Week 9

Wellll this week we entered into the unit of 3D shapes! Super fun! On Monday, my mentor teacher introduced each shape with a block and named it. We are focused on cube, rectangular prism, triangular prism, sphere, cylinder, and cone. On Monday, children explore the shape blocks and built with them. It was nice to just give them some investigation time to work with the shapes. We also had a weekly poem this week about shapes:

3D shapes are fat not flat
A cone is like a party hat
A sphere is like a bouncy ball
A prism is like a building tall
A cylinder is like a can of pop
A cone is like the dice you drop
3D shapes are here and there
3D shapes are everywhere!

On Friday the children attempted to make the different shapes out of playdough which was kind of a challenge, but fun. Some other math fun happened on St. Patrick's Day with graphing Lucky Charm marshmallows!

In writing, we have been doing persuasive pieces. They write letters to their mom or dad to ask for something like a new toy, but they need to also put down a reason or two that they should get it. One child wrote about how he wanted more options in his lunch box and he compromised by saying he would pack his own snack if he could have more choices for lunch. They get pretty creative. In literacy, I led a couple small groups working on word families. I also am starting to focus on some sight words with one boy and I created a system of flies with sight words on them that he can hit with a fly swatter :) He's quite behind in his sight word count so I wanted to make more of an effort to work with him. I tell him to find a word and he has to swat it! It's a fun game for someone who needs more interactive instruction. So far we are just focusing on some 2 letter words that we can practice vowel sounds with like it, if, in, be, me, he, etc.

This week I also experienced quite the tantrum from one of the little girls. Let's call her Princess. Her reading buddy partner came up to me to tell me something Princess was doing that wasn't appropriate and I had already noticed that Princess was not really doing her task. So I asked her, "What's your job right now?" to which she crossed her arms and in a mad voice said, "Nothing." I said, "Excuse me?" and then she got even madder and louder and yelled, "NOTHING!" So I immediately stood up and went to go talk to her, but she kept turning her body away from me and saying things like, "NO! I don't want to talk." So then I had to move her and have her partner pair with someone else. Princess would not stand up and move even after I told her she needed to so I moved her chair with her in it over to another table. Then she proceeded to cry and fit and I told her she could come over to me when she was ready to talk. My mentor teacher caught my eye across the room and was smirking because this was a child she had told me had fits in the beginning of the year and she wanted me to experience it at least once. So now I have. But it is so funny/interesting how children can escalate so fast from absolutely nothing. She was having a bad day to be fair, but it was some good experience for me to deal with the situation. I talked to her before the next transition and told her what I saw and how I felt and my mentor teacher asked her, "Do you think you made the problem bigger or smaller?" Gotta love social-emotional development.

I'm still working one on one with the child I am following who still doesn't have all of her letters. Marisa. We work with the penguin still, but I have also tried to bring in some other artsy ways of learning letters. I "wrote" letters on white paper with white Elmer's glue and let it dry. Then Marisa was able to put a sheet over the letter and shade with a crayon to "reveal" the letter! This allowed me to then ask her about letters one at a time. She loves to do artsy things like this. On Friday, I wrote letters out with white crayon and then had her water color to "reveal" them again. This wasn't as successful because I think there were too many letters per one page for her to focus on (She may have dyslexia as we found out her father is diagnosed with it). I'm glad that she was able to do some more crafty things and still get some good one on one letter instruction. She is still having a really hard time to remember that G does not make the same sound that J makes. I need some ideas for that one. Also she says H makes the "ch" sound and L makes the short e sound. The names of some letters just don't match the sounds so it's confusing for some kiddos.

Week 7

I unfortunately did not come back from my break well rested. On the contrary, I was rather sick all break and that ended up carrying through to this week. A lot of sinus pressure, cold symptoms, and fatigue Monday-Wednesday. As a result of this, I was quite unmotivated at the start of the week, finding it hard to get back into the groove of things, but I think that is all normal. I bounced back later in the week! Some exciting news before I get into how the school week went---I had my final interview for Teach for America on Tuesday! And it went really well!

Teach for America (TFA) is a non-profit organization that brings college graduates into schools to teach children who would otherwise be left without teachers. The goal of TFA is to help eliminate the educational inequity that exists in this country. There are not many qualified teachers who look into impoverished or high need areas across the country, leaving students stuck in a cycle of poor education and limited opportunities. I learned that last year (2014), Oklahoma started the school year with 800 classrooms that had no teacher on the first day of school. These classrooms solely relied on substitutes. How awful is that? So Tuesday I went in and did a 5 minute sample lesson (that was directed toward 1st graders) about teen numbers. I was nervous, but I think I pulled it off fairly well. So I will keep you updated on that!

Anyways...this week a few things took place. On Monday morning, our guidance counselor came in to talk about general safety. She hit on what you do if there's a fire, who should be giving you medication, and that you should never take candy from or get in a car with someone you don't know, even if they say they are supposed to pick you up. After the discussion, the children played a bingo game to show what they learned about safety. It was a nice little morning.

On Monday, we also began charting the weather! I came in with my mentor teacher over break to reorganize/clean the room and I made these:

Each day we look outside as a class and decide what the weather is that day. The color-coded thermometer also helps us make the connection between no recess days and COLD below 0 temperatures! The Next Generation Science Standards states that Kindergartners should be able to:

K-ESS2-1.Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time. [Clarification Statement: Examples of qualitative observations could include descriptions of the weather (such as sunny, cloudy, rainy, and warm); examples of quantitative observations could include numbers of sunny, windy, and rainy days in a month. Examples of patterns could include that it is usually cooler in the morning than in the afternoon and the number of sunny days versus cloudy days in different months.] [Assessment Boundary: Assessment of quantitative observations limited to whole numbers and relative measures such as warmer/cooler.]

This gets children used to making daily observations about the world around them. It also provides the basis for noticing weather patterns throughout the year.

In math, this week, I led a number bingo game with the children. The squares held numbers 10-20. They are still learning their teen numbers and this helps with number recognition. To mix it up, I also put on ten-frames that represented teen numbers, but I noticed most kids chose not to mark those. Here is a sample:

There is one girl in our room, Marisa, who still does not know all of her numbers so I tend to spend some one on one time with her during the week. She focuses on 4 letters at a time, working on the name and sound of the letter. This week, she worked on G, T, R, and H. It is hard working with her because she has very little focus. She is constantly looking around at other children, her eyes darting from thing to thing. Needless to say, she is not very engaged in her word work. For this reason, my mentor teacher and I have been trying to work on new strategies to get her engaged. This week I made a PENGUIN! Random? Not really, the children are studying penguins and I made little paper fish with LETTERS on each one for Marisa to FEED the penguin! I introduced this new activity on Friday and she was very into it. So...success! So far...

So cute. Moving on! For my sight word group this week, I borrowed an idea from the class next door. They used Elmer's glue to write out sight words on cardboard-like paper so then kids could take a white sheet, place it on top, shade with a crayon, and reveal the sight word underneath! I did this with my small group and they really liked it! It also left them with shaded words that they could then take home and practice. On top of that, to add an extra challenge, I brought out magnetic letters so that once they shaded and found the word, they could then build the words with the magnets on top. Here are some pictures!

This week I did two read alouds: "Beautiful Oops!" by Barney Saltzberg and "Fox in Socks," by Dr. Seuss. Oh, speaking of which, did you know that March 2nd is Dr. Seuss's birthday!? he would have been 111 :) We have begun our Dr. Seuss unit and I'm loving it. Anyway, as most of the readers probably know, Fox in Socks is quite the tongue twisting book. My mentor teacher conveniently needed to go make copies and said, "Can you read this?" which left me laughing at myself with the kids in my attempts to say sentences like "When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle's on a poodle and the poodle's eating noodles... ...they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle." OY!

Beautiful Oops! is a GREAT book about how our artistic mistakes can be turned into new creations! I read it because we have a few artists who get quite frustrated if they mess up in their coloring or crafts. Great read and interactive!

Well, I think that's all for this week! Thanks for reading!!

Week 6

Well! This was the week before break! Yayyy! To be honest, I have to think back and remember what we did this week because I am writing this post quite late. One of the things I remember really well is the fact that I picked up math as an area of focus this week! On Thursday morning I woke up with a brilliant idea of making our own ten frame in the classroom, not filled up with dots....but with CHILDREN! Once we filled up one whole ten frame, I would tie them up with yarn to visualize a group of ten. Seriously, this idea just came to me and I felt like I needed to do it that day. So I did! And it went really well! I gave each child a number (there are 19 kids and then my mentor teacher was number 20) and placed out some felt squares in the shape of two ten frames on the floor. For those of you who do not know what a ten frame is, see picture below:

So basically I called each child up numbers 1-10 to fill up the first ten frame and then I tied the group up with yarn! Then we continued on with our teen numbers 11-20 and I kept reinforcing that we had a group of ten and then some more. How many more? 2? 10 and 2 makes what? Children were rather engaged, but I think if I were to do it again, I would maybe use manipulatives on the carpet squares and have children sit around in a circle so they could see the ten frames without being in them. I am still glad I did the interactive piece first though. I also got to use arrow cards! Arrow cards are...revolutionary:

These help children realize that the 1 at the front of a teen number means one ten. They are great tools to start teaching students about place value. The common core says that Kindergartners should be able to:

Work with numbers 11-19 to gain foundations for place value. CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.NBT.A.1 Compose and decompose numbers from 11 to 19 into ten ones and some further ones, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each composition or decomposition by a drawing or equation (such as 18 = 10 + 8); understand that these numbers are composed of ten ones and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine ones.

This week we also did a lot with our new Post Office. The children are writing letters to one another within the classroom. We have a Post Office area in our room, complete with a mailbox, 1 cent stamps, envelopes, and a letter related word wall so children can write words like "Dear," "To," "From," and "Love." They LOVE it. It gets them really excited to write and read too. This hits on our non-fiction book reading, as we shared informational texts with children about the post office. Some of the books we read include "The Post Office Book," by Gail Gibbons, "Letters from Felix," by Annette Langen, and "A Letter to Amy," by Ezra Jack Keats. In regard to informational text, Kindergartners should be able to:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.K.1 With prompting and support, ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

I love the idea of the Post Office and I think I will integrate something similar when I become a teacher. It really gets kids excited to write!