Recap of Week 7 and Peek at my Week 8!

Another week comes to a close as we begin preparation for the next! Look at that…30 days in kindergarten..WHOOP WHOOP! This week we were hit with a couple of strange storms including a tornado warning so we can easily say our week rocked a lot of excitement and indoor recesses! The pictures I will share below came from this week’s plans…which you can download directly below! I will also leave next week’s plans at the bottom of this post! 🙂

This week our close read was Huggapotamus! I just LOVE this book and the main idea is perrrfect for kindergarten!

I accidentally demolished my focus wall before snapping a picture so here is my sisters! You can see our vocabulary words, essential question, and themed bubble!

With our theme of friends this week we took time to acknowledge our friends in class! Each kiddo chose a friend and I took a quick picture of them. They then added a sentence to their paper and I had the pictures printed. I think they turned out super cute…if you could only see their darlin’ faces! You can snag this freebie download below!

Beyond the crazy weather we also had much excitement to finish unit one of KinderPhonics! We celebrated with a special alphabet snack and watched LeapFrog Letter Factory!

This week we will start unit two of KinderPhonics AND begin our new KinderPhonics interactive notebooks! We will be starting out with letters Mm and Ss. We will be adding those pages to our notebooks!

In writing this week we moved on to writing true stories! The kids have LOTS to say! I always encourage them to tell their story in not only the words on their paper, but even more through their pictures! I’m a little late getting it to you, but you can click below to download the freebie dated October writing paper below!

I saw a big truck.

I like Christmas.

I have been to YMCA.

I play at the ferris wheel.

This week we also practiced our listening skills with these super fun listening lottos! I have three different versions; sounds at home, sounds on the farm, and outside sounds! They are perfect for building strong listening skills! In kindergarten taking a test is more than just circling the answer..students must also be able to listen to what I say, process that skill, and THEN circle the correct answer.
Anyway, I grabbed mine from Constructive Playthings! They are reasonably priced and perfect for really any time of the year. My kiddos have for sure taken a real liking to sounds on the farm! 🙂

Speaking of farm…check out this! She ran over to my guided reading table to tell me all about it- -cute as a button! She is a little one that has blossomed since the start of school! 🙂 This little literacy center is from my farm packet!

I also snapped some shots of our math centers! First up is our fine motor math center..we’ve been rocking this one in our bucket since the start of the year, but they love it which I love so it stays! 🙂

The next few shots are from my Taking Back Weekends: October edition packet! Peeerfect for October and kinders!

Write the missing number…

He was busy!!! ^^^

Pumpkin Ten Frame Match-Ups….

Compare this-Pumpkin version…

This past week we also started grade-level intervention! I am teaching the above level group this year and I am using Road to Reading. It is a very systematic and routined based program…two words that call my name! A very quick overview of the day looks like this…come in grab a whiteboard {I already have the needed letters on the board}, come to the carpet, teacher gives a CVC word to build, students build the words while the teacher monitors their progress and models the word on the board for self-check, then write the words given by the teacher in their journal at their tables, back to the carpet to review sound cards/high frequency words/words cards. Lastly, we read an easy reader decodable together! We follow this same routine each and everyday which is great because this block of time is about 25 minutes!

Click below to grab the freebie Road to Reading journal!

That’s all I have for last week! Click below to download my plans for next week! Be sure to click the “download” button so you the plans will become interactive with clickable links! Also, if you have any trouble downloading any freebies please email me at taradc87@hotmail.com. Have a super week!!!

I am also linking up with Dee Dee for peek at my week!

Comments

Andrea says

October 5, 2014 at 2:42 pm

I love your Road to Reading idea! Do you have magnetic white boards for each student? (If so do you remember where you purchased them?) How many students at a time are you doing this with?
Sorry for so many questions!!!
Thank you!!!!
Andrea
aaparsons@hotmail.com

- Anonymous says
  
  October 5, 2014 at 5:21 pm
  
  Hey there Andrea! Yes I have a whiteboard for each of my kiddos! My district purchsaed those but here is a link to some reasonable priced sets: https://www.google.com/shopping/product/17032793242510531270?q=student+whiteboards&newwindow=1&biw=1920&bih=955&ei=nX0xVN6xCoGuyASZi4GwCg&ved=0CIsBEKYrMAA
  
  Also, in my group there are 18 students! Last year I had the on level group with the same number of students and it still works flawlessly! 🙂
  
  Tara
  
- Andrea says
  
  October 5, 2014 at 6:29 pm
  
  Thank you! Yours are magnetic though right?
  
- Anonymous says
  
  October 5, 2014 at 7:53 pm
  
  Yes, sorry that will probably make them a little more pricey 🙁
  
ronnie says

October 5, 2014 at 8:07 pm

Thank you.

Lee Ann Rasey says

October 5, 2014 at 11:28 pm

I also like the Road to Reading idea. I haven't heard of it, and I'd be interested in knowing more about it. We are at 22 days of school, but our first week was a staggered start and then we had last Friday off so we could administer our state's new kindergarten readiness assessment to each child (still have to finish it). Your class looks like fun, and I look forward to each week to read about it. Just wondering how you teach true story writing.

JennaQ says

October 5, 2014 at 11:37 pm

Love all the freebies! Thank you so much!

Lenore says

October 6, 2014 at 3:38 am

Hi Tara,
You send your students back to their tables to write the words you've gone over, but what about your low students? Do you circulate and remind students of what words to write or do the students just remind each other? Thanks!

- Anonymous says
  
  October 6, 2014 at 10:27 pm
  
  Lenore,
  
  Yes, I always circulate the room as the students are both building and writing their words!