Cicadas, Yuk Soup, and Fifth Grade Buddies, Oh My!
Cicada Crew Families,
It has been a beautiful week learning alongside your students. We are all getting used to our daily routines, our workshops, and our class family.
You may have noticed we are now known as the Cicada Crew! Your students have inquired about our “mystery bugs”, which we identified this week as a cicada. Then, we voted on different class names, and the winner was (drum roll please) Cicada Crew. We took a vote using tallies, ask your student what a "slash" show us with tallies!
As writers, we began to write a class book that paralleled with our shared reading of Yuk Soup. We used pounding and tapping to help us spell the words, “in go some_____”, as a class, and then they filled in the blank with their own imagination! We’ve also worked on our own books, and we’ve noticed that authors use patterns and pictures to tell stories. We can do the same!
As readers, we read Yuk Soup by Joy Cowley each day as a class. We began with a story walk, where I covered up the words, and we made predictions about what was happening in the pictures. Then, we began to reveal some words, notice patterns, and connect the words to the pictures. By the end of the week, every single student was confidently reading our story! It was so cool to see their eyes light up and their voices speak out in confidence as we flipped each page.
As mathematicians, we’ve made it all the way up to number 12 in our math talks! These discussions include students noticing patterns within numbers, making the number (addition), and representing the number. They have grown so much in their number sense and in their risk taking with math. We always say, “try your best, and don’t worry about the rest”, and they’ve taken that on in their learning journey. We are growing in fluency of numbers 0-5, as well as in recognizing patterns.
As scientists, we’ve identified ourselves as entomologists. Entomologists study insects, and they help others understand bugs- how many species are there, what their impact on our world is, and how we can identify them. Your students have grown in making observations and comparisons about attributes, as well as using this knowledge to identify our mystery bug… a cicada!
Please send any photos or videos of bugs you and your child find. We will study, sketch, wonder, observe, and more with them!
As community members, we’ve had lunch with our fifth grade buddies (yay!), and we’ve had discussions about treating others with respect- through both our words and our bodies. We read, The Recess Queen, and made our Recess Friends Contract based on our takeaways. We know the importance of using our words to problem solve, keeping our hands to our self, and including others, because everyone has a place in our class. I’m so proud of the way that they care for one another so genuinely!
Our fifth grade buddies presented at Gathering, and they closed out the week with words of encouragement. Each of them mentioned their “Trying” narrative, which is a time when they tried, failed, tried again, and grew. Then, they encouraged their kindergarten buddies, recognizing them each by name.
“To my kindergarten buddy… never stop trying."
“To my kindergarten buddy… never give up, even if it feels hard. You can do it!”
“To my kindergarten buddy… when you believe you can, you can.”
I’m encouraged by these words as we go into this long weekend, and a new week starting on Tuesday.
Over and over again, I’m amazed by these kindergarten friends.
(Happy Birthday Aisha and Jaiden! We love celebrating our friends here at CFI!)
With a happy heart,
Ms. Koon
Reminders:
We went to the library and they were able to check out books- yay! Please return these in your students’ book bag by next Friday, September 9. There are no late fees, but, they won’t be able to check out another book until this one is returned.
Please send any bug photos or videos.
Important Dates:
September 5- Labor Day. No school!
September 23- Early Dismissal
