Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk...

I can not believe we just finished up our fourth week of school!  Time flies when you are having fun!  

This week we continued our study of the alphabet.  We focused on the letters Hh, Ii, Jj, and Kk.  On Monday we learned about the letter Hh and read the nursery rhyme, "Humpty Dumpty".  We added a page to our nursery rhyme book.  We learned our new Heidi song and picked a letter expert.  We also read a silly book about a hippopotamus that had the hiccups!  

On Tuesday we learned about the letter Ii.  We read Leo Lionni's "Inch by Inch".  He is one of my favorite children's book authors.  After reading the story, we made our own inch worms.  They turned out great! 

On Wednesday, we learned about the letter Jj and read "Jack and Jill".  We made another page for our nursery rhyme book.  I loved how these turned out!  They all look so different. We have quite a creative bunch!  

On Thursday, we learned about the letter Kk.  We read the Berenstain Bear's, "We Like Kites" and made some kites of our own.  We also had our very first picture day!  They did great! 

On Friday, we reviewed the letters A-M with a fun game called "Swat!".  We split up into two teams.  One person from each team goes to the front and holds a swatter.  I call out a letter and they race to swat that letter.  It was a lot of fun!  

In math this week, we have been focusing on sorting.  We began this unit by comparing things and talking about how they are alike or different.  The ideas for this unit came from a blog called Kindergarten Kindergarten.  Thanks Kathryn!  :)  

First, everybody got a ball.  They drew their ball in their math journal and came up with different words to describe it.  We took our journals to the carpet and made a list of all the different words that could be used to describe our balls.  We also worked with partners to come up with ways that are balls were the same and different.  

The next day, we learned a new vocabulary word: attribute.  We learned that attributes are words that describe, like size, shape, color, etc.  We took our list of words from the day before and grouped them by what attribute they described.  We even came up with more words!  

On Friday, we took all the balls and sorted them by different attributes.  They did a great job!  Next week we will work on sorting other things like buttons, lids, and attribute blocks.  

In social studies, we have been working on our "All About Me" unit.  We learned about our first thinking map: the circle map.  We took magazines and cut out pictures of things that represented us and glued them into a circle map.  

Then we took turns sitting in the "share square" ( a yellow square stool) and shared our circle maps.  

After sharing their map, they got to ask if there are any questions.  They are allowed to answer three questions from classmates.  We also do this on Fridays during show and tell.  Speaking and listening skills are an important part of the Kindergarten curriculum.  :)  

Here are some pictures from Show and Tell this week. 

Lily shared her stuffed moose, named Antlers.  

Aidan shared his toy truck.  

Mason shared some glow in the dark balls.  

Sophia shared a fossil.  

Taylor shared a picture she worked really hard on.  

And Aleah shared her doll.  

Next week is a short week, so we will only be working with the letters Ll and Mm.  We will continue sorting in math and will finish up our "All About Me" unit.  

Have a great weekend!