First Day of Kindergarten 2016 - 2017

Welcome to Kindergarten!  We had a wonderful first day together!

How To Books

Our very popular book display of procedural texts (how to books) published by Room 304!

If you are interested in learning about how to do something, please check out this list of published books written by Mrs. Craven's Kindergarten!

How to Make a Stool by Noah

How to Feed my Fish by Caleb

How to Break a Board by Stella

How to Dive by Quinn L.

How to Go to the Doctor's Office by Callie

How to Catch a Fish by Alexander

How to Teach my Sister to Swim by Ava

How to Feed a Cat by Nevin

How to Catch a Chicken by Uma

How to Get Dressed for Skiing by Erin

How to Do a Karate Move by Aidan

How to Plant a Tree by Abigail

How to Make a Lego Ship by Oliver

How to Make a Hot Air Balloon by Quinn W.

How to Make Chocolate Chip Cookies by Ruby

How to Buy a Cap by Tyler

How to Earn an Animal's Trust by Sophie

The children first brainstormed topics they felt they could teach someone else.  Thank you for helping them at home.  We sketched the steps we would take to teach someone about our topic, planning the transition words we would use.  The children had a list of procedural words for reference.  This list included words such as first, next, then, after that, last, and finally.  Then we put each step on a separate page, wrote complete sentences, added detail, and worked hard to publish our books.  

This was another experience following the writing process through to publication.  First, the children brainstormed their topic.  Next, they worked on a rough draft.  After that, they made revisions and added detail.  Then, they edited their work making sure they had capitals and periods in the correct places, spaces between their words, lower case letters, and trick words spelled correctly.  Finally we designed covers for our published books.  

Now we are on to informational writing.  You can look forward to our published books on sea animals in the coming weeks.  What amazing writers!  

Living and Non-Living Nature Walk

In Science we are studying Living and Non-living things.  We enjoyed a science lesson and nature walk with Mr. Prazar.  We collected living and non-living things and talked about what characteristics make something a living thing.  Living things move and grow.  They need food and water to survive.

Opinion Writing

We recently finished our unit on opinion writing by putting together a collection of our favorites.  I enjoyed sharing these books with you during our conferences and hope that you enjoyed reading them again with your child.  

During this unit, the children first worked on understanding the difference between fact and opinion by sorting a variety of statements.  Then we talked about giving a reason for our opinion and using the word "because".  Another mini-lesson focused on different ways to start an opinion piece, for example with the words "My favorite..."  "I like..."   During our favorites writing, the children needed to think of a favorite to write about as well as at least two reasons why they had that opinion.  We also tried to include a closing statement.  The children had between two and six "favorites" in their books.

Common Core Standard W.K.1. Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference about the topic or book (e.g., My favorite book is…).

We particularly enjoyed designing our covers and sharing our books with friends.

Sink and Float

What types of shapes can float?

How can you make a boat out of clay?  Out of tin foil?

How many counters can you add before your boat sinks?

We learned that if you make your boat thin and keep the sides up, it floats better.  You have to be very careful to balance the weight you add to your boat.  We also learned how important it is to work slowly and keep trying!

We read Mr. Gumpy's Outing by John Burningham and Who Sank the Boat? by Pamela Allen to inspire our scientific exploration!

                                                                     

We explored many different objects to see what would sink and what would float.

After we experimented, we recorded our findings.

We still wonder...why does a sweet potato float and a regular baking potato sink?.....

 

Brain Pop Jr. Sink and Float

Watch and learn!

                                

Bubbles Workshop

The children really enjoyed our Bubbles Workshop.  We are learning about properties of materials and matter.  When we explored bubbles we learned that bubbles are made of liquids and gas - air combined with water, soap, and glycerin.  We got lots of good ideas about how to make bubbles!

Folktales

We have been enjoying folktales in our classroom.  We read several versions of The Gingerbread Man, The Mitten, and The Little Red Hen, to name a few.

What is a folktale?

We had fun comparing the different versions and talking about how they were the same and different.  Folktales also give us many opportunities to practice retelling, an important part of developing comprehension skills in reading.

Venn Diagram comparing two different versions of  The Mitten.

The children put the story in order and practiced retelling on their own.

The children then made up their own version of The Mitten .  They thought of three different animals to put in their mitten.  They drew pictures and labeled them on the back and glued them onto popsicle sticks.

 

To enjoy a reading of The Mitten click here.

The Mitten

The children also enjoyed retelling The Little Red Hen.