Which of These Traps Will Catch a Leprechaun?

Which of these traps will catch a leprechaun?

We'll find out on Tuesday!

All About Penguins

In another post I mentioned that we practiced asking questions while learning about penguins.  We had so much fun learning about penguins!

We started by thinking about what we already knew about penguins.  We wrote down anything we could think of!  We save these thoughts so that we could confirm what we knew was true with our research or if we realized we had misconceptions.  We practiced saying the word misconceptions a lot!

Before we dove into research, we wanted to think of some questions we had about penguins. Students wondered what penguins did to defend themselves from predators, what baby penguins did to stay warm, and where penguins lived.  Some of us wondered where penguins used the bathroom!!  We put those questions on a different sticky note so that we could remind ourselves what we were looking for while reading.

One of our questions was about how penguins move.  We learned that penguins waddle and slide in a way called tobogganing.  Here we are trying to waddle and tobaggan:

During our reading and research we came across some information that we had a harder time connecting to.  For example, it was really hard to think about penguin fathers keeping an egg on his feet for two whole months!  What is it like for a penguin father to move around with an egg on his feet?  We tried it out:

As we read, we confirmed our prior knowledge or declared a misconception, we answered questions, and we took note of new learning.  Then we put our study of information writing to use and wrote what we learned about penguins.  Ask your child what he or she learned about penguins!

I Can Ask Questions

We've been busy learning that good readers ask questions while they read.  We first had to learn what a question is!  We spent some time thinking about what words we would use to ask a question. Kindergarteners are very good at asking questions, but it's usually when they are not thinking about it.  Interestingly it is when you want them to ask a question when they start telling you all sorts of stories and connections instead of a question.

Here is a chart we made to help us remember what words questions typically start with:

In addition to talking about question words, we discussed why readers ask questions.  We put that on our chart as well.

We practiced asking questions for both fiction and non-fiction texts.  We read many fictional texts, but one that stands out is Charlie Anderson.  Ask your child to retell that story to you at home.  It was such a surprising book, and asking questions really helped us make the story more clear--just like readers!

We read many non-fiction texts, too, but one topic that stood out is penguins.  With a non-fiction text, we started off thinking about what we already knew and what we wanted to know--which generated a lot of questions!  Our next job was to read about penguins and see if we could find the answers to our questions.  Below is a picture part of our findings.  The green notes were things we already knew before reading and were confirmed by our reading.  The yellow notes were questions we had before we read anything and we added questions on yellow notes as they came up during our reading.  The red notes are for new learning.  Some of our new learning answered some of our questions.  We tried to match up the yellow question with the red answer.

We learned that sometimes readers have questions that the author didn't answer.  Time for more research!

When reading at home with your child, feel free to share questions about a story or topic you have and see if you can find the answers in the text!

Our Ruth Lilly Field Trip

Our "field trip" was so much fun and we learned a lot!

First we learned about body parts.  Students were able to place organs on our model as the presenter discussed each one.

As we talked about each organ, we learned some comparisons to help us understand each organ's job and how it helps us keep our body working properly.  A heart works like a pump, the lungs are like balloons, the stomach is like a blender, etc.  The students understood that the brain is like a boss.

Next we learned about our skeleton and muscles.  Ask your child how many bones we have (206) or how many muscles we have (over 600).  We learned that exercising helps take care of our bones and muscles.  We played a fun game where we rolled a die with numbers and rolled a die with exercises on it.  For example, we might have to do five jumping jacks or 10 seconds of running in place. Check us out doing our exercises:

I think that would be a fun activity to do at home.  The students were so excited to exercise this way!

Then we learned about keeping our bodies healthy with foods.  Ask your child about any time foods and sometime foods.

We learned about brushing teeth and flossing, too.  We learned a little chant to help us remember where to brush our teeth:  Up like a rocket, down like rain, round and round like a choo-choo train.
Another thing we discusses was germs. We learned that not all germs are bad.

Before our field trip was over, we discussed other ways to keep our body healthy and safe.  We talked about bicycle safety, water safety, and other ways to stay safe.  Ask your child to tell you a few ways to stay safe!

Ask your child about his or her favorite part of the field trip!

Target: I Can Tell, Draw, and Write about One Topic

Today's writing target was to stick to the topic.  As a class, we talked about all of the different topics we knew a lot about, and we quickly wrote five sentences about ice cream!  Then it was the students turn to tell a partner about what he or she knew a lot about.  Next students drew and wrote their pieces.  Some students shared what they did today in our latest class movie.  Please check it out at the link below:

Target:  I Can Tell, Draw, and Write About One Topic

Sorry!  I still cannot figure out how to embed the videos.  :)

What Can You Do with Valentine Hearts?

What can you do with valentine hearts?

You can estimate how many are in a box.

You can count how many are in the box and see how close your estimate is.  Don't forget to put your hearts in groups of ten to make counting easier!

You can sort the hearts.  Maybe you can sort by color.  Maybe you can sort by the words on the hearts.  Can you think of another way to sort the hearts?  Use tally marks to show how many are in each group.  Graph what you find.

What else can you do with valentine hearts?

How to Read a Book

All year we've been working on learning how readers read a book.  We made a class movie to show you what we've learned about reading a book.  Check it out by clicking the link below:

http://voice.adobe.com/v/Q75KBBY6Lkv


Our class was so proud to make this video.  It was started awhile ago, and we all forgot about it until this week.  We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!