Thank you for coming to our Kindergarten Family Sports Day and Picnic! We hope you had a wonderful time with your child. Please visit our Kindergarten website to view photos!
Every Thursday, half of the class goes to the Library, while the other half does Writer's Workshop. Writer's workshop is one of my favorite things to do in school! I LOVE writing and I LOVE teaching children to LOVE writing too! :) Here is a chart to show what we do in Writer's Workshop. First, we brainstorm together about something to write about. This when the teacher will model writing strategies to help us become better writers. We sound out the words together. Then students go to their tables to write their own stories! Right now we are learning Narrative writing- I can write a story. Students are not required to spell words correctly, but are encouraged to sound out the words and use inventive phonetic spelling. This will help students to be independent writers and let their true voice come out in writing, without being held back by making mistakes. Currently, students are just beginning to sound out their words and often use high frequency words we have been learning in class. Students learn to write their name, date, picture, and sentence(s). After that, we have Author's Chair. We will be taking turns throughout the year to be "Author's Chair". A student reads his/her paper in front of the class and the other students have a chance to encourage that student by saying what a good paper it is, or asking a question about the event. It always brings a huge smile to childrens' faces!
Keep on writing! In our classroom, the students are learning Daily Five. What is Daily Five? Well, let us tell you! We are loving it! Daily Five consists of 5 components of Literacy: Read to Self, Word Work, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, and Work on Writing. For the past few weeks, the students have been learning that there are 3 ways to read a book. 1. Read the words. 2. Read the pictures. 3. Retell the story. All of these ways will help students to enjoy and comprehend our favorite stories. During our mini lesson times, students have also been learning reading strategies, parts of a book, and have been introduced to and can identify aspects of a "Fiction book."
Daily Five is a format that teaches students to be independent. Students have been practicing reading independently and we call it, "Read to Self." They've learned to pick a "good spot" in the room that they feel comfortable reading books. Sometimes it's sitting on a chair, on the floor, on the beanbag chair, on a set of pillows, or sometimes even under the table! As long as they are on task and enjoying a book without being bothered, it is a good spot. Recently, students have been introduced to "Word Work." Students choose a hands on activity that involves working with letters, sounds, vocabulary words, sight words, and rhyming words. This is a wonderful way for students to be engaged with what they are learning. Students are able to have fun while building skills that will help them become better readers. Once students develop independence in these areas, we will move on to Listen to Reading. We have a computer station ready to go for online technology integrated into our classroom! We will be teaching students how to use Raz Kids and each student will be able to listen to a story read to them, read it by themselves, and record themselves for the teacher to hear. In fact, there might be a way that even parents could hear a recording of their child reading aloud a book! We'll look into that! :) As time goes on, we will continue adding more of the Daily Five activities into our routine. Why do we use the Daily Five method? All for the sake of being able to meet each child's individual needs in a one on one conference and meet with small groups for focused lessons based on what those students need to become better readers. Children learn best when they are engaged in meaningful activities. All students learn at different paces and are on different levels...and that is good! We encourage learning at all levels! Daily Five teaches students to be engaged in meaningful and independent learning activities, while the teacher is able to meet with students individually or in small groups. We are then able to set reading goals with the students, teach strategies that are best for them, and assist students with becoming better readers! We're really excited about Daily Five and the students are doing GREAT so far! We love celebrating the lives of our students! Here in K5, if your child has a birthday, parents have the option of celebrating it at school. We will leave it up to each parent to decide. We have a class of 28 students, and if you would like to bring a small snack or goodie bag to share that is fine. Please remember that we have a no sugar policy and would like to stay away from sugary cupcakes! But sweets that are wrapped up are fine to send home. We will do birthday celebrations at the end of the day at 2:30pm. When your child has a birthday, please let us know if you would like to send something or come and help us sing "Happy Birthday!" If not, it is okay! We will still sing "Happy Birthday" and play a game that involves students asking the birthday child what his/her favorite color, food, or animal is! The kids love the attention and friends love finding out information from the birthday student. :)
We are looking for a class mom (or dad) or many moms that could be a team! It would be great if this person was bilingual, OR a native English speaker and a Japanese speaker could pair up and work together. A class parent will be the "go-to" parent to organize class parties, volunteering, and any other things that might come up. If you are interested, please let us know! We eventually would like our class parent to create a "Special Reader" schedule for parents to come in and read aloud a story to the class. Please notify Julie Woolery from PTF (email is below) or the teachers if you would like to be a class parent. Motherread is program that OCSI is offering to parents of K3, K4, K5, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade. It is a program that helps parents and children read together. They will student a different children's book in English every week. Parents will then take the book home and share it with their children. All parents are welcome, regardless of English proficiency. When: Every Wednesday from Sept. 16-Nov. 4, 1:30-3:00 Where: Room 320 Please email [email protected] (in English or Japanese) if you have any questions. Everyday (except Wednesdays our computer math day), we sit on the carpet together and go over our "Calendar Time" as part of our math routines. Students have "jobs" that rotate, which allow them to lead and serve the class. A student comes up and points with a long stick and leads the class in one of our following routines. Among these math routines are going over the date, singing the days of the week, and learning phrases such as, "Today is _____, yesterday was ______, and tomorrow will be ______." We count how many days we have been in school, and through this we will eventually learn about place value (ones, tens, hundreds) by counting and bundling up straws as each day goes by. We look at the weather and a child reports it to the class. We count our attendance and compare numbers between boys and girls. We also have a survey leader, who gets to ask a question to the class, for example, "How many children like _____?" And then a counter question, "How many children like _____?" Then we compare the numbers and use words such as less, more, or equal. Math can be found in our everyday lives, and we love making math relevant and engaging for our students to learn. |
AuthorVictoria Reid, Ally Ikehara, Lynsey Gosin Archives
March 2017
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