November Learning Record

Every 20 school days I have to have a learning record ready for my educational specialist from the charter school I'm working with.  It only has to be a sentence or so long for each of the following subjects: reading, life skills, history, math, science, special interests/field trips/ classes but I have not done very well with being on time with it.  If I blog about it I seem to do better.  Here is the one from October.

I am putting a link to all the content standards for CA here for easy reference.  I also found a nice link for all the kindergarten content standards.

So far my learning record for November looks like this but by no means does it even come close to all we've done.  It is just all that I have typed up.

Reading: Determining the missing letter in a word and writing the letter. Short u, short i and short o practice.
Writing: I created my own leaf printout for Katie to practice.  I really think she needs more practice tracing.  Here is a great site with free printables of alphabet tracer pages.  I think I'll slip them into a clear sleeve and use dry erase markers so we can use them over and over.  You can print a blank practice sheet here and here or here.  I also like this paragraph maker.  You type in your own words and then print it out for your student to trace.
Life Skills: Lesson on germs

History/ Geography: (Read about the 7 continents in What Every Kindergartener Needs to know, directions on a map (north, south, east west))
Math: Adding 1's and 2's.  I printed out this worksheet. Practice with tally marks.   I like this website for extra first grade math practice.Here's another website with free math worksheets. Writing numbers 1-10.  More practice with adding 0-3 using this free print out and this one.  I'd like to make this domino addition matching game soon.  (Friends of 10, beginning addition and subtraction exercises, telling time on the hour and half hour mark, counting by twos.)

Science:  Autumn leaves 


Special interests/ Field Trips/ Classes: Kung Fu Trial classes, Swimming classes

Kindergarten Life Skills Lesson on Germs

I adapted this lesson on germs from the lesson here. It addresses the following standard: "Students will understand and demonstrate behaviors that prevent disease and speed recovery from illness."

Ask the question "What are germs?" Katie said, "if they're the wrong germs you'll get sick." Then I gave Katie this definition: Germs are tiny living things (microorganisms) that can possibly make people very sick. Germs can either be a bacteria or a virus. They are too tiny to see with just our eyes. We would need a microscope to see germs or just a picture of germs. A doctor can tell you if you are sick from bacteria which requires an antibiotic to fight the germs, or whether you are sick because of a virus.


Ask students what you can do to keep from getting sick from germs? Katie said, "stay away and don't get too close." (This comes from the understanding that our little friend Adam has Leukemia and we can't get too close to him.)

Say that you can prevent spreading germs when you:
1. Wash your hands for twenty seconds any time you cough, sneeze, play in the dirt, get ready to eat, play with animals, or go to the bathroom.
2. Cover your face when you sneeze or cough. When you sneeze you can see the mist of germs coming out of your nose in to the air. The best thing to do is to cough or sneeze into your elbow instead of your hands because germs are spread more easily by the palms of your hands. This is because you use your hands to touch things. If you do cough or sneeze into your hands, then you should go wash them right away.
3. Stay at home when you are sick. You could get your friends sick if you go to school. If you have a friend that comes to school sick, then you should do your best to stay at least a short distance away from them.
4. Help clean common areas touched by hands. Help the teacher once per day to wipe down all the door knobs and desk tops with disinfecting wipes. *Note-Create a classroom chart so that the children know whose turn it is to help clean.
Play/ Practice:
Go to the sink and do a practice run of how to wash your hands for twenty seconds. This can be done by washing your hands while singing two verses your favorite song.  We will do "yo me lavo las manos."
Printable worksheet

Pizza Hut Book It Program

We got our book it program materials today.  I got 6 award certificates for a free personal pizza.  Now to figure out what kind of goals I'm going to set in order for Katie to get her reward.  I'm thinking I will use this cute "Reading is yummy" chart.  You color a slice of pizza every day that you do 20 minutes of reading. I sometimes use this stopwatch so that we can see the time going by.  It is nice to be able to pause it for little potty breaks etc... Here is a different chart that is by the book instead of for every 20 minutes.

AWANA verses Sparkies 2011-2012

1. 1 John 4:14
2. John 3:16
3. Psalm 147:5
4. 1 Corinthians 15:3
5. 1 Corinthians 14:4
6. James 2:10
7. Acts 16:31
8. John 20:31 and three names for God's book
9. Psalm 118:1
10. 1 John 4:19
11. Genesis 1:1
12. Genesis 1:31
13. Romans 3:23
14. John 17:17
15. 1 Peter 1:25
16. John 14:6
17. Colossians 1:3 We always thank God,
    The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    When we pray for you.
18. New Testament names of first 8 books
19. New Testament names of next 9 books
20. New Testament names of last 10 books
21. John 3:14a
22. John 3:14b
23. John 3:15
24. John 3:16
25. John 3:14-16
26. Joshua 1:9
27. Joshua 24:24
28. Ephesians 6:1

AWANA

Katie has been absolutely loving AWANA.  JD really likes it too. She is on the missionary lesson in her Sparks book.  We had to paste a picture of a missionary in her book.  We put Annie her book.  She is a missionary in the Ukraine at an orphanage.  Annie was a student of mine when I was teaching high school Spanish.  If you feel lead to give to Annie's ministry go here.

I am so proud of Katie that she has memorized so many verses so far at AWANA.

Her next verse is:
Colossians 1:3
We always thank God,
The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
When we pray for you.

Friends of Ten

I am putting a lot of emphasis on making learning fun especially in the early years.  There will be plenty of time for worksheets later on.  (Although we do our fair share of those too.) So I was happy to add "Friends of 10" to our adding facts games.

To play:

I had Katie count out 10 red beans and I used a gold sharpie to color one side of each of them.  I had Katie write the words Friends of 10 on the top of the paper. I wrote the words red and gold on the paper. We put the beans in a paper cup and I had Katie shake them and poor them out onto a paper.  I had Katie tell me how many red beans there were and how many gold beans there were.  For example one time she had 2 red sided beans and 8 gold beans.  I asked her what 8 + 2 was and she started to count until I asked her how many beans we started with.  Then I asked her again what is 8+2.  This time she got it.  I played around with it telling her these were magic beans.  After a while instead of putting them all back in the cup I just turned one of the beans over.  We did 11 different ways of adding to 10 with whole numbers. As we got to ones that were similar like 8+2 and 2+8 I would have her try to figure out the second number without counting, kind of a pre-algebra type of thing, which I think is part of the premise of singapore math. 

Another day I printed out the sheets from here.  I cut them out and laminated them.  Next we played with the various strips showing again the various ways to take two numbers to add up to 10.  My three and a half year old even enjoyed this.

Free Music Theory Worksheets and Virtual Flashcards

I took several years of piano and I could very easily teach beginning piano.  I was happy to find this website that not only has free music theory worksheets and virtual flashcards but it also has free printable music sheets. 

Go here for the free music theory workbook and virtual flashcards.

Go here for the free printable piano music sheets.