Character Interviews

Welcome back! Students have been doing an awesome job with their Three Little Pigs interpretations. In preparing for their performances students gave character interviews, the students and I discussed the job of an actor in a play. We learned that when an actor is portraying a character they are "someone else". Students were asked a series of questions and were asked to answer as if they were not themselves, but that they were the pig or wolf they will be portraying this week. Not all of the interviews are uploaded yet, they are taking about 30 minutes per one minute video! I have included an image of all students enjoying the interviews yesterday. Enjoy the clips we have so far, the rest will be up by the weeks end. 

Teamwork

Hello everyone,

This week there has been a large emphasis on teamwork. Students have been working to create their interpretations of the Three Little Pigs, and have so far produced some wonderful ideas. Students were asked to work together to create one sequencing chart for their group and one set of backgrounds for their play. This required students to take turns with a recorder of ideas and for the remainder of the group to lead an equal discussion in which all members ideas were heard and applied to the final product.

This posed a very challenging task for students. They realized they had to work together to represent their ideas or nothing would get done! Students finished their sequencing charts yesterday and collaborated on set backgrounds today.

We had a class discussion that outlined what an actor is, why they are important and how they could practice this skill. Students were asked to imagine themselves as the wolf or pig they were portraying and we then conducted character interviews. Students were asked to share a few ideas or answer questions as if they were the little pig or big bad wolf. We look forward to sharing all of this work with you via our blog soon!

Retelling Stories and Beyond

Hello everyone,

This has been a great week of learning in our classroom. Students have been reexamining a popular fairy tale known as The Three Little Pigs. We read three different versions of the story this week and practiced the skill of identifying scenes in a story and summarizing them in a sensible sequence.

Students were read Eugene Triviza's The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, James Marshall's The Three Little Pigs, and John Scieszka's The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. Students sequenced each story through writing, illustration and discussion. Students were given a writing prompt this week that asked them to identify their favorite version of the story and to support their opinion with reasoning. Students did a wonderful job identifying different things that interested them. Some opinions included "I liked when the pig used a sledge hammer!" "Because the wolves were in place of the pigs!"

Next week students will be placed in groups and asked to reenact the story using felt puppets we are making this afternoon. Students will practice and perform the story in our reading workshop time. Mr. Grace will be helping us to record our performances on the school flip cameras so that we can upload them for you all to enjoy on our blog!

Math Update

Hello everyone,

This week in math we are continuing our work in counting. Students are striving to master counting by 2's, and the practice at home really helps to support this learning! Some students are struggling with the "tricky teens," which go from numbers 12-19. Practicing recognizing, writing and reciting these is another great way to support our math work at home. Students really enjoy practicing through songs and noticing objects throughout the room that can be counted and grouped in different ways.



We are also taking time this week to focus on patterns. Students have been working on creating AB patterns such as blue, red, blue, red or more complex patterns such as white, white, green, yellow, white, white, white, green yellow. Students will continue to work on this skill throughout the week as well as in upcoming math units. Students are working to recognize that patterning exists in all facets of math, and that knowing these patterns can help to make us stronger mathematicians.

Character Wall

Hello everyone,

Today, students reflected on the MANY stories that we have been reading in Kindergarten and the characters we have so far met. The students and I did a "Book Walk" where we revisited our past book votes and titles we have really enjoyed. After some discussion students were asked to reflect on what makes a good character. Students were given think time and we then pair-shared our reasoning. As a class we discussed the many characteristics we find important in a character. Some students identified humor, being a good friend, and kindness as characteristics.

After discussing thier ideas I posed to students the question of whether they felt characters who did bad things could be "good" characters. For example in our current read-aloud book Bunnicula I asked students to think about whether Chester is a "bad" character because he does hurtful things. Students gave this some thought and began to change thier thinking. One student said "Sometimes bad characters are interesting, like Templeton in Charlottes Web."

Students were then asked to write and illustrate their favorite character for a display in our classroom. Students were able to fully invest in this activity because they had so much ownership in the ideas, discussions, and final product. We will contiue to examine characters in our stories here at school. Help keep the conversation going by sharing some of your favorite literary characters at home!

Story Sequencing

Greetings,

We continue to work on the elements of a story in Kindergarten as well as practicing the skill of sequencing a story. Students have done an excellent job this week by sequencing with Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar and will continue to practice with titles such as The Three Little Pigs by James Marshall and Mercy Watson to the Rescue by Kate Dicamillo. This practice is meant to enhance students skill sets in understanding, discussing, and deriving meaning from a text. These are skills they will continue to build throughout their educational careers.

Students also continue to work hard on mastering their sight words, please continue all of the great practice you are doing at home! Students practice their words in many mediums at school, including shaving cream. I am sure students shared about this activity we did before the break, if not ask them! I have included some pictures of this lesson as well as our sequencing work.

Have a great week!

Halloween

Greetings,

Here are some snaps taken at our Halloween celebration! Students enjoyed many delectable treats including pumpkin and ghost rice krispy treats, watermelon, brownies and juice. Students created funky spider and insect creations that are now hanging from our classroom ceiling. Students modeled their wonderful costumes during our festivities as well as during a school wide dance party and parade.