Learning across the day

Our kindergarteners are learning reading, writing, math and science throughout the day, both through pre-planned lessons and explorative play! Here are some glimpses into parts of our day. 

We have exploration centers called "invitations to learn" throughout the room, which students can try at various times throughout the day, including during Choice Time and when they finish their work early. Here is one, which asks them to find the letters in their name using name cards and magnetic letters. I change these invitations to learn each month (and sometimes more frequently) so the kids stay engaged and challenged.

Each day I meet with small groups to work on reading, writing and math skills. Here is a lesson on hearing sounds in words, and using the information to read and write. This student is pointing to "sound boxes," and stretching out the word as she touches each box. For example, she is say "b-ee" below. In the second picture, she is using the sounds she hears to write the letters in the word.

We also have Shared Reading every day, which includes reading a big book or poem as a whole class, and learning about reading strategies to help figure out unknown words and comprehend text. I then leave out the texts for students to use during play and writing time. Below, students are rewriting the poem "Big Black Bug" on their own paper.

We also have a math lesson every day, followed by "math tubs" time, which includes time to play with math manipulatives (materials for counting and building, such as cubes, dominoes and blocks) and math games. Below, students in our lesson are matching numerals to ten frames (the dots on the cards). In the bottom two pictures, they are playing a game called "Roll and Build," which involves rolling two dice, counting the number of dots, and building a tower of the same height, until the board is filled up!

For Forest Friday this week, we had a visiting scientist come and talk to us about how plants use different techniques to move and spread their seeds! She read us a book called Plants Can't Sit Still. Then we went on a scavenger hunt through the garden and forest to look for plants that we read about in the book.