January/February

 Wow, time is flying by! It has been a while since I have given an update on what we are doing to stay busy in kindergarten! We have had many cold days that we haven't been able to get outside, and the kids have loved a little extra playtime in the classroom. Lots of pretend play happening (along with a lot of reminders that chase games are only for outside!).

In literacy we are off and running! The addition of Ms. Isabelle, our student intern, has been amazing! We are able to both meet with groups and are getting so much done with these children it's feeling so wonderful! We are working hard learning CVC words, focusing on one word family each week that has a different vowel sound. We are connecting this work phonologically, listening for sounds at the beginning, middle, and end of words, and blending and segmenting those words orally. Then we are learning to "tap out the sounds" in the CVC words as readers, as well as segment the sounds to use in our writing. All the while, we are continuing to build our kindergarten sight word knowledge. Combining these two skills is leading to many children taking off as readers and writers! 

The big change that happens in January is that we are able to work on these skills as a whole group, and then also have some follow up to these skills in small groups in a more differentiated way. Some students revisit and build their letter sound fluency, while others may be ready to read sentences and simple books with these new words.

We have enjoyed many chapter book read alouds from the Ivy and Bean collection, and Mia Mayhem. We are also reading lots of books about tracking and feelings to connect to our other work. Many students have also been bringing favorite books from home which has been a real highlight for this group in particular.

In math we are deep into the teen numbers! Students are building their understanding of teens as "ten and some more" and learning to read and write them as well as represent them as a quantity. Seeing these quantities as ten and some more also continues to build fluency with ten frames for students who are still needing that. We are practicing counting backward from 20, and forward to 100. Counting to 100 by ones and by tens has been a highlight of celebrating the 100th day of school!  Other fun math games include Flash and Dash to the Castle (building and flashing numbers on our fingers) and Capture the Number (matching double ten frame dots to teen numerals on a number line)

For social emotional learning, the last couples weeks have focused on feelings (how we read others, show we are interested, and understand empathy), how people can have the same or different feelings even about the same experience, and accidents (and how to check in with someone when something happens). We are really seeing students generalize these specific skills in their playtime and interactions with peers, which is just further building this sweet community of learners! 

We have had some fun times celebrating the 100th day and Valentines Day! 

Outside we have been having fun playing in the snow and there has been SO much sledding! Students are also enjoying playing in the hidden cover of a buckthorn tree. This week they helped Chapin, a volunteer who visited in the fall, to place some tarps to kill the grass and get ready to plant more trees in the spring. Studnets have been helping him with a project to transplant some hardwood trees to hurry along a hardwood forest after learning about the history of the land and how all the trees were cut down long ago for sheep farming!