Dear families,
I can't believe it's the end of the year (almost!). The past couple weeks, I have been particularly sentimental and I'll catch myself sometimes just staring at the kinders in amazement and wonder. I honestly will miss them SO much. I don't know if you remember but at the beginning of the year, I read a book to students about math. I then gave them a piece of paper that said "Math is everywhere!" and asked them to draw or write ANYTHING they could think of pertaining to math. This was very abstract for kinders, indeed, and most ended up writing as many numbers as they could. Yesterday, I asked them if they remembered doing this activity. They couldn't even remember. :) I reminded them of the activity and told them that most of their papers just had numbers on it. The classroom filled with giggles. "I know it sounds silly!" I said. "But when you first started out, that's what you knew about math and that's okay. But think of how much you have grown! Think of all the things you could draw and write about now. What would you include now?" I was floored by the connections they could make. "We look for patterns!" "We write equations!" "We build!" "We challenge ourselves!" "We make number bonds!" As we came up with more and more examples, I felt so nostalgic thinking of all the memories we had made this year together. "Remember when we picked up 'noodles' with chopsticks and measured them?!" "Remember when we 'ate bugs' and told stories about how many were left?" "Remember celebrating the 100th day?!" The adventures we made together in the kinder room throughout this year will forever stay with me. I'm telling you right now, as the math specialist at Riverdale, I am EXCITED about this group of students and their math journey. I hope they will forever keep their enthusiasm, joy and love for math. Thank you to all of YOU because without your support, the year wouldn't have been the amazing journey it has been. As I told the students, once they are my students, they are always my students. To my kinder families, you will always be my families! Please do not hesitate to reach out should you have any questions. Happy summer to you all! Love, Vi Tamargo
0 Comments
Dear families,
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity this year to teach your child. I genuinely LOVED getting to know each and every one of your child, even if I had but a little more than an hour with them. When I look back on this year, I am most proud of JOY and ENTHUSIASM our kids have when it comes to math and learning in general. This is something I hope they will carry with them as they get older. I encourage you to continue to work with your child on the math skills we have worked on this year. This will ensure that they retain concepts and are ready for first grade. They have made tremendous growth and I am so proud of them - let's keep the momentum going! I am sending home some sheets (home connections) for additional practice. These are great activities to do as a family. I also encourage you to check out my website for lots of math games, activities and tech apps. Math should be fun! My website: sites.google.com/a/riverdale.k12.or.us/mrs-tamargo/home/kinders Math Learning Center (our K-5 curriculum) has tons of incredibly engaging games, some our kids already know: http://www.mathlearningcenter.org/resources/families Have an iPad? Download these games for your child to use during trips: http://catalog.mathlearningcenter.org/apps Thank you for everything, and for letting me teach your (wonderful!) child. I'm looking forward to watching the Kinders grow throughout their Riverdale experience, and I look forward to working with them and you in the future. Please do not hesitate to reach out should you have any questions or comments - I am here to support their math and overall development! Happy summer! Truly, Vi Tamargo The kinders have been busy, busy, busy! As I sit down to write about the events since my last blog, I couldn't decide what to write about. Our students welcomed Special Friends into the math classroom, took their math work outside into the community garden and explored their geometric shapes through construction. We continue our learning with geometric shapes in the classroom, now exploring how to build them and sort them by attributes. I recall their reactions as they imagined what shapes are needed to build a cylinder and triangular pyramid. We tried and failed. We tried again and again. Sometimes, they can get frustrated when they don't seem to get something they very first time, but I love watching the "aha!" moment when they finally see improvement and progress. When we finally were able to construct our figures, I heard cheers, laughter and "That was the best thing EVER!" I hope we will continue to have these wonderful moments of learning at its best.
Here are some guiding questions you might ask your child at home: 1) Can you name an attribute that a cylinder and a sphere have in common? What is alike and what is not alike about them? 2) How do you know a cube is a cube? Why isn't it a sphere? 3) Take a look at the Kleenex box (or whatever object you choose). Without touching it, what do you think the base looks like? How many faces do you think it has? What shapes make the box? (a fantastic way to develop their visual-spatial reasoning) I could write more - I could write all day about the fun stuff they are doing! But, I took tons of pictures of late because they are just so precious. So, I decided that this blog would be a "photo gallery." As the saying goes, a picture captures a thousand words! Enjoy the rest! "Two more days until the 100th day!" The excitement was buzzing in the Kindergarten classroom as students eagerly awaited the 100th day of school. Building up to it, students were anxiously awaiting seeing Zero the Hero again, and seeing all the wonderful activities we planned for them. We promised them not a day but an entire week's worth of celebration - and celebrate we did!
I loved watching their reaction walking into the classroom, full of streamers hanging over the door, a "congratulations!" sign greeting them as they entered the classroom. A few of the students even made T-shirts with different representations of tens to celebrate the occasion. During number corner, we had a ceremony to celebrate the bundles of tens being regrouped as one bundle of 100. The students clapped and celebrated with Zero the Hero. I overheard Ceanna at her table as she counted 100 objects saying, "I love you 100." Meanwhile, Zollie hangs up the 100th segment of our class DoodleBug, saying, "Happy 100th day, DoodleBug." What can I say about the joy this class brings into math? It's nothing short of beautiful. They certainly employ the habit of "Responding with Wonderment and Awe." Every day, they demonstrate an openness to the little and big surprises life brings, the beauty of mathematical patterns and relationships. I hope they will keep this positivity and energy as they continue their journey into 1st grade and beyond. We've had so much fun the past few weeks with our measuring unit! We explored the entire classroom looking for items to measure. First, we used yarn as a tool to estimate the length of each object - will the length of the table be longer or shorter than this piece of yarn? We then measured with Unifix cubes and then with popsicle sticks. I loved listening to the students reasoning about why an object had different measurements when measured with different units, like the Unifix cubes and the popsicle sticks. It was a fantastic connection with one of our Habits of Mind focus, Thinking and Communicating with Clarity and Precision. It's important to me that students make conjectures based on mathematical thinking and building on knowledge that they know and have experienced. For example, when they make an estimate about how many Unifix cubes long something is, what makes them think that? What tells them it's a reasonable estimate? This is a hard habit for students to grasp at such a young age but developing evidence-based reasoning is powerful - let's develop it early! I encourage you to explore measuring - especially estimating first - with your child at home. Here are some questions you might ask:
As students celebrated the Lunar New Year, I thought it would be a great opportunity to incorporate more of our work with measuring. Students practiced using chopsticks (it was adorable to watch) to pick up a "noodle" (aka a piece of yarn) from a noodle bowl, measured and compared the noodle they picked with the one their partner picked up. It was a fun and silly way to reinforce what we've learned. Directly compare two objects with a measurable attribute in common, to see which object has "more of"/"less of" the attribute, and describe the difference. For example, directly compare the heights of two children and describe one child as taller/shorter. Picture Gallery: Kinders in PJs, Measuring "Noodles" and Classroom ObjectsIn math, students are making use of their habit, Applying Past Knowledge to New Situations, to build a life-sized number line to model the number sequence. In class, we created the number line, making sure to discuss the equal spacing between numbers, how numbers are ordered from least to greatest and making use of how knowing where one number is located can help us figure out the location of other numbers. Students played a scrambled game with numbers where the numbers are mixed up and they have to put them back in order from least to greatest. I love watching them make connections to what they've learned in previous units. This unit provides so many opportunities for us to deepen our understanding of numbers. Consider some examples of the mathematical connections one can make using the number line:
Having fun outside!
Well, somehow, WE DID IT! It's been a wonderful 2015 year and it's incredible that we've reached the end of it! We celebrated on Friday reaching the 65th day of school, a concept that is SHOCKING to our kinders. They are so proud of themselves! Perhaps it is because of the end of the year, but I found myself so many times this week looking at the Kindergarteners with such pride and joy. I don't know where the 65 days of school went, but all of a sudden, our children are counting, adding and subtracting. Even more impressive than that is their development in terms of their habits of mind, and their desire to be challenged and to continuously learn. Here are some of the things I heard in class this week:
In class, we've been exploring the concept of doubles and counting by 2s. We used the idea of the wheels on a bicycle to count by twos. We also played a bucket game where we hide cubes under and pose problems for one another. For example, a student might ask another student, "I have 5 bugs under the bucket. If I add two more, how many bugs are there under the bucket?" They love coming up with silly questions and also "playing the teacher." We emphasized the habit, "Questioning and Posing Problems" during our last two weeks of school, encouraging curiosity and a love for learning. Here are some ideas for questions you might ask your child at home:
Until next year, families, adieu! Have a wonderful, restful, joyful winter break. Thank you for your love, support and wonderful children! Beautiful fall and festive October gave us many opportunities to incorporate the season into our mathematics classroom. Students took a trip to the pumpkin patch and the talk of the classroom was pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins! We talked about all the wonderful math we could do with pumpkins. I loved hearing the great ideas our kindergarteners came up with!
I strive to help students find the many uses of mathematics all around them. I can see them being curious, excited and engaged about numbers. I want them to be able to think flexibly - coming up with their own questions and plan to solve, rather than simply answering questions I pose for them. When the questions are authentic and student-driven, learning is maximized. On a daily basis, they tell me where they see shapes, what objects look like the mathematical tools they use and they are constantly counting and comparing! To celebrate October, we made estimates and measured the height and weight of our classroom pumpkin, counted its lines, and even cut it open to see how many seeds it had. This gave us many opportunities to make reasonable estimates based on evidence and our knowledge of numbers, and attend to precision as we counted each and every seed. The students were diligent in their work, and when they miscounted, they worked as a team to recount them, striving for accuracy. These are mathematical practices at work! We found 227 seeds in our medium-sized pumpkin! After our pumpkin investigation, we used our counting, number recognition and our developing understanding of probability to create silly pumpkin monsters. Students got a kick out of being able to spin a spinner to add different body parts to their pumpkin. They used their picture to help them figure out "how many more" spins they had left before their pumpkin was finished. Take a look at their beautiful work below - what creativity and talent! As we enter November, we are starting to solidify our work with combinations of 10 and 20. Students are now thinking about thinking, and learning to use mathematical reasoning to explain using words, symbols and pictures. For example, as we count the days in school, I might ask students "How many more days until we fill up another ten frame?" Students are now given whiteboards and markers to draw a picture to show how they figured out their answer. Metacognition is extremely tough for young students so I encourage you to continuously ask your child to be more specific and descriptive about their ideas. Ask them why and insist that they explain. Here are some other indicators of metacognition. Students can:
Example questions to ask your children (about the work we are doing in class):
![]() Having conferences this week and getting to share all the wonderful things our children are doing in Kindergarten reinvigorates me and also makes me wonder, where did September go? It seems like it was yesterday that they walked in (some crying), just starting to write their names "on the boot" and learning about this thing called Kindergarten. To talk about them counting their numbers, making combinations of 5 and 10, referring to mathematical tools by their precise name and writing their letters and numbers is incredible! I love watching them grow! This week, we've been working on listening with empathy. We're building our sense of awareness about ourselves and those around us. We talked about how listening with empathy requires us to listen with our eyes and ears. We show each other that we are listening through our mannerisms, our eyes and even "thinking ahead" about their needs. For example, students "listen" to their surroundings by making sure that when we sit in a circle, we make sure that everyone feels included in the physical space. When someone is talking, we turn our bodies and track the speaker. We read about Pezzettino, a small, orange piece that looked all over for where he belonged. He searches all around only to find that he belongs to himself. The book is simple but rich, a message to students about their own uniqueness, the infinite things that make them who they are and how they are a special piece of a larger puzzle. Not only did this book reinforce concepts we are learning in school: a sense of community, a sense of belonging, everyone offering their own individual talents and gifts, but it provided us with an opportunity to talk about parts, wholes, and a natural need to apply counting and cardinality. Students created their own unique "Pezzettino," thinking about what makes them special and unique. Here are some comments they shared:
Students counted each colored square they used and counted how many they used in all - a big task for kinders! Here are some questions you might your child:
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
June 2016
Categories |