Oh hey! It's me.

Hi there folks! I wish I could say that I can't believe it's been over a month since I've blogged but I totally can. After a month in my kinder & grade 2 classrooms I got notified that cuts were being made to the school and that since I was the last one in, that meant I was the first one out. Thank the Lord that when one door shut in my face another one opened. An opening at another school in the district (15 minutes away to be exact) came about so now I am teaching 2 kindergarten classes. To say things have been cray cray would be an understatement. I have been taking a decent amount of photos each week but I just haven't gotten to blog about it so that means I am playing catch up. 

This week is my blogging throw back week so I can catch up on blogging. :)

This week (meaning the week of Oct. 17th) we learned about the letter Ii. We learned that the letter Ii makes two sounds- /i/ as in inchworm and /I/ as in ice cream. We mostly focused on the short sound for the letter Ii. We also practiced writing the letter Ii and brainstorming words that begin with the letter Ii.

We made an itsy bitsy spider that wasn't so itsy.

We sorted pictures by their first sound for pictures that begin with the letter Ll, Tt, and the short sound of Ii.

In math we practiced identifying and building patterns.

We enjoyed building and using our imagination with our soft blocks.

We listened to the story The Spooky Wheels on the Bus at listening centre.

We wrote our first journal entry in our journal books. We did amazing for our first journal writing! We wrote the word igloo and drew an illustration of an igloo. Some children illustrated animals or people that they would like to see outside of their igloo.

For our first few journal entries we are focusing on handwriting in the dotted lines, identifying letters, letter sounds and creating illustrations with a setting and characters. Soon enough the children will begin to create their own sentences.

This week we also created an apple craft, observed our apples by measuring them, illustrating them and predicting if our apples would sink or float. We enjoyed tasting red, yellow and green apples. We also created a graph that shows which colour apple we thought tasted the best. At learning centres we also used the white boards to practice writing our name, letters, numbers and creating illustrations. We played with play-doh to create things and build our fine motor skills.

We also coloured and read our reader this week called Apples. The children are working on reading from left to right and pointing to each word as they read.

Reading, Writing & my never ending Nov. list



Is your November to list never ending just like mine is? I swear my list just keeps piling and piling up. I FINALLY finished my Canadian History paper but that leads me to my final exam. (Insert me wanting to puke here just thinking about it) I was super pumped to get my IPP written. Now it's report card time and not to mention X-Mas parties time.....

 

In class we have been really pushing reading cvc words and sight words. We have also been creating patterns and sorting. To tell the truth I am very impressed with my group of kiddos. All summer I was super nervous and worried that my kids would come to me not knowing anything and would not be motivated to learn since most didn't go to preschool and those that did only went 2 days a week for half days. That is how things roll here... I am used to kiddos coming to me that have been in preschool Mon-Fri full days so what I thought would be a big adjustment isn't as much.

Here me and the kiddos are showing off our silly socks which we wore to reinforce the letter Ss.

 

 

We created pattern necklaces last week.

Journals are a big deal in my class. I really try to focus on handwriting, that students illustrate a character and setting, and that if possible they create a sentence of their own. I was pumped when students began creating their own sentence in their journals last week.

 

Here is another example of a kiddo's journal.

 

Now I have a question---- Do you teach DAILY 5? For those that teach kinder, is it possible to teach DAILY 5 to kinder students who are only in class 2 days a week????

 

Okay so I have 4 center rotations which is mixed with math and literacy and it works really well with my class. I just really want to set aside more time for the students to read especially since I am only when them twice a week and sometimes three if I am lucky. All of the grade 1 teachers do DAILY 5 so when I witnessed their partner read I just loved it. I used to do partner read once, sometimes twice a week when I met with the students everyday but I just don't get time for that when I meet with them only a few times. Last week I began to teach my kiddos about partner read, EEKK and how to partner read. It was a hit and the students did so well! I am not sure if you're suppose to start off with read to self but with kinder I found it is more helpful for them to partner up.

Well that's my week... I hope y'all are all hanging in there with me.