There is much to capture during a week of kindergarten and some of it is best accomplished with photos rather than narrative or video. Read each caption to learn more about the photo and the point of me sharing it. As always, AMA (ask me anything)!
We continue with the long vowels this week. I do not expect most kindergartners to learn the various ways of spelling the long o sound, but we do talk about them because, of course, many of them are curious and ready to use these in both their reading and their writing.
Counting phonemes in long o sounds and talking about the different ways to spell the long o sound.
This week is all about the wh question words. Monday was devoted to the word who. My students are familiar with this word because it is the first word in our Name Game chant (Who will be the Busy Bee?…) Instead of a morning read aloud, I asked questions beginning with the word who and students had to try to answer the question in a complete sentence. I have stacks of question cards, but you could easily make up your own questions. Great vocabulary and language development!
Small group plans for the week. Since there isn’t a typical weekly theme, my teammate and I thought this would be a good week to try some decodable passages with questions. That will happen on Wednesday and you’ll see it in the small group instruction video.
The three different Read and Draw papers for Monday. Notice that most students will do some work with silent e since we are learning long vowels. I did not include that for my lower group since it is not in their zone of proximal development. They all need to get more solid on CVC words and consonant digraphs.
During afternoon read-aloud time on Monday, the students thought of questions that started with who (as opposed to me asking the questions, like I did during the morning read aloud time). I modeled that such questions could be written down.
The students used a prepared paper during writing time and I modeled how they should write three questions that begin with who.
A couple samples of the Monday writing paper. We talked about starting each question with a capital letter and ending with a question mark. The formation cue for a question mark is “backward C, down, dot.”
A list of names went home in the Tuesday folder with instructions for preparing valentines. A real pet peeve of mine is when parents write the valentines for their child, so I explicitly tell them not to.
Our 100th day of kindergarten is coming up! We send a bag home with this note inside.
In past years, the students have collected 100 snacks (ten each of ten different types), but we are foregoing that this year so there is no mention of it in the note.
A fun way for students to practice word list words or heart words. Miss Lori introduced this at her center on Tuesday. From here on out, they can do it at the independent center on their own.
Our wh question word for Tuesday was what. I modeled again for them at the beginning of whole group writing time.
I wish I had a video of my writing period on Tuesday. It was horrible! It seemed like it was November, not the end of January. Several students couldn’t get an idea and hold it in their head long enough to write it down. We are past that, but it was like we traveled back in time today. I took photos of some of the worst writing—lots of erasing indicating confusion.
I never did figure out what this student was doing on #1 and #3. #2 she copied from her neighbor. So, just so you know—I have ridiculously horrible writing sessions too!
Wednesday. We had a lockdown practice. The sheriffs entered my classroom and thought there were no students there. Can you see them?
Since we’ve been learning long vowels and how silent e works, some of the students are doing I Spy CVCe words. Others continue with CVC words.
Our wh question word for Wednesday was when. Notice that the modeling for writing time is pared down some—and took far less time—since they have done something similar the past two days.
The students seemed to be back to normal today during writing time. Phew! I am showing two students who did struggle some, but the good news is that they did most of this on their own.
This student does not understand spacing between words. I decided that after she thinks of an idea to write, Miss Lori or I will write the sentence and then she will copy our writing. The goal is for her to notice and copy our spaces and then to read the sentence back to us.
By the fourth day of writing questions (Thursday), most students had the hang of it and some could write their three questions in about ten minutes.
Writing extra because he’s become quite fluent with this format.
That’s it! Friday consisted of phonics, a brain break, centers/small group instruction, working with the wh word why , and combining our kindergarten classes for music program practice. I cannot believe that January is almost over. Personally, I am looking forward to February when it starts to stay light a bit longer into the evenings. This month, I’ve been up at 5:00 AM most days, walking the dogs by 5:30 AM or going to barre class. I’m a morning person, but I will appreciate the option of walking the dogs in the evening instead of the cold, dark mornings.
Randee
Your Valentine letter is great - I have the same pet peeves about kids not writing their own valentines. Our 100th day is Feb 9-it is an early out day though so we'll keep it simple. I like your 100 items collection bag - thank you for sharing!