The Halloween Scene

Today our class visited the Pumpkin Patch at Clearview United Methodist Church. Farmer Don and his helpers led us through a variety of activity stations. The children followed the life cycle of the pumpkin plant, where it is grown, how it is harvested, and the journey pumpkins make as they travel to us from from Four Corners, New Mexico.
They learned the difference between a pumpkin and its cousin the gourd. Then had the opportunity to make music and sing Halloween songs with the dried gourds.
Using tape measures, the students helped each other predict, measured, and confirm pumpkin height and circumference. This was a great opportunity for them to observe the many colors, shapes, textures, and sizes of the pumpkins.
Lastly, each child got to pick out their own personal pumpkin. Our trip was rainy, but the damp didn't drizzle out our Halloween scene. We wish all a safe and happy Halloween.

Learning About Word Families

We have begun our study of word families. As early readers begin to understand the patterns and relationships in words, their reading and spelling powers greatly expand. It is not necessary to memorize each word separately, but instead, to look for the similarities between words. How are these words alike and how are they different? This is a very valuable skill as young children learn to decode our written language. It is an important part of our word study. The student are taught to apply phonics to reading and spelling many words.

We have started with words that rhyme with "at." Emphasis is being placed on the following words: bat, cat, fat, hat, mat, pat, rat and sat. We will also introduce the challenge words, "that" and "chat." All the words in the "at" family will be recorded in our new Word Families on Tuesday. Using the keyboard on a computer template, the children will select four of these words to practice typing, and then they will draw pictures to match. We will also make up silly sentences using at least two "at" words, such as, "The rat sat in the hat."

Later, will will study other word families with the short sound of "a." These will include "an," "am," "ag," "ad," "ap," "and," and "ack," For the rest of the school year, a new word family will be introduced at least once a week, for a total of over 25 word families. This skill will be reviewed in first grade and and then expanded on to include many words. What a valuable tool this is!

October Math

This month we are continuing our exploration of patterns. We have made simple patterns, which are called "AB," with colors, shapes, numbers, sizes, objects, and with our initials. We will explore other ways to create patterns using a vary of other attributes such as position, gender, and time. Odd and even numbers form another "AB" pattern. Day and night can be described as an "AB" pattern, for instance. Soon we will advance to more challenging patterns such as "AABB," "AAB," "ABB," and "ABC." Understanding patterns are important because they relate to our everyday lives, and they help us understand our number system. Patterns can also be found in word families (cat, bat, rat, etc.) and in stories.

Using a vary of activities, in October we have been working on the concept of more and less for numbers 0 to 10. An example is that in our class there are more boys (8) and less girls (6.) Also, we are working on understanding what number is one more than and one less than a given. For instance, 7 is one more than 6 and 5 is one less than 6. This is helpful in developing a working understanding of our number system and is the beginning of addition and subtraction. Soon we will include activities for the numbers up to 20.

For geometry we are learning the names and characteristics of a vary of shapes. First we are talking about the more basic shapes such as circle, square, triangle, and rectangle. We will compare and contrast these shapes, build pictures and patterns with them, and construct the shapes themselves using clay, straws, pipe cleaners, etc. Later, we will learn more about the hexagon, rhombus, trapezoid, oval, and other two dimensional shapes.

The children enjoyed exploring and sorting coins today with Keira's mother. We have another activity planned that includes pouring beans into a vary of containers to expand on the concept of capacity. Of course, calendar activities continue daily and are an important part of our opening activities.

We have having a great time learning about so many different facets of math.

Writers' Workshop

Two weeks ago our class completed the first writing unit called "Launching." In this writing unit the children first drew pictures of events from their lives. With encouragement and modeling by the teachers, they began to add labels using their phonetic spelling to the drawings. Next the children began to write a sentence or two about their stories. We talked about including characters, setting, and action. The children made great strides in their ability to write about their personal lives. They eagerly shared their stories with partners and with the whole class using the document camera.

For the past two weeks we have been talking about making lists. This mini-unit emphasized being brave spellers as the children worked independently to create their lists. These lists have included colors, animals, foods, activities, etc. After brainstorming numerous topics, on Friday the children selected their own catogories for their list making assignment. These included "things in my bedroom", "art supplies", "pets I want to have," "favorite games," etc. Today we are brainstorming new topics as part of the final list making unit. The children will consider what is needed to "go on a picnic," "plan a birthday party," "get ready for school," etc. Tomorrow each child will read their favorite list to the class using the document camera so everyone can easily see each writing piece.

On Wednesday we will begin our next writing unit called "Stretching Small Moments Across Pages." We will be using three page story booklets to write out our stories each day. We will practice adding more details to our stories and to include a beginning, a middle, and an ending. We will try to use interesting words to make our stories come alive. We will continue to use phonics to sound out challenging words and to learn conventional spelling for short, common words.

The children have wonderful stories to tell from their personal lives. As each child's writing skills grow, their good stories will become even better. Great work, class!

Service Learning in Kindergarten?

Here at Shorecrest each grade level is challenged to help make a difference by being involved in a community service project. Since our kindergarten classes over the past three years have made a total of ten quilts for children in the homeless shelter run by the Salvation Army here in St. Petersburg, we decided to expand our involvement with the homeless shelter.

To launch this effort and to help our students understand the mission of the shelter, we invited a representative from the Salvation Army, volunteer coordinator, Mrs. Gail Stark, to speak to each kindergarten class on Friday afternoon. Mrs. Stark explained how the shelter helps people who are homeless by providing meals and places to sleep. She told us that we can help them in many ways by collecting items they can use and by making cheerful posters and placements. Mrs. Stark had told me on the phone that they had received a donation of cans of pumpkin, and she was looking for volunteers to bake these into dessert for their soup kitchen. I told her I thought we could help out with this effort. Imagine our surprise when she arrived Friday with three cases of pumpkin! The class helped me count the number of cans. Now the challenge is what to do with 58 cans of pumpkin? We will deliver the assorted recipes (pumpkin pies, muffins, loaves, soup) during our visit to the Salvation Army Homeless Shelter on Wednesday, October 12th.