Morning Work
When the kinders come in, they have 4 jobs that they know they need to do independently.
1.) Put their folder and Take Home book in the yellow cubbie.
2.) Sign up for lunch.
3.) Get their chair.
4.) Complete their Morning Work.
Morning Work is just a quick worksheet that gives us a good jump-start to our day! Here are the different parts and different expectations for each!
Sentence Writing
You will notice that your kinder will be writing a sentence at the top of the Morning Work. Right now we are just focusing on the mechanics of sentence writing by copying a sight word sentence from the board. Areas of focus to be looking for and can help stem some probing questions at home...
*Is your kinder starting each sentence with a capital letter. Is that the only capital letter that is in the sentence (unless we write the word "I" or have a name).
*Is your kinder putting in appropriate finger spaces between words? Are they putting letters right next to each other within words?
*Is there some type of punctuation at the end of the sentence? We are usually putting a period at the early stages of Kindergarten. Towards the end of the year when we are controlling sentence writing more we will work with question marks and exclamation points.
*Can you read the sentence? If not, talk with your kinder about their letter formation. Are they using the handwriting lines to form short vs. tall letters? Are they writing too big, too small? How is their pencil grip? Ask them to re-write the sentence for you at home.
Number Writing
The next part focuses on number writing, specifically showing the quantity or putting the numbers in a ten frame. We need to get writing our numbers 0-20 an automatic skill. Right now most of the kinders can write most of these numbers, but we still need to monitor reversals and that the double digit numbers are written in the correct order (12 is not the same as 21).
One-to-One Matching
The next focus is for students to count a specific quantity and then record the appropriate number. This again practices the number recognition, but requires students to seek out how many too.
Coloring
To finish there is a portion of the Morning Work that requires students to color a small picture. This really works on fine motor control. They really need to be able to control the crayon by moving their wrists in a flexible and comfortable manner. We continue to focus on handwriting during letter and number writing activities, coloring really helps strengthen our pencil grip to make this skill easier for kinders. Coloring also gets them to slow down and pay attention to detail. If you are noticing your kinder's picture is scribbled or not colored to their best effort...TALK TO THEM ABOUT IT. I have had numerous conversations this year about effort and giving our best effort each time we work. By families echoing these conversations at home will go a long way!
I try to check Morning Work daily and use fix-its for teaching points, but sometimes time does not allow for me to check them. If your Morning Work comes back without it checked, take that opportunity to work on it at home. Your reinforcement of these same skills at home is so powerful and can really help your kinder turn the tide!
As always, let me know if you have any questions, comments, or concerns! Thanks for the constant support!--Kim
