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Thursday, September 10, 2015

Friday, September 4, 2015

Look who's hanging out in kindergarten this year!




Science & Social Studies

Our Wonders reading and writing curriculum incorporates many science and social studies concepts. I have aligned the content from our science and social studies grade-level content expectations with our Wonders units and also have added some other concepts that I think are fun and important. However, this year we will be working on transitioning over to using the Next Generation Science Standards so we will also be using the Studies Weekly Science and Social Studies magazines. The topics covered are also listed below.

Wonders Reading

Start Smart
All About Me
Family
What We Can Do

Unit 1
Making Friends
How Do Baby Animals Move
5 Senses

Unit 2
Tools We Use
Shapes
Bugs

Unit 3
Rules
Sounds Around Us
Places We Go

Unit 4
Jobs 
Neighbors 
Helping our Community

Unit 5
Living Things - What They Need
Living Things Grow
Farm

Unit 6
Seasons
Weather
Stormy Weather

Unit 7
Baby Animals (How They Are Alike & Different)
Taking Care of Pets
Animal Habitats

Unit 8
Ways to Move (How Things Move & Work, Force of Motion)
U.S.A.
What's in the Sky?

Unit 9
Helping Out at Home
Good Citizens
Natural Resources

Unit 10
Problem Solving
Sorting
Protecting Earth

Additional Concepts
Our Body
Heat & Light
Matter




Handwriting

For handwriting, I use a mixture of resources from our Wonders reading and writing curriculum and EBLI (Evidenced-Based Literacy Instruction). Wonders has online, interactive activities, as well as printable practice pages. EBLI uses resources from Peterson Handwriting. I have been using the Peterson Handwriting verbal letter formation cues with some changes to the wording. 

Evidence-Based Literacy Instruction (EBLI)

The founder of EBLI, Nora Chahbazi, put together this informative letter to parents that explains the system and also provides a link to their website in which you can find further information if desired.

EBLI Parent Letter

English Language Arts


McGraw-Hill Reading Wonders is an integrated curriculum that uses thematic units incorporating science and social studies concepts to build strong readers and writers. The Wonders curriculum includes:

Reading/Writing Workshop
- Students are immersed in literature that engages in collaborative conversations to support and develop comprehension and use of reading strategies.
- The weekly thematic concepts are used to develop writing skills for different types of writing (ex. personal narrative, informational writing, etc.) 

Literature
- Quality fiction and informational text
- Rich, vocabulary development

Leveled Readers
- Use of leveled readers to meet individual/small group needs in guided reading work

Foundational Skill Building
- Building skills in phonemic and phonological awareness, phonics, and developing knowledge and use of high-frequency words
- Knowledge development in basic grammar concepts

Assessments

Scholastic Order Code

Scholastic Order Code

Reading Before & After Questions

ReadingBefore&After

Change of Clothing Note

Change of Clothing

Number Formation

Number Formation