iPads!

We started using our iPads today! What an exciting day it was! We learned the rules for using the iPads (see if your child can tell you what they are) we also learned how to turn the iPads on and off, how to swipe up and exit out of an app to save the battery, how to project or "mirror" our iPad up onto the projector screen for the whole class to see what we made on our iPad. We also learned all about the app "Drawing Pad" which we will use several times a week now to do our "write along".

During write along the students have to recall the morning message from the previous day that I wrote on the whiteboard (typically will have something to do with what Jack and Annie are up to in our Magic Tree House book). On Thursday, it was "Jack and Annie see a castle." The students then repeat the message out loud several times with me as we count on our fingers how many words are in the message- that way we know how many lines to draw. Then we go ahead and start drawing our lines- one line for each word in our message. This can be tricky for some- especially some longer words some students draw a line for each syllable instead of one line for the whole word. "_____ ____ _______ ____ __ __________." After we draw our lines we always go back and point and read while saying our message (sentence) aloud and pointing to each line saying the word that will go on that line. This way we can catch any mistakes we may have made like not drawing a line long enough for the word, drawing too many or too few lines. Then we point and read it again to a partner to double check. Now finally we are ready to write some letters! Some students are writing beginning, middle and ending sounds in words and some are still writing just beginning sounds with the help of our sound map. All are just fine! If a student is independently writing beginning sounds the teachers will scaffold and help that student to try and hear one or two ending sounds in their message. Eventually, the student will get more comfortable with this and try to write an ending sound on their own!


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Dramatizing

Here we are dramatizing the story "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". One group was using blocks to dramatize the story another was using headbands and puppets, masks and a feltboard. Each day your child's group for that week will go to a different center and get a chance to use different props to dramatize the story. The groups have to dramatize the story two times. Each group has a "table captain" who has to hand out the role cards to their group members and then the student write their center plan and draw a picture of what their role is going to be and then write a sentence at the bottom of the center plan that says "I am going to be..." and they write their role.

Fun Friday Art Project

Every Friday we have "Fun Friday" this means we do lots of fun things that we only do on Friday's. We start the morning with "Open Door" where the door adjoining the two kindergarten classrooms is open and students in both classrooms can go in either classroom for choice time in the morning. We also always have an art project that we do that morning. Today we made these beautiful fall trees. We used corks to stamp in paint and decorate the tree to look like the different colors of the fall leaves. We will hang these up on the bulletin board in the hallway for everyone to enjoy!

Graphics Practice

We have been working hard practicing different graphics that will eventually lead to letters!

We started level 2 of graphics and practiced "bagels or donuts" pictured below. One of the rules during graphics practice is that we can only write while the music is playing. When the music stops we have to put our hand that has the dry-erase marker in it up in the air. That's another way we practice self-regulation. Even though we may want to keep writing we have to control our bodies and stop when the music stops. While we write each graphic we have "private speech" that we quietly say to ourselves that tells us how to form the graphics. For example, for bagels or donuts we say "around close" when we make the circle shape we always start making the top of the circle first. We made all of the bigger circles first then when the music stopped and started up again we went back and made the smaller circles inside the bigger circles, being very careful to make sure the smaller circle didn't touch the bigger circle. It's tricky! Try it at home!