What Are You Teaching? May 1

It is truly with a tear in my eye that I say good-bye to April and hello to May.  We only have 3 weeks left of school!  I have the most amazing kinders this year so it is going to be really hard to say good-bye. I am going to jam pack the next 3 weeks so we can get as many projects in as possible!

Here are the basics....I'll add the fun stuff at the end!

Morning Work: We only have 2 more weeks of morning work to go!  This week's focus is on sight words (in ABC order), CVC words, and writing/editing sentences.  

Reading: Reading mini lessons will be all about SETTING and focused on details that describe the setting.  We will practice this skill with a partner during Read to Someone.  We will also be working on these skills during our Guided Reading groups.   
Later in the week we will talk about cross checking (do the pictures and words make sense?) and practicing common sight words.  Our RAINBOW WORDS set is really helping motivate kids to learn the first 100 sight words. 

Writer's Workshop: Arg...we didn't finish our research papers last week.  We did a lot of research all week long but we never go to the final draft.  We had field trips all week and were missing students because of that all week long.  We also had a lot of absences so I thought it would be best to wait to do final drafts this week.  The did really enjoy researching with these ALL ABOUT ANIMALS books that includes writing pages and mini books for their research.  

You can see our daily layout here: 

Word Work Stations: All of our word work stations are staying really consistent this week.  Write the room with our CVC Write the Room pages, Cut & Glue, Listening Station (focus on setting), I Can Read little book, Rhyming Cut & Glue, and the word searches. There are plenty of choices so they can do their favorites! These all come from the centers unit that corresponds to the story The House That Tony Lives In.

Math: I am loving Unit 8 from Guiding Kinders. This unit is a review of measurement but I am especially excited about the Stack Um' Up Partner game this week that will have students stacking cups, comparing numbers, and finding the difference.  Talk about hands on learning!   If you haven't heard of these units from Deanna Jump and Deedee Wills you can check them out HERE.  I love them! 
We end each math lesson with Math Journals.  I'm really stepping this up this week to get them ready for 1st grade.  If you want to see how I run my math journal time you can read more about there HERE. 

Now the fun stuff!

WACKY WEDNESDAY: I didn't get to start our FOSS unit last week again because of all the missing students so I will be doing that this week.  We start this unit out with an investigation into the properties of wood.  Here are some pics from last year:

It's always good to have some pics from the previous year so you can remember all of the materials you need to get out!  This unit gets really messy later down the road with some sanding and scraping of wood and then ends with "Beaver Play Dough" as my kids called it last year.  It's actually just sawdust and a matrix to make it stick together.  Very cool stuff though, I can't wait to try it again.

Fun Friday?  I always get a lot of questions about what types of activities I have available for Fun Friday so I thought I'd add in a couple of examples this week.  

It doesn't matter how often you let them play with pattern blocks they will always love it! 

Paint is ALWAYS a Fun Friday center in our room.
I've started giving them Writer's Workshop paper to encourage writing with their painting!

 Thanks for stopping in!  Have a great week friends!

Write the Room CVC Words	Reading Intervention MADE EASY: Digraphs	Reading Intervention MADE EASY: CVC Words	Digraph Sound Clips
Rainbow Words	Middle Vowel Sound Clips	Ultimate Word Family Centers	All Set? You Bet! MAY
All Set? You Bet! APRIL	Kindergarten Homework MAY	Kindergarten Homework APRIL	Building with Dad UNIT 6 WEEK 1
Old MacDonald Had a Workshop UNIT 6 WEEK 2	Building Beavers UNIT 6 WEEK 3	Alistair and Kip's Great Adventure UNIT 6 WEEK 4	The House That Tony Lives In UNIT 6 WEEK 5
Ants and Their Nests UNIT 6 WEEK 6	All About Animals

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