Pumpkins, Books and WIN Groups

We are getting into the Fall spirit in kindergarten.  We painted pumpkins at the beginning of the week and turned them into jack o' lanterns on Thursday.  In the next week or two, we will have some fun with pumpkin math.  Are there any volunteers who would be willing to donate a pumpkin to our class?  We would love to use a pumpkin to practice graphing and estimating.  Thanks!

It was a perfect Fall afternoon Friday to pose with our pumpkins.

Our best pumpkin head impression...

Pumpkins!

Clara helps Ms. Blanchard get a bulletin board ready for the hall.

Josh works carefully cutting out his pumpkin.

Lia's pumpkin is as happy as she is!

 The afternoons have been beautiful for playing on the playground! New friendships continue to form all the time.  We are so thankful to have such a great outdoor space.

Josh and Lucas R. climb the rock wall.

Joseph loves to tube slide.

Clara, Lucy and Alice hang out on the monkey bars.

Students have taken on more responsibility during learning centers.  This past week, we wrote three work centers on the board that kindergartners were responsible for completing before they went to a center of their choice.  Once they completed the work at the center, they wrote their name under the center on the board.  They really did a great job! 

Monday's work centers were painting in art, DreamBox
 in math and book buddies in the literacy center.

Joseph paints in the art center.

Charlie works on the computer after he finished his work centers.

Kindergartners can now go the library without a teacher
 (unless your teacher is following you around with a camera)
on any day of the week.  Lucas R. checks out a book.

Lucy and Alice join Lucas in the library.  The book keys they are holding help them
remember where to put their books back when they are finished browsing.

Madison paints people at the easel.

Our class participates in a weekly math lesson with Deb Jones, our district's numeracy specialist.  On Wednesday, Mrs. Jones brought her dominos.  Can you believe we are already practicing addition?  Kindergartners found dominos to match the addition sentences. They also came up with their own addition sentences.  Our class has been looking at different ways to "see" numbers.

Students look for dominos to help them make a number sentence.

Everyone got a turn to share a number sentence.

We continue to practice reading and writing books with sight words.  This week we learned two new sight words, the and can.  

Lucas L., Josh and Henry practice pointing to the words as they read.

Ayler and Summit read a Halloween book.

Samantha enjoys her book too!

Has your kindergartner mentioned working in WIN groups?  WIN stands for What I Need.  Four days a week all three kindergarten classes mix together for students to work in WIN groups.  The first 10 times we meet, we will focus on nursery rhymes.  Once every group rotates through the ten nursery rhymes, groups will start working with the same teacher every time they meet.  Groups were formed by looking at our latest assessment data.  Groups will be working on different skills based on what students in each group need.  Groups will range from letter identification and letter sounds to sight words and reading. We are so lucky in kindergarten to have help from all areas of the building.  We have teachers from the reading room and the special education department that take groups so that our group sizes are no larger than six students in a group.  Every now and then, Mr. Carozza will even teach a WIN group. WIN groups have been a big hit!

Mrs. Cowan works with her WIN group for the day.  Students are
 from our class, Ms Blanchard's class and Mrs. Grady's class.

My WIN group for the day learns Jack Be Nimble.

Josh shows off his illustration of Jack Be Nimble.  At the end of the WIN group
 nursery rhyme rotation, all students will have their own book of nursery rhymes to bring home.

Don't forget Art in the Sky is Thursday.  All of the tee shirts that we need are already in our classroom.  Please have your kindergartner wear neutral color pants, no bright colors.  Thanks!  We kick off our Art in the Sky week with an assembly first thing tomorrow morning.