Take A Peek Into Our Reading Group | November 30, 2017

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This past week we got our new books! The children were super excited! The story we read was called The Three Wishes by Margot Zemach. Our first session we read the story together and then discussed our sharing questions as a class. Our second reading together we listened to the story again, we then read together the highlighted phrases and acted out a scene! Near the end of class the children were able to brainstorm their ideas about what they thought the wife was thinking when the sausages grew on the man’s nose? I love hearing the children listen to each other ideas and then share their own thoughts.

Take A Peek Into Our Reading Group!

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Our friends have really enjoyed reading this poem and doing the various lessons every week! This week the children had to draw what they thought Beauty looked like. We discussed the ways the stray cat was described in the poem. The children then talked about The different ways the cat might look like. The other activity was a writing experience. The children had to discuss why they would or would not let the stray in. I love listening to the children’s answers, and seeing them think on their own. I then wrote their answers on the white board and the children then were able to copy down their answers.

New books arrive next week!! They are super excited:)

Academic Enrichment | Weeks of November 20th & 27th | Cuyahoga Falls Campus

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Kindergarten Lessons:

We finished our counting money by looking at the different bills (paper money).  Paper money was fairly easy to associate and dollar amount for obvious reasons.  We did examine the different looks of these bills.  We then combined the paper money and coins.

We came from break looking at parts of the leaf, parts of the flower, and parts of the tree.  We had a discussion on what makes a living thing, a living thing.  We learned that all living things need to:

Be able to reproduce
Be able to grow
Eat or take in nutrients
Breathe or exchange gases
All living things need water

These criterion differentiates my shoe from a bird or a pencil from my students.  I posed the question “Are trees, plants, grass living things?”  we went through the above criterion and determined Plants….

Reproduce via seeds
They grow
They need water and get nutrients from the soil
They exchange gases (take in Carbon Dioxide and expel Oxygen)

 

Due to the Christmas show rehearsals we will not be learning additional languages, sight words, or synonyms.

 

Academic Enrichment | week of November 27th | Tallmadge

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The kindergarten students have been working hard on learning both static and dynamic multiplication using the golden beads, stamp game, bead frame and dot board to solve problems.

Stamp Game: These children are using the stamp game to do multiplication. It works like the golden beads but instead of unit beads there are unit stamps. Instead of ten bars there are ten stamps. Instead of hundred squares there are hundred stamps. Instead of thousand cubes there are thousand stamps.

 

A Look Into Next Week: Static and Dynamic (exchanging) Multiplication 

  • Exchanging 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s
  • Using single units, 10 bars, 100 squares and 1000 cubes
  • Discovering that multiplication is simply repeat addition

A Peek into Reading Group

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With Ms. Faith

The last two weeks we read a poem called Stray Cat. It was describing a mangy, dirty cat that the speaker of the poem found. We learned about different aspects of a poem, like what stanzas are, who the speaker is in a poem, and how words in poems usually rhyme. We disscused why the speaker used so many describing words for the cat, and decided it was because the speaker wanted you to be able to imagine what the cat looked like.

 

The children took turns sharing their drawings of how they think the stray cat looks.
Sharing what he wondered about while listening to the poem for the first time.

A Peek into the Next Two Weeks

-We will be reading a story about a couple who are granted three wishes

-We will be learning about what  folk tale is.

-We will be having a discussion with interpretive questions.

 

 

Peek In Our The Week| Mr. John| Week Of November 27, 2017

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Line Time Lessons:
‘Tis the season for the Christmas Show practices.  We started to practice and will be practicing for the next few weeks.  My class is trying something a little different this year.  We are going in the “Way Back Machine” to Merry Old England and performing two traditional carols.  They are a bit different in melody but I know our extraordinary students will be able to pull it off.

 

Peek Into My Classroom:

We had a pair of alumni come in to visit, read, and tell our students about their experience at their new school. You’re not seeing double they are twins.

 

This student is working on one of her her assignments in her kindergarten binder. She is working on her 100 page. This where she writes from 1 to 100. Then 101 to 200 and so on. This develops her concentration, betters her handwriting, and helps her recognize patterns.

 

This student is working with money. She already knows the value of each coin and now she is counting change.  She is also familiar with “paper money”.

 

We have discussed the visual discrimination of the Pink Tower and Brown Stairs but this child has found the relationship between the two materials. Students will match the corresponding pieces of these material. This student did match the the corresponding pieces but he took it to another level and made this creation.

 

This happy boy is proud of his accomplishment with the Ten Board. The purpose of this material is to associate quantities with symbols(1 ten is 10, 2 tens is 20…). He has learned how to include “units” with the “tens” to compose numbers from 11 to 99. As you can see he has four 10’s and five units to make 45.  It looks like he discovered a pattern by composing 23, 34, 45…

 

Peek Into Next Week:
Christmas show practice and we will learn about different Christmas Traditions from around the world. 

Upcoming Events:
Christmas Show Attire: Red and/or white

December 13: Christmas Show Practice 6 pm to 8 pm at Cuyahoga Falls High School

December 15: Christmas Show 6:30 pm to 8 pm at Cuyahoga Falls High School (NO AFTERCARE)

December 21: Winter Break Begins  :))

January 3: Winter Break Ends  :((

Academic Enrichment | week of November 13th | Tallmadge

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The kindergarten students have been working hard on learning both static and dynamic addition using the golden beads. They have even started working on more abstract materials like the stamp game, bead frame and dot board to solve problems.

Dot Board: These children are learning to understand addition using the decimal system and are getting  better at working with larger numbers. This work emphasizes the fact that in each category there are never combinations that come to more than 9, so it is just as easy to add tens of thousands together as it is units.
Bead Frame: This child is using the bead frame to do dynamic addition. It is a more abstract way to work with the decimal system. When the child has ten units, tens, hundreds or thousands he has to focus on the process of exchanging. This child is also  further familiarizing himself  with the different categories: units, tens, hundreds and thousands. 
Bead Frame: This child is using the bead frame to do dynamic addition. It is a more abstract way to work with the decimal system. When the child has ten units, tens, hundreds or thousands he has to focus on the process of exchanging. This child is also  further familiarizing himself  with the different categories: units, tens, hundreds and thousands. 

A Look Into Next Week: Continue Dynamic Addition (exchanging)

  • Introduction of exchanging 1s, 10s, 100s and 1000s
  • Using single units, 10 bars, 100 squares and 1000 cubes

Academic Enrichment| Cuyahoga Falls| Weeks of November 6 to November 13, 2017

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Academic Enrichment: Weeks of November 6 to November 13, 2017

Telling Time:
We ended the official Kindergarten Lessons on telling time.  We learned how to tell time to the minute.  I taught them a cool trick.  Instead of counting all 37 marks (for 37 after) just count by fives end at 35 and count from there.  Some still felt comfortable counting all the minute marks.  That’s OK, they’ll get it.

 

 

Coins:
After the month long lessons on telling time we broke into everyone’s favorite thing: MONEY.  We learned about the different and variety of each coin (penny 1 cent, nickel 5 cents, dime 10 cents, quarter 25 cents, 50 cent piece and the  dollar coins).  After we identified the coin we did start to learn how to count the change.


Cultural Subjects:
The kindergarten students can now count to ten in 13 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, Hebrew, Korean, and Hungarian). 

A Peek Into The Next Few Weeks:
Currency(Paper money)
Parts of plants, insects, and arachnids

Synonyms of the Week:
small

Sight Words of the Week:
been down

 

Peek At Our Week| Mr. John| Week Of November 13, 2017

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Line Time Lessons:
 We traveled back in time and discovered some fascinating things about certain dinosaurs.  We learned that dinosaurs no longer exist and that they are extinct.  We know dinosaurs exist because scientist found their bones or fossils.  From these fossil we saw that some teeth were long and sharp to tear flesh from it’s prey which belonged to meat eaters or carnivores (T Rex).  Some teeth were flat for grinding plants, leaves, and branches and belonged to plant eaters or herbivores (Brachiosauras).

Cultural Subjects:
We can now count to ten in 13 different languages (English, Sign Language, Latin, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Japanese, Arabic with the Lebanese Dialect, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Swedish, Tagalog, and Hebrew).

Peeking Into My Classroom:

 

We had an alumnus come in on her day off from school. She is in the 6th grade and came in to read to our class and help with lessons. I asked why she came back to her old school and she told me she had such a great experience she wanted to come back and give back to the school. Her words not mine.
Metal Insets are a popular material found in the Language area. This work has many purposes. The main purpose is to prepare the child for handwriting and improve the fine motor skills. Also, it introduces the child to Geometry and the names of a variety of shapes.
The chalk board is found in the Language area. The main purpose, obviously, is the introduction to handwriting. I like my students using chalk because most like the feel and can erase if a mistake is made. After my classroom students may not have an opportunity to use chalk. This student is getting a lesson from our University of Akron field student.
The students are drawn to this material that are photographs of familiar objects and the become aware of the relationships between things. We discuss the associations and point out other examples in the everyday world. This increases the child’s experience and vocabulary.
The 100 board simply a board with 100 squares (10 x 10 squares), that come with 100 number tiles that fit nicely. The Hundred Board is useful for number recognition, number sequencing, counting, patterning, possibly skip counting (depending on your method) most of all it’s perfect for just reinforcing the understanding of numbers from one to one-hundred. Notice this child is not only placing the numbers in order but she is randomly finding where the tiles go. She has identified the pattern of this work.

 

Peek To Next Week:

Line Time Lesson:
 Thanksgiving and Pilgrims

Letter Of The Week:
 M m

Rhyming Word Of The Week:
bop

Upcoming Events:
11/21/17 (Tuesday): Harvest Party/Stone Soup

11/22/2017 (Wednesday): NO SCHOOL. Happy Thanksgiving

11/22-11/26/17: Thanksgiving Break

11/25/2017  Noon:  The Game!

 

 

A Peek at Handwriting| Ms. Kristen | Week of November 6th

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The past two weeks in Handwriting, we have been working on answering a question of the day and writing our answer in cursive. Some of our questions have been, ” What will you be for Halloween?” and ” What did you have for lunch today?” and ” What is your middle name?”. The children are also working on spelling their answer phonetically.

Something to practice with your child at home is writing their first name in cursive! I’m so proud of how our Kindergarten student’s handwriting has come along so far this year!