Addition and Subtraction

Addition

Our students worked with a partner to create addition number sentences. Beforehand,we showed them the plus symbol and explained what it is used for. The students used whiteboards and markers to write down their sentences. After a few minutes, the students shared the addition problems they created and solved. 

We created bracelets out of pipe cleaners and pony beads and had the students think of different number combinations.

Each bag had a question: "How many different ways can you make the number 6? 7? 8? 9? or 10?"

 

There are so many great websites with different interactive games for students. This website has various topics for each grade level and tons of great resources for teachers to use!!

Another activity that the students could do while at math stations is to use this pocket chart to create various addition problems. 

Subtraction

To introduce subtraction we watched a video on Brainpop Jr. about basic subtraction. 

Our students used their part-part whole mats and math manipulatives to create and solve subtraction problems. 

We also read various books about subtraction. The students were interactive during each story and yelled out the answers to the subtraction problems. 

On another day the students used these counting boxes to create subtraction problems out of the manipulatives they had. They created stories such as "There were 10 ladybugs eating aphids and two flew away. How many are left?" 

Plants

For a few weeks our students will be learning about Plants during science. 

We created a KWL chart and the students helped complete the 'Know' and 'Want' sections on our first day discussing the topic.

We had students share with us what they know and what they wanted to know. They helped us complete the list by writing down some words on the chart paper.

The students really impressed us with the questions they asked about plants. 

"Why do they need sunlight?"

"Why do they have so many leaves?" 

"Why do they have roots?" 

"Why do they need seeds?" 

The previous week we discussed the topic of questions. The students learned that we ask questions when we do not understand or do not know something... they are really improving on this strategy!!

We watched a video on Brainpop Jr. about the parts of a plant. Some of their questions they asked when we were working on our KWL chart were answered in this video so we would stop periodically to discuss. 

Here is our KWL chart so far with our safety rules. 

This is a topic that we will continue to discuss so this post will be edited periodically. 

Kindergarten Field Trip to the Houston Zoo

The kindergarteners and pre-k students from Thornwood went to the Houston Zoo for their spring field trip. 

To prepare the students for the trip we watched various videos from the Houston Zoo YouTube channel. The students were able to share with the class which animals they were most excited to see.

April 12th finally came and it was definitely an adventure at the zoo! Our day started off quite cloudy with some sprinkles but thankfully the weather cleared up shortly after we arrived. 

Our students had a blast seeing the animals that we read about in books and watched videos on. They especially loved the chimpanzees in the African Forest!

The next day at school we did some follow-up activities. For community circle the students talked about which animal was their favorite that they saw. During writing they wrote some sentences describing their favorite animal. They even created hats that they could wear, and some lions and giraffes made out of paper plates and paint!

During our visit at the zoo we asked the students to look at the features of the animals. For one of the follow-up activities we watched a video from Brainpop Jr. about classifying animals. We gathered them into whole group and sorted out toy animals by a certain characteristic (fly, walk, beak, mouth, sea creature, and etc.).

Living and Nonliving Things

Over the course of a few weeks our class learned and discussed about living and nonliving this. 

We introduced the topic by watching a video from YouTube.

Afterwards we created a list of what living things can do. The students helped us think of some living and nonliving things to write down on our class list. 

The students then worked on a sheet with pictures which they had to cut-out and decide which section it belonged in. 

Completed Living and Non-Living Things 

The following day we went around the school with Mrs. Minnis' class on a nature walk to find living and nonliving things. Each student had a ziploc bag and collected what that they found. Some even had magnifying glasses or containers to collect bugs and insects!

Observing the spider Mrs. Kinard caught. 

We collected a spider and some ants from an ant farm!

During workstations the students were able to sort objects under 'living' and 'nonliving' on the ACTIV Board, netbooks and desktop computers. 

 Some students observed the ants and spiders we caught as they were in the science center during workstations. 

On another day we went out to an area at our school so that they students may sit and observe their surroundings. The task was for them to draw or write living and nonliving things that they see around them. 

A few weeks later we talked about Earthworms and how important these living things are. We watched videos and read books about them. 

Garden Wigglers by Nancy Lowen was one of the books that we read.

We had our students think, pair and share something that they learned about Earthworms. We created this list with their responses. 

The students then compared earthworms to animals that we studied the previous week. Some animals they compared earthworms to include fish, squirrels, dogs or cats. They wrote sentences about the two animals and drew pictures of them.