Winter has finally arrived here in our little hamlet, and with it the wonderful time of year where teaching and learning go on uninterrupted (providing we do not have snow days).  I love having my “normal” schedule and students engaged in meaningful ELA and math activities that help them grow as learners.

Friday was a busy day! We continued with our opinion writing in the form of friendly letters, and our reader’s responses were geared to our favorite story from the week:

This book’s back and forth between the little girl Emily, and Mr. Blueberry (her teacher) are hilarious.  Your kinders will truly laugh at nuances throughout the story that question reality.  It is such a wonderful way to teach about fiction/non-fiction, the structure of a friendly letter, proper nouns and more.  This story lead us to do a youtube search for whales to help us decide what we wanted to write to Mr. Blueberry.  Students had so many contributions during our discussion–full engagement!!!

During math time, I brought out a giant sunflower seed head that I had hidden when I arrived Friday morning.  Students loved spreading a blanket on the carpet for catching seeds (this is also a great way to outline seating for a floor activity).  First, we passed the large prickly seed head around to each friend to have a good look at it.  We noted how it still had dried tiny florets sticking up around the seeds.  We noted how seeds were dry and falling out as we handled it.  The seeds would have been green to taste, but because there was mold on the bottom of the seed head, we did not eat them.  Instead, we declared we would take some seeds home for planting later on this Spring.  This giant sunflower head was so different from the live sunflower we watched change on the video (found here).  It had changed in color, texture, weight and size!

What a fun way to learn about numbers greater than ten! Another way we are practicing numbers is a seasonal sight word activity that I created for January.  You can grab this freebie here.

Have a wonderful January!

If you are needing an activity for MLK Day, here is a booklet that I made to use the Friday before the MLK holiday.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Dr-Kings-Dream-Printable-Booklet-1067135