Hello everyone! It was so lovely to meet you all this week. Sorry for the delay in posting this. Let’s get into it!
This past week was a crazy one! Students had Steeler Dress Down Day on Monday, and we also kicked off the week doing some activities to practice listening for the beginning sounds in words. We then did this with ending sounds as well. Students looked at a group of pictures and paired up the pictures with the same beginning (or ending) sound. They had a lot of fun and this prepared them well for another game we played later on in the week! This week we learned about the letter sounds for Ww, Ss, Ee, and Yy. Some of these are tricky — Ee is a hard vowel because many people say it differently based on their dialect. Students often confuse Yy for a Uu sound, and students don’t understand why Ww is called “double u” if it doesn’t make that sound. LOL!
Kindergarten got to play some ABC Bingo this week, but now we have changed the rules a little bit to make it more challenging: they have to listen for the sound and then figure out the letter that makes that sound on their own and see if it’s on their bingo card! They love this challenge! Then, we also played a Thanksgiving word game. Students had to tell me what the picture they got was, listen to the sounds in the word, figure out what letters made those sound, and find the word on the plate! It was lots of fun and students even got to work collaboratively when they needed help. Having them learn from each other makes it all the more enjoyable! Students are still working on finding sight words and high frequency words in their morning message! Be sure to continue practicing these words during the next two weeks.
Shapes and patterns, shapes and patterns! Students have been very focused on this this week! They learned about pattern rules, which help us determine what the pattern is and how to continue it. The patterns we worked on this week all contained shapes. We also did a group activity to help us talk about how some 2D shapes can come together to create new shapes! We used our pattern blocks to help us complete our worksheets. Students had to use some trial and error to figure the answers out, but were very engaged so that didn’t bother them too much! 🙂
On Friday afternoon, students went for a Shape Scavenger Hunt! We took a walk around the school to try and mark all of the different shapes we could see outside. Students found many, many, many rectangles but also were surprised to find a few triangles in some unexpected places like the church building and on some signs around school! It was a nice way to get some fresh air too!
As we prepared for Thanksgiving, students were learning as much as we could about the holiday! We made bracelets as jewelry and talked about how Native Americans make jewelry out of gems and stones and other materials they find in nature! We read some books about Native American history, including D is for Drum. Students learned about Squanto, the Native American who helped some pilgrims learn the way of the land here in America. We also listened and danced to Native American music!
Students also got to watch A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, just because it’s one of Ms. V’s favorites! And we even did some Thanksgiving yoga, which you can do below:
On Friday students were sent home with their folder that contained all of the packets needed for Flexible Instruction for the next two weeks! If you need any help or have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out. Now is also a great time to utilize the November Homework Challenges, which can be found on this website if you need to look at them again! Also be sure to check out SeeSaw to see what the Gym teacher is posting for Kindergarten, and to try out the typing and coding sites recommended by the Technology teacher (there is a paper for this in your student’s folder as well).
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Love,
Ms. V