As the seasons change, so do we! It's amazing how much the children have grown as learners these past three weeks! Check out what we've been up to...
Phonics and Favorites
We have settled into many of the important routines that will continue throughout the year. Each week, we will continue to focus on a new letter in Phonics. A component of this work is playing "letter games" with magnetic letters. The children practice listening to sounds and moving the appropriate letter. As time goes on, we will up the ante during this activity and start to do work with manipulating sounds and letters. Other routines will include learning a new song associated with the animal of the week and creating a letter book. These books help practice writing the letter and expand vocabulary.
We have also introduced another routine to our weeks. Each Tuesday, we will learn one or two new "word wall" words. These are also known as high frequency or sight words because of how often children will encounter them. They are also often irregularly spelled, and therefore important to recognize easily by sight. Each week the children will get a "red book" associated with the word(s) of the week. They will highlight the new word(s) and practice reading the book. The books are scaffolded, meaning they will grow in complexity as we introduce more and more words. Later in the week, they will write a sentence using the week's word(s). This offers children a chance to start to use their writing skills and we will also focus on conventions such as spaces, letter case, and punctuation over the course of the year.
We spent the first weeks of school reading "Learn About the World" books during Private and Partner Reading. During this time, the children also listened to many repeated read-alouds of fiction books. We are calling these books "Old Favorite Storybooks" because we have read them over and over and children are now familiar with their plots. This helps them reread the books on their own or with their partners. We will continue to focus on strategies that will further support these readings.
One of our "Old Favorite Storybooks" is Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? It is also by our author of the month for September, Eric Carle. We made our own version of this book with ourselves as the characters. The children have really enjoyed reading and rereading this version, making it our own "Old Favorite Storybook".
Making Meaning from a Message
Another way that we explore our Literacy skills is through our morning message each day. The message has a repeating structure which has become familiar to the children. Each day, the message has the date, a greeting, a sentence about something we will do that day, a sentence about the day's special, and of course ends with who the message is from. We have begun to examine the message even closer each day. Children now take turns looking for letters, words, or numbers they know and circling them. We have also been cycling through a variety of greetings in other languages that children may be familiar with. It's a wonderful opportunity to learn a bit about other languages. |
Sorting and Counting
An important part of Math is noticing characteristics of objects. The children worked on this with many of the materials that have been introduced over the last weeks. This week we focused on sorting different objects based on their characteristics including color, shape, and type. These skills will be important as they learn new concepts down the road.
We have also been focusing on our counting skills, with many of these skills embedded in games and activities. One game we learned was "Grab and Count". Children grabbed and counted a handful of cubes, then recorded their findings. We talked about strategies for counting accurately, such as moving objects one at a time.
Another way we practiced was making counting books. First, we read Anno's Counting Book. This book shows a scene with a variety of objects such as trees, buildings, people, and animals on each page. With each turn of the page, the number of objects in a group increases. The children made their own versions showing a growing number of objects on each page.
One more game we played was "Roll and Record". This game has a number of embedded skills. Children roll a die to see what number they get. Many children are able to subitize (identify the number based on the the dot formations they see) while others practice counting the dots. Next, they write the number in a grid. With each roll, they add a number to their grid. This gives the children many opportunities to practice writing their numbers. They also notice trends as certain numbers rise faster than others, and can make predictions.
Is It Alive?
In Discovery, we have continued to learn about the world around us. One thing we have learned about is the difference between living and non-living things. We read Is It Alive? and talked about how we can tell the difference between something that is alive or not alive. The children then made their own version of the book by putting in their own ideas.
An Apple a Day...
Over the last three weeks, we have embarked on a thematic exploration of apples that crossed all domains.
We began our exploration by learning that apples can come in different colors. We then used some of our senses to compare three different types of apples. Later, we voted for our favorites of the three. We ended up with a three way tie! Later, we read an apple story to help us learn about the way an apple grows. We used cards to match individual words to their spot in the story. This helps with attending to letters and words.
We further explored the way apples grow, learning that this process actually goes in a circle, or a cycle. The children were given all the different parts of the life cycle, and worked to put them in order.
For Math, we made our own apple tree counting cards. Children created a series of cards, one for each number. Skills involved included writing and identifying numbers, counting out the correct number of apples, and using their visual-spacial skills to plan how to fit their apples on the trees. After creating their cards, they had the opportunity to sequence their cards by attending to the number or counting the number of apples on the trees.
Children also made an apple matching game. On one apple was a numeral, and each of these apples had a pair with a dot formation for the letter. This gives children another opportunity to become familiar with the formats of dots they will see on dice and work on subitizing. They can also practice counting the dots to confirm they have the correct number.
Playing the matching game with a partner supports many of the important skills of working together, taking turns, and more.
Another Math activity challenged the children to create patterns using different colored apples. We talked about different kinds of patterns, and watched a fun and silly GoNoodle video about patterns that the children really enjoyed: https://app.gonoodle.com/activities/banana-banana-meatball?s=Search&t=banana.
We did one final project to help us think again about how an apple tree grows. This had a slightly different focus than our learning around the apple life cycle. In this case, we thought about how an apple tree changes over the course of the four seasons. We learned a song to help us with this learning and then used a variety of art materials to show our trees throughout the seasons.
One of the highlights of our work with apples was the grand finale, making apple sauce!
The children learned about the steps for making applesauce, making their own copy of the recipe to take home. They then used a special tool to help peel and cut the apples. Finally, they made predictions about how many apple seeds would be in their apple core before counting to compare the actual number to this estimate. Of course, the favorite part of the process was eating the applesauce at the end! It was a big hit! Thank you again to our parent volunteers for helping us with this project.
Later in the day, we put the leftover apple peels in the discovery area. The children enjoyed observation the peels using a variety of tools.
The Cat in the Hat and More
As we moved into October, we switched to a new author of the month: Dr. Seuss. We have enjoyed many of his silly stories which are full of rhymes and word play. These are great opportunities for children to work on these essential skills. In fitting with our exploration of apples, we made our own version of one of his books, Apples Up on Top. |
Special Days
We have enjoyed a variety of special days in the past weeks. The children enjoyed dressing up in red for color day. During All School Meeting we lined up by grades, which each grade representing a different color, to create a rainbow.
We have also had our first birthday in K105, and had lots of fun celebrating! In K105, we have two birthday traditions: making a birthday jar and a birthday story. For the birthday jar, each child uses a piece of chalk to color a small cup of salt. Each child then pours their colored salt into the jar and gives the birthday child a wish. The jar ends up with beautiful layers of different colors, a special momento to take home. Children also invite a family member or two to come in and read a book to the class. We look forward to celebrating many more birthdays over the course of the year!
Still Exploring
The children have continued to enjoy Learn and Explore. The block and dramatic play areas continue to be popular choices. In both these areas, children engage in imaginative play and work on important social skills such as negotiating, taking on roles, and cooperating. We have also introduced new choices to Learn and Explore. The children have been very excited about the opportunity to use iPads during this time. Each child gets one turn a week, and for now are able to use the "Letter School" app that we use during Handwriting for additional practice. As the year goes on we will add more options. Recently, we had water beads in the discovery area. The children enjoyed these sensory materials, and used tools such as scoops and tweezers to add to the explorations.
Check out all the pictures from the last three weeks here...