I must admit, I am rather disappointed in myself for letting my updates get so far in between. All of a sudden, I look at my last blog post, and I see that my last update was in February! I apologize for being so late in my posting! I have definitely hit that time of year where my first year of teaching has gotten the best of me! Last month, I was a maid of honor in my best friend's wedding. Between work, personal, and planning for a wedding, I had become so exhausted at the end of the day, I usually fell asleep once my head hit the pillow! I am slowly learning what it takes to balance my personal and professional life. So, this is me, trying to fix things by adding a hodge-podge of activities we have done in the past couple months in K-3. Thank you for your patience! We just ended our science unit on Wood and Paper. We learned that wood comes from trees, and in turn, we get things from wood. One experiment we had was seeing the properties of wood. We put water in wood to see the transformations. One of the students asked, "What happens if we put wood in water?" Naturally, we had to experiment to see what would happen! I put a little twist on it though. We found that wood floats in water. So my question: How can we make it sink? Here are our results: I gave the kindergartens two things they HAD to use: paper clips and rubber bands. From there, I observed the kids figure our how to sink the wood. First, the plan was to create an anchor of paper clips to drag the wood down to the bottom. The students soon realized that the anchor did not create enough weight to bring the block down. Then, (pictured on bottom) is the new creation: sticking paper clips on all sides of the wood to make it sink. It was so much fun to see the kindergarteners reactions to sinking the wood! And most of all, it was amazing for me to stand on the sidelines and provide encouragement as their only form of support. They did it on their own! In math, we are busy learning addition and subtraction. Not only with our fluency and recognizing of facts, but by showing the relationship between different numbers! I have used many manipulatives in math to show that there is a correlation between numbers and objects - when children see numbers as concrete objects, they are able to find meaning and understanding with math even better!As an introduction into story problems, I gave kids barnyard cards with farm animals. I modeled to them how I told an addition story with my animals. I have two animals in the fence, and three animals out of the fence. How many animals do I have all together? My partner told me the answer, and then told me the addition equation that matched my setting. I cannot tell you how much fun I have in kindergarten. The amount of growth I see from these children on a daily basis is something that you have to see to believe! I know that all of you appreciate the updates and posts. I know that I love it because I am able to look back and reflect on this past year. With the third quarter ending this week, and our last quarter beginning, it's starting to sink in that I won't have these children for much longer. I want to make this last part of the year not only memorable, but one that is full of growth and success. As a closing, I would like to show a couple of pictures from our egg hunt before our Spring Break. We took the eggs that you filled and put sight words on, and spread them across the entire front lawn of the school. We gave the kindergarteners little checklists, and sent them to read and find sight word eggs! They had so much fun!!! Thank you for all that you do as parents to support your children. I could not do what I do without you. Your dedication and commitment to your children's education will not be forgotten! Happy Easter!!!
0 Comments
|
Archives
January 2018
AuthorI sing, dance, and laugh my way through life! I love to teach, but my desire is to always learn more. I am truly blessed with the life I have! Categories |