This week was pretty celebratory. Monday was our 100th day of school and Friday was our Valentine's Day celebration (plus Red's 6th birthday). In honor of the 100th day (which was celebrated on Monday but wasn't actually until Tuesday because we had an snow day), we counted a lot of things by ten. Every week we have something that the children share. This week and last they were told to bring in 100 things. This is a great way to teach counting by ones, fives, and tens. The Common Core says Kindergartners need to be able to:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.CC.A.1 Count to 100 by ones and by tens.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.CC.B.4.A When counting objects, say the number names in the standard order, pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.CC.B.4.B Understand that the last number name said tells the number of objects counted. The number of objects is the same regardless of their arrangement or the order in which they were counted.
One kid brought in 67 Legos that I painfully had to take apart to count while he played with little Lego men he built beside me. The next day I wrote the morning message, "If Carter brought in 67 Legos, how many more would we need to have 100?" Complicated for Kindergarten, but we got there using a 100 rekenrek! A rekenrek is an abacus-like tool to help children count and group 5's and 10s. It looks like this:
I love rekenreks. They're really great. And kids love them so that's a plus. Another 100-day activity that I planned and led was making a 100 circled caterpillar. It was a good activity, but I did not plan it that well. I basically had 100 circles cut out and I pasted one--a caterpillar face--onto a large white sheet of butcher paper. The plan was that, as a whole class, we would piece together a caterpillar 100 circles long. Each child got five circles and would paste them on and write the number that it was themselves. This would give them practice in writing numbers and sequencing. It was a good plan, but having it as a whole class project at the same time was a disaster. Basically only one child at a time could come up, paste on, and write. This meant that 18 other students had to wait patiently on the rug. Kindergartners do not sit still for very long so needless to say, the class got a little crazy! It was fine, just not what I had in mind. If I could change it I would have them write their numbers back at their tables independently and then maybe bring a group of children up at a time to paste their parts on. The finished product was this:
Ta-Da! It's now up in the hall. Ultimately, I'm just happy that I was able to lead the entire class for two days relatively successfully! Oh--Also, a student figured out how to put this together :)
She knew my name has two N's, but could not find the other one. I love my kiddos.
Oh! This week we also began our Post Office unit. We have an area of our classroom that we have designated as the Post Office. Children can write letters to one another and then mail them in our cardboard mailbox. The line leader and line ender are the two kiddos responsible for sorting the mail each day and letting people know if they have mail. This is a wonderful way of getting students excited about writing and wanting to make sure their message is clear. The common core states that Kindergartners should be able to:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.K.1 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference about the topic or book
Our post office writing counts as opinion pieces.
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