Look what we found when we came in from the playground one day--a new classroom computer! I'm so excited to be able to share this learning tool with the students. Since we've never had one in the classroom before, I am trying to work out a manageable system before introducing it to the students. I will begin with the kidnergarteners first but my goal is that all the students will have access to the computer and be able touse it for a variety of
Well, my camera has a new memory card and is finally up and running, so I'm back playing catch up and trying to share the wonderful things we've been up to the past couple of weeks. After completing our study of the pumpkin (although many of the pumpkin work remained out on the science shelf so the children could continue to work with it), we decided to revist our study of shapes--both two dimensional and three dimensional. One of the new common core standards for kindergarteners is that the students will be able to name & describe certain 2D & 3D shapes and compare/contrast them. Our week focused on giving the students the proper vocabulary to be able to meet that standard. With the flat shapes, we focused on the number of sides & corners a shape has--for example, a hexagon has 6 sides & 6 corners. A circle has 0 sides & 0 corners. We also highlighted any special characterstics of a shape--the sides on a square are all the same length, the rectangle has 2 short sides & 2 long sides, etc. As we focused on the solid shapes (cone, cube, cylinder, sphere), we again turned our attention to the vocabulary we could use to describe the shapes--base, flat side, sides, etc. We noted that all the sides on a cube are squares, the cone has a pointy side & a circle base. A cylinder has 2 circle bases and the sphere is round without any bases. We also discussed whether or not the solid shapes could roll, slide or stack. The Montessori materials, The Geometric Solids, Geometric Cabinet & Constructive Triangles, were a wonderful tool to use during our shape studies. After wrapping up our work with shapes, we began learning about turkeys & Thanksgiving. First, we had a few new lessons to learn--tweezing Indian corn, making a paper tearing turkey & gluing an Indian corn (our first lesson with Elmer's glue). We also learned the poem "5 Little Turkeys." We read the poem, practiced the words & used it as a tool for introducing the concept of subtraction. We even wrote a number sentence for each part of the poem! During kindergarten lessons, the Ks got to make their own "5 Little Turkeys" reader. Some of our Morning messages from the week... The students also learned the story of the First Thanksgiving. We've learned lots of new vocabulary as a result: Pilgrim, Native American, feast, Europe, England, Plymouth Rock, Mayflower & more! The Ks even made Retelling bracelets as a Thanksgiving activity.
I will be back soon with a few more new posts about new happenings in our classroom. Don't forget to watch through the main slideshow on the home page--I'm gettin ready to add some new photos as we speak! |