Despite the snow days, we've had a busy week and a half back in K105...
How Big is a Foot?
In Math, we began another measuring unit. This time, we began with a story called How Big is a Foot? This silly story tells the tale of a king who wanted a bed for the queen. He used his own feet to determine the length, but didn't realize this would be a problem when his apprentice used his feet to measure and make the bed. We measured our own feet with cubes and made models to measure. We also talked about the importance of having consistent units. For kindergarteners, we are looking at non-standard units (as opposed to inches, feet, etc.). We measured objects with cubes, toothpicks, and sticks and compared the numbers. This led to a discussion comparing how many of each tool was needed for the same object, and why these numbers were different.
Literacy Learning
The children are now experts on many of our weekly literacy routines. These include creating our letter books and red books for sight words, highlighting songs, writing sentences, and carefully completing handwriting sheets. Other routines, such as monthly self-portraits, help fill in many of the Reading jobs with familiar tasks. We also went on a "library tour" when we returned back to school. Along with reminders about all the different books in our collection and how to take care of them, the children were introduced to a new area of books called "Just Right Books". These books are ones where children can start to read the words on their and this area will evolve over time. On our tour we were also reminded about our author/illustrator of the month shelf. This month's author/illustrator is Ezra Jack Keats and we will be reading some of his stories over the coming weeks.
Our Amazing Amaryllis
In Discovery we have been watching our Amaryllis grow and change. The children were very excited to watch the plant bloom. Building on this excitement, the children made observational drawings of the plant once it bloomed.
Check out a few more shots below...