Today we focused the first part of our morning on math. We worked on building vocabulary and concepts for the numbers 6-10. The boys and girls came up to the smartboard and helped me group things into 5-groups, then worked on language to explain why they laid it out the way they did (this was a review of 8=5 group plus 3....so 5+3=8).
Next I introduced repeating patterns. I gave the boys and girls some examples on the smartboard using our square inch tiles: red square, blue square, red square, blue square...and so on getting increasingly harder. Then the boys and girls helped me act out some patterns. I called on some children to come stand in front. The other kindergartners had to decide what my pattern was (short sleeve, long sleeve....or dark hair dark hair, light hair light hair). This was a bit of a challenge, as they had to think of all the possibilities I could be thinking of.
During language arts we worked on rhyme recognition and produce. I said two words; if they rhymed, the boys and girls said "They rhyme." If not, they said nothing. Then the students drew a card from my rhyme purse. They said what the picture was, then thought of something that rhymed with that word. We focused on the -am family, with words such as Sam, Ham, am, etc. This was the first time the vocabulary word family was introduced.
We finished up our station work today as well as other odds and ends. The students had the opportunity to get done a lot of their unfinished work. Some boys and girls that were already finished with work got to do some extra dot painting and color-by-word sheets.
The kids have been begging to go outside (we've only been to the playground once this year!), so I'm hoping tomorrow is nice enough to do that for Fun Friday :)
You'll have to be sure and check out our "I'm thankful for..." tree when you come in for conferences next week!