Positional Words..

This week the standard we are teaching deals with positional words. The lesson planned for today dealt with the students going to the older playground right outside our classroom. Students were asked to go on top, under, beside, between, in front, and behind certain items on the playground. Next, I asked the students to find a certain spot on the playground. Now all you primary grade teachers are probably thinking you did not give them enough direction…so true! They all went to the two “coolest” spots on the playground. I had to regroup and tell them to find a spot not close to anyone. Once we got into our individual spots the students had to tell the class where they were with positional words. They did WONDERFUL. It showed that having the students pick and describe their location really helped them understand the definition of the words. We had been doing activities in the classroom with the smart board and manipulatives  but, it was not clicking with some of the students. I am very lucky to have that old and never used playground outside my room. We will definitely be using it for more activities like this!

National Landscape, Representations

Storage Unit Exploration:

I enjoyed completing this task. It really made me think and I know students in higher grades would love it. This task had students making real world connects. Students needed to understand area, volume, multiplication, and division. This task involved trail and error to be used to design their building. It took me multiple times to get the storage units in the correct spots. Students then had to change the cost by volume for the storage units.

The Largest Container:

Students were discussing the different formulas to find volume. Their teacher gave them the challenge for creating the largest container. Students were given paper, rulers, scissors, and tape. I loved how this activity was so hands on. One of the students said that it was a lot easy to understand by doing then reading a book explaining how to do it. I really like how they were in groups and allowed to help each other through the task. There was not one student off task even with being in groups!

Number of the Day & Calendar

The students and I have been discussing the number of the day since the first day of school. I am using this as a count down as well. 🙂 We write the number word, tally marks, ten frames, and draw a picture to represent each number. This is the first time I have used number of the day and I am really enjoying it. Even though in kindergarten we are only focused on numbers 1-20 students are being introduce to higher numbers! Students are becoming familiar with tallies and ten frames. I taught second grade last year and was supposed at the students that did not know tallies and ten frames. I am excited to see how well my students will continue to do with number of the day.

We have been approved to spend time teaching calendar during math!! I could not believe that in the past teachers were told NOT to teacher calendar. Everyone needs to be able to read and understand a calendar. This is not a skill that you pick up in one day. Students need to know days of the week and months of the year. My students LOVE our calendar time. We sing songs about the weeks and months. My students are still having a hard time deciding what is a month and what is a day. Most student understand that there are 7 days and 12 months. When I ask what month we are in some will say the day and when I ask the day some will say the month. It is interesting to me that students have not connected that we are in school Monday through Friday so, Saturday and Sunday are the weekend. We will continue to practice EVERYDAY!

New, New, New

There are a lot of new things happening in my life this year. I have recently been accepted into the Masters Program at UNC-Greensboro! This semester I am taking two classes, working as a Kindergarten teacher in a new district, living in a new town, and soon moving (hopefully) to a new house. I am starting my 3rd year in my teaching career. Where as the time gone??

I am excited to be sharing my teaching experiences with you this year.  I hope you learn as much from me as I will be learning this semester!

Happy blogging!