December has been a busy month for us! It's a really exciting month too! Have you heard the saying that usually things click for kindergarten kids AFTER Christmas? Well, I can happily say that things have really clicked for our classroom AFTER Thanksgiving. Almost all of my students know their letters and sounds and have a huge bank of sight words that they know. They are becoming so much more independent. I love sitting back and watching them work. This allows me to work with small groups or to get assessments done.
We do our journal writing daily. The kids are pros at taking a picture with the Seesaw app and adding it to their journal. They touch the pencil under their picture, hit the record button and read their sentence. I LOVE that I can go back into their journals and read what they wrote or what they are trying to say. I also love that when they touch the screen, it leaves a dot under the word. I can tell if they have one to one correspondence down and if the words match what they are saying.
We LOVE using our green screen. On Monday I had my kids dress up. We are doing a fun winter project for our parents. I had all my kids dress up and I took all their pictures. I can't wait to show you the final project. :)
During the winter I do my "If I Lived in a Snow Globe" project. I am going to change my final result this year...details to come, but I will be using our green screen for it. :) I made a bunch of snow globe centers for my classroom to use throughout the winter.
We are working on looking at pictures to tell us what is happening in stories. We talk a lot about using our schema to find out what is happening. These snow globes have different scenes in them. I tell my kids that snow globes have a scene in them that tell a story. We are looking at these snow globes and the kids have to use their background knowledge to tell about what is happening in the story.
We answer a bunch of questions of what we think is happening and why.
One of our centers is looking at snow globes and adding the number of snowmen that are inside of them.
We are also looking at pictures inside snow globes and are matching the CVC word to the bottom of it.
I also have kids matching sight words in a center. The top of the snow globe has a picture. They have to find the same sight word on the base.
Kids are also taking pictures of the snow globes with snowmen in them. They do this through Seesaw. They hit the pencil and write and record how many snowmen they see.
We are using our iPads to write and record math equations. We used 2 sided colored chips and dropped them on the floor. We then put them in a plastic tray. Kids took pictures with their iPads and then used the pencil and record button. They wrote and recorded what their math equation was. We went through all the pictures that they uploaded to their journal. I love that this App holds them accountable for their work. I told them that I could HEAR who was on task in their videos. We went through some and they were able to tell who was on task and who was not. They also saw that I can see who followed directions. I can also see who I need to work in small groups with to reteach the skill.
In December, I do a bunch of gingerbread activities. Our kindness elves brought us this fun gingerbread house. They told us that if the kids are being kind or are following directions, they will get to sit in the gingerbread house to do their work. They love it!
I have a bunch of gingerbread houses with sight words on them hidden/hanging throughout our classroom. We used Book Creator to make a sight word book. The kids took pictures of the houses that they found and added sound underneath the picture. These books can be used throughout the day to review sight words. I am also able to go through and see who knows their words or not. Once the words on the pages are recorded correctly, they will be able to upload to Seesaw and practice at home.
They took a picture of the word.
They touched add sound.
They hit record.
They recorded their word.
We worked on rhyming words this week. I absolutely love Miss Jenny songs (Edutunes). We use them all the time. I played the song "All Rhymes End With the Same Sound". I then gave my kids a card with a picture on it. Kids danced around with their card to the song one more time. When the music stopped, they had to find their rhyming word partners.
They danced to the music. They had to hold their card on their stomach so that no one could see it until the music stopped.
They then went and found their rhyming word partners.
Once they found their partners, they linked arms. They sat in a group of three.
They then brought their cards up to the front of the room. We used our doc cam and projected the words on the Smart Board, The class decided if the words matched or not.
During our center time, we are working on CVC words, sight words, spelling, rhyming, letter identification and making equations.
Students in this center were making CVC words in gingerbread houses.
Students were working on rhyming words here.
Students were playing a game to make words here.
In this center, Alphabet Soup, kids are using a spoon and are pulling out letters from a bowl. They record the letter that they pulled out. They have to write 3 words that start with that letter. They do this 4 times.
Here kids are matching uppercase letters to lowercase letters.
In this center, kids are taking pictures of CVC word mats. They then write and record the sounds that they hear.
In this center, kids took pictures of gingerbread houses that were hanging around the room. There are some gingerbread men upstairs and some downstairs. They took a picture in Seesaw and used the pencil and record button to write and record their equations.
I can go back into their journals and see who needs help making equations or with writing their equations.
Our last center that we are working on is making silly sentences. Kids have to include a WHO, DID WHAT, WHEN and WHERE in their sentences. They can record these in Seesaw as well.
I hope you are having a great week!
