Mrs. Grogan's Kindergarten: Week 27 Highlights!

What a great week!

During our Shared Reading, we focused on the poem, Luck of the Irish to explore letters, sounds, rhyming words, and print concepts. We introduced the sight word, play, this week.. The words we can read in a snap are you, and, to, the, and is. Please practice identifying, reading, and writing our sight words with your child at home.

In Reader's Workshop, we continue to explore our fourth unit, Becoming Avid Readers. This week, we learned that avid readers use just-right words to describe the characters feelings. Please ask your child to share with you a "college word" for happy or sad. We also introduced reading playdates. We learned three ways to "play" during workshop. We can play school, play games, and play pretend. Our focus this week during reading playdates was playing school. We practiced doing a read aloud and shared reading with our partners. Take a peek at our avid readers!

During Read Aloud this week we continued our author study unit. Each week during the month of March we will explore a different author and/or illustrator. This week's author study was Eric Carle. We read From Head to Toe, Does a Kangaroo Have a Mother, Too?, "Slowly, Slowly, Slowly," said the Sloth, Have You Seen My Cat?, and The Mixed-Up Chameleon. We created a list of items we noticed he included in all his stories. Please ask your child to share with you the similarities and differences in Eric Carle's texts.

During Daily Five word work stations this week, we played Sort It, Color, It, Roll and Read It, and Spin It with our snap words. We continue to explore phonics skills using our Word Sorts. We also practiced our phonemic awareness skills using Lexia on the iPad. We practiced labeling and creating lists at the writing table. Please ask your child what was their favorite Daily Five station this week!

This week during Writer's Workshop, we continue our opinion writing unit! We introduced letter writing! Using the text, Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, we learned how to write a letter stating the problem and giving a solution. This week's focus was problems we see at home. Please ask your child to share with you a problem they see at home, why it is a problem, and how we can solve the problem.

We continue to practice lowercase letter writing in our Handwriting curriculum. We introduced correct letter formation for lowercase diver letters h, b, and f. Please review our uppercase letter, number, and lowercase magic c letters with your child at home.

In Whole Group Math, we continue to explore number pairs, decomposing, and composing numbers in the fourth module in our Eureka Math curriculum. This week's focus was number pairs for 9 and 10. We also introduced Say Ten numbers. Please ask your child to show you how to count the say ten way.

This week during Math Tubs, we began a new round of tubs. Our rotation will focus on number writing, teen numbers, subitizing, one-to-one correspondence, manipulating 100 objects, number pairs to 10, and basic subtraction. Please ask your child what their favorite math tub was this week!

On Friday afternoon, we explored our STEM Tubs. Over the next few weeks, we will use different materials to construct a bridge. We will discuss the properties of the materials, collaborate to plan how to build a bridge, predict if the bridge will hold, and build a structure. Take a peek at our kindergarten scientists!