Hi room 5 families! We can't believe October has come and gone. Read on below to see what we have been exploring in room 5 and for ways families can support their child through discussion at home. In Fundations Ms. Addy is helping us learn about the letters s, d, e and r. We've learned all of the short vowels and are practicing on recognizing them in texts and hearing them in words that we want to write. At home parents can ask, "Readers scan the sentence to see if there are words and letters that they recognize. Do you see the letter ____?" "What sound does that letter make?" "Do you see any other words that begin with _____?" "Writer listen to the sounds the they want to write? Let's say the word you want to write slowly and stretch it out. What sounds do you hear that you know?" In October we celebrated Fall Festival at our school and Dia de Los Muertos. Gary's abuela is a vegan chef and partnered with Ms. Tasi to teach the class about sugar skulls to celebrate Dia de Los Muertos. Here we adding the final touches to our sugar skulls. We also had a special reading done by Ms. Diana (Amelie and Diego's mama) to learn about Dia de Los Muertos and what is done to celebrate the day and why. Parents can ask, "What does Dia de Los Muertos celebrate?" "What type of flower is used to celebrate?""Who does the day celebrate?" As a part of our project, we are learning about our emotions and how they can affect us and others. Ms. Jill, our school occupational therapist, stopped by to teach us about the Zones of Regulation and to help us create one of many clam down tools, a squishy ball. The Zones of Regulation is a way to group emotions and help students become aware of their current feeling and how it affects them and their body. For example, a student might say "I'm in the blue zone." Often times for young students feelings are hard to put an exact label on it so the zones help them identity what they are feeling and from there we talk about what it could be that they are feeling and what they need to move forward. As we all know feelings don't differentiate time and place, and sometimes feelings bubble up and erupt! When these moments happen parents can use the language students often hear at school, "For example, I notice you're upset, what zone is your body in?" From there parent and child can talk about what is making them feel like they are in a particular zone and what solutions they can do to move out of a particular zone and into a different one. In writer's workshop we are writers who can teach others through our words! We are exploring how our writen words can help someone learn to do something or teach them something new. Here we are writing our first shared book together. We are writing a How To Make Lemonade book from a shared experience we had at the beginning of the week. Kindergarteners are experts at many things inside and outside of school. At home students can write how to books on every day things that they are in charge of at home. It can be from a how to on putting away the trash to something like how to make brownies! Parents can help support students with this part of the journey in their writing by asking, "I notice you are writing a story on making _____. What are the steps to doing it?" "What pictures would help a reader know what materials to use and how to use it?"
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Hi room 5 families! Thank you for a lovely conference week. It was a pleasure meeting with each of you and celebrating each student. Below are some highlights from room 5. During the last two week, our class launched our project called Shared Spaces, our 5th grade buddies taught a math game called Top It, we've been discussing what makes a shared space feel good to be in and when it doesn't, we even made a scarecrow to raffle off at our school's Fall Festival and sugar candy skulls in honor of Dia De Los Muertos. Read on below to learn more about these activities and for questions to spark on going discussions about each activity at home. Here we are launching our project called Shared Spaces. For our project, we are thinking about what makes a shared space (an area that we use with other people), how people use shared spaces, what makes a shared space feel good to be in and what is happening when a shared space doesn't feel good to be in. We are also learning that many of the things that we are learning about shared spaces in kindergarten adults even practice outside of school in many places! Below we are doing a chalk talk about different shared spaces outside of school such as a public library, restaurant, grocery store, park, and public bathroom. We worked in groups to come up with ways adults and other people stay safe while using these shared spaces. On of our favorite came from the group of students who were in charge of restaurants norms. One student drew that it is not polite to shout "I don't like pickles! Instead you should tell someone politely that you don't want pickles in your sandwich." This activity was a powerful way for kinders to see that the norms and agreements that we practice at school can be found outside of school and that many adults practice similar norms as well. Parents can ask, "What is a shared space?" "What shared spaces do you like at school? Why?" "What shared spaces at school do you have a hard time in?" "Why?" "What could you do make it less challenging?" In math we are strengthening our number sense through counting, number recognition, and comparing quantities. Our 5th grade buddies taught a math game using cards called Top It. To play the game you need two people and a deck of cards. The deck of cards is split in half and each player is given a half. Then each person puts down their top card. The person who has the with the bigger number wins that round and gets to keep both cards. The game continues until there are no cards left that can be played. The "winner" is the person who collected the most amount of cards. Parents can ask, "How many ______(shape/suit)______ is on this card? How do you know?" "How do you know this number is bigger than this number?" "What if the numbers are the same?" Every year Explorer hosts a Fall Festival for the school. It's a great way for the school community to come together and raise money for the school. One of the ways classrooms raise money is to decorate a scarecrow that is raffled off at the festival. Every year the scarecrows turn out amazing and are transformed into the most wild and amazing characters. Room 5 students voted very carefully (and for a long while) for what we wanted to dress our scarecrow up as. And the winner is...a vampire pikachu! Thank you to Ava, Scarlet's mom, who has roots in the clothing industry, helped make our vision come true. Here were are putting the final touches on our pikachu and stuffing pikachu until it is just the right amount of fluffy for the Fall Festival. Vampire pikachu will be ready for families to win at our school's Fall Festival on Saturday, October 19. Here we are with Ms. Addy learning about the letters a and g. During conferences we talked about the importance of students learning the picture keys that go with each sound as each picture was chosen because it highlights the key sound that each letter makes. The pictures become another way for students to access letter sounds and create letter-sound recognition. Below Ms. Addy is highlighting the fancy a and the fancy g that most likely show up texts. Parents can ask, "what line does the letter a start on?" "what line does the letter g start on?" "What sound does the letter ___ make?" "What are some words that start with ____?" Parents can even add an extra challenge by having students find things around the home that start with certain letters.
October is here room 5 families! And that means parent-teacher conferences, fall holiday (?), and of course, Halloween! Check out what we have been exploring in room 5. Here are our co-created class agreements! We spent several weeks talking about what we would like our class to look like, feel like, and sound like. Collectively we came up with these six agreements which we all agreed to try and practice. Students then illustrated examples of each agreement. We always get asked, "Why not just tell them to do these things?" We could tell them what to do each time. And if we did then we would end up having to do it every day, all day, the whole year! By cocreating norms, the students understand what is important to them and to the class. They are more likely to remember what they want to feel like in different scenarios and also be more empathetic towards others. It takes time to cultivate perspective taking and a sense of community. Every minute spent on building a student led community is well worth it. Parent can ask, "What do you want your classroom to feel like? Sound like?" "What are some ways you can practice these agreements?" "What can you do if you make a mistake?" Room 5 students took part in math lesson demo on counting. In this lesson, Dr. Deborah helped us think about the ways we can count. Students had the opportunity to count their own jar filled with a quantity that is just right for them. Afterwards we looked at three different ways of counting and discussed the strength of each strategy. This way of of teaching and engaging students in number sense helps students build confidence in math as well as that verbal skills and explain their process and to be able to listen and learn from other strategies. In kindergarten, we focus on building strong number sense through counting, quantity recognition, and being able to understand and explain your own mathematical process. These attributes build a solid foundation for math and many future applications of math. Parents at home can support counting and number recognition by having students help count everyday objects (e.g., number of socks in the laundry, number of ingredients, at our house it's wine corks) and then ask the following questions: "How many _________ are there in this group of ____________?" "How do you know?" "Count again and what number do you get?" "What did you do when you were counting?" You can even show them how you counted and ask them "What did you notice about the way I counted?" "What made it helpful?" "What would you try from my strategy next time you count?" And remember parents, mathematicians count twice for precision! Here we are exploring the nature play area at school and having a great time learning about each other. The nature play area at school is made up of sticks, wood, mud, bricks, tires, tree stumps, bins, and lots of roly poly friends. It's a place for students to be creative with every day objects and practice the problem solving skills, language tools, and friendship building skills that we teach into in the classroom. Parents can ask, "What's your favorite thing to do in the nature play area?" "If you wanted a turn with the tire, what could you do?" "How do you stay safe when you play in the nature play area?" During reader's workshop we are learning about the different ways in which readers navigate the world. This we we learned that readers walk through the world in a special way. They don't just see things. They read things. They read names, signs, directions, and songs too! They do this by looking at words and thinking, "What might that say?". Parents can ask when reading a book together with their child, "What do you think this word might be?" "How does the picture help us figure that out?" "Does that make sense with the picture?" Parents can also use items around the house as a way to practice reading. The labels on food items such as cans and cereal boxes are a great way to introduce how reading helps us in everyday activities.
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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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