strike

Today we wrapped up our week before spring break by field tripping over to one of the local bowling alleys. The kiddos did a great job, especially considering that three of the lanes didn't have numbers. I stepped in for one of my kiddos that was absent today, bowling with her preassigned group and I am proud to say that I won. I was in a lane that had bumpers. I was also beaten by a kinder in the next lane over. So I don't really have much to brag about other than reaching the triple digits (barely). My kiddos are awesome though and kicked some bowling behind.

After bowling we rolled on over to Big Cheese Pizza (think low end Chuckie Cheese) and had our fill of pizza. Or at least, we tried to get the kiddos to eat, but they were so excited about the arcade that they ate a slice and said, "I'm ready to play now!" This means that the mister and I have dinner taken care of, which is nice since we'll be spending the evening packing up to hit to road for a week. 

When we returned to school we had a small going away party for Mrs. S. Today was her last day as our assistant and we wanted to thank her for all that she does for us. So, juice and animal crackers it was. Followed by a little bit of The Land Before Time and some time in the play kitchen. 

All in all it was a fantastic way to spend the day before break. I don't think we would have gotten much learning done one way or the other, so at least we had an agenda. Plus, the kiddos talked about numbers all day - whether subtracting, counting how many pins they had left, figuring out how many quarters were needed to play arcade games, and counting tickets. 

the stylistic bowling of kindergarten, my amazing 112 score, pizza, and air hockey

the things they say

This week we began studying measurement and comparisons in math class. Yesterday we did longer and shorter, today we focused on taller and shorter. I introduced the topic and the vocabulary words. I showed the students an example of measuring height to compare and then I had some students participate in a comparison activity. After that, they were set free to explore the classroom and find things that were taller and shorter than them.

After 4 minutes I called them back to the group. We sat down and each student had the chance to share about something that they had found. The students went around saying, "the door is taller than me," and, "the bookshelf is shorter than me," and, "Mrs. S's table is shorter than me." That's when I got my winner.

Me: What did you find?

Student: Ummm... the green tub.

Me: What can you tell us about the green tub?

Student: [blank stare]

Me: The green tub is sh.....

Student: The green tub is sh...maller?

I had to keep myself from bursting out laughing. I love my kinders. While it may not be a real word, I think it deserves acknowledgement for being an accurate descriptor. 

 

 

 

 

 

sentences

My kinders are gradually getting the hang of the idea that letters make up word and that words make up sentences. Then, I had to go and throw number sentences into the mix.

Today we began to move beyond basic addition stories to interpreting the stories into number sentences. We began our lesson by reading a basic sentence, "I have a little cat." Then we put some magnets up on the board to compare to the sentence. We talked about how our numbers were like words and the mathematical symbols were like punctuation. Granted, the symbols are a little out of place, but seeing as my kinders are super smart, they got a hang of it pretty quickly.

Once I put the magnets on the board, my students used their previous knowledge to compose a number story about what they saw. Four magnets plus five more magnets equals nine magnets. Then we transferred that information into number sentence form. This is where things got a little tricky. While their stories were good, the idea of symbols and punctuation being the same made them want to put all of the symbols at the end of the sentence.

This is where my sentence came into play. We put the number sentence directly under the language sentence. I rearranged the words according to how the students tried to write their initial number sentences. This resulted in our original sentence reading, "I a cat have little." We talked about whether or not this made sense. All of my kinders were laughing because we have been talking a lot about sentences that make sense. This sentence did not. We talked about how the number sentence needs to be written in the right order, just like a language sentence, otherwise it wouldn't make sense.

By the end of the lesson, number sentences were making more sense to most of my kinders, but it will take some more practice for sure. At the very least, the foundation has been laid, and I think that it was a pretty good one (if I do say so myself).

welcome back

Today we returned to school from our week-long Thanksgiving holiday. It was a fantastic break. My parents came to town and we galavanted all over the southwest. I'll write more on that later though, when I have time to organize all of those happenings in my mind so that they can make sense to others.

This morning during sharing time we talked about what we did over Thanksgiving break. When it was my turn to share I was able to squeeze out an, "Over Thanksgiving break, I..." before my kinders shared with me just how well they have gotten to know me this year. They shouted out:

"went running!"

"made presents!"

"put up your Christmas tree!"

"decorated your Christmas tree!"

They've been listening, that's for sure! I also shared with them that I hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and then had to climb all of the way back out. They got pretty excited about that, until someone reminded them of sharing limits and said that we had to listen to our next friend share. They're just precious. I'm glad to be back with them - even if it was only for a half day.

Beyond sharing time, here is a peek at our math centers from today:

Everyone hard at work, figuring out different ways to make 4 & 5.

long day

It's been a long and full day. Teaching then grad school. But here's a look at what I did today!

Building sight words

Math manupilatives

back at it

Having a three day weekend was such a blessing. I had time to do a little bit of grad school work, to begin making Christmas gifts, and to run a lot. In essence, I had me time. Sometimes as a teacher it is so easy to get wrapped up in the little ones that surround you day in and day out that you put your own needs on the back burner. I was able to rejuvenate and jump right back into the swing of things this morning.

We had a great Tuesday. We talked about the plot in stories, about verbs, about citizenship, and the numbers eighteen and nineteen. The kinders picked up on some of the things, others (such as plot) will take a fair amount of review. Whatever the case, we're back into the swing of things. We have a week and a half to keep on swinging until we're off for a whole week to celebrate Thanksgiving. We'll need to see how quickly we get back into the swing of things after that!

One highlight for today was having one of my little learners write her first name all by herself three times unassisted! We have been working so hard and it seems like this little break was what her brain needed to make things click. Wahoo! Success! This same little learner was also a rock star in small group around the world today. She is finally getting her numbers (1 - 10) down (with the exception of 9). Progress!

venn diagrams and counting beads

Today pretty much consisted of more kindergarten awesomeness. In language arts we are learning how to compare and contrast. My kinders compared two of their classmates and came up with a fantastic Venn Diagram. My favorite similarity is that both of the students were wearing their shoes on the correct feet.

I recommend zooming on on the "same" category.

In math I have some that are still struggling with their numbers one to ten. Today in their intervention group they practiced number identification and counting. They had to name the number at the top of each pipe cleaner and then string that many beads on to it. They did pretty well for it being the first attempt, but we will need to keep on keeping on and really stress these numbers (still, after 13 weeks). That's just what we do in Room 1 Kindergarten.

My nifty bead charts (sometimes Pinterest has such fantastic ideas)

number sense

Numbers can be quite confusing to kindergarteners. With some numbers such as seven and eleven sounding so similar I frequently hear my little learners counting 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13... As you can probably imagine, this gets quite frustrating for all parties involved. It is hard to make things click. 

With this in mind, today we brainstormed different ways that we can show the numbers 11 and 12. I was quite impressed with some of the things that my students came up with. We did the number 11 together, then they did number 12 all by themselves. I have faith that they'll get it one of these days (hopefully sooner, rather than later).