Today, Gracyn and I began with our "Places" song. Then, she drew a picture of her neighborhood and we talked about the Spanish words for all the things she drew (casa, bibliotheca, parquet, etc). Last, she completed a listening activity in which she listened to a word and circled the picture that matched best with the word.
Here we are! The last day of school. I have enjoyed each and every moment with Ms. Gracyn. She has come so far. I am proud of how well she did in her first year of elementary school. I will always treasure the memories we made. Happy summer! We celebrated our last time together!
Today Gracyn took her final kindergarten spelling test. I asked her to spell words that we had learned over the school year. She did wonderfully! Her bonus word was 'holiday' which she thought was awesome! How many kids have last names similar to their spelling bonus word!? Today is the last day of school! I promised her a fun day! She made her Father's Day card. She took her time and wrote out beautiful sentences about her dad. Then her mom helped her hide the card! She is so excited for summer!
Today we read a nonfiction selection entitled "Memorial Day" by Helen Frost. This book gave a very simple report on our country's celebration of this upcoming holiday which honors the men and women who have fought for our country. As a reward for working so hard, Gracyn was offered the option to pick another Animated Hero Classics video to learn further about individuals that impacted our history. Other choices were presented; however, she chose to watch "Helen Keller" again as she truly loves her story.
In math today, we continued work on Topic 16 by completing Lesson 16-6, “Making 10 to add 8” in her Envision coursework. In this lesson, we took addition problems in which 8 was one of the addends. We then moved two counters from the other addend to make it a ten and then added. For example: 8 + 3 becomes 10 + 1, then solve. We worked through all of the practice and word problems practicing this skill. We expanded on this concept by watching a Brain Pop Jr learning video on "Making a 10". Annie and Moby walked us through different number combinations used to find a sum of 10. We looked at the pattern the addends make when charting the addition sentences starting at 0+10, then 1+9, etc. In this format, we see the first addend ascend by 1 and the second addend descend by 1. We saw how the numbers can flip flop, so we only have to learn the number pairs that make 10 (for example 2 + 8 and 8 + 2). We then moved on to Lesson 16-7, "Adding Three Numbers". In this lesson we looked at various ways to pair two of the numbers (doubles facts, make a ten, etc.) and then add on the third. We worked through the Guided, Independent, and Problem Solving sections. Next, we reviewed the concepts taught in Topic 16 by looking over the Reteaching worksheet. We reviewed problems involving doubles, doubles + 1, making a 10 to help with adding, and adding three numbers in any order. To wrap up Topic 16, Gracyn completed the test. She scored a 100% on the right question exam. She will continue to need more practice using the doubles and making a ten strategies, however she demonstrates successful solution through counting on her fingers. (We did not complete Lesson 16-8 “Make a Table”, which practices making and reading tables; therefore, we omitted that test question.) Additionally, we read "If You Were a Set" by Marcie Aboff. This colorful book walked us through various examples of how objects occur in sets and subsets. We saw how children sorted objects in the room, drawing tools, and more. One example includes how a child had a large set of books on a bookcase, but then the books were sorted into three subsets (picture books, chapter books, and comics). We finished off math with some puzzles in Gracyn's "Sudoku for Kids" book. We completed puzzles seven and eight, both of which are 4 by 4 puzzles.
