Hello everyone! I hope you enjoyed your Valentine’s Day, and are enjoying your day off today!
Last week was fun and a little bit crazy, let’s check out what we did!
One thing Kindergarten has been consistently working on since learning about short and longs vowel sounds is the silent e! When there is a silent e at the end of the word, it makes the vowel in the middle “say it’s name” (aka, a long vowel sound!). Here is a fun song that can help students remember the difference.
On Monday, students read the story Jack B. Ninja by Tim McCanna. This story is about a kid who goes on a ninja mission, only to find out the bad guys were his family in disguise just to give him a birthday surprise! This story was a rhyming story, and is a play on the nursery rhyme Jack Be Nimble. After we read the story, students then had to look at pictures from the story and put them in the order that they happened in the story. This sequencing activity tests student’s comprehension skills. We also did an activity where we had to name the characters in the story and then write who they are. I have been pushing Kindergarten to work on their sentence writing more and more, as I want them to have lots of experience with this before first grade! Even if they are not spelling every word correctly, it gives me insight into what sounds they are hearing in a word and how their brain is connecting the sounds to the letters. It also encourages their creativity! An easy way to encourage this at home is to have students write a sentence of their own either about a story they read together or give them a random word to use in a sentence!
We have also been working on finding some new fun ways to review some old skills! Working on letter sounds and matching upper and lowercase letters by making a game out of it, and taking our workbooks to the floor to practice decoding or reading words. We are still reviewing vowels and the different sounds they make, and we will soon be moving from words with 3 sounds to words with 4 sounds! We also are continuing working on writing sentences independently, which includes having Kindergarten students “build” words on their own!
On Wednesday we celebrated Mikel’s sixth birthday! It was very exciting and we had a great time listening to some dance music, making cards for him, and eating ice cream after he shared his adorable baby pictures.
Also on Wednesday, we got to have our first session with a program called OperaTots! STBCA has partnered with the Pittsburgh Opera to do their special virtual program. Students used their tablets to join Ms. Emily on Zoom, and she taught them about what an opera is, sang some songs with us, and introduced us to the opera that students are going to be able to see in a couple months at the end of the program.
On Thursday we celebrated our 100th day of school! We dressed up and did some super fun activities like reading stories about the 100th day of school, practicing writing to 100, and making bracelets to practice our skip counting to 100 by tens!
Students built things using 100 popsicle sticks…
And they also came up with ideas of what they would do if they had $100! Some of their ideas were so creative! This was also some good reading practice.
Kindergarten also had some incredible costumes, they really hit the nail on the head! LOL!
In Social Studies this week, as we continue to learn about the past, present, and future, we learned about Ruby Bridges! Students were fascinated with her bravery and that she is still alive today! We read the children’s version of her autobiography.
On Friday, we celebrate Valentine’s Day! Students made valentines for you, their parents, and got some special treats! They also made Get Well Soon cards for their classmate Sydney who has been sick for the past week or so. We hope she returns soon! Also a special shout out to Reid’s grandmother who made cute Valentine’s Day masks for the whole class. They are lovely. 🙂
It was a fun-filled and exciting week! I’m looking forward to this one being just as great.
Love,
Ms. V 🙂