Mathematics

 

The SK students will continue to be challenged in the area of problem solving. One of the problems for next week will be: At the farm there were 3 pigs and 2 chickens. How many legs were there altogether at the farm?

 

The SK and the JK will also be challenged to show what they know about the number 7 and the number 8. This is where they can show the number by drawing something to represent the number, show the number through addition or subtraction, or show the number on a rekenrek or a ten frame.

 

The students will also be introduced to some of the three dimensional figures. At one of the centres they will have an opportunity to make some of the figures and to use some of the figures in the construction area (block centre). 

Language

 

Most of the Kindergarten By Heart Words have been learned. Each day we review five of these words by playing the game "Find the Word". Volunteer students find the word stated by the teacher. They find the word, point to the word and tell the rest of the class the letters in the word. Sometimes I print the word on the whiteboard to help some of the students. Due to the fact that many of the students are showing a keen interest in reading and writing, I have decided to add words that they often come upon in their reading and writing. So this week the By Heart Words are, "this" and "her".

 

 

The Jolly Phonic sound for this week is the "e" sound. The students often experience difficulty with the short vowel sounds because they sound very similar.

Some of the words for the short e sound are: hen, pen, red, pest, pet, end, set, men, elf, fed, den, neck, met, test, get, leg, wet, well, yes, and hem. 

 

 



May Calendar

 

The May Kindergarten Calendar is ready for you to print out. On the calendar you will see Friday, May 9th there will be a Mother's Day Celebration. The children will be bringing a letter home explaining the celebration in more detail. I realize that many Mother's have to work but perhaps a grandmother or aunt could come in your place.

 

This year because there are only 15 students in the morning and 13 in the afternoon, I have decided to have the celebration in the morning, in the gym from 10:30 to 11:10. The afternoon students will still have the afternoon program. I have made this decision because I have learned the children will perform better in larger numbers, rather than smaller numbers. The letter explains things in more detail. If you have any questions after reading the l

Building in Kindergarten

 

The construction area of the Kindergarten room is always very busy. Both boys and girls enjoy working at this particular centre. The construction area (block area) assists to develop many of the student's social abilities because they learn to work as a team, they learn to listen to each other's design ideas, suggestions, it builds on their self-confidence, and they take what they know about the real world and implement it into their play situations.

I think we may have some future engineers or architects by looking at some of these designs and creations. This is a castle hotel in the background and you will notice there is a tunnel and roadway leading up to the castle hotel.

 

I placed a picture of Meadowvale School up on the rad, along with other buildings and bridges. The students took the photo of Meadowvale School and designed their building to look like it. They made the sign for the school and even included the parking lot and walkway up to the school. They explained there is no roof because they did not have enough of the longer blocks. More blocks will be ordered for the students to use next year.

Another Two Recipes

Great News - Another parent has taken the time to send me two of her recipes that her family loves to eat and they are a real treat for the children. I hope you enjoy all the new recipes. I love the zucchini muffins and look forward to making the brownies for my family who adore brownies. 

I want to take this opportunity to wish all the families a very Happy Easter. Enjoy the time with your children and extended family. 

Mathematics

 

The students are becoming very good with subitizing the number on a ten frame. Next week the SK's will be challenged to find to ten frame cards in order to make a specific number. For example, if the student was given the number 8 they could find a card with 4 and another card with 4 on it, or 5 on one and another one with 3. This will be a great introduction to addition which we will be working on after Easter.

 

The JK's will be given a number and asked to show that many counting various items. Young children require lots of practise with counting objects in order to ensure they tag and count each object correctly. They will be encouraged to identify the numbers from one to 10 in random order, count that many objects and then find the ten frame that shows that number.

Language

 

The jolly phonic sound to review this week is the "c/k" sound. It is important for all the SK students to know most of the sounds by this time. Practising the sounds (moreso than the letters) would be beneficial. Most of the students struggle with the vowel sounds because they sound very similiar to their ears.

 

Some of the words we will focus on are: cat, car, can, cart, cut, cub, cap, cab, cry, cow, cob, cot, and cup.

 

The By Heart Word for this week is the word "was". This word is difficult for the students and it appears in many of the books that so many of them are beginning to read and when they want to write a sentence or two.

 

This week I have written some of the By Heart Words on plastic Easter eggs. The students will stamp the words using the letter stamps. When your child brings home their work see how many of the words they are able to read. 

Math Challenge

This week the math challenge was to figure out which colour of teddy bears had the most. All I put out was the bucket of teddy bears and half a sheet of orange, purple, blue, yellow, green and yellow construction paper. These were all the instructions the students were given. Two students were asked to work at the centre at a time. Two boys were the first to take the challenge. They divided the half sheet of construction paper between themselves. They each started placing all the green bears on the green paper, the red bears on the red paper and continued in this manner until all the bears were on the paper. They noticed there were still yellow bears in the bucket but the half sheet was full of bears. So one of the boys went to the creation centre and got a full sheet (rather than half a sheet) of yellow construction paper and transferred all the yellow teddy bears to the whole sheet. They explained that yellow had the most bears because they needed a big sheet of paper. One of the other boys decided they had to count the other bears to find out which other colour had the most. They worked out that they would take the bears off the paper and put them back into the container so they would be able to count them the right way.

Look at all the problem solving that went on with one simple challenge. 

The challenges for the rest of this week are: Which colour of big teddy bears has the most? Which colour of medium teddy bears has the least? Which colour of the tiny teddy bears has the most/least?

More Recipes

One of the morning Kindergarten parents has graciously submitted three new recipes. One is for a banana loaf, a muffin recipe and another recipe. If you are interested in the recipes you will find them under the heading on the right hand side of the blog under Healthy Recipes. These might make an interesting snack for you children to bring one day. Don't forget if you have some favourite recipes just send them to me and I will add them to the blog. Enjoy baking and eating everyone! I can hardly wait to do some baking this weekend.

I am always looking for a new loaf or muffin recipe. 

Talking about recipes, the other day I did some baking and of a healthy cookie but there were too many for me to eat. I did not want to waste them so I brought them to school and decided to set them at a centre where the students could taste them and attempt to guess at what ingredients were in the cookies. The students loved the cookies, which had no sugar in them and some stated they wanted their moms to make the cookies. Many of the students guessed about the cinnamon, bananas, oatmeal, and coconut. Perhaps on the weekend I will add the recipe to the blog. 

Language

 

 

 

This week the students will be reviewing the "n sound" in jolly phonics. For this week, the students will offer a word they know that begins or ends with the "n sound" and then I will write the word on the white board. Every once and a while I like to change things up and this is my new strategy. When the students watch me write the word I stretch out the sounds and then they do the same stretching out with me. This way it reinforces for the students the reading strategy of, "when reading and I get to word I don't know I can stretch out the sounds and then figure out the word". They require lots of practise with this skill.

 

 

The students have decided the new By Heart Word for this week should be the word "play" and the word "was". These two words occur very often when the SK students are reading or writing.




Mathematicians at work!

We have been focusing on the different tools mathematicians use to make thinking visible. These include dot plates, rekenrek, quantity number line,

5-frame/10-frame, and dominos. Our job as mathematicians is always to share our thinking: How many? What do you see? How do you know that? How did you figure that out? We talk about "make a picture in your head" then share what that looks like with others.

Sometimes we extend these math games to continue our investigation into number sense.

Here is a 'snapshot' of our math focus over the last week. 

We will begin with 10 Frame.

10 frame FLASHES are one way we practice "How many", "How did you see it?"   We do the same activity using dot plates. Dot plates are where there are no more than 10 dots on a paper plate. Each plate consists of two different colours of dots. I used bingo dappers to make the numbers. The goal of this activity is to assist student to subitize one number and then hopefully count on to figure out how many dots there are altogether on the plate. Some of the JK students need to tag and count the dots, which is okay.

Here are some other ways:

1. To test out how efficient kindergarten mathematicians are at figuring out a number using a 10 frame, we played a simple game using the prompt “What would (insert a number) look like on the 10 frame?” Students are invited to demonstrate using the 10 frame and magnets on the magnetic board to show what that number looks like. This is followed by "How many?" “How do you see it?” (Student explains his thinking.) The conversation can be turned back to the group with the prompt:

"Do you agree or disagree?" (thumb up/down/side)

“How many do you see?” (another student to share)

“How do you see it?”

Students are encouraged to demonstrate a variety of strategies beyond one to one tagging and counting to explain how many. These strategies can then be labelled by the teacher. (e.g. "I saw 5 on the top of the ten frame and 3 more is 8").

 

We have another game our mathematicians like to play to test the efficiency of the 10 frame, using the prompts “How many?” “How do you see it?”. Students close their eyes as the teacher builds the number on the 10 frame and when eyes are opened students are encouraged to share their thinking in connection to using the 10 frame.

 

 Teacher: How many?

Student: It's 12.

Teacher:  How do you know it’s 12?

 Student:   5 and 5 makes 10 and 1 more makes 11 and 1 more makes 12.

(I am labelling the thinking here!)

 

 

This week the students will be introduced to a new mathematical game. This game will be played many times next week.

Domino Cards. This game begins with domino cards spread all around the room. The teacher calls out a number and students must find a “picture” of that number on domino cards. Keep in mind that numbers must be manageable for all so we usually don't go beyond 10 since this is a whole group activity. In order to document the students thinking I will video when they explain their mathematical thinking.

Some mathematicians may build the number using several cards demonstrating part/part/whole thinking (i.e. 5 and 5 make 10), others will find the quantity on a single card using grouping strategies (5 and 2 makes 7), some will continue to need to tag and count.  Sharing can then be brought back to the whole group using the same prompts “How many?” “How do you know that?”