Exploring greater than and less than

Students are beginning to explore greater than and less than in their math centers.  This week we are beginning with ordering numbers least to greatest and greatest to least.  As we develop this understanding, students will explore using the symbols that represent these words and learn to read number sentences accurately. 

Black Star Fundraiser Collaborative Art

Students painted last week and this week designed their hands for our "Reaching For the Stars" collaborative art project that will be auctioned off at the Inaugural Fundraiser "An Evening of At" at Black Star Farms on Friday March 4th.  Click here to reserve your tickets for a night of fun and a wonderful opportunity to raise money for Literacy here at Westwoods.  

Valentine fun

Thank you so much to everyone who donated items for the Valentine's Party or volunteered their time.  The students loved the yogurt parfaits and reading all of the kind words from their peers.  It was a great day to celebrate friendship.

Reading Buddies with Mrs. Johnson's Class

The students LOVED reading with Mrs. Johnson's class today!  The practiced introducing books to their peers by telling them just a bit about the book then giving them a reason to read.  This is a very new skill (book introductions) and requires comprehension and higher level thinking about text rather than just decoding words.  Here are a few brave students that tried out a book introduction on a book they shopped for and read independently.  

Baby Animals
Balloons Go Pop
Lost At the Zoo

It will be exciting to see how the student grow with their book introductions as they read books with more of a story line and as they continue to develop their comprehension skills.  Stay tuned for more book introductions...

Valentine's Day Service Learning Project ~ A Little Love Goes a Long Way

Our reading buddies joined us today in making sun catchers for the families at the Munson Manor. We read Just a Little Love and Love Monster this week getting ready to make these gifts for families with a little love than will go a long way.  The students will make and write cards to accompany their gifts and spread a little love to people who may need it.    

Behavior Clip Chart

Today we introduced a clip chart for behavior.  Students start each day on ready to learn, they can clip up the chart as their positive behavior is recognized and can clip down the chart as they need an opportunity to revise their thinking.  As the day goes on students will be asked to clip up and down based on the choices they make.  

Writers add to their beginnings

Writers pushed themselves today to revise the beginning of their stories.  We are working on refining our craft as well as making our writing easy to read.  We have been reading story books and looking at how they start their stories.  This week, as readers, we explored A Chair for my Mother and Those Shoes and we talked about how as writers we can try to do the same thing as these authors and revise our beginning to get the readers interested. The students loved the challenge and surprised themselves with how successful they were in their attempts.  Later in the week we will be working on closings....stay tuned!

Groundhog day learning

Will the Groundhog see his shadow?
This is the question we surveyed today at morning meeting. 

Mrs. Kubesh read us a fiction book about groundhogs and a nonfiction book about
groundhogs during Library.

Today we learned a lot about groundhogs.  We made predictions in math about if Punxsutawney Phil would see his shadow.  The students loved watching the video and discussing what it mean if Spring comes early.  Here are some great questions to discuss with your child:  Can groundhogs really predict the weather?  What is hibernation?  Why do groundhogs gather and eat a lot of food in the fall? What is another name for a groundhog?  

What's happening in math workshop?

We are building number sense every day in math and often times our work does not look like our neighbor's but we have the same end goal.  Students are strategically placed in math groups and given direct instruction on specific skills to help move them along as a mathematician.  Currently we are working on the strategy of counting on when combing numbers (4+5=  ) Say the larger number, 5, count on 4 more (6, 7, 8, 9) to find the answer.  Students can use their hands, number lines, manipulatives, etc. to help them with this skill.  We are also working on recalling what we just know, I roll a dot cube, I see three dots, I say three.  There is not any reason to count them if I know the dot cube has three dots on it.  We are helping students become more efficient with their emergent skills and guiding them to apply those basic skills to solve problems.  

Will students make mistakes in these exercises? Absolutely and I hope that they do, these are amazing opportunities for conversations about their thinking and opportunities for the students to problem solve.  Often times, the peer conversation is more powerful than the teacher to student conversation.  Peers love to teach, support and problem solve with their classmates.  

Here a student uses a number line to help solve the addition problems.  Students write the
equation under the picture and practice the skill of counting on to find the sum.

This student is practicing writing equations to match the dominoes.  Students
finish a row and check in with a neighbor to check their thinking.

Student are also practicing writing their numbers by filling out the hundred's chart,
the patterns they are noticing and connections they are making are amazing as they talk to their
peers.  This is also good practice for students to write their numbers the correct direction.

The Hamburger graphic organizer for writing

This week we explored the hamburger graphic organizer to help us think about a story as a complete item you might order at a restaurant.  All parts to your hamburger must be there when your hamburger is brought to your table for your meal to be complete (top bun, lettuce, tomato, burger, bottom bun).  If a part of your hamburger is missing, the meal doesn't make sense or is incomplete.  When we write stories, certain items must be there for the story to be complete or make sense, just like when we order a hamburger at a restaurant.  

We have just started this process of using a visual to help us monitor our writing for all components: beginning, three important details and closing.  Over the next two weeks we will use this tool for many shared writing pieces to help the students understand the graphic organizer.  Many students wanted to try to put their story on a hamburger and were excited to see they already had many of the components necessary for a coherent and exciting story.  A few students used the hamburger and noticed that they were not able to come up with a third detail and that lead them to revise their thinking about writing that story or to try retelling it again like a story teller.  I look forward to seeing the students expand their stories and make the more interesting using this graphic organizer.  Later in the year we will be introducing other graphic organizers to support other types of writing.  

Sight words

Part of building fluency in reading is being able to recall known words rapidly to help keep the meaning of the stories that the students read.  Each child has a Word Wizard folder where they sort the words they know and don't know yet.  We practice reading the words we know in a snap and then check the pile of words we don't know yet and see if we have any that we can move into the know pile.  The goal is for all students to know these words in a snap by the end of kindergarten.  Why is that important?  Being able to recall words quickly allows the students to read at a nice pace and focus on the comprehension/meaning of the story.  When students are not stopping to solve every word they are able to think deeply about the story:  what is the author's purpose, make connections to their lives from the story, make connections to other books they have read, question why events happened, and predict what will happen next.     

Writers coach each other to the next level of work

Writers took on the role of a coach with their writing partner today.  They actively listened to their partner read their story and made gentle suggestions on ways to improve that writing.  Students made suggestions by asking questions for more information or by noticing how the writers writing looked (if it was easy to read).  The coaching role is a great opportunity for students to apply listening skills, use all of the information from this writing unit and help their partner see things they may be missing with their own eyes.  They take this job very serious and even through it is difficult to give advice, everyone was successful in doing so.  

Here are some questions they brainstormed about coaching that they could use:
Who was in the story?
Where did this story take place?
Could you add more to your picture so I can see exactly what you are saying?
Are their spaces between your words?
Did you use the word wall? 
What else can you tell me about that story?
What were you thinking when this happened?
What was said?

These questions guided our coaching session.  As you can imagine it is a tough job to be an active listener as well as a thinker to help someone grow as a writer.  They all did an amazing job.  

After they shared advice with each other their job was to go and try the suggestion that was made.  

Later in the week they will meet up again and read their writing to their partners and look for another opportunity to improve their writing.  

Kindergarten Teachers

Kindergartners teach their reading buddies how to play Kindergarten Yahtzee.  The students explained the rules and how to combine numbers to find the sum.  They LOVED being the teacher.