We love guided reading!

One of the best parts of the Kindergarten day is guided reading and literacy centers. It is during this time when students have small group instruction tailored to their individual learning needs ad strengths. During guided reading lessons we do word work, practice reading strategies, read for fluency, and work on comprehension. Every day or two we get to bring home a book we have practiced and read it to someone in our family! We are all making great progress and improving our reading skills tremendously! 

Hour of Code!

Today we went to the computer lab to learn how to write code!! We used a program called Scratch. We used commands to make a cat dance. It was fun changing the colors, sounds, watching the cat dance and turn!! We even learned how to change the background so the cat was dancing on the stage. Very cool stuff!! 

Lets count!!

In math we are working on numbers and counting. We love to sing counting songs to start off the math block. Here are our favorites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9-pEVaO4pM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4rhzjD5ohw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0dJWfQHF8Y

 Then we show numbers in different ways. We can write the numeral, number word, draw a picture, use tally marks, show the number with dice or dominoes, base ten blocks and even ten frames!! Who knew there were so many ways to show a number. We love to go to math centers and work in small groups. Today in small groups we worked on our 11 to 19 number book. We learned a cool math game called Try to Go Home! At home, you can practice counting objects. Ask your child to count objects in different arrangements and look for numbers in the store, at home or on the road!! Ask your child questions like...What is one more than the number? What is one less? Is the number even or odd?  How many tens and ones?  Have fun counting!! 

An exciting guest speaker!

Gunnar's dad came today and was a special guest visitor for science!! He works to prosecute crimes against animals and taught us some very cool things. He even brought with him some very interesting artifacts. We learned about many animals including sea turtles, polar bears, tigers, walruses, elephants and birds. It's a good thing there are people like Gunnar's dad who work to help make sure people who break the law and harm animals get in big trouble. Here are a few pictures:

Our first mystery reader!

Today we had our first mystery reader!! Eryn's dad came and read a Thanksgiving story. Then he showed us how to make wild turkey calls. We all got to try and it was lots of fun. Eryn's mom came and hung up our self portraits. Don't they look great?  We had a half day today but we were busy reading Eric Carle's story The Mixed Up Chameleon, writing about our weekend, making numbers in different ways, and learning about Veterans Day. We also have new math centers. So much learning and fun! 

We love Eric Carle

In reading and writing we are doing an Eric Carle author study! Everyday we read one of his books and then write a connection we made during Writers Workshop! We even made a very hungry caterpillar craft too! 

Field Trip Fun

Today we went to a local farm called Heyser farm. It's just up the road between Cloverly and White Oak. We saw how apple cider is made!! It was a lot of fun and we even got to take home three apples and a pint of cider. We got to see chickens, bees, peach trees, grape vines, and more!! Check out these pictures.