This week the focus was learning the vocabulary words expected and unexpected. Mrs. Reece and I use the Think Social! curriculum beginning with me using the book Social Detective and if they are ready and able introducing them to Superflex. Mrs. Reece uses the Superflex book to target behaviors as well. Social Detective introduces the vocabulary words "expected" and "unexpected" to describe behaviors that are safe, positive and unsafe or negative. As kids get older and more aware of others we tell them that unexpected behaviors give people thoughts that could be weird or sad while expected behaviors make others have happy thoughts about us. Right now we are introducing those words. Please reinforce this at home! Try noticing when kids are following rules or directions and tell them they are being "expected!" Also, if you see things that need to be corrected you could say, "that is looking unexpected". We read David Gets In Trouble and David Goes To School and talked about what he did that was expected and unexpected and showed thumbs up or thumbs down to his choices. Then we read a book about making Smart Choices. The kids did a sort with the pictures from the story to show if they were smart or poor choices. We related this to expected and unexpected choices. Fridays are prize day. The kids are earning a dollar for listening and participating. They keep their money in "bank" envelopes on our wall. Every Friday they can buy a prize. They have to count out their money to me before purchasing a prize. As you have been seeing, they will have small toys, pencils, or "stuff" each Friday. The older kids like to save their money for bigger opportunities like being teacher for a group session (which I help plan and implement).
The kindergarten kids finished up unit one in math and will have a test on Monday. We reviewed today. The concepts are about identifying shapes, number of objects, writing numbers, and drawing an amount of something, just like in the homework you've been completing. In reading, we have been focusing on sight words: I, a, is, go and my. I have printed some easy reader books they have been reading with those sight words in them. Our read alouds have been about fall, scarecrows, and Halloween. In writing, we labeled our classroom and some pictures. They continued to share their oral language stories from their heart and we cheered each other on with whatever they were capable of verbalizing. I prompted with WH questions, who was there, where did you go, what did you do, etc. We started to illustrate, but began with a simple picture of a sun and labeled the sounds we heard. We worked on our poetry folders too. I am very proud of how much more work we are able to accomplish compared to a month ago!
Have a great weekend!
The kindergarten kids finished up unit one in math and will have a test on Monday. We reviewed today. The concepts are about identifying shapes, number of objects, writing numbers, and drawing an amount of something, just like in the homework you've been completing. In reading, we have been focusing on sight words: I, a, is, go and my. I have printed some easy reader books they have been reading with those sight words in them. Our read alouds have been about fall, scarecrows, and Halloween. In writing, we labeled our classroom and some pictures. They continued to share their oral language stories from their heart and we cheered each other on with whatever they were capable of verbalizing. I prompted with WH questions, who was there, where did you go, what did you do, etc. We started to illustrate, but began with a simple picture of a sun and labeled the sounds we heard. We worked on our poetry folders too. I am very proud of how much more work we are able to accomplish compared to a month ago!
Have a great weekend!