I'm really proud of how hard the kindergarteners worked with our academically packed day. Once the children had done their morning routine, we had just started math when it was time to head to the computer room for some more MAP testing. As they trickled back into the room, Mrs. Mary read them two fall stories as I pulled the boys and girls aside to work on our benchmark test. Then we got back into math. The word "graph" was introduced to the students, and we learned how to organize horizontal and vertical graphs. This was some pretty deep thinking for us, and the boys and girls did a wonderful job!
We took a quick brain break and sang and danced to the song, "Going on a Bear Hunt!" Then we dove into reading. We worked on identifying sound position for the letter S. The boys and girls listened to a word I said, then stretched it out to decide if the s was at the beginning or end of the word (i.e Soup--"Ssssssooooouuuupppp....Beginning!") They then did an activity where they practiced tracing S's and then coloring according toif it was an uppercase S or a lower case s. The picture revealed a snail.
Identifying if the S was heard at beginning or end
We gathered on the carpet for the last 10 minutes and chatted about our fun friday events. The students also earned a brownie point because nobody had to move their clothespin down to a foul! If we fill the brownie tray we get another fun day during the week, so the kids are trying really hard.
The students have really earned their fun friday tomorrow! I can't wait to enjoy all their hard work with them!
We started out our day today with Mrs. Mary reading a story to the boys an girls. Mrs. Mary is a para who comes into our room everyday from about 8:30-9:45, to help me prepare materials and to help students while I am working individually with others (today I was pulling children aside to do a beginning of the year assessment).
We reviewed the letter M and the word "I," and then the letter S was introduced. The students used their white boards to practice forming the s. We then did a writing activity practicing our s's as well as m's. Along with this, the students had a worksheet with lots of items on it and they had to only color the ones that started with m! This revealed a 'hidden picture,' which turned out to be the letter m :)
In math we talked about the scenes of '4' we drew (everything they drew had to be drawn 4 times!). We then learned how to write the number 1 (straight line down!) and two (half a heart and straight line across). We talked about how numbers are written starting at the top, just like letters.
We ended the day by doing an activity called "Erase-a-Rhyme." I read a short poem and students help me finish each line of the poem by filling in the rhyming word. As we do this, I draw a picture or the students help me erase a picture according to the poem (i.e. "This poem is going to be a lot of fun, but first we must erase the___("sun!")
You may be noticing some fun 'coloring pages' coming home. This week these, along with reading quietly on the carpet, have been an option for students when they have finished all their work. :)
What a busy day! After the students came in, checked folders for notes, put their chair down, and did smartboard attendance (all independent now!), I had my teacher assistant for the week come up and run our calendar. We talk about what day of the week it is, what day it was yesterday, and what day it will be tomorrow. We talk about what month we're in and what the weather is like. Everyone will get a chance to be the teacher assistant, along with our other class jobs such as sanitary patrol (they clean tables at end of day with wipes), line leader, paper passer, electrician, custodian (throws away trash from table trash buckets) and librarian.
During language arts we learned the poem "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt," and talked about how many names we have. We practiced introducing ourselves saying, "Hello, my name is_____."
We reviewed the letter M, and listened for m at the beginning and ending of words. This was tricky!! We had to really stretch out the word and listen closely. The students did an activity with this, cutting out and gluing an m to the beginning box, or the ending box depending where they heard m.
In math we continued to work to build concepts of the numbers 1-5. We used our math trays and worked on showing a given number with math tiles. The boys and girls worked to build language by describing to the class how they had arranged their tiles; in a line, in a square, red-blue-red, next to or beside the number.
We read the book The Hungry Caterpillar, and counted as the caterpillar ate through a variety of foods.
The students did some MAP testing in the computer lab. When asked at the end of the day what their favorite part of tuesday was, they all replied "Computers!!!" If computers = testing, then I really do have a rare and wonderful group of kiddos :)
Today we started our Language Arts curriculum. This consists of daily lessons involving phonemic awareness, phonics, high-frequency words, reading, literature, comprehension, robust vocabulary, and writing. We worked on following one-step directions playing the game "Simon Says." The boys and girls are still working on listening for when simon doesn't say! We then worked on word segmentation/dividing spoken sentences into individual words. The students had to listen to what I spoke, and decide if it was a sentence or a word. If it was a sentence, we worked on breaking it down into individual words (i.e. Raise your hand. Raise....your.....hand). We clapped for each word to help us better understand how to divide the sentence into words.
We then worked on recognizing the letter M. In our curriculum, we start with letters that are easiest for students to say. The students had to identify uppercase and lower case m's and then practice writing them using their white boards. After that, we learned our first high frequency word: I. Students practiced using it in a sentence. We did two activities to reinforce our learning of M and I. We finished out our language arts by reading Eric Carle's book From Head to Toe, talking about the words prediction and author as well as our robust vocabulary ability, confident, and reverse.
We flew through math working on visualizing a given number of objects and then did an activity drawing 5 hats, 3 cats, 4 stars, and 2 cars.
Tomorrow is some testing on the computers as well as in the classroom.
What a packed Monday we had!
Today everyone was excited because it was our first fun Friday! But before we could get to the 'fun stuff,' we had to do our usual, still fun :) routine. After calendar we continued to work on developing our language to discuss number and number relationships. The words trapezoid and hexagon were introduced, and the students used these shapes to represent numbers 1-5. We then continued working on our counting books, this time making scenes of 3.
The students listened as I read the book, Why Leaf's Change Colors. We then made our own fall trees!
After our craft time we got to spend some time out on the playground enjoying the warm weather. The students loved going outside, our first chance this year! Fun Friday is definitely something we will all look forward to every week.
Have a wonderful weekend!
After the students arrived, checked folders for notes, put down their chairs, did their attendance and found a spot on the carpet, we warmed up with a few songs. Of course "Freeze Dance" was requested. We also learned the song "Song Shut Them." This song helps get the students calm and quiet before we go on with our calendar, which is led by a student 'teacher assistant' that changes each week.
We did our math warm up with the number parade. We also have been using the smartboard to count to our targeted number, which is the number of days we have been in school; 6.
Some students got to share the scenes they worked on yesterday. We talked about how we will continue making scenes so we can make our own Anno's Counting Book. We then repeated the math lesson from tuesday, working on visualizing numbers and forming them in different ways. We finished our math work with learning the rhyme "One-Two-Buckle-My-Shoe!" ...seeing where else we use numbers in our lives.
We took our last class bathroom break. Now that the boys and girls are getting used to their surroundings they will be venturing to the bathroom with a buddy when needed :)
We are working on our own class, "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" book. The students colored the page with their picture on it. I hope to make it a traveling class book, taking turns sending it home with each student.
We wrapped up our day by finishing odds and ends in order for all the students to get to take part in Fun Friday tomorrow. The Kindergarteners worked on unfinished work and if they finished, they did a cutting, gluing, and counting activity.
We did a quick smartboard counting lesson and then started the book "Daisy Head Mayzie." Before we knew it, it was goodbye time!
Today we got our day started by warming up to the song "Freeze Dance." The kids just love dancing around the room. They are starting to feel more comfortable in their participation and in their conversing.
After calendar we went to Mrs. Boese's kindergarten room to watch a bus safety video. When we got back to the room, we talked about what we learned from the movie and then colored our own buses. This was the first time the kindergarteners got to use markers, so they were excited. :)
We spent the rest of the morning doing math. We re-read Anno's Counting book, picking out things we might not have noticed before. We talked about what the word scene means; a picture with something happening or that tells a story. The students were then asked to make their own scene, with everything in the scene being in groups of two. This was the first page of their scenes book, which will be their personal version of Anno's Counting Book.
We came back to the carpet and played "I Spy," finding things around the room in groups of two. Then we played Fruit Basket Upset, this time using numbers.
After a day spent mostly on mathematical skills, I took one student's comment as a sign that they were so wrapped up in the diversity of math that they didn't even realize how much math we were actually doing! As we gathered on the carpet... "But Miss Voigts, we didn't do any math today!"
English 10- read an article, "Duluth bans smoking on Lakewalk" and responded, took quiz on chapter 2, answered questions on a handout for chapter 2, handout due tomorrow
English 8-read an article, "Duluth bans smoking on Lakewalk" and responded, took quiz on chapter 3, went over chapter 3 and 4 vocabulary words, three compound sentences due tomorrow with three vocabulary words.
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English 10- grammar sheet, turned in dialogue sheet, read chapter 2
English 8-journal topic "impressions of the novel so far", quiz on chapter 1 and 2, worksheet with diagram of the characters and matching, read chapter 3
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We had a great first day of school! We warmed up with a coloring page before we learned some of our classroom routines and rules. We explored some of the learning manipulatives such as play dough, blocks, and legos. We read the book "The Kissing Hand," and did a craft project to go along with it (look for it in the students backpacks tomorrow, we are waiting for them to dry :) ) Before we knew it, it was already time to get ready to go home!
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