Hi room 5 families! We can't believe that we have already finished four weeks of kindergarten. The students have transitioned really well into full days. The students are learning more about each other every day and so are the teachers. As we continue to build our classroom community, friendships, and routines, we are also learning ways to positively interact with each other through play and messages. Our social emotional lessons come in the form of group work, self reflection, read alouds, and role playing. Read on to see what we have been up to in room 5. We read the book How to Fill Someone’s Bucket and talked about what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like. Below are some of our ideas. Kinders work all year long on kindness and advocating for themselves and each other. Parents can ask,” What does it mean to fill someone’s bucket?” “What does it mean to dip into someone’s bucket?” "What does your bucket need to feel full?" Here were are thinking about the different ways a line can be turned into a different shape. We read the book, "When a line bends, a shape beings". In the story a line bends to become many different shapes that make up everyday objects. This helps kinder students to see shapes in objects that they are interested in drawing. This in turn helps to support the developmental process of shape representation in their drawings. When drawing at home and a child gets stuck on not being able to draw something particular parents can ask, "Let's think about that from a different view. What shapes do you think make up _______?" "Let's try using a ___________ shape to start the picture and see what else pops up in our minds." Here we are in library with Ms. Lisa. She is teaching us about checking out library books and how to use a space saver so that we can return books after browsing. As the year progresses with our reading instruction I will ask that students focus on choosing at least one just-right-book and a book of choice to take home from the school library. Until then, parents can ask, "How do you look for books in the library?" "Where do you return a book that you are not interested in checking out?" "What day does room 5 have library with Ms. Lisa?" In math we are working on number and quantity recognition. These two skills are a large part of being a kindergarten mathematician. Below I am showing students different quantities represented on a ten frame and asking them "How many dots do you see?" It is amazing how many ways the students come up with how they know the frame has a certain number. At home parents can do the same with playing cards. It can also be done by having students help count items needed for dinner or at the grocery store. The act of counting and recognizing that a number means a specific quantity really helps students to grasp the concept of numbers. Below we are getting to know our 5th grade buddies through games. Our 5th grade buddies are also helping us learn about using words to problem solve as well as when to wait to use our words. We read the book, "My Mouth is a Volcano" and talked about how we all have important words to share but that we also need to take turns sharing our words, We also talked about how there are better times to share our words. Parents can ask, "What does it mean your mouth is a volcano?" "What do can you do if you feel like you're mouth is about to erupt?" We've been thinking and sharing a lot about what can make our school year awesome. This will help us think of our hopes and dreams for the school year. To get us thinking about the type of classroom community we want to have we first started by looking inwards and what we each can bring to the classroom. We read the book, "Leo the Late Bloomer" about a tiger who is on its own journey to growing up and along the way finds what he is really good at. We then thought about what we are experts at to share with the class. Below is our art work. Parents can ask, "What kind of classroom do you want to be in?" "How can Ms. Salamanca and Ms. Addy help you this year?" "What can you add to your classroom community?"
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Hi room 5 families! We can't believe week two of kindergarten is done. We had an exciting week of meeting our 5th grade buddies, ice cream socials, and building our class community. Below are some highlights from our week. Parents can encourage discussion about school activities and events by asking, "What was your highlight from _____________? " "Why?" "Did you have any lows?" "What could have changed it from a low to a highlight?" This week we read the books, It's Not a Box and It's Not a Stick by Antoinette Portis. Students then thought of different items that they could turn a box or a stick into. This is actually a math lesson in disguise! We had so much thinking about shapes and how they make up everyday objects. This activity integrated math and art by asking students to use their spatial skills, creativity, and perspective taking to find shapes in everyday objects and then turn it into a drawing. Parents can support their student at home by helping them notice shapes in everyday objects. When drawing at home, parents can help students notice shapes in their drawings or show them how shapes can make up different parts of their drawing. This last tip usually helps with the "I don't know how to draw that" comment. Parents can ask, "What shapes do you notice in a ______?" "I see a _______. Let's start drawing that shape and adding to it." We met our 5th grade buddies from Ms. Flower's class! We are excited to have a big buddy. Below we are sharing a book with our new friend. Having buddies gives kindergarteners a different opportunity to practice the many social emotional skills that we learn in kindergarten with an older peer. The 5th graders also in turn have the opportunity to be a role model to a kindergarten and share with them the amazing experiences that they have had being at Explorer. And everyone knows having a kindergarten buddy ROCKS! Parents can ask, "What is your buddy's name? (w'e're still working on this one)" "What do you hope to do when you have buddy time?" We met Ms. Lisa, our librarian, for the first time! Throughout the day Explorer students enjoyed a read aloud by surprise guests made up of High Tech High community members such as directors and teachers. We also had ice cream to kick off our reading journey with Ms. Lisa. We will start library with Ms. Lisa next Monday afternoon. Here we are in art class with Ms. Tasi. We are learning how to use different materials in art class such as clay, scissors, and glue. Parents can ask, "Which way do scissors point when cutting? Up or down?" "What is the glue poem?"
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Room 5Our class blog will be place for families to see what we have been exploring in the classroom. It will also contain helpful ways for families to support their child at home through discussion. The teachers will email you to let you know when the blog has been updated. Archives
March 2020
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