It's been another great week! Even though cold temperatures have kept us mostly indoors, we still found ways to learn and have fun. We've started our second round of letters and sounds, and the students are doing an exceptional job putting their skills into practice. We've also been exploring teen numbers in math, and have been using lots of hands-on projects to demonstrate our learning. Finally, the students have shown a great interest in the properties of snow during Genius Hour. We've been conducting snow experiments, and learning about where snow fits in the water cycle. We have a group of little scientists this year, and it's incredible to watch them learn! Students had the opportunity to do some hands-on letter practice this week using Wiki-Sticks, a fun flexible learning tool similar to a sticky pipe cleaner. We reviewed the letters A, M, and N and practiced letter formation, beginning sounds, and blending CVC words. Here, students can be seen building an uppercase M! In addition to teen numbers, we also did a bit more review of 2D shapes in math. Here, students can be seen going for a 'shape walk,' recording shapes they found in our classroom on their clipboards. In this picture, these students were discussing how the crayons had a rectangle bottom, a triangle top, and an oval center. Later in the week, we explored how teen numbers can be made using a ten and some more ones (i.e., 13 can be made using a 10 and 3 ones). To show this, we made paper chains! Students chose a color of paper, then made a paper chain 10 loops long. After that, they got to choose a teen number and add the additional loops in another color. When finished, they show our teen numbers as a ten and some more ones. In addition to the teen number skills, students were practicing fine motor skills, counting, and problem solving (there was some difficulty figuring out how to attach the loops to one another, but they persevered!). These will be hung up in the hallways so students can be reminded of their teen numbers as well as their hard work. Last week, the students brainstormed a lot of great questions they'd like to explore during Genius Hour. This week, we chose the question 'Where does snow come from?'. The students noticed that the snow was disappearing, so we decided to start exploring this question by first figuring out what was happening to the snow. We conducted an experiment where we brought in two cups of snow and added salt to one. Then, we observed to see what would happen. In this picture, you can see that the snow in both cups has melted. However, the students observed that the snow with salt melted faster than the snow without. When we returned to school two days later (thanks, snow day!), the students discovered something amazing - not only had the snow disappeared completely, but there was a strange substance left in one of the cups! The students first hypothesis was that it was ice, but after a bit more exploring, they realized it was salt. We passed around both cups to give everyone a chance to observe and discover, and the conversation was just incredible. They discussed what the strange substance could be, how it got there, and why the other cup was completely empty. After everyone had a chance to see the cups, we brainstormed a whole new list of questions. Most of these questions revolved around temperature - the students are starting to realize that the snow only seems to stick around when it's cold, which should prompt some really fun experiments in the weeks to come. One student even proposed an answer to our original question - maybe snow comes from the North Pole! After much hypothesizing, we finally began to find some answers. We learned about the water cycle, how water can change forms, and how it eventually comes back down to earth. It took some thinking, but the students eventually figured out how snow fit into our water cycle - when the clouds get cold enough, we get snow instead of rain! Even though we spent most of our week indoors (and probably will this week, too!), the students still found lots of ways to have fun. Stay warm, Wolfpack!
0 Comments
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a restful winter break, and is rejuvenated and ready for 2024. We had a short week this week, but it was jam-packed! After reviewing routines and procedures, we embarked on a brand new phonics curriculum which allows for greater flexibility and differentiation than ever before. Students from both classes are getting to mix and work together on individual phonics skills, such as letter/sound identification and decoding CVC words. So far, the students are loving it! We learned two letters this week: Ll and Oo. On Friday, the students had the opportunity to choose one of these letters and make a mini-report on it. They identified their letter, drew a picture of something that started with that letter, and then used that word in a sentence. They did such an exceptional job! In math this week, we reviewed ten frames and shapes, and the students notice everyday just how much closer we're getting to our 100th day of school. We also introduced our math books, which has been a very exciting novelty for the students. We played a roll and record game, and went on a shape walk to record shapes we found. We've also started our next Unit of Inquiry regarding sound. The students discussed what they already knew about sound, as well as what they wanted to learn. They had lots of great questions regarding animal sounds, so that will be a big focus for us as we work our way through this unit. We recording all of our findings on a KWL chart, and even got to watch a Magic School Bus episode where we learned that sound is created by vibration. We'll continue to add to our KWL chart throughout the unit as we learn new things! During writing, we discussed New Year's Resolutions. Each student picked one or more Learner Profile traits that they wanted to focus on in 2024, then wrote them on slips of paper to make into a paper chain. This is now hanging in our classroom, and will stay up for the remainder of the year as a reminder of all the good things we're going to focus on improving! Finally, we made sure to have lots of fun! Whether indoors or outdoors, the students were just happy to see their friends and have the opportunity to play again. We found cool pieces of ice and big sticks, built enormous towers (talk about teamwork!), guarded 'eggs' in their 'nests,' and even became cone monsters. I can't wait to see what next week brings! It's finally time: Winter break has arrived! The last week has been a whirlwind of activity as we've crafted, colored, and created our way to our well-earned rest. On Friday, we had our first Kindergarten Town Hall. It was here that the students were able to share their personal timelines, something they've been working on to wrap up our current Unit of Inquiry. They did an exceptional job! We also recently had our Winter Concert, where the students got to have their first musical performance. Students got to conduct candy cane experiments with their Big Buddies, and explored the idea of weight by comparing various classroom objects to a ball of PlayDoh using a pan balance. There was time to build some blocks towers, visit the Book Fair, and get lots of play in the gym. We somehow even had time to build a class Christmas tree, with the students adding new pieces every day. Please enjoy this photo dump of all we've been up to recently, and enjoy your winter break! I'll see everyone next year! We've had an incredible week! We had our last 'Y on the Fly' class with the folks from the YMCA, heard many personal timelines from staff here at Discovery, and even got to do candy cane experiments with our big buddies. Our last day of 'Y on the Fly' was an absolute blast. The students have had 5 weeks of gym with instructors from the YMCA, and their last day was a celebration of all the fun they've had. The students got to play with balls, cones, and even bubble wrap - it was a great time! As part of our current Unit of Inquiry, students will be creating timelines sharing their personal histories. As inspiration for this, we had several staff members at Discovery share their personal timelines and helped the students to ask questions and make connections. Mrs. Adams, Mr. Simon, Mrs. Nugent, Ms. Owens, and Mrs. Ankrum all kindly shared their time to give our students exemplary timeline examples to model after next week. Mrs. Sidders and I also shared our timelines with both our own and each others' classes, and the students had great questions and connections! The cold weather this week also prompted some icy discoveries. This student discovered that ice formed on the playground equipment, and that it was wet to the touch (the sun was making the ice melt). Other students discovered that several rocks had frozen together, and still others found ice frozen where there had been water the day before. Once we get a proper snowfall, some winter experiments will be in order! Speaking of experiments, we had the pleasure of visiting our Big Buddies in 5th and 6th grade to do some candy cane science experiments! Students explored candy canes using their 5 senses, discovered whether wrapped and unwrapped candy canes sink or float, inquired into whether candy canes dissolve in various liquids, experimented with the use of baking soda and vinegar on candy canes, and watched how pieces of candy cane dissolve. Our Big Buddies ran all of the experiments for our class, modeled appropriate behaviors and expectations, and demonstrated leadership skills they've been working on all year. We're so lucky to have such incredible students here at Discovery and the opportunity for cross-curricular learning with multiple gad levels!
We're heading towards Winter Break, but we still have a week full of learning and fun planned ahead. I can't wait to see what all we accomplish together! As we come back from Thanksgiving break and start heading towards Christmas, it's a great time to take a look at everything we've been learning. From outdoor exploration with leaves and ice to indoor exploration of numbers using calculators and number charts, we've been very busy! As always, we've been thoroughly enjoying our outdoor time. Some students have been making rings and soups out of natural materials, while others have been building with dirt. Most recently, we discovered ice on the playground! The students were incredibly excited to discover that rocks, berries, and sticks froze inside the ice. This prompted inquiries into how this happened, and will likely lead to experimentation in the future! Unfortunately, the cold and rain kept us inside more than we would have liked. Still, the students made the most of the situation, and had a great time playing during inside recess. Pre-K had some extra cardboard boxes, and they graciously let us use them for imaginative play. The students also had a great time playing basketball, as well as building forts using the gym mats. It was a big week for us in math! We explored the use of calculators, used number charts to help us count by 1s and 10s, and played a new game called 'Top-It with Number Cards' where the students had to identify which number was larger. They loved it! We're placing a significant focus on teen numbers right now, both in counting and in identifying, so these were all great activities to practice that skill. Last but not least, we headed to the library for a chance to look at some books. We listened to a great story (brought in by a student!), and practiced putting books back where we had found them. I can't wait for us to head back next week, too!
Later today, we'll get to celebrate the end of our Read-a-Thon with a special assembly. Next week, we'll be starting work on our personal timelines as part of our unit of inquiry. We just have a few short weeks until winter break, but they're going to be jam-packed full of learning and fun! It's been a busy start to the month, between conferences and field trips and the end of the trimester! We've been continuing to learn and work hard, and it seems like we master new skills everyday. The last two weeks have brought an assortment of weather, and the students got their first taste of indoor recess in the cafeteria. Using the aftercare toys, we got to play some new games that we'd never seen before. The students had a blast! Time spent indoors wasn't all seatwork, however. In gym class, we held a relay race where the students had to work together to get a ball from one side of the room to the other. We played in three teams, each learning what it took to get the ball moved quickly through the cones and how best to communicate with their teammates. The students had a lot of fun, but they also learned the important lesson of being a good loser, and how to celebrate the wins of their friends. It was a good lesson in being Reflective and Balanced, and they did a very good job! It was a very exciting day in kindergarten this week, as we broke out paint in our classroom for the very first time! We make starfish out of air-dry clay, then painted them to put on our class snowman. The snowman, along with many others from local schools, will be displayed at Kingwood Center Gardens during the holiday season. Our snowman - which we made with Mrs. Sidders' class - is ocean themed. If you have a chance, be sure to check it out! We've officially started our second Unit of Inquiry into personal histories. This unit, Where We Are in Place and Time, will take us through winter break. We looked at baby pictures and tried to guess who was who, drew pictures of who lives in our homes, and looked at old photographs to spark conversation surrounding the word 'history.' Next week, we'll be exploring the ideas of 'past' and 'present' through self portraits and sorting activities. During centers, some of our students have been exploring the use of their names as a way to learn letters and sounds. Using letter cards, they practice putting their name in order, then spelling while identifying the letters. These can also be used as flash cards to practice letter naming, and your name is the best place to start! In kindergarten, building names is just the beginning. We also build with blocks, and this student made some incredible spaceships using our Lincoln Logs! We also had some very special visitors after conferences - some friendly local deer stopped by for a munch on some leaves and berries. I hope they come back when our students are here to see them! Thank you to everyone who came out for our Veteran's Day assembly today, and thank you of course to all of our veterans. To show our gratitude, our class wrote this letter and recorded ourselves reading it to play at the assembly. I was so proud of how collaboratively everyone worked to create this letter together! We're learning and growing every day here in kindergarten, and I can't wait to see what things we create next!
This week was exceptional! Not only did we take our very first field trip, but we also celebrated Halloween with Trunk or Treat and our Halloween Parade. We wrapped up our first unit of inquiry, and student-led conferences are coming up before you know it. It's an exciting time of year to be in kindergarten! For our first field trip, we visited the Buckeye Imagination Museum. The purpose of our field trip was to give the students a chance to practice the IB Learner Profile traits they've been working so hard to master - and they did not disappoint! Before we left, we brainstormed some ideas of how we could show the various traits. Then, after returning to school, we reflected: How were you principled today? Balanced? What did you inquire about? The students wrote and drew their responses, and those books will be available to look at during conferences. The students had an amazing time exploring the Buckeye Imagination Museum, and it was wonderful seeing how creatively their minds work when presented with their own little world. This week also included our Halloween Costume Parade! The students had SUCH a good time, and we even connected it to some academics - students wrote about what Ms. Sycks should be for Halloween, and sounded out some fall words like 'pumpkin.' Although we've had some students out sick, the students who were present had an absolute blast. It's always a good day when you get to have a Halloween dance party!
As we head into next week, students will be preparing to lead their own conferences. This is a wonderful opportunity for the students to be reflective, and helps them to see the progress they've made so far. We're also starting a new unit of inquiry regarding the students' personal histories, so I'm looking forward to getting that started as well. Happy Halloween! It's been another full week of kindergarten, and our inquiries continue to grow. Recently, the students have developed an increased interest in dinosaurs, so we've been researching that topic during Genius Hour. We've also been working hard on our letters and sounds, and math this week was full of fun and games! In math this week, we explored the idea of length. During our daily attendance, we graph how many students are present and decide if it looks longer or shorter than the previous day's attendance. This made a great segue into the lesson, and the students were quick to pick up on the concept. To wrap up the lesson, every student got to pick one object from our classroom. We then lined up, shortest to longest, to show off what we'd found. They found some great lengths! Also in math, we've started to develop the concepts of written numerals and one-to-one correspondence with counting. Today, the students got to make their own game boards to practice! Using a pencil and a paper clip as a spinner, the students moved their game piece down the game board from start to finish. Each spin indicated how many spaces to move, so the students got to practice recognizing numerals and counting out that many spaces. Math also made an appearance during centers, during which time the students have the agency to decide what materials to use and how they would like to use them. Without prompting or guidance, several groups of students opted to practice sorting - by both color and shape - and one student used the number rocks to practice one-to-one correspondence, counting, and numeric order. During reading, we utilized our classroom technology to practice our letters and sounds - and move our bodies at the same time! We also worked on our vowels this week, both segmenting and blending CVC words. Students had the opportunity to dictate words, both individually and as a class, and thoroughly enjoyed using the whiteboards and markers as a medium for writing. Moving our bodies didn't stop at reading time. In gym this week, students had the opportunity to do center rotations of different activities. They got to practice hula hooping, ball bouncing, and cone racing. These gross motor skills are so important, so we love to get in some good practice! As no surprise, Genius Hour continues to be a popular time of day. This week, we dug further into our dinosaur investigations by getting out our dinosaur books. For the better part of an hour, the students enjoyed rotating through the different books, looking at the pictures, and discussing what they found. Our collection of dinosaur books includes mostly fictional stories, but some non-fiction as well. It's a fantastic opportunity for the students to compare real knowledge with artistic representation, and the connections they made were amazing! After spending some time looking at dinosaur books, the students had the opportunity to create their own dinosaurs out of Play-Doh. Some chose to make long-necked dinosaurs, while others made the classic T-Rex. A few even included dinosaur eggs, and one student made the baby dinosaur 'hatch' by using the Play-Doh container as an 'egg.' Their creativity and understanding of dinosaur physiology is astounding! The Play-Doh activity was very well-received, so it may make a reappearance near the end of our inquiries. Finally, we welcomed three new students to our class! Everyone has been so caring and helpful, and our new members are settling in wonderfully. We're thrilled to add a few more students to our Wolfpack, and I can't wait to see what discoveries we make together! Autumn is in full swing, and we're taking full advantage of it! This week, we've been applying a lot of the knowledge we've gained so far in new contexts. We've also been enjoying lots of time outdoors, admittedly with a few more layers than before. Still, the students are having a great time exploring nature, playing with their friends, and discovering new learning around every corner. Over the past few weeks, we've been working on sorting in math. We've discussed what an attribute is, and how we can sort objects by different attributes. This week, the students decided to apply this same knowledge during morning play, sorting the toy animals by both color and type. It's always exciting to see the students applying what we've learned! In math this week, we've been discussing shapes. Using the geo-boards and rubber bands, we made various shapes together as a class. We discussed how many sides and angles each shape had, and discussed how we could make the same shape in different sizes and locations on the geo-board. Then, students were able to walk around the room and make the shapes they found. It was a hit! We continued to use shapes during writing, as we delve further into our illustration unit. On this particular day, the students were exploring how shapes can be used to create images. They created spaceships, picture frames, butterflies, houses, cars, and so much more! What can you find? This week, we learned about the letter Vv. We practiced blending CVC words that use the letter Vv, and then read them as well. Some of the words we read included vet, van, and vat. While reading the word van, one student realized they knew a rhyming word - ran! This started an impromptu brainstorm of rhyming words, followed by the creation of our very first class poem. As you can see, the students helped to write our CVC rhyming words and a few of our heart words as well. I Love My Van By: Ms. Sycks' Kindergarten Class I love my van! It is tan. It is driven by a man. It has a fan. I have a van! For our Unit of Inquiry this week, we've been focusing on the Learner Profile trait Reflective. We introduced our stamp system, which helps the students reflect on their work as they turn it in. There are three different colored stamps: the red clock, the blue tree, and the gold star. If a student feels like they need more time with their work or more time with the concept, they'll use the red clock. If a student feels like they're still growing into the concept, they'll choose the blue tree. If a student feels like they've mastered the concept, they'll choose the gold star. Although this system won't be used on all of our work, it will be used at times. Keep an eye out for your students' reflections on their work! We practiced our balance in gym class this week by hopping first with one foot, then with both. We then timed ourselves to see how quickly we could get our whole class to hop from one end of the dots to the other. We beat our time not once, but twice! The students demonstrated excellent teamwork and collaboration, and they supported each other when the hopping got tricky. Despite all the incredible things happening inside our classroom, our favorite place to be is still the great outdoors! Highlights from this week include the discovery of tree roots (which the students very responsibly reburied), creating a new 'wolf den' and 'painting' it with dirt, and making nature stew. Their imagination and ingenuity continues to impress me!
We've had another great week here in kindergarten, and I can't wait to see what next week has in store! Although I've personally been out sick, the learning hasn't stopped here in kindergarten! Over the past week and a half, the students have continued to work hard. Reading groups are becoming more fluid, gross and fine motor skills continue to develop, and recess is still everyone's favorite time of day. Our little learners are just as curious as ever, and the inquiries continue to guide our learning. During centers, the students rotate through computers, ELA shelf, free choice, and teacher table. While at teacher table, they complete their daily reading group. These students are working hard on singing their ABC's while pointing to the letters, as well as mapping out CVC words using rocks and whiteboards. They love it! Some of our groups are even starting to read simple books, and everyone continues to practice their letters and sounds. In gym class, we've been learning how to throw and catch. We watched a video that taught us how to throw overhand and underhand, and how to catch using our 'butterfly hands' and 'fruit basket hands,' Then, we went to the gym to practice our new skills! Here, a student is demonstrating how to throw underhand and catch using their 'fruit basket.' It's hard to believe we're coming to the end of our first unit of inquiry. There are only a few more learner profile traits to discover, and the students are making great connections by using our materials at inquiry table. Student self-portraits are now a part of inquiry table, as we learn more about ourselves and how we can embody the learner profile. A new addition to the playground has made recess more exciting than ever! A new outdoor kitchen appeared on our playground last week, and the students have had a blast using it. The outdoor kitchen is complete with pans and spoons, and the students are encouraged to use the natural materials around them to make 'food.' Despite the new addition, the old playground equipment is getting as much use as ever. The students are finding new ways to use the materials (such as cone hats!), and are demonstrating what it means to be a Risk-Taker by jumping onto the bars. It was amazing to watch them create a line, encourage each other, and take turns without being prompted.
I hope everyone has a restful and relaxing fall break, and I'll see everyone back on October 10th! |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
May 2024
Categories |