Mrs. Shidal's Kindergarten Classroom : Letter M week, Letter I week and Christmas week

We have been working on incorporating our iPads more into our routine. We use them at centers, free time, and for math and language practice.

We read If You Take A Mouse To School. Then we put the events from the story in order.

We started our Science unit on the five senses. We talked about what each one was and how we use them. I then had them close their eyes and think about Christmas. Then we talked about each sense and what they would get from that sense around Christmas. Here is what the kids came up with. Then we put those into a poem with some art work, which you will see later in this post.

One of the centers we did was getting to draw a picture of their choice, then write a sentence about it. We talked about how they could use the word wall filled with sight words we have covered so far. These are a few examples of what some students wrote.

This student sounded out three M words in their words study journal all by himself!

We worked together to write a sentence in our journal using an M word. The top one is from the AM class. The next one is from the PM class. We talked about what words made sense and where we could find them if they were sight words.

We are working on our sight words using songs we have. They spell the word in the song. As we sing the songs, they write the words on their white boards.

This was a word problem we did in Math saying a girl had a group of 10 sticks and five more. They drew a picture to see how a group of 10 and 5 more made 15.

This was a word problem saying the gingerbread man had 10 buttons and 2 more for eyes. Again showing the group of 10 and 2 more.

Below shows a word problem I gave them. They are learning to use different strategies to solve a math problem. We have talked about using their fingers, a number line, drawing a picture, and writing a math sentence. I encourage them to do more than one strategy to see if they get the same answer. It's incredible to see them doing all these on their own!

Each student got to pick their favorite ice cream from chocolate, strawberry or vanilla. Then we graphed the choices. We looked at which had most and least. We also compared the two classes to see if they were the same or how they were different.

This activity for Math showed a group of 10 and some more. They loved it!

This was another word problem with a group of 10 and some more.

In our journals we wrote our first question. We talked about how a question asks something and needs to end with a question mark. Then they got to answer the question!

This is working on a group of 10 and some more using blocks.

For Christmas Math we talked about the pattern of a candy cane. They got to color it, then we turned it into a math sentence.

We did this project at the beginning of the month so they could hang in the hall for a few weeks. They were given basic directions, so they could all still look original, yet look like a reindeer.

Below is the poem we wrote that came from the 5 sense activity we did. They got to pick the word they liked best to fit in their poem.

For an art project we decorated ornaments. Then we hung them on a tree in the hall.

We made trees where the students had to put the paper strips in order from large to small. Then they got to use paint to put ornaments on their tree.

We got to ride on the Polar Express! We made a train down the halls where we got our golden ticket punched. Then we watched a reading of the book. Then Santa delivered us cold bells from the North Pole. The kids had an amazing time. We then celebrated with hot chocolate!