Looking Back On Favorite Mentor Texts

Today we looked back at some of our favorite mentor texts. We used "I Ain't Gonna Paint No More" to learn about persuasive essays. "Charlie Needs A Cloak" helped us when we were learning about how-to writing. The book "Milk To Ice Cream" was used to learn about using sequential words. "Rocket Writes A Story" was inspiration to many of us as we thought about what to write about. We are having so much fun reflecting, reminiscing and celebrating our writing growth.  

Wednesday Message

When I Was Five

We had a great time in Writing Workshop today as we began our final unit titled "looking back, looking ahead" we read the book "When I Was Five" by Arthur Howard and discussed with a partner what changed for the character from when he was five to when he was six and what has stayed the same.  We then related it to our writing. So much has changed. When we started the year, our writing looked different. Some of us had only letters, some of us only pictures, some of us even scribbles. Now we have complete sentences, space between our words, lower-case letters throughout, and punctuation at the end. We also know how to write letters, persuasive essays, personal narratives, how to books, and stories. It was so much fun to look back at our writing sample from the beginning of the year. 

Monday Message

Subtract From 10

We played a new  game today to practice subtracting from 10. Here are the directions:

1) Pick a numeral card

2) Say and write the subtraction fact by thinking of a related addition fact.

3) Cover the difference on the board

4) Keep taking turns until all of the numebers on the board have been covered.

5) Count how many counters you have each used.

6) The winner is the player with the most counters on the board.

Polydrons: Can You Build It?

We opened a new work place today called "Polydrons: Can You Build It?" In this station there are 6 different blueprints for 3-dimensional Polydrons structures, along with a key that pictures each finished structure. We practiced the following skills while enjoying building:

1) investigating and predicting the results of putting together and taking apart 2- and 3-dimensional shapes

2) interpreting visual instructions

3) recognizing and representing shapes from different perspectives

4) flipping and rotating 2-dimensional shapes to create 3-dimensional structures

The Double Digit Dimension

We went to the double digit dimension today with Melanie Liversedge, Folsom parent, with the help of our favorite sky landers! She created a great story that allowed us to identify, compare, and order two-digit numbers. The kids amazed me with their mathematical ability! They said it was "the best activity ever!"

Reading With Friends

Preschool Buddy Reading

Fiber Farm

With Ms. Virginia's help we learned about different fibers today including cotton from a plant, wool from a  sheep, and fiber from an alpaca. We read a book about Charlie and his sheep, put the steps wool takes from sheep to sweater in order, located the original home of alpacas (South America) and described the different textures of clothes made from the different fibers. 

Preschool Visit

It was so exciting to meet some of the incoming kindergartners today! We had a great time learning a new greeting, reading together and enjoying snack. 

Dairy In The Classroom

We are lucky to have Virginia Holiman, from a program called "Dairy in the Classroom," in our room for the next few weeks. This program is a collaboration between the Dairy Promotion Board, The Department of Agriculture, and Shelburne Farms. So far we have learned about the resource farms are for people as well as the importance of seeds and plants. Virginia combines props, books, story telling, and humor to captivate her your audience while integrating literacy, math, science and social studies. Your child can already name three variety of cows, as well as what people use them for (milk vs meat), tell you how to make homemade butter, and had the opportunity to try some interesting fruits and vegetables. They ate moon squirters, orange twiglets, and green raindrops. Ask your child to translate 😉. 

A Push Is A Force

We furthered our initial exploration of force and motion today by working on the following kindergarten next generation standard: Plan and conduct an investigation to compare the effects of differerent strengths or different directions of pushes and pulls on the motion of an object. 

We did this by varying the amount of force used on our cars down a classroom race track. We predicted how far we could get our cars to go (12-72 inches) and then took turns trying.

Recess Reading

Monday Message

Building Great Sentences

We worked on building great sentences during writing workshop complete with upper-case letters to start, spaces between words, punctuation at the end, and the use of lower-case letters throughout. Next class we will pick a piece for publication and bind the rest of our work in a book to take home. You will be so impressed! 

Force And Motion

We began a new "Next Generation" Science Unit today on Force and Motion. Thank you to everybody who sent in cars, balls, rulers, and tubes. Today, we talked about the vocabulary words you see below on the anchor chart, and showed with movement what each word means. Then, it was experimentation time. We pushed, pulled, changed direction, varied force, experimented with direction and stopped moving objects. They asked me to send home our vocabulary words and "I can" statement. 

Using The Word Wall

In Writing Workshop we practiced using the word wall when writing snap-words. We practiced looking at the word, taking a picture of the word in our minds, writing the word and checking the word. Sme of us used this strategy during our independent writing time.