Monday February 11, 2013

Monday February 11, 2013
Welcome to our classroom blog for Mr. Schultz's Prairie Vista Kindergarten! I am going to do my best to update everyday on what we are doing in class. I will also use this to remind parents what is going on in our school as well!
Monday was a great day for learning! We continue to review our vowel's and will be starting in on short vowel sounds on Tuesday! Students are mastering their vowels and identifying them. Students also learned that a consonant is a letter that is not a vowel. We used our mini whiteboards to practice writing sentences and circled vowels. Students then underlined the consonants. I encourage you to work with your student on doing this while practicing writing at home!
We had two centers today and groups that were with me read 2-3 books that are of the fantasy genre. We also worked on sight words and higher level vocabulary words!
In language arts we talked about beginning sounds. This is review but it is something I feel is important to touch back on every now and then to remind students to break the word down to sound/tap it out. We also read a story about a tiger that did not fit in. While reading we discussed beginning, middle, and end. We also made predictions and discussed characters and setting. It is very important that students can break the story down and analyze different parts. These are big strategies in the Common Core standards. You can work on this while reading with your child at home. While fluency is important it is also very important that students are retaining what they read and are able to discuss it.
During our writing time we finished our classroom story. Students discussed and gave ideas for what they wanted the story to be about and I wrote down their thoughts into complete sentences. We have been working on this on and off for a little over a week. Students enjoyed creating their own story and this introduces them to the writing process. They copied what I wrote in their writing journals.
Math was busy today! We had a lesson on place value. In Kindergarten we only discuss tens and ones. Students seem to be catching on quick to this. We will continue with place value activities throughout the week. We also reviewed our base then as that goes along with the importance of identifying place values. We then did a fill in the blank worksheet that had students counting by tens. Students have mastered counting by tens when you start at 0 or 10 but this asked them to start at different numbers like 14, 18 and then count by tens. Many struggled with this, but by the end I think they were catching on. We will continue to review counting starting at a number other than 0.
In science we discussed our inquiry from last week. Students used balance scaled to weigh different objects and compare and contrast them. I am going to try and have students do 1 science inquiry activity each week to give them hands on opportunities. Students completed a page in their science notebooks that asked them to draw an object that was light and one that was heavy. Students appear to have mastered the "light and heavy" concepts taught in this unit.
We were in a rush to get out the door as math and science went over time!
Please remember to work on math facts and reading/writing with your student each night regardless if I send home any homework or not! The extra time and effort will pay off in the long run!
Remember that Valentines Day is this Thursday. Students may bring in their boxes any day  We ask that students do not address their valentines to a specific name rather just write who it is from. They need to have one for each student in our class. We have 22. Any candy or treats will be sent home with the kids on Thursday!
Looking forward to a busy Tuesday with the kids!
Mr. Schultz
P.S. Not all blogs will be this long! I woke up at 3:30 this morning so had the time to sit and type a detailed note!!
Remember we have a four day weekend coming up!
Activities completed in class Monday 2/11