Yay! Back to Normalcy!

I for one, was so glad to be back to a full week of school.  It was pretty frustrating to be so on-again off-again for all of January.  I was enjoying our week so much, however, that I'm afraid I forgot all about snapping photos of our learning, so I don't have very many to share.  :(  I'll try to do better next week ;). 

Besides our classroom learning goals, we have had many individual victories this week!  We have one student who has really come out of his shell and the whole class is rejoicing.  We have many students who have joined our "100 club" and can now count to 100.  Look for their names on our kindergarten hallway wall if you happen to walk down.  Our class has received many compliments in the hallway and resource classes for good behavior and we had our very first chorus rehearsal!  I'm so proud of my students and am always amazed at how much they bring to school in their little brains and bodies.  I could not ask for a better class!

In math this week, we began our unit on measurement.  We started to learn about the different tools needed to measure different things.  Our four main focuses were time, temperature, length and weight.  We did not go into depth a whole lot this week, but students did enjoy testing out some of the measurement tools we have in the classroom. 







































































In language arts this week, our letter focus was the letter Dd.  We caught up on sight words we have missed and will be finishing our catching up next week.  I will post a complete list of the word wall words in our classroom next week.  We also started a new "student of the day" routine.  We are introducing each child's last name to our word wall and then each student is writing a sentence about their friend.  I will compile each students pictures into a book for them to take home, so be on the lookout. 

In unit study this week, our focus was all about Groundhog Day and shadows.  Wow!  I was so surprised about how much these students already know about shadows!  We learned that shadows are formed when light is BLOCKED.  To see a shadow you must have a source of LIGHT.  We even learned about how different times of the day we will see different types of shadows (longer when the sun is low, shorter when the sun is high).  It was a pretty yucky week, so we did not get a whole lot of hands-on experience with shadows except in the classroom.  One afternoon we braved the cold to go out and see if there were any shadows to be seen.  We saw some very faint ones, and enjoyed trying to trace them. 

Looking forward, next week will be an incredibly busy one!

In math, we will be continuing our study of measurement.  We will really delve into length and height.  In kindergarten, the main focus is using non-standard units of measurement to explore length (we don't really go into inches, etc.), so you will see that we will do a lot of this. 

In language arts this week, we will be focusing on the letter Gg.  We will especially be encouraging student to make the "hard Gg" sound as in goat.  The soft Gg sound as in giraffe is fine, but we want to make sure students know the hard Gg first.  We will also be discussing characters, setting and events in stories.  This will eventually lead us into summarizing. 

In unit study this week, we will be working on reinforcing some math topics.  Since we lost a few days instruction in math, we will be covering temperature which is also a kindergarten science SOL during our unit study time.  We will also be preparing for Valentine's Day (which is Friday, February 14).

Thank you for your continued support.  You are all the reason these children are flourishing so much.  So many of you have donated supplies to our classroom, sent notes or emails of support, work with your child on their homework each night, etc.  I could go on and on, but I want to let you know that I truly appreciate you.