Weekly Round-Up: March 9

Hi friends! I am so excited because I start my spring break today! I am so excited to get caught up on a bunch of blog/TPT stuff, baby shopping and some other misc. personal things (car maintenance, taxes etc!) But first I wanted to recap our week before spring break to give you a peek into our classroom!

1. MARCH GUIDED WRITING

For our March guided writing, we did opinion writing based on the book “The Thing About Spring” by Daniel Kirk. The question students responded to was “In the story “The Thing About Spring” Rabbit likes winter more but Mouse, Bird and Bear like spring more. Which season do you like more, winter or spring? Why?”

First we always do a whole group anchor chart to share ideas so that the students can use it as a resource when they do their own responses:

Then I call them in small groups (3-4 for my more independent writers, 1 at a time for student who need more support) and have them record their answer on the writing paper. My group this year is getting SO good at working independently! Usually getting kids to work on their writing independently is like pulling teeth, so I’m so impressed with how these guys have internalized the prompt “What strategy can you use instead of asking for help right away?” They even remind their friends when a classmate asks me how to spell a word without using a strategy first 🙂

Here are some of their completed work!

“I like spring more because I like wearing shorts more than jackets and snowpants.”

“I like spring more because I don’t like to be cold. In the spring I like to play soccer.”

As you can tell from my feedback, for my higher group we are working on adding more detail and a second/third sentence to expand our writing!

We only do this type of guided writing once a month, but I take the notes I take during this writing activity (that I also use when I write my descriptive feedback) to plan weekly guided writing lessons for the rest of the month. Usually I try to meet with my high group (4 SK’s + 1 JK / BAS level G-L) once a week, my “SK” LLI group (3 SK’s + 1 JK / BAS level B/C) 2-3 times a week, my “JK” LLI group (1 SK + 3 JK’s / BAS level A) twice a week and my ELL group at least once a week (1 SK (who is also in the JK LLI group) and 2 JK’s).

My priority is meeting with my SK LLI group as those SK’s who are not yet reading at level need the most practice and small group instruction. If I don’t get to meet with my ELL group I don’t worry about it too much because I already see the 1 SK in one of the LLI groups and they also get 30 minutes a week with the ESL teacher in the library.

Ok I hope that wasn’t super confusing! I just thought I’d share how I group and how often I meet with my kids because I find seeing it all laid out can help with the planning. And yes I only have 15 kids. I teach the half class with no ECE partner. In years past when I had 23+ kids I definitely wasn’t able to meet with every kid every week. Instead I met with my SK LLI group the most/consistently and made sure to meet with my other groups whenever I had the time. The trick here is to have a plan and have materials already prepped for your other groups so when you find time in your day you can quickly just grab your basket and meet with a group!

Ok I’m rambling now but I hope some of that was helpful.

If you are looking for the writing paper I shared above, you can find it in my “Step by Step 3: Guided Writing & Assessments” pack.

If you want to check out my whole writing program (and also snag the writing checklist seen in the photo above) you can find it all in the my “Step by Step: Kindergarten Writing BUNDLE“.

2. LUCKY FLIP & ADD

Since we are working on addition this week, I added this “Lucky Flip & Add” centre to our math centre shelf!

Students are invited to flip 2 cards, place them in the box, make the corresponding number sentence and then use the shamrock erasers to solve the question. I got the shamrock erasers last year from Party City!

For my higher kiddos I also had these mats out where they flipped 3 cards and added them up!

You can find these addition mats in my “Kindergarten St. Patrick’s Day Activities” pack on TPT. You can click here or on the image below to check it out!

3. LUCKY PLAY DOUGH NUMBERS

My kids love play dough so I knew I wanted a new play dough mat to add to our math shelf. So this week we added these play dough mats!

Students pick a card, place it in the box and then make and show the number using play dough!

I provided some number cookie cutters but they were also encouraged to roll snakes and make their own numbers. This was great for my JK’s who are working on their 1:1 correspondance, numeral identification and fine motor development! You can find these mats in my “Kindergarten St. Patrick’s Day Activities” pack as well!

4. BEE INQUIRY BB

We wrapped up our bee inquiry this week and transferred our learning to our outside BB to share our hard work with the rest of the school!