The kindergarteners celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday this week. We enjoyed reading and listening to his books and learning about the author & illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss). Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated 44 books. If he was still alive, he would be over 100 years old. One of the fun parts of Dr. Seuss’s stories is that they rhyme. Each time we read one of his books, we found all of the different rhyming words. We worked a lot on rhyming this week. We even made our own rhyming book. We also worked on identifying two different kinds of sentences, asking (questions) and telling (statements). Then we each wrote a letter to the Cat in the Hat telling him about ourselves and asking him questions. The highlight of the week was when we made a special Cat in the Hat snack. We put a marshmallow with a cat face on a stick and added bananas and strawberry slices to create his hat. We ended the week at church with a Lenten Retreat. We spent the day focusing on Lent and getting ready for Easter.
Monday:
In reading, we were introduced to our new letter sound and letter, Vv. After watching the video, we identified words that begin with the /v/. Next we listened to the story, Dr. Seuss, and we read the book, All About Theodor Seuss Geisel. There were both biographies about his life. We also watched a short video clip. We found out Dr. Seuss wrote and illustrated 44 books. If he was still alive, he would be over 100 years old. His real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel. His birthday is March 2nd. He wasn’t a doctor. He just put doctor in front of his name to make him sound more important. Next, we listened to the to the story of the Cat in the Hat. The Cat in the Hat wears a very distinctive hat. It is red and white striped.
Finally we completed 5 different reading stations. The first station was our letter v worksheet. The second station was using the BeeBots to find the path to the short i word. The third station was creating a Cat in the Hat hat. We had to color the hat just like the original, red and white striped. The fourth station was playing Bingo Word Builder with Ms. Torborg. The fifth station was using the BeeBots to find the path to the rhyming word.
In math, we worked on measuring. We started with a story. When Ms. Torborg was at an amusement park, she saw a sign that stated you need to be this high to ride the rides. She was curious if we were tall enough to ride the rides with her. Since it didn’t saw how tall you needed to be, she used some sticky notes to measure it. It was 12 sticky notes high. Our job was to figure out if we were tall enough to ride the rides. We started by breaking up into groups. Each group received 12 sticky notes to work with. After exploring different ways to answer the question, we came together as a class to share some of the idea. We discuss some of the things that were working and some of the things that we need to change. Then we tried again. In the end, we figured out that everyone could ride the rides at the amusement park.
In religion, we discussed how Jesus was God’s son who came down to earth to be with us. On the front of our first worksheet, we discussed things that represent special holidays such as a birthday cake, Christmas tree, or Valentine cards. We also identified items that represent God’s love in the picture. On our second worksheet, we listened to the story of Mary saying yes she would do what God asked. On the back, we found the word Jesus in the hidden picture.
Tuesday:
This morning we were introduced to our two new sight words, look and be. After using them in a sentence, we read through our new emergent reader, My Hat. As we read through it, we noticed that there were asking sentences and telling sentences. The first pages asks a question and then next page answered the question all the way through the book. So we talked about the two different kinds of sentences, telling sentences (statements) or asking sentences (questions). Telling sentences tell the reader something and have a period at the end. Asking sentences ask the reader something and have a question mark at the end. As a class, we worked together to identify which kind of sentence Ms. Torborg said by moving to one side of the room or the other. Finally we completed our sight word worksheets.
During religion, we discussed the next liturgical church season, Lent. We watched a video in which Brother Francis explained Lent to us. We found out it starts tomorrow with Ash Wednesday. We will have a prayer service at church in which Father will mark our foreheads with a cross made out of ashes. The ashes were created from burning the palms that were used last year during the Palm Sunday celebration. We also colored a picture of receiving ashes.
In math, we reviewed teen numbers on a tens frame. Then we completed a teen numbers worksheet.
Wednesday:
Today is a special day, Ash Wednesday. It is the first day of Lent. Lent is a special time when we get ready for Easter. Ms. Torborg gave each of us a Lenten calendar. Each day we need to color one rectangle on the path. It will help us keep track of how long lent is and how many days until Easter. In honor of Ash Wednesday, we had a special prayer service at church in which we received ashes.
We started our day off by listening to the Dr. Seuss book, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. We enjoyed hearing the trouble the Cat in the Hat caused when he visited the two little kids again. We also took turns identifying the different rhyming words we hear. After our story, we reviewed our sentence end marks from yesterday, periods and question marks. Ms. Torborg told us a sentence. We had to identify what kind of sentence it was, asking or telling, and the end mark. Next we practiced our new skills by writing a letter. We started with a letter outline. Our job was to fill in the blanks. First we had to pick a Dr. Seuss character to write to. Then we had to fill in the blanks. Some of the sentences were questions and some were statements. We had to put the correct end mark at the end of each sentence.
In Math, we were introduced to a new symbol. A few weeks ago, we were introduced to the + symbol for some, some more problems. Today we were introduced to a new symbol, -, the subtraction sign. It is the minus or take away sign. When we see this sign, we need to take some of them away. We use this sign with some, some went away problem. Together we practiced using our new symbol to solve story problems. We each had a bowl with counters in it and an subtraction symbol on a popsicle stick. As Ms. Torborg read the problem, we used our supplies to solve the problem.
Thursday:
Each Thursday throughout Lent, we will gather as a school via Zoom to pray the Stations of the Cross. This is a special prayer that follows what happened to Jesus right before he died. Mrs. Lingen lead us as we listened to what happened at each station and said a short prayer. During religion time, we spend some time learning about the Stations of the Cross. Today we discussed the First Stations of the Cross: Jesus is Condemned to Death. Then we colored a picture. We are going to color a picture of each Station throughout Lent. Then at the end, we will turn them into a book.
In Reading, we continued our work on rhyming. Today we read the Dr. Seuss story, Fox in Socks. We had fun identifying some of the rhymes in the story. We know that Dr. Seuss loved to write books that rhyme. In honor of Dr. Seuss, we created our own rhyming books. On each page of our book, there was a picture of a Cat in the Hat hat. On the bottom stripe of the hat was a CVC (consonant vowel consonant) word. Our job was to write a real rhyming word on each of the rest of the stripes of the hat.
We made a special snack today. In honor of the Dr. Seuss, we made him the Cat in the Hat out of some fruit and a marshmallow. The first task was to create a face on our marshmallow using a special food marker. Then we put the marshmallow on a stick. Next we added slices of bananas and strawberries to make his striped hat. Once we had our picture taken it was time to eat. Boy… was it a delicious snack. We even got to have some extra banana and strawberry slices.
In math, we played the Disappearing Train Game. This game was similar to the Growing Train Game. Instead of starting at 0 and adding cubes, we started with 20 cubes and took cubes away according to the number we rolled. Along with taking cubes away, we had to tell our partner what is happening or the number sentence.
Friday:
We started our day at school gathering our supplies before we were off to the church. After Mass, we stayed at church for the rest of the day for a Lenten Retreat. We spent the rest of the day focusing on Lent and getting ready for Easter.
After Mass, we watched a video Brother Francis, The Bread of Life: Celebrating the Eucharist! while the older students had reconciliation. Then we joined them in church for adoration. We spent some time in quiet prayer. Next, we worked together as a school to fill a giant cross with different things we are doing during Lent to prepare for Easter. After lunch and recess, we created a Lenten Game to play with our family and a cross to hang in our window. We ended our day with Stations of the Cross.
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