so far behind in posting for you. My mother's unexpected passing in October threw me off, and I just now feel like I'm starting to get caught up. I will catch up gradually with the things we've been doing, but I did want to post today to let you know the results of our December Family Reading Assembly, which was held today.

Congratulations goes out to the following students who reached their goal of 30 books for the month of December (in no particular order):

Alahna, Khloi, Madison, Breanna, Carson, Boston, Evan, Logan, Emma, Chase, Brett, Payten, Trenen, Tambra, and Gracie! WAY TO GO, Friends!


If your child's name is not on this list, please make sure to read at least 30 books to your child during the month of January, and be sure that the reading log is in their folder on the morning of Feb. 1.

Have a great weekend - enjoy this weather while it lasts - this is Ohio, you know!

Happy Birthday, Trenen!

Happy Birthday, Trenen!

Love, Mrs. K.

Happy Birthday, Khloi!

Happy Birthday, Khloi!

Love, Mrs. K.

Math, Stations, and Tree Science

We started last week with a math activity where we had to first put all the numbers in order on the floor, then count out gems and put them on the correct number.

Here we are putting our numbers in order. Since a different student was holding each number, we had to work together to figure out whose number came next.

We had to have a discussion about which number is 6 and which is 9.

Whew. That took some thinking! Now we were ready to count out the gems for each number. The students who didn't get to hold a number page got to count out gems for us. Each of these students was given a cup with a number of gems, which they had to count. Then I called for the person with one gem to put his or her cup on the number one, and so on.

Once we thought we had the cups in the right places, we counted to check.

The students liked this activity so much, we had to do it again!

Last week's Math Stations included the following activities:

(Teacher Table - Fine Motor) Lacing Cards

Roll the dice and remove the cube that covers that number. The first person to clear their board wins, but if you roll a number that you've already removed, you lose your turn!

Roll the dice, stack that number of cubes together, and place your stack on the correct number. The first person to fill up their board wins, but if you roll a number you already have, you lose your turn!

Order the numbers and place the correct number of gems, just like we did in the big group.

Computers

  Put the puzzle pieces in numerical order to make a picture of a leaf.

Place the correct number of gems on the page, matching with one-to-one correspondence.

Sort attribute links by shape.

Sort bears by their color.

And finally, since we will be observing the tree on our playground all year, and Friday was the last day of summer, we went out to gather bits from the tree and take a class picture. I had to make sure to get the leaves of the tree in the picture, because they will be different the next time we observe it!

Here we are collecting our specimens for closer observation in the classroom.

And when we went back inside, we got out the magnifying glasses again, and inspected our findings.

Please remember that Family Reading Logs for September are due Monday, Oct. 3. I will place the October Log in your child's Parent Pack on Friday so you can begin on Saturday. Our September Awards Assembly will be held next week. Every child who has reached the goal of having at least 30 books read to him or her (and recorded on the Reading Log) will receive an award.

Happy Birthday, Tambra!

Happy Birthday, Tambra!

Love, Mrs. K.

Our Behavior Chart & Rules

This is a picture of our Behavior Chart.

The colors represent the following:

Purple = Outstanding!

Dark Blue = Great Job!

Light Blue = Good Day

Green = Read to Learn

Yellow = Think About It

Orange = Teacher's Choice

Red = Parent Contact

    

We recite our whole set of rules once every day, and individual rules as reminders are needed. Following are our classroom rules, so that you might reinforce them at home:

Rule #1: Follow Directions Quickly

Rule #2: Raise Your Hand to Speak

Rule #3: Raise Your Hand to Go to the Bathroom

(or otherwise leave the room)

Rule #4: Make Smart Choices

Rule #5: Keep Your Dear Teacher Happy :-)

Rule #6: Criss-Cross Applesauce

(refers to how we sit when in a group on the floor)

Rule #7: Hands and Eyes

(hands in your lap, eyes on the teacher/speaker)

Rule #8: No Pouty Purples - Alright Oranges!

(ask your student about our color kids)     

Each student has a frog with their name on it, and every day, every student's frog starts on the color green (Ready to Learn).

In my classroom, I stress not only listening and following directions, but social skills as well, such as helping a classmate, using nice words, and using 'inside' voices. When a student is caught 'making good choices', as we call it, they will be told to move their frog up. This means they can move it up one color from wherever it is presently. Students who end the day in light blue, dark blue, or purple, will receive a quick email note from me congratulating them on their good behavior choices for the day.

However, when a student is found to not be listening, following directions, or is not being nice to their friends, they will be told to move their frog down one color from wherever it is presently. Since every child makes mistakes now and then, I don't believe in "tattling" on the student (and I don't accept their tattling, either!). I will only inform parents if the student ends the day in red. Yellow is meant as "Whoa, slow down and think about your choices!" Orange will be treated as losing 5 minutes of the next recess most of the time. If the student ends the day in red, you will find a note in their Parent Pack that tells briefly what happened. The note will need to be signed and returned to me so I know you have seen it.

A student ending the day in green is not a bad thing at all - in fact, this is perfectly fine! I will only be rewarding special moments of respect so as not to "water down" their attitudes toward their behavior.

I hope this answers any questions you may have when your child comes home and says "I was in green today."