November Fun

Check out our new video posted on the right side of the blog.  Our class sings Who Let The Letters Out? by Dr. Jean Feldman. We've put our own twist on the song by adding the hand signals that we have learned for each letter sound.  The hand signals are a combination of Visual Phonics and FUNdations.  Each kindergarten class practices the hand signals.  It's pretty amazing how quickly this group has learned their letter sounds.  The hand signals are also helpful when students write.  The signals are just enough of a hint if someone can't remember a letter sound.

Now that we are half way though November, our class is taking on more responsibilities in the classroom.  The leader of the day has always had a few responsibilities like leading the line but now each day our leader brings the lunch envelope down to the kitchen.  The leader has also taken over the daily calendar routine.  The routine consists of the leader asking the class to count the days on the calendar with them, figure out the pattern of the calendar pieces, spelling and saying the month and the year.  The leader builds a weather sentence and asks the class to read it with them.  Lastly, the leader updates the chart of how many days we have been in school and the Daily Depositor.

Summit leads our class through the calendar routine.  

The number on the Daily Depositor matches the number on the calendar.  Each day we make
a new deposit. This month we are counting buttons. Once we get ten buttons on the ones
 side (the white side), we move them to the tens side (the blue side).  Here you can see
that the number 13 is made up of one group of ten and three ones.

We also count the number of days that we have been in school.  For each day we are in school, we add
 another paper clip to the chain.  Once we have ten paper clips, we start a new chain.  The number
 52 is made up of five chains of 10 and two ones.  Students are also able to see that we need
 8 more school days to reach 60.

This week we took some time to review sorting by different attributes.

Josh and Samantha sort animals by color.

Lia and Lucas L. sort bears by color.

After a few hard frosts, the threat of EEE is low enough that the bottom half of our playground was reopened to students this week.  Our class had a great time using the sandbox and the swings again!

Henry and Lucas R. dig together.

Summit works in the sandbox on a beautiful fall day.

Alice tests out the swings.

The kindergarten grade level team feels that we have had a very successful cycle of WIN groups. We will stop WIN groups this week and take time to reassess every student.  Report cards will be sent home on December 5th.  After the assessments are complete, we will regroup students as needed based on our new data. The next cycle of WIN groups will begin the first week of December.

One WIN group writes about their favorite part of The Three Little Pigs.

All WIN groups have had a lot of fun during this WIN cycle.
Students from all three kindergarten classes get to work together in WIN groups.

A big thank you to Ayler's grandparents who sent our class supplies all the way from Michigan!

A big thanks to Bobbie and Jim from kindergarten!