Much apologies for being so late in updating. The holidays were quite the busy time for my family.
The last week of school before break was one of my favorite units, Polar Express week! We started the week by reading the book The Polar Express by Christ Van Allsburg. Then throughout the week we did activities that went along with the book.
On Friday December 20th we had our Christmas party and Polar Express day. Students were able to come to school wearing their pajamas. We started out the morning by making ABC order trains. For math students math train glyphs; coloring the trains based on questions asked. Afterwards they got to open their Christmas presents from me!
Then after lunch students were given their own ticket’s to “ride aboard the Polar Express”, and they came into the library to watch the polar express on the big projector. The outside of the library door shows a train tunnel with the train light shining and railroad tracks below.
Students sat in columns as if they were on a train. They got to have hot chocolate and popcorn! At the end of the movie they each received a tiny bell that came from Santa’s sleigh!
Sorry everyone that there has been a lack of updates, my student teacher had been taking over the responsibilities for much of the winter / early spring.
This week we’ve had our unit on beach and ocean animals. We started off the week by reading an emergent reader book called At the Beach. We labeled a web thinking map that identified the main idea and details of the story.
For writing students used the ideas from the web thinking map, as well ideas of their own, and wrote about what they would like to do at the beach.
For math students took various 2 dimensional shapes and created their own sandcastles. They then graphed the number of each shapes they used for their sandcastles.
Today begins our last week of school before Christmas break and it also begins our Polar Express week! We started off by reading The Polar Express. We used pictures and illustrations to create a flow map to re-tell the story. Then on their own students put the story back in the correct sequence with a cut and paste activity.
During center time students put together A-Z alphabetical order train puzzles. For math we reviewed 2D shapes and made a train glyph based on answers about trains and The Polar Express. The train activity comes from Simply Kinder.
Just to catch everyone up on our Thanksgiving unit last week:
We used the Scholastic First Thanksgiving Virtual Field trip to learn about the Wompanoag Native American tribe that made friends with the Pilgrims and helped them survive the winter. We compared the Pilgrims Daily life to the Wompanoags Daily Life. The comparisons included food, houses, clothing, chores, and games. We also created pilgrim hats and turned them into headbands that we wore out to the buses.
During math we’ve been learning about shapes and how to design patterns. We created a native american head and shirt. Then we used real pattern block to practice making our own design for the shirts. Then we used paper pattern blocks that we glued to decorate the Wompanoag’s shirt. Last we counted how many of each pattern block we used and wrote it on the recording sheet. You can find a FREE COPY of this activity here.
As we finished up our Thanksgiving activities last week, we read some more books about the first Thanksgiving and learned more about Native Americans and Pilgrims. For math we’ve been learning about 2D and 3D shapes, and how to make bigger shapes from smaller shapes. We made Native Americans designs from pattern block shapes.
During poetry time, we read the poem Five Little Turkeys using retelling cards and turkey pictures. Then students filled in missing words using number word sight word knowledge. The Five Little Turkeys book and cards came from Kindergarten Fever’s TpT.
We read the story The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams and to help us tell the story we used musical instruments. For the shoes we used a woodblock, tambourine for the pants, maracas for the shirt, castanets for the gloves, and rhythm sticks for the hat. During free choice centers students got to retell the story on their own using the instruments.
During math students did a roll and draw to draw a scarecrow like the scarecrow in the story and learned the shapes that they drew. They added details to the picture after they drew the scarecrow.
Students also made paper plate jack-o-lanterns like the scarecrow face during art time and part of free choice center time.
Last week we finished up a fun unit full of Thanksgiving activities. For our word work we created a flip book with repetitive sight words and things that you do on Thanksgiving.
We also read Thanksgiving books on things that we like. Then students used their knowledge of sight words to write sentences using the word ‘we’.
For math we read the story “The Great Turkey Race” discussed the problem and solution of the story. Then we created our own math story problems using addition and pictures of turkeys for the visual.
Finally we learned about the life of Pilgrims and Wampanoags on Scholastic.com’s First Thanksgiving website. Students made designs on Wampanoags using pattern block cutouts.
We’ve been learning about the first Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, and the Wampanoags. During our read aloud time, we read the story The Very First Thanksgiving Day and discussed key details of the story.
Then during our math workshop we reviewed our shapes and learned how to make designs with our patterns blocks, made Wampanoag faces and bodies with paper pattern block designs on their bodies.
As part of our Welcome to School unit, our math workshop centers focused on a few of our basic math skills that we’ve been learning on the first few weeks of school.
We’ve been working on counting with 1:1 correspondence, number recognition from 1 to 10, sorting by size, shape, and color, and writing numbers from 1 to 10. We filled up our fish bowls matching the written number with the correct number of fish. Students made pictures and designs by sorting with shapes. Students also worked on putting pictures of numbered frogs in correct order.
We have been learning quite a bit in math this past month! In Kindergarten we’ve been learning how to measure using standard / non-standard units. First grade we have been working on Geometry learning about symmetry, congruence, and making bigger shapes using smaller shapes.
As a spiral review our K-1 All-Stars have also been completing centers reviewing their addition and subtraction facts. Kindergarteners were allowed to use counting bears to help them with the concepts.
