Mrs. Mondello's Kindergarten: Week 11

Native American tales have given us the opportunity to read and reread stories with multiple lessons. We've read several trickster tales and tales of triumph. Last week, we made a shift toward thanksgiving stories that can also teach lessons. Our focus story was, Thanksgiving at the Tappleton's by Eileen Spinelle. This is the story of a family's Thanksgiving dinner gone wrong. Each character makes a mistake and contributes to a big problem, no traditional dinner. Luckily, Grandmother Tappleton reminds everyone of the true spirit of the holiday. We focused on two new story elements this week, problem and solution.

After being extremely impressed by how many students were able: to retell the Tappleton's Tale , sequence pictures, and identify both problem and solution, I decided to read another Thanksgiving story, Cranberry Thanksgiving, by Wende and Harry Devlin . This story also contains life lessons. The very literal, be kind to others and never take what doesn't belong to you. In addition, we had a brief discussion about the saying, "never judge a book by it's cover." That idea is very difficult for literal minds but several kids were able to make the connection and discuss character traits.

Phonological Awareness: Listening for initial sounds, onset and rhyme review.
Phonics: Identifying, sound, and writing t,b,f,n,m,o,g,u,i,a,c,e,r,p & j.
Comprehension: Story elements and author's message
Writing: Composing a complete sentence, counting words in sentences and ending with punctuation. (A period)
Songs: Counting by 10's, Pow Wow Song, & Thanksgiving Dinner. (Children will be able to take their poetry notebooks home to read over break. Please return the notebook on Monday)
Math: We finished a very difficult unit on comparing the numbers through ten. We are going to spend the next few days reviewing and working together to solve problems. The children still had difficulty understanding the difference between fewer and more.