Mrs. Keller's Kindergarten: Insects Week 1

Poem: Little Ball

Sight Words: would, little

Reading:

Comprehension Strategy: Comprehension Strategy: This week we worked on the skill called visualizing. Visualizing is very similar to creating a mental image. When students listen to or read text, they can create pictures in their mind or make a mind movie. When readers visualize what is happening in the story, they remember more of what they read or hear.

Students practice this skill by listening to a story without seeing the pictures right away. We practiced this in a whole group setting and with partners.

Vocabulary: This week we read the story, “Oscar and the Frog”. The words that we learned and added to our expanded vocabulary chart included gills, bank, tadpole, hatch, shrink, and stared.

iPads: This week students used Pebble Go to research information about an insect. They saved a photo from Pebble Go to use in Chatterpix to recall 1-3 facts about that insect. There were some really great projects at the end of the week!

We also used Writing Wizard to practice spelling words in our ee/ea and ui/oa word families.

Writing: This week we read the story, “Fancy Nancy”. Nancy liked to be fancy and use fancy words. We talk about how we can use fancy words rather than regular words when writing. We made a chart of regular words from the book and the fancy word that Nancy used instead. We talked about other words like big, little, good, etc. Later in the week students helped as we took a premade writing and changed a “regular” word into a “fancy” word. In our writing we took the word good away and changed it to lovely.

Math: This week in math we learned about the word decompose. Throughout the week students showed how to decompose a number 1-9 using a variety of strategies and tools. One way to show a number decomposed was using colored counters. Each group was a different color to easily show the groups. We also showed pictures and circled groups to then show in a number bond. This was done using dry erase boards and doodle buddy. We also started our new number of the day format practicing new skills!

Vocabulary: Our word was decompose; which means to break apart a number into 2 groups. Students always add their word into their math journal using Book Creator.

iPads: During math students used Popplet to show ways to decompose a number using counters. Students started by rolling 2 dice to determine the number to decompose. The first popplet they write the number and the surrounding popplets they take pictures of the counters, displaying each way to decompose. Next week students will be adding to this concept, by writing the addition sentence with each picture.

Content: This week we started our 2 week unit on insects. We started the week by getting our caterpillars from Insect Lore that we will continue to watch grow over the next 7-10 days. Each day students get with their ipad partners to document their observation in their journals using Book Creator. Students take a picture of the caterpillars and record their findings. We also learned about insects by reading books and filling in parts of our chart that explained the parts of an insect. We completed a tree map as a class as each student wrote on their recording sheet. On Friday we made ladybugs to hang in the hallway with our information.

SEL (Social Emotional Learning): Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

This week we learned about responsibility. We learned that a responsibility is like a job. We started the week by learning the difference between a right and responsibility. We sorted cards and discussed the difference for each. Throughout the week we spent time discussing our responsibilities during parts of the school day. These times included arrival, independent time, lunch/specials, and when there is a substitute teacher. Each day students were also given a challenge task and it was their responsibility to do that task before the day was over. We had lots of good deeds shown this week!