Friday, March 16
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Another eventful week here at Room 150. We loved our Stuffie Day on Wednesday! Below are a few pictures of kids reading to their stuffies. Our stuffed pals also played nicely at Choice. Due to our delayed opening that day we weren't able to do any math activities with our visitors but I think everyone had a great time anyway!
At our March assembly this week we were treated to a sample of Irish Dancing by our own Miss Mulqueen. Miss Mulqueen was a competitive Irish Dancer for many years. I am going to try to post a video. I hope it works!
At Reading Workshop this week everyone got their very own special reading spot. Now kids are spread out all over the room. This is helpful because everyone has so many books to read in their book bags! Keep looking for your child to bring a book home to read to you for our March Read to the Class share. Each student will be choosing a book to read to the class and then bring home to read to you! Please keep the book for one or two days and return to school Thank you!
At Centers this week we have enjoyed some St. Patrick's Day fun. Everyone practiced color words by writing them on a rainbow. Then we used watercolors to paint the rainbow. I hope you have enjoyed Are You Green? We are learning that books have patterns and patterns can help us read.
At Math this week we learned how to skip count on calculators. A few kids asked if they could make phone calls on the calculators :) My, how times have changed! Everyone also worked to make a bead loop. Using the bead loop we wrote number sentences. You will get a chance to practice this next week for homework!
Students have also been experimenting with Pushes and Pulls this week. Everyone got to experiment with different kinds of pushes and pulls using a crumpled up piece of paper. I think the favorite tool was a straw. It is amazing how effective our breath is when we use a straw to push a paper ball.
Today we conducted an investigation. Scientists work in teams and so do we. Each partner pair worked together to count and record how many puffs through a straw it took to move objects to the finish line. Then as all good scientists do, we had to record our data and show our work with a drawing.
Have a good weekend!
Looking Ahead
Thursday, April 12---STUDENT day at school---NOT a Teacher Workshop day.
Friday, April 13---CONFERENCE DAY-more info next week
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Another eventful week here at Room 150. We loved our Stuffie Day on Wednesday! Below are a few pictures of kids reading to their stuffies. Our stuffed pals also played nicely at Choice. Due to our delayed opening that day we weren't able to do any math activities with our visitors but I think everyone had a great time anyway!
At our March assembly this week we were treated to a sample of Irish Dancing by our own Miss Mulqueen. Miss Mulqueen was a competitive Irish Dancer for many years. I am going to try to post a video. I hope it works!
At Reading Workshop this week everyone got their very own special reading spot. Now kids are spread out all over the room. This is helpful because everyone has so many books to read in their book bags! Keep looking for your child to bring a book home to read to you for our March Read to the Class share. Each student will be choosing a book to read to the class and then bring home to read to you! Please keep the book for one or two days and return to school Thank you!
At Centers this week we have enjoyed some St. Patrick's Day fun. Everyone practiced color words by writing them on a rainbow. Then we used watercolors to paint the rainbow. I hope you have enjoyed Are You Green? We are learning that books have patterns and patterns can help us read.
At Math this week we learned how to skip count on calculators. A few kids asked if they could make phone calls on the calculators :) My, how times have changed! Everyone also worked to make a bead loop. Using the bead loop we wrote number sentences. You will get a chance to practice this next week for homework!
Students have also been experimenting with Pushes and Pulls this week. Everyone got to experiment with different kinds of pushes and pulls using a crumpled up piece of paper. I think the favorite tool was a straw. It is amazing how effective our breath is when we use a straw to push a paper ball.
Today we conducted an investigation. Scientists work in teams and so do we. Each partner pair worked together to count and record how many puffs through a straw it took to move objects to the finish line. Then as all good scientists do, we had to record our data and show our work with a drawing.
Have a good weekend!
Looking Ahead
Thursday, April 12---STUDENT day at school---NOT a Teacher Workshop day.
Friday, April 13---CONFERENCE DAY-more info next week
Friday, March 9
March sure is starting off with 'lion' weather this year. Everyone is getting good at sliding back into the routine after a snow day!
We have continued to enjoy Dr. Seuss books this week. The Dr. Seuss Write the Room has been very popular. This week we read parts of Oh, The Places You'll Go! Everyone made a paper hot air balloon with their photo-self riding in it. Each student wrote about what they hoped to do/be when they grew up.
At Literacy Centers this week we have also focused on segmenting and blending words. To segment a word a student says each sound separately, for instance h-o-p. To make this fun one student hopped on letter tiles while saying each sound. The rest of the group blended the sounds together to say the word- hop! We will be working hard on breaking apart and blending together words for the next month. We have also taken a cue from Dr. Seuss to look at word patterns. So far we have worked on the -at family (cat, hat, sat, bat, etc) and the -ing family (sing, king, wing, thing). When students get good at seeing these chunks in words, the words are much easier to decode.
Writers have been teaching how to do so many things. This week we added labels to the pictures to help teach. If you ever want to see an example of labels in a book, check out anything by Gail Gibbons.
Math this week has been all about addition and subtraction. Students added and subtracted using a number line. We also learned to play Domino Addition...adding the two halves of a domino to get the sum. Then students sorted the dominos into same sum lines... all the dominos that added to 0, 1, 2 etc grouped together.
Finally, and most exciting, we have earned another reward with our Dojo Points!!
The class voted to have a Stuffie Day!
This will happen on Tuesday, March 13. Our stuffed animal friends need to be smaller than 12 inches. We will read to our stuffies, write about our stuffies and sort them by attributes!
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Tuesday, March 13---Stuffie Day---bring a stuffed animal to school
Friday, March 16---St. Patrick's Day---wear green
March sure is starting off with 'lion' weather this year. Everyone is getting good at sliding back into the routine after a snow day!
We have continued to enjoy Dr. Seuss books this week. The Dr. Seuss Write the Room has been very popular. This week we read parts of Oh, The Places You'll Go! Everyone made a paper hot air balloon with their photo-self riding in it. Each student wrote about what they hoped to do/be when they grew up.
At Literacy Centers this week we have also focused on segmenting and blending words. To segment a word a student says each sound separately, for instance h-o-p. To make this fun one student hopped on letter tiles while saying each sound. The rest of the group blended the sounds together to say the word- hop! We will be working hard on breaking apart and blending together words for the next month. We have also taken a cue from Dr. Seuss to look at word patterns. So far we have worked on the -at family (cat, hat, sat, bat, etc) and the -ing family (sing, king, wing, thing). When students get good at seeing these chunks in words, the words are much easier to decode.
Writers have been teaching how to do so many things. This week we added labels to the pictures to help teach. If you ever want to see an example of labels in a book, check out anything by Gail Gibbons.
Math this week has been all about addition and subtraction. Students added and subtracted using a number line. We also learned to play Domino Addition...adding the two halves of a domino to get the sum. Then students sorted the dominos into same sum lines... all the dominos that added to 0, 1, 2 etc grouped together.
Finally, and most exciting, we have earned another reward with our Dojo Points!!
The class voted to have a Stuffie Day!
This will happen on Tuesday, March 13. Our stuffed animal friends need to be smaller than 12 inches. We will read to our stuffies, write about our stuffies and sort them by attributes!
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Tuesday, March 13---Stuffie Day---bring a stuffed animal to school
Friday, March 16---St. Patrick's Day---wear green
Friday, March 2
Did you see us featured in the York Weekly last week sporting our 100th Day hats??
Our Read Across America week was filled with fun! We loved having Firefighter Jon Gay come read to us on Wednesday. I tried to tweet out a picture but I'm not sure it worked! Just in case I have included it here as well. Thanks for playing along and getting your kids ready for each special day!
We celebrated Dr. Seuss by reading lots of Dr. Seuss books. A favorite has been Wacky Wednesday. It was the inspiration for our Twisted Tuesday!
One of the choices at Literacy Centers is 'browsing'. Kids use scoop rockers to sit in, choose a book to look at alone or with a friend, and just enjoy books. It was fun to watch pairs of kids giggling over Wacky Wednesday, and other funny Dr. Seuss books.
At Literacy Centers this week we also had a Dr. Seuss Write The Room. This has been very popular. Everyone completed a Cat in The Hat as we practiced following directions. And we are preparing to publish another class book, The Foot Book. In this story we tell what our feet can do.
At Writing we continue to work on How-To books. Some of the How To topics this week included how to buddy read, how to make a bowl of cereal and how to drive a car! Soon we will have our How To books on display in the hall. Come see what we can teach you to do!
This class continues to amaze me with their love and enthusiasm for Math. This week we learned to play Hiding Bears. Each partnership starts with 10 bear counters. One partner hides some of the bears in a cup while the other closes his/her eyes. Next the partner who shut his/her eyes gets to look and count how many bears he can see. Then, here's the tricky part, he has to figure out how many bears are hiding under the cup. After a few rounds, the partners get really good at this game. Today kids worked on white boards to practice writing number sentences. Using those + and - signs can be so tricky. Once again, though, after a few rounds, everyone was flying through.
Next week we will begin our next Science unit, Pushes and Pulls.
Our March Share will be a fun one for you. Students will choose a book that they know and read it to the class. We will focus on reading smoothly with expression. The audience will ask questions about the story. Then it will come home to you so your child can share it with you. This month we will do it in random order, rather than in abc order. So be on the lookout for a bag with school book in the Home/School folders. Please be sure to return the book as they are precious to us here in Kindergarten.
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Phew! No special events to worry about this week!
Did you see us featured in the York Weekly last week sporting our 100th Day hats??
Our Read Across America week was filled with fun! We loved having Firefighter Jon Gay come read to us on Wednesday. I tried to tweet out a picture but I'm not sure it worked! Just in case I have included it here as well. Thanks for playing along and getting your kids ready for each special day!
We celebrated Dr. Seuss by reading lots of Dr. Seuss books. A favorite has been Wacky Wednesday. It was the inspiration for our Twisted Tuesday!
One of the choices at Literacy Centers is 'browsing'. Kids use scoop rockers to sit in, choose a book to look at alone or with a friend, and just enjoy books. It was fun to watch pairs of kids giggling over Wacky Wednesday, and other funny Dr. Seuss books.
At Literacy Centers this week we also had a Dr. Seuss Write The Room. This has been very popular. Everyone completed a Cat in The Hat as we practiced following directions. And we are preparing to publish another class book, The Foot Book. In this story we tell what our feet can do.
At Writing we continue to work on How-To books. Some of the How To topics this week included how to buddy read, how to make a bowl of cereal and how to drive a car! Soon we will have our How To books on display in the hall. Come see what we can teach you to do!
This class continues to amaze me with their love and enthusiasm for Math. This week we learned to play Hiding Bears. Each partnership starts with 10 bear counters. One partner hides some of the bears in a cup while the other closes his/her eyes. Next the partner who shut his/her eyes gets to look and count how many bears he can see. Then, here's the tricky part, he has to figure out how many bears are hiding under the cup. After a few rounds, the partners get really good at this game. Today kids worked on white boards to practice writing number sentences. Using those + and - signs can be so tricky. Once again, though, after a few rounds, everyone was flying through.
Next week we will begin our next Science unit, Pushes and Pulls.
Our March Share will be a fun one for you. Students will choose a book that they know and read it to the class. We will focus on reading smoothly with expression. The audience will ask questions about the story. Then it will come home to you so your child can share it with you. This month we will do it in random order, rather than in abc order. So be on the lookout for a bag with school book in the Home/School folders. Please be sure to return the book as they are precious to us here in Kindergarten.
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Phew! No special events to worry about this week!
Friday, February 16
Happy 100th Day!
Happy February Vacation!
The love was flowing this week in Kindergarten. We started off the week making Valentine cards for families. Everyone also read and colored 'My, Oh, My!' This book is coming home today in Home/School folders for your reading pleasure over the vacation. I hope you enjoy how well your child reads to you! Have them point out the word 'my' as many times as they can find it!
Wednesday we enjoyed a peaceful Valentine party. Activities included delivering valentines,making hearts and playing a valentine dice game.
I think all the kids would agree opening valentines and reading them was the best part of the day. It was so heartwarming to see kids exclaiming over each other's cards. There was lots of hugging, too!
The next couple of days were devoted to Day 100! I hope you admire the beautiful necklace your child made with 100 beads. I bet if you asked nicely your child would even count it by 10's for you! Today we continued the celebration with our 100th Day Assembly. Our class collected 57 bottles of pancake syrup! Thank you! We arranged our syrups into a spiral. I have included a few photos of some of the creative displays other classes made as well.
Other 100th day activities included the 100th Day Olympics. Thank goodness finger snapping is an Olympic event or this teacher wouldn't have made it! At Literacy Centers students worked on using the numerals for 100 into something interesting. This will become a class book soon that will travel home. A Choice at Literacy Centers was finding and writing 10 words around the classroom that students can read. We will see if we can collectively read more than 100 words. I bet we can!
Have a wonderful February vacation!
Looking Ahead
Monday, February 26---No School---Teacher Workshop Day
Tuesday, February 27-Friday, March 2---Read Across America Week!
Tuesday---Twisted Tuesday---Wear wacky clothes and crazy hair
Wednesday---Read to ME challenge---We will be tweeting pictures of Guest Readers at school
Thursday---Read What You Wear---Wear clothes with words, messages
Friday---Head to Toe Day---Wear your silliest socks and hat to school
Happy 100th Day!
Happy February Vacation!
The love was flowing this week in Kindergarten. We started off the week making Valentine cards for families. Everyone also read and colored 'My, Oh, My!' This book is coming home today in Home/School folders for your reading pleasure over the vacation. I hope you enjoy how well your child reads to you! Have them point out the word 'my' as many times as they can find it!
Wednesday we enjoyed a peaceful Valentine party. Activities included delivering valentines,making hearts and playing a valentine dice game.
I think all the kids would agree opening valentines and reading them was the best part of the day. It was so heartwarming to see kids exclaiming over each other's cards. There was lots of hugging, too!
The next couple of days were devoted to Day 100! I hope you admire the beautiful necklace your child made with 100 beads. I bet if you asked nicely your child would even count it by 10's for you! Today we continued the celebration with our 100th Day Assembly. Our class collected 57 bottles of pancake syrup! Thank you! We arranged our syrups into a spiral. I have included a few photos of some of the creative displays other classes made as well.
Other 100th day activities included the 100th Day Olympics. Thank goodness finger snapping is an Olympic event or this teacher wouldn't have made it! At Literacy Centers students worked on using the numerals for 100 into something interesting. This will become a class book soon that will travel home. A Choice at Literacy Centers was finding and writing 10 words around the classroom that students can read. We will see if we can collectively read more than 100 words. I bet we can!
Have a wonderful February vacation!
Looking Ahead
Monday, February 26---No School---Teacher Workshop Day
Tuesday, February 27-Friday, March 2---Read Across America Week!
Tuesday---Twisted Tuesday---Wear wacky clothes and crazy hair
Wednesday---Read to ME challenge---We will be tweeting pictures of Guest Readers at school
Thursday---Read What You Wear---Wear clothes with words, messages
Friday---Head to Toe Day---Wear your silliest socks and hat to school
Friday, February 9
Never a dull moment in Maine in the winter! Not only did we have one Snow Day and a delayed opening this week...but we also have had burst pipes in the building! So now we have had a nice visit at CRES. Thank you to all the families who were able to be flexible! Managing the entire kindergarten in another building would have been difficult at best but with smaller numbers it has been fine.
Here we are hanging out in the CRES gym having snack as we figure out the plan!
In other news of the week, we have just wrapped up our Narrative Writing unit. Everyone has been working hard to check all the boxes on our narrative writing checklist in each story! On Monday our Reading Buddies came to listen to our stories and do a final check with our checklists. Buddies were so attentive and helpful. Enjoy the photos below of Buddies hard at work.
Each week during Literacy Centers, I meet with every student two or three times a week for 'reading' group. Each time a group comes to meet with me the lesson is tailored to what that group of students need. Sometimes we work on letter id, rhyming or clapping syllables. Sometimes we practice word wall words and strategies. Every student has a book bag filled with books we have read together. We always reread familiar books. Rereading familiar books builds fluency so students can read smoothly with expression. Students also get new books to add to their book bags. At this point, most kids have 5-8 books they can read in their book bags. We also keep a Poetry Journal. Students have copies of favorite songs and rhymes we have learned over the year to revisit. We have just added our new Valentine song 'I'm Gonna Mail Myself to You!'
We have been loving the 100th Day shares! The 100th Day of school will be Friday, February 16 (barring any more snow days). We have 44 bottles of pancake syrup for the York Food Pantry. Let's give one last push and get as close as we can to 100!
Thanks for your generosity!
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Wednesday, February 14---Valentine's Day at school
Thursday, February 15---100th Day of School celebration
Friday, February 16---February Vacation begins
Friday. February 2
Happy Groundhog Day! Sadly Punxsatawney Phill saw his shadow so its six more weeks of winter for us this year! Keep sending those boots and snow pants!
A big focus this week and going forward is getting our Word Wall words into our brains so we know how to read and spell them in a 'snap'. Some ways we practice here at Kindergarten are Word Wall Word Candyland, stamping the words in playdough, and playing 'spin it, say it, write it' with magnadoodles. We also search for our Word Wall words in books we read. They are everywhere!
This week we also learned a Groundhog song and made a groundhog puppet. I heard that a lot of kids checked on the groundhog's prediction before school today. We have also begun a new unit for Writing Workshop. Everyone is learning to write 'how-to' stories. We started together by writing How to Make a Groundhog Puppet! Today we worked on How to Get Ready to Play in the Snow. The kindergartners are experts on this topic!
Math is always fun in kindergarten. This week we started by making a bar graph about our pets. Another fun day we played Fishing for Kids! Using my magic fishing pole (a yardst with a piece of yarn tied on the end) I 'caught' kids by an attribute. The first couple of times were easy to figure out (boys, wearing stripes) but then it got a little harder (blue eyes, tie shoes) Most students had a turn to be the 'fisher' and catch some students. Finally today we began talking about flat and solid shapes. Students dipped 3-D (solid) shapes in paint to discover what flat shapes they could make.
We are celebrating Valentine's Day on Wednesday, February 14. Please have your child bring a valentine for each student in our class. Students are encouraged to write their classmates names on the cards, as well as their own. I recommend doing a few each day....
I have not had the official word yet but I believe there will be no special snack this time. We will do lots of fun activities, however!
Valentine's Day is followed by the 100th Day of School. This is also a big event for us. We will be doing math all day long in celebration of 100!
Thanks for helping your child create a 100 project! The kids love this share!
Our collection of pancake syrup has reached 37! Please keep sending it in if you can!
Report cards are coming home today in Home/School folders. Please look for them!
Have a great weekend!
Go Pats!
Looking Ahead
Friday, February 2---Report Cards come home
Wednesday, February 14---Valentines Day at school---more info to come on Monday
Thursday, February 15---100th Day of School celebration
Friday, February 16---February Vacation begins
Friday, January 26
Hola and Adios! It is time to say goodbye to Mexico! We have certainly enjoyed learning about our next door neighbor to the south. This week we learned about the rainforest. We loved making sloths and toucans for our rainforest display. Everyone helped decorate for our fiesta by making papel cortado (paper banners) and little burro pinatas. Of course we all helped make a giant pinata with paper and liquid starch. For 'recess' today we hit the pinata! It didn't take long to smack it open but everyone got a turn. The kids were very excited about their pinata prize, too!
In the afternoon we held our Fiesta. Students traveled to three classrooms. Each classroom had an activity. Unfortunately I was not able to leave my classroom so I did not get any pictures but I heard it was fun! Ms. Ellis' taught kids to make a maraca. Mrs. Whelan-Roy led the Mexican Hat Dance and other singing and dancing activities. In our room we had games. The games included a color game with color words in Spanish, a Bingo game with number and color words in Spanish and an Animal Bean Bag Toss Game. Students named an animal in Spanish and tossed three bean bags into the corresponding hole. Everyone improved with practice! Ole!
In other news of the week, our class has set a goal of 3,500 Dojo points for our next reward. We have a list of options including an extra Choice Time and a Stuffie Day. We will be voting to make our choice next week.
Writers have been working hard to complete a final story for our Narrative Writing unit. Our last book has focused on continuing to make our writing easy to read with spaces, lots of sounds in each word and 'snap' or word wall words spelled correctly. We have also focused on including a beginning, middle and end to our story. We move on to writing How-To stories next!
We love our Number Scrolls! Number scrolls are just a really long scroll full of numbers. Some students are getting into the 400's! This is an activity you may hear about for the rest of the year as we will keep working on them on and off. This helps students to recognize patterns in the number grid, to develop automaticity in counting and develops strong hand muscles. Another fun math lesson this week was measuring Body Height with a paper strip. Partners worked together to measure each other with a long paper strip. Then they used the paper strip to find things in the classroom taller or shorter than their paper strip. Another day we will line up all the strips in order from shortest to tallest.
Finally, thanks for the contributions to our pancake syrup collection. We are up to 30 bottles of syrup! It is fun to keep track on our collection thermometer.
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Friday, February 2---Report Cards come home
Wednesday, February 14---Valentines Day at school---more info to come on Monday
Friday, February 16---February Vacation begins
Hola and Adios! It is time to say goodbye to Mexico! We have certainly enjoyed learning about our next door neighbor to the south. This week we learned about the rainforest. We loved making sloths and toucans for our rainforest display. Everyone helped decorate for our fiesta by making papel cortado (paper banners) and little burro pinatas. Of course we all helped make a giant pinata with paper and liquid starch. For 'recess' today we hit the pinata! It didn't take long to smack it open but everyone got a turn. The kids were very excited about their pinata prize, too!
In the afternoon we held our Fiesta. Students traveled to three classrooms. Each classroom had an activity. Unfortunately I was not able to leave my classroom so I did not get any pictures but I heard it was fun! Ms. Ellis' taught kids to make a maraca. Mrs. Whelan-Roy led the Mexican Hat Dance and other singing and dancing activities. In our room we had games. The games included a color game with color words in Spanish, a Bingo game with number and color words in Spanish and an Animal Bean Bag Toss Game. Students named an animal in Spanish and tossed three bean bags into the corresponding hole. Everyone improved with practice! Ole!
In other news of the week, our class has set a goal of 3,500 Dojo points for our next reward. We have a list of options including an extra Choice Time and a Stuffie Day. We will be voting to make our choice next week.
Writers have been working hard to complete a final story for our Narrative Writing unit. Our last book has focused on continuing to make our writing easy to read with spaces, lots of sounds in each word and 'snap' or word wall words spelled correctly. We have also focused on including a beginning, middle and end to our story. We move on to writing How-To stories next!
We love our Number Scrolls! Number scrolls are just a really long scroll full of numbers. Some students are getting into the 400's! This is an activity you may hear about for the rest of the year as we will keep working on them on and off. This helps students to recognize patterns in the number grid, to develop automaticity in counting and develops strong hand muscles. Another fun math lesson this week was measuring Body Height with a paper strip. Partners worked together to measure each other with a long paper strip. Then they used the paper strip to find things in the classroom taller or shorter than their paper strip. Another day we will line up all the strips in order from shortest to tallest.
Finally, thanks for the contributions to our pancake syrup collection. We are up to 30 bottles of syrup! It is fun to keep track on our collection thermometer.
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Friday, February 2---Report Cards come home
Wednesday, February 14---Valentines Day at school---more info to come on Monday
Friday, February 16---February Vacation begins
Friday, January 19 Hola! We continue to explore Mexico in Room 150. We are learning a new song about Animals in Spanish! Maybe you will hear it at home. We have added frilled lizards to our Desert bulletin board. The students loved the lizards so much many made an extra to take home. See our Desert below. Next week week we move on to study the rainforests of Mexico! At Literacy Centers this week students learned to play a word segmenting game. This important skill helps kids to 'break' a word into the first sound and the last part (ie d-og) and then blend it back together. This helps readers to solve the longer words that are coming in harder books. We also had a visit with one of our favorite authors, Mo Willems, thanks to Let's Find Out magazine. Just like us he thinks of an idea, plans out the pages, draws the pictures and adds the words. We are real authors just like Mo Willems! Our writers are working on words in a 'snap'! Those are the words you just know how to spell without stretching them out. Kindergarten writers need to learn at least 10 'snap' words this year. But I bet everyone will know more by the end of the year! Math is more fun with a partner! This week everyone learned a new game, The Growing Train Game, to practice using the + sign. See below for some great pictures of partners hard at work. We also learned about the = symbol. I read a fun story called Equal Shmequal about a group of animals trying to solve a problem. Ask your child what happened! We have begun our 100th day Food Drive! Hopefully you saw the VES flyer about our 100th Day food drive. I also sent home our class assignment, pancake syrup. So far we have 14 bottles of pancake syrup. We have about a month to keep collecting so ask neighbors, friends and family if they would like to contribute. All items collected go directly to the York Food Pantry. I will be sending out a Sign Up Genius for helpers for Fiesta on Friday, January 26. I only really need two helpers to run games in our classroom. Our classes will rotate to two other classrooms for this event. Our class will host games. Ms. Ellis will make a craft and Mrs. Whelan-Roy will do music and dance. Ole! Have a great weekend! Looking Ahead Friday, January 26---Mexican Fiesta Friday, February 2---Report Cards go home Friday, February 16---February Vacation begins |
Friday, January 12
Hi Families!
It almost feels strange to have a full week of school! We continue to review and practice all our routines at school. This week I timed the class to see if they could get ready with all snow gear in two minutes or less. No problem!!
Having a movement break outside is so good for kids this age. We try to go out every day in the morning and at lunch recess. Please send spare mittens and socks in backpacks as the kids have been getting so wet! Thanks for your help!
This week we started off in the best possible way... with our Book Buddies! It warms my heart to see how earnest each Buddy pair is about reading to each other. We will continue to read with our Buddies every other Monday morning.
At Literacy Centers this week students continue to develop a sight word vocabulary by playing games. Students learned to play "Covered" with sight words. This will become an independent center soon. For this game each student has a set of 12 sight words on cards, face up. Each player rolls a dice. This tell how many sight words the student needs to read. If read correctly the card is flipped over. The first player to flip over all the cards says, "Covered!" and the game starts over.
Our study of Mexico continues as we learn color words in Spanish. Everyone has learned the song 'Red is Rojo'. Each student has also illustrated a song book with the words. Look forward to seeing it next week. We are beginning to plan for our Mexican Fiesta by making decorations. We made fiesta lanterns this week. Check out the pictures! The students heard the story, Fiesta by Ginger Fogelsong Guy. More craft making next week to make ready for our Fiesta!
Everyone in our Super Writers Club has new work on the Writers Wall. This week we began to add how characters in our writing feel. Mrs. Benoit did a Social Thinking lesson this week on this very subject. It can be hard at times to name a feeling!
At Math this week we began exploring teen numbers. Mrs. Bradburn, our elementary Math coach, came to teach kids how to use rekenreks. This tool is very similar to an abacus. It uses beads to physically show the ten in every teen. Pretty cool. We will be using this new tool again.
This week I also worked with each student individually to administer the Benchmark Assessment System (BAS) for reading. At this time of year we do the BAS to get a baseline for each student. Then in May we re-administer the BAS to see growth. I will be sharing those results with you at our April conference.
Enjoy your long weekend!
Looking Ahead
Monday, January 15---MLK Jr Day---No School
Friday, January 26---Mexican Fiesta---more on this later!
Hi Families!
It almost feels strange to have a full week of school! We continue to review and practice all our routines at school. This week I timed the class to see if they could get ready with all snow gear in two minutes or less. No problem!!
Having a movement break outside is so good for kids this age. We try to go out every day in the morning and at lunch recess. Please send spare mittens and socks in backpacks as the kids have been getting so wet! Thanks for your help!
This week we started off in the best possible way... with our Book Buddies! It warms my heart to see how earnest each Buddy pair is about reading to each other. We will continue to read with our Buddies every other Monday morning.
At Literacy Centers this week students continue to develop a sight word vocabulary by playing games. Students learned to play "Covered" with sight words. This will become an independent center soon. For this game each student has a set of 12 sight words on cards, face up. Each player rolls a dice. This tell how many sight words the student needs to read. If read correctly the card is flipped over. The first player to flip over all the cards says, "Covered!" and the game starts over.
Our study of Mexico continues as we learn color words in Spanish. Everyone has learned the song 'Red is Rojo'. Each student has also illustrated a song book with the words. Look forward to seeing it next week. We are beginning to plan for our Mexican Fiesta by making decorations. We made fiesta lanterns this week. Check out the pictures! The students heard the story, Fiesta by Ginger Fogelsong Guy. More craft making next week to make ready for our Fiesta!
Everyone in our Super Writers Club has new work on the Writers Wall. This week we began to add how characters in our writing feel. Mrs. Benoit did a Social Thinking lesson this week on this very subject. It can be hard at times to name a feeling!
At Math this week we began exploring teen numbers. Mrs. Bradburn, our elementary Math coach, came to teach kids how to use rekenreks. This tool is very similar to an abacus. It uses beads to physically show the ten in every teen. Pretty cool. We will be using this new tool again.
This week I also worked with each student individually to administer the Benchmark Assessment System (BAS) for reading. At this time of year we do the BAS to get a baseline for each student. Then in May we re-administer the BAS to see growth. I will be sharing those results with you at our April conference.
Enjoy your long weekend!
Looking Ahead
Monday, January 15---MLK Jr Day---No School
Friday, January 26---Mexican Fiesta---more on this later!
Friday, January 5
Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had a great holiday break. We were all just getting back into the swing of things when the blizzard hit. And a delayed opening!
Hopefully this is it for the winter...fingers crossed.
Along with the New Year we have traveled on to our next social studies unit, Mexico! We have begun to learn a color song in Spanish. We have also been looking at maps of Mexico and the US. We began to learn about the deserts in Mexico, including the Sonoran Desert and the Chihuahua Desert.
Our class made three different kinds of cacti for our bulletin board, a saguaro, a prickly pear and a barrel cactus. Today we added elf owls. Elf owls are one of many residents in the cactus 'hotel'.
At Literacy Centers we have begun studying our Kindergarten priority words. These are the 10 words students need to be able to read and spell by the end of the year. We have been using letter stamps in playdough to practice. This week we added Spin It, Say It, Write It to the Literacy choices.
Students spin the spinner, say the word the spinner lands on and then writes it on a magnadoodle. Sometime we mix it up and use stamps to stamp the words, or markers to write.
This week at Math centers we learned a new game called Bears on the Bus. One partners draws a number card from a deck (0-10). This partner puts that number of bears on the 'bus' (ten frame). The other partner fills in the empty squares with a different color bear. Then the whole thing is recorded on a recording sheet and repeat. You will see lots of ten frame recording sheets coming home! Kids have also enjoyed a teen number Count and Write the Room.
The writers in our Super Writers Club have been working hard to finish a piece for our Writing Wall. Everyone had been working on making writing easier to read with spaces between words, lots of letters in each word and using priority words as needed. Our pieces will be going up next week so take a look if you are in the building.
Thanks for making sure everyone had their pjs for our Pajama Day to celebrate earing 2,500 class Dojo points. To add to the celebration we had Snuggly Reading time this afternoon. One center was listening to stories with Mrs. Lombardi, another center was reading books to each other (and to me) and the last center was coloring PJ day pictures. A lovely way to end a wacky week!
I have some great photos to share when my phone is willing to cooperate! I will send a link when I have loaded them!
Have a great weekend!
Stay warm!
Looking Ahead
Monday, January 15---MLK Jr Day---No School
Friday, January 26---Mexican Fiesta---more on this later!
Happy New Year!
I hope everyone had a great holiday break. We were all just getting back into the swing of things when the blizzard hit. And a delayed opening!
Hopefully this is it for the winter...fingers crossed.
Along with the New Year we have traveled on to our next social studies unit, Mexico! We have begun to learn a color song in Spanish. We have also been looking at maps of Mexico and the US. We began to learn about the deserts in Mexico, including the Sonoran Desert and the Chihuahua Desert.
Our class made three different kinds of cacti for our bulletin board, a saguaro, a prickly pear and a barrel cactus. Today we added elf owls. Elf owls are one of many residents in the cactus 'hotel'.
At Literacy Centers we have begun studying our Kindergarten priority words. These are the 10 words students need to be able to read and spell by the end of the year. We have been using letter stamps in playdough to practice. This week we added Spin It, Say It, Write It to the Literacy choices.
Students spin the spinner, say the word the spinner lands on and then writes it on a magnadoodle. Sometime we mix it up and use stamps to stamp the words, or markers to write.
This week at Math centers we learned a new game called Bears on the Bus. One partners draws a number card from a deck (0-10). This partner puts that number of bears on the 'bus' (ten frame). The other partner fills in the empty squares with a different color bear. Then the whole thing is recorded on a recording sheet and repeat. You will see lots of ten frame recording sheets coming home! Kids have also enjoyed a teen number Count and Write the Room.
The writers in our Super Writers Club have been working hard to finish a piece for our Writing Wall. Everyone had been working on making writing easier to read with spaces between words, lots of letters in each word and using priority words as needed. Our pieces will be going up next week so take a look if you are in the building.
Thanks for making sure everyone had their pjs for our Pajama Day to celebrate earing 2,500 class Dojo points. To add to the celebration we had Snuggly Reading time this afternoon. One center was listening to stories with Mrs. Lombardi, another center was reading books to each other (and to me) and the last center was coloring PJ day pictures. A lovely way to end a wacky week!
I have some great photos to share when my phone is willing to cooperate! I will send a link when I have loaded them!
Have a great weekend!
Stay warm!
Looking Ahead
Monday, January 15---MLK Jr Day---No School
Friday, January 26---Mexican Fiesta---more on this later!
Friday, December 15
Holiday Spirit is in full swing here in Room 150!
The little Kindergarten elves have been making cards and gifts with care! We also created snowflakes for our Winter Wonderland door. There were smiles and glitter everywhere!
Our special Library enrichment day was spent at the MakerSpace learning how to work with wood. See the photos below for a glimpse into the hard workers that made a very cool final product. Thank you, Mrs. Burns and Mrs. Dupre!
We continue to explore the variety of Gingerbread stories available to us. This week we have heard The Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Girl and the Ninjabread Man. We also continue to practice several gingerbread poems. You will be seeing a lot of Gingerbread Write the Room papers coming home. This active literacy task is always popular.
We stayed active at Math this week, too. Everyone had a turn to explore using a pan balance to weigh containers that looked exactly the same but felt very different. Students also explored capacity (how much something holds) at the bean table by comparing different containers. After a few rounds we got very good at estimating which container would hold more.
Writers have been working hard on making our stories easier to read. Spacemen have helped us add spaces in between words. Now we are re-reading to make sure we have words that make sense and tell our stories.
At Reading Workshop this week we learned that readers have Super Powers. The first one is Pointer Power. Every reader touches each word as it is read. Readers also have Picture Power. Readers can look at the picture for clues about what the words say.
Thanks for sending in snow pants and boots every day. A few days this week we couldn't go out because it was too cold but it is best to be prepared!
You are welcome to leave a pair of snow pants and sneakers at school for your child, if you would like. That way there is so much less to carry back and forth. I do have extra snow pants and mittens/gloves here at school for kids to borrow for those days that everything just doesn't make it into the backpack. We do not have spare boots or hats, however.
Kids without boots must stay on the pavement during morning and lunch recess to keep their feet dry.
Our Holiday Party will be next Thursday, December 21 from 10:45-12:15.
10:45-11ish---Snack---The school is providing a special snack of a cookie with frosting. I encourage you to send in two snacks as usual just in case a cookie is not enough.
11:15ish-12:15---Party Activities
---Pipe cleaner candy cane
---Paint Chip ornaments (snowman, Christmas tree)
---Gingerbread scented playdough station ( This is not cookie dough. While it is technically edible, it does not taste good)
---Jingle Bell Toss game
---Pin the Heart on the Grinch
---Roll A Rudolph game
There is NO gift exchange!
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Thursday, December 21---Gingerbread Holiday Party---more info coming soon!
Friday, December 22---Last day of school---Happy Vacation! Happy New Year!
Holiday Spirit is in full swing here in Room 150!
The little Kindergarten elves have been making cards and gifts with care! We also created snowflakes for our Winter Wonderland door. There were smiles and glitter everywhere!
Our special Library enrichment day was spent at the MakerSpace learning how to work with wood. See the photos below for a glimpse into the hard workers that made a very cool final product. Thank you, Mrs. Burns and Mrs. Dupre!
We continue to explore the variety of Gingerbread stories available to us. This week we have heard The Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Girl and the Ninjabread Man. We also continue to practice several gingerbread poems. You will be seeing a lot of Gingerbread Write the Room papers coming home. This active literacy task is always popular.
We stayed active at Math this week, too. Everyone had a turn to explore using a pan balance to weigh containers that looked exactly the same but felt very different. Students also explored capacity (how much something holds) at the bean table by comparing different containers. After a few rounds we got very good at estimating which container would hold more.
Writers have been working hard on making our stories easier to read. Spacemen have helped us add spaces in between words. Now we are re-reading to make sure we have words that make sense and tell our stories.
At Reading Workshop this week we learned that readers have Super Powers. The first one is Pointer Power. Every reader touches each word as it is read. Readers also have Picture Power. Readers can look at the picture for clues about what the words say.
Thanks for sending in snow pants and boots every day. A few days this week we couldn't go out because it was too cold but it is best to be prepared!
You are welcome to leave a pair of snow pants and sneakers at school for your child, if you would like. That way there is so much less to carry back and forth. I do have extra snow pants and mittens/gloves here at school for kids to borrow for those days that everything just doesn't make it into the backpack. We do not have spare boots or hats, however.
Kids without boots must stay on the pavement during morning and lunch recess to keep their feet dry.
Our Holiday Party will be next Thursday, December 21 from 10:45-12:15.
10:45-11ish---Snack---The school is providing a special snack of a cookie with frosting. I encourage you to send in two snacks as usual just in case a cookie is not enough.
11:15ish-12:15---Party Activities
---Pipe cleaner candy cane
---Paint Chip ornaments (snowman, Christmas tree)
---Gingerbread scented playdough station ( This is not cookie dough. While it is technically edible, it does not taste good)
---Jingle Bell Toss game
---Pin the Heart on the Grinch
---Roll A Rudolph game
There is NO gift exchange!
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Thursday, December 21---Gingerbread Holiday Party---more info coming soon!
Friday, December 22---Last day of school---Happy Vacation! Happy New Year!
Friday, December 8
Now that it is December, and our Pow Wow is in the rear view mirror, we have turned our attention to Gingerbread!
This week we have read three versions of the classic tale, The Gingerbread Man. After learning all about the classic version we had to read some of the reinvented Gingerbread stories,The GIngerbread Cowboy, The GIngerbread Bear and The Gingerbread Girl.We will be having even more fun with Gingerbread as the month continues.
At Literacy Centers, everyone illustrated a little gingerbread themed book called Candy Counting. We are also working on a story to share at home called The Little Cookie. You can look forward to hearing this book soon! There are so many versions of The GIngerbread Man story that we wanted to get it on the fun. Everyone got to design a gingerbread character of their own. We have gingerbread princesses, teachers, police officers and ninjas! To celebrate the winter season, we have also made a Winter Wonderland on our classroom door. The students traced their hands on green construction paper and cut them out many many times. It all made sense when we used all those hands to build an evergreen tree. Today we made birds to decorate the tree...and next week in keeping with the weather we will make snowflakes for the final touch.
This week we started a brand new unit in Writing! Now that the writers in our room have learned so much about how to write we are ready to make our writing easier to read. Over the next few months we will be working on Writing for Readers! Today the class made a new writing friend, Spaceman. Spaceman is a little clothespin dressed as an astronaut. His job is to remind us to leave spaces between the words we write.
The writers in this class are so excited about writing that many students choose to write at Choice Time!
Math also continues to be a favorite subject here. This week everyone helped make a Favorite Colors Graph. Students learned even more about shapes by trying to identify them by touch. Everyone got to use Feely Cans (old fashioned coffee cans with sock tops taped on...). The leader told every one a shape to find in the can. The only way to do it was by touch! Fun!
One of our wonderful grandparent volunteers came for her usual volunteer time with a wonderful gift for us! She brought us some paperwhite bulbs in a silver birch container! She sure knows what we like! We planted the bulbs today after taking a good look at them. We are excited to see what will happen next.
Finally, we are having a Holiday Party on Thursday, December 21 from 11:00-12:15. I will be sending out a Sign-Up Genius this weekend with opportunities to volunteer. There will be no gift exchange! More info to come later!
Looking Ahead
Thursday, December 21---Gingerbread Holiday Party---more info coming soon!
Friday, December 22---Last day of school---Happy Vacation! Happy New Year!
Now that it is December, and our Pow Wow is in the rear view mirror, we have turned our attention to Gingerbread!
This week we have read three versions of the classic tale, The Gingerbread Man. After learning all about the classic version we had to read some of the reinvented Gingerbread stories,The GIngerbread Cowboy, The GIngerbread Bear and The Gingerbread Girl.We will be having even more fun with Gingerbread as the month continues.
At Literacy Centers, everyone illustrated a little gingerbread themed book called Candy Counting. We are also working on a story to share at home called The Little Cookie. You can look forward to hearing this book soon! There are so many versions of The GIngerbread Man story that we wanted to get it on the fun. Everyone got to design a gingerbread character of their own. We have gingerbread princesses, teachers, police officers and ninjas! To celebrate the winter season, we have also made a Winter Wonderland on our classroom door. The students traced their hands on green construction paper and cut them out many many times. It all made sense when we used all those hands to build an evergreen tree. Today we made birds to decorate the tree...and next week in keeping with the weather we will make snowflakes for the final touch.
This week we started a brand new unit in Writing! Now that the writers in our room have learned so much about how to write we are ready to make our writing easier to read. Over the next few months we will be working on Writing for Readers! Today the class made a new writing friend, Spaceman. Spaceman is a little clothespin dressed as an astronaut. His job is to remind us to leave spaces between the words we write.
The writers in this class are so excited about writing that many students choose to write at Choice Time!
Math also continues to be a favorite subject here. This week everyone helped make a Favorite Colors Graph. Students learned even more about shapes by trying to identify them by touch. Everyone got to use Feely Cans (old fashioned coffee cans with sock tops taped on...). The leader told every one a shape to find in the can. The only way to do it was by touch! Fun!
One of our wonderful grandparent volunteers came for her usual volunteer time with a wonderful gift for us! She brought us some paperwhite bulbs in a silver birch container! She sure knows what we like! We planted the bulbs today after taking a good look at them. We are excited to see what will happen next.
Finally, we are having a Holiday Party on Thursday, December 21 from 11:00-12:15. I will be sending out a Sign-Up Genius this weekend with opportunities to volunteer. There will be no gift exchange! More info to come later!
Looking Ahead
Thursday, December 21---Gingerbread Holiday Party---more info coming soon!
Friday, December 22---Last day of school---Happy Vacation! Happy New Year!
Sunday, December 3
Hi Families!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. I had Thanksgiving this year with local family soo no traveling!
Thanks for the great turnout for our PowWow performance and classroom fun. I am posting a video of our performance on the gallery section of our webpage for you to enjoy. I was so proud of all the kids for learning all those songs, and being brave to get up and perform them for an audience.
In other news of the week, everyone chose a Nature Name. Native people often use nature as an inspiration for naming children. Every student in our class chose his/her own nature name. We painted a picture representing our nature name on a faux deerskin just as the Little Gopher did in Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. Everyone also made a Native American stick game, Pugasaing, which many students enjoyed playing at the Pow Wow.
I will be working with our Literacy Coach, Amber Bergeron, for the next few weeks. She has been joining us at writing time once each week. We are working on ways to help our newest writers become more independent. We will be trying out a checklist with the writers to see if this is helpful. Stay tuned for more on this in the future!
At Literacy Centers this week, kids have been working on hearing beginning and ending sounds in words. Volunteers have been helping run and teach games to practice these skills. I also meet with each student at least twice a week to work on pre-reading skills as well. We have been practicing predictable books with simple language. Every student has their own book bag with a selection of books that we have practiced together.
Math this week has been full of new games, too. Students learned the Roll and Record game. I bet you have seen a few of these come home recently. We call it the Dice Race game. This game helps students instantly recognize a quantity on a die and with numeral writing. We will have lots of Dice Races throughout the year. Everyone learned the Monster Squeeze game as well this week. Monster Squeeze helps children recognize numbers and builds number sense. This game also teaches kids how to compare numbers using the terms 'greater than' and 'less than'. As the year goes on we will continue to play Monster Squeeze with higher numbers!
And of course there was the Pow Wow! Please check out the photo gallery for some photo glimpses into our Native American fun. Students traveled between our classroom and Ms. Ellis' classroom next door. There were many art activities, including sand painting, weaving, making nature name medallions and making dreamcatchers. Students had the opportunity to play Pugasaing, a Native American stick game, the Basket Game using faux 'bone' pieces (buttons), and the Snow Snake game. Snow Snakes are a popular traditional Abenaki winter past time. Competitors carve long sticks into snake like forms. A long track is built in the snow. Competitors take turns sliding their snow snakes down the track to see whose will go the farthest. Our version was a little simpler! We used sticks which students slid down the tile hall past a line of rocks. Students counted the rocks to see how far their snake had gone each toss. Check out the photos!
Our December share topic will be Favorite Books. A share schedule will come home on Monday.
Hope you had a great weekend enjoying all the activities around town!
Looking Ahead
Thursday, December 21---Gingerbread Holiday Party---more info coming soon!
Friday, December 22---Last day of school---Happy Vacation! Happy New Year!
Hi Families!
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. I had Thanksgiving this year with local family soo no traveling!
Thanks for the great turnout for our PowWow performance and classroom fun. I am posting a video of our performance on the gallery section of our webpage for you to enjoy. I was so proud of all the kids for learning all those songs, and being brave to get up and perform them for an audience.
In other news of the week, everyone chose a Nature Name. Native people often use nature as an inspiration for naming children. Every student in our class chose his/her own nature name. We painted a picture representing our nature name on a faux deerskin just as the Little Gopher did in Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. Everyone also made a Native American stick game, Pugasaing, which many students enjoyed playing at the Pow Wow.
I will be working with our Literacy Coach, Amber Bergeron, for the next few weeks. She has been joining us at writing time once each week. We are working on ways to help our newest writers become more independent. We will be trying out a checklist with the writers to see if this is helpful. Stay tuned for more on this in the future!
At Literacy Centers this week, kids have been working on hearing beginning and ending sounds in words. Volunteers have been helping run and teach games to practice these skills. I also meet with each student at least twice a week to work on pre-reading skills as well. We have been practicing predictable books with simple language. Every student has their own book bag with a selection of books that we have practiced together.
Math this week has been full of new games, too. Students learned the Roll and Record game. I bet you have seen a few of these come home recently. We call it the Dice Race game. This game helps students instantly recognize a quantity on a die and with numeral writing. We will have lots of Dice Races throughout the year. Everyone learned the Monster Squeeze game as well this week. Monster Squeeze helps children recognize numbers and builds number sense. This game also teaches kids how to compare numbers using the terms 'greater than' and 'less than'. As the year goes on we will continue to play Monster Squeeze with higher numbers!
And of course there was the Pow Wow! Please check out the photo gallery for some photo glimpses into our Native American fun. Students traveled between our classroom and Ms. Ellis' classroom next door. There were many art activities, including sand painting, weaving, making nature name medallions and making dreamcatchers. Students had the opportunity to play Pugasaing, a Native American stick game, the Basket Game using faux 'bone' pieces (buttons), and the Snow Snake game. Snow Snakes are a popular traditional Abenaki winter past time. Competitors carve long sticks into snake like forms. A long track is built in the snow. Competitors take turns sliding their snow snakes down the track to see whose will go the farthest. Our version was a little simpler! We used sticks which students slid down the tile hall past a line of rocks. Students counted the rocks to see how far their snake had gone each toss. Check out the photos!
Our December share topic will be Favorite Books. A share schedule will come home on Monday.
Hope you had a great weekend enjoying all the activities around town!
Looking Ahead
Thursday, December 21---Gingerbread Holiday Party---more info coming soon!
Friday, December 22---Last day of school---Happy Vacation! Happy New Year!
Friday, November 17
Hi Families!
It has been great meeting with your to share your children's work with you! I am looking forward to meeting with everyone else Monday afternoon and Tuesday.
At Reading Workshop this week we practiced reading familiar stories. A favorite in our class is The Three Billy Goats Gruff. When children hear favorite stories a zillion times they can "read" the story themselves. This is important rehearsal for becoming a reader. As the billy goats trip-trapped over the bridge each time, the students chimed right in! Then, to our surprise and delight, at Library this week the class presented a puppet show... The Three Billy Goats Gruff! I am sure you have already heard all about it! I have included a photo at the bottom of this post of some of the puppeteers.
We have been rhyming our hearts out at Literacy Centers! We have played rhyming games, read rhyming books and even had a rhyming Write the Room activity! Rhyming is another way young children figure out how words work. This helps in reading and writing. We have also been practicing some predictable books to read with our Book Buddies.
The writers in Room 150 have been working hard on writing TRUE stories. Young writers usually have a lot more control of a story that really happened than one that is pretend. One student is writing about Literacy Centers! This is something we all know really well. Writers have been encouraged to begin stretching out words to write the sounds they hear. This takes practice, practice, practice. Students begin with just one sound and add more to each word as time goes along. We also write together, as we did when we wrote a thank you letter to our friend and veteran Joe who donated supplies to our classroom earlier this year. He was touched to receive our mail!
A favorite Math lesson this week was the Obstacle Course. Using positional words I directed kids through a classroom obstacle course. No wonder kids love math! We also learned Spin A Number. Practicing number recognition and one-to-one correspondence is more fun if it's a game!
Please be sure to send warm hats and mittens every day from now on. It was cold out there at recess today!
If I don't see you before our break, have a Happy Thanksgiving!
Looking Ahead
Monday, November 20(after school and evening) and Tuesday November 21---Parent-Teacher Conferences
Thursday, November 23---Happy Thanksgiving!
Friday, December 1--- Pow Wow!
12:-12:30--Performance in the Gym
1:30-2:30ish---Pow Wow activities in the classroom
December 22---Holiday Break! See you next year!
Thursday, November 9
Happy Veterans Day to all the moms and dads who serve in the military! My daughter works at the Chelsea Soldier's Home in Chelsea MA. This week our class wrote a letter to one of the veterans who lives there. He had generously donated school supplies to our classroom, including that cute felt owl that we made at the Halloween party. We are grateful!
This morning we attended the November assembly. We saw a slideshow of family and friends who are currently serving or retired from the military. What an impressive number we have among us! We also were introduced to the Thanksgiving Food Train! Our school collects non-perishable food items each November for the York Food Pantry. The Little Engine starts in the office. As donations for the food pantry arrive the train moves ahead. As the train grows longer with donations the engine makes its way through the halls until it returns to the office. Please feel free to send in items with your child to add to the Food Train!
This week we met our Reading Buddies for the first time. Twice a month we will meet with our buddies in Ms. Klein's class to share books and friendship.
We have added lots of words to our Word Wall over the last few weeks. Students have been introduced to the following priority words: the, and we, it, is. It was very exciting to see how many times we could find these words in books. Today we made another class book that will circulate home. It will be a great opportunity to practice reading some of our priority words!
At Literacy Centers we have been working hard on matching and writing upper and lower case letters. Students have also begun to focus more directly on letter sounds. The more letter sounds a student knows the easier it is to write and decode unknown words.
Math time this week included working with Mrs. Slone on recording student's work on Class Dojo. I am excited to share these with you! As students become more familiar with this process I hope we can share all different kinds of 'in the moment' learning.
At Writing Workshop we looked at a few Piggy and Elephant books. Piggy and Elephant do all their talking with speech bubbles. We have been practicing having characters in our writing talk with speech bubbles, too!
All this is only four days!
Looking forward to seeing you beginning next week for Parent-Teacher conferences!
Have a great long weekend!
Looking Ahead
Friday, November 10---No School---Veteran's Day
Tuesday November 14 and Thursday November 16---Parent-Teacher Conferences by appointment
Monday, November 20(after school and evening) and Tuesday November 21---Parent-Teacher Conferences
Thursday, November 23---Happy Thanksgiving!
Friday, October 27
The ghost and goblins in Room 150 are ready for Halloween fun!
This week most activities were spooktacular! Students made a fun ghost for our classroom door. Please check it out if you can come to our Halloween festivities. After reading 10 Little Mummies we made 15 little mummies and used them to count up to 15 and back down to 0!
Everyone made a Halloween book which will come home on Monday. I hope you don't get scared!
In addition to all the Halloween preparations students learned their first two priority words. Priority words are high frequency words that every student needs to learn to read and write. This week we learned 'and' and 'the'.
The writers in the Super Writers Club have been practicing stretching out words and writing what they hear. This method of writing is called 'invented' or phonetic spelling. If kids had to wait until they knew how to spell every word they wanted to write we would never see any writing in Kindergarten! So a half-step along the way is to write the letters you hear. That is what we have been practicing this week! Kids know that it isn't adult spelling. But just like learning anything new (talking, walking...) practice helps. When you aren't sure what your child has written the magic words are ' read me your story'!
Our mathematicians have been working on telling and solving number stories. So far we have practiced solving number stories with counters, white boards and markers and fingers. Fingers are very convenient because you never have to look far to find them! As with literacy, we also focus on using many strategies for math. So far we have talked about counting on, using math facts (just simple ones), drawing a picture and counting.
We are very excited about out Halloween Festivities on Monday.
Our schedule is:
Kindergarten Parade at 9:15-9:45
Art from 10-10:45
Snack and watching first grade parade 11-11:20
Halloween Centers until 12:15
Change out of costumes at 12:15
Recess and Lunch
Look for some fun pictures in the Photo Gallery next week!
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Monday, October 30---Halloween Celebrations---Thanks for signing up to help!
Tuesday, November 7---Election Day--- Please go VOTE
Friday, November 10---No School---Veteran's Day
Monday, November 20(after school and evening) and Tuesday November 21---Parent-Teacher Conferences
Thursday, November 23---Happy Thanksgiving!
The ghost and goblins in Room 150 are ready for Halloween fun!
This week most activities were spooktacular! Students made a fun ghost for our classroom door. Please check it out if you can come to our Halloween festivities. After reading 10 Little Mummies we made 15 little mummies and used them to count up to 15 and back down to 0!
Everyone made a Halloween book which will come home on Monday. I hope you don't get scared!
In addition to all the Halloween preparations students learned their first two priority words. Priority words are high frequency words that every student needs to learn to read and write. This week we learned 'and' and 'the'.
The writers in the Super Writers Club have been practicing stretching out words and writing what they hear. This method of writing is called 'invented' or phonetic spelling. If kids had to wait until they knew how to spell every word they wanted to write we would never see any writing in Kindergarten! So a half-step along the way is to write the letters you hear. That is what we have been practicing this week! Kids know that it isn't adult spelling. But just like learning anything new (talking, walking...) practice helps. When you aren't sure what your child has written the magic words are ' read me your story'!
Our mathematicians have been working on telling and solving number stories. So far we have practiced solving number stories with counters, white boards and markers and fingers. Fingers are very convenient because you never have to look far to find them! As with literacy, we also focus on using many strategies for math. So far we have talked about counting on, using math facts (just simple ones), drawing a picture and counting.
We are very excited about out Halloween Festivities on Monday.
Our schedule is:
Kindergarten Parade at 9:15-9:45
Art from 10-10:45
Snack and watching first grade parade 11-11:20
Halloween Centers until 12:15
Change out of costumes at 12:15
Recess and Lunch
Look for some fun pictures in the Photo Gallery next week!
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Monday, October 30---Halloween Celebrations---Thanks for signing up to help!
Tuesday, November 7---Election Day--- Please go VOTE
Friday, November 10---No School---Veteran's Day
Monday, November 20(after school and evening) and Tuesday November 21---Parent-Teacher Conferences
Thursday, November 23---Happy Thanksgiving!
Sunday, October 22
Did you get the word?? No more Quiet Time! We did a little experiment this week by trying a couple days without Quiet Time. The kids managed without skipping a beat! Resting will always be an option for Choice Time is someone needs it.
We were counting down to our last few Special Students this week. I am impressed by how much better everyone has become at capturing a likeness of our Special Student. Lots of kids are even attempting to add details like designs on shirts and multi-colored shoes. In addition we have learned to recognize and read everyone's name. Using the power of names to teach this week we began focusing on syllables. First we counted the number of syllables in each other's names and then in foods we like. Knowing how to break a word into syllables is useful for reading and writing. Readers can figure out longer words by working on it one syllable at a time. This is also true for writing!
Rhyming is also a great support to a beginning reader. If you know man, then you can figure out lots of words by using the power of rhyme. We had fun making little rhyming books about foods we like this week. Look for them to come home next week.
Writers in our room have been tackling some great challenges this week while saying, "Sure, I'll give it at try!" Sometimes a writer wants to draw a story about something that is hard to draw. I recently went to a farm stand and picked up a lot of vegetables. It was pretty hard to draw all those vegetables in my bag but I tried. Then we all learned that labels in stories help teach about the story , thank goodness. I labeled some of the vegetables in case my readers might not recognize what I drew. Writers in our class also worked on adding labels to stories for the same reason.
Then we took a huge step as writers. We started stretching out words and writing the sounds we could hear. Kindergarten Writers know that words are so important in our world. It is the beginning of an exciting adventure as they begin the process of adding words and sentences to make stories.
Kindergarten writers start with writing sounds they can hear in words. Soon we will begin practicing and adding words that writers need all the time-high frequency words.
Math this week started with a little geometry. We noticed circles all around us in our world. Then we discussed how we can recognize a circle...curved, no corners or vertices, no straight lines. Everyone learned about 10 Frames this week as well. This is the basis for our number system. A pretty important concept! Using a ten frame (a rectangle divided into ten equal parts) we experimented with making 5 using counters. We discovered that there are many ways to show 5 ( and 6 and 7). We will return to 10 Frames over and over throughout the year.
Finally we have begun learning some songs about Native Americans of Long Ago. Have you heard Land of the Silver Birch at home yet? It is a favorite! We also have been learning A Wigwam is My Home. An important point to make with kindergarteners is that though Native People did live in wigwams and use canoes long ago now most Native People live in houses just like us.
We had an amazing visit to White Pine on Friday for our Native program. A highlight each year is to hear stories told by David Sanipass, a member of the MicMac tribe. David is the storyteller for the MicMac tribe. Stories were (and still are) a form of entertainment and also a teaching tool in the Native culture. David has been practicing his art for most of his life. He is also a nationally recognized Indian flute maker and player. We are fortunate to have this authentic experience right here in York! Check out the photos in the Gallery section of this web site.
I hope you had a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Monday, October 30---Halloween Celebrations---Thanks for signing up to help!
Tuesday, November 7---Election Day--- Please go VOTE
Friday, November 10---No School---Veteran's Day
Monday, November 20(after school and evening) and Tuesday November 21---Parent-Teacher Conferences
Thursday, November 23---Happy Thanksgiving!
Did you get the word?? No more Quiet Time! We did a little experiment this week by trying a couple days without Quiet Time. The kids managed without skipping a beat! Resting will always be an option for Choice Time is someone needs it.
We were counting down to our last few Special Students this week. I am impressed by how much better everyone has become at capturing a likeness of our Special Student. Lots of kids are even attempting to add details like designs on shirts and multi-colored shoes. In addition we have learned to recognize and read everyone's name. Using the power of names to teach this week we began focusing on syllables. First we counted the number of syllables in each other's names and then in foods we like. Knowing how to break a word into syllables is useful for reading and writing. Readers can figure out longer words by working on it one syllable at a time. This is also true for writing!
Rhyming is also a great support to a beginning reader. If you know man, then you can figure out lots of words by using the power of rhyme. We had fun making little rhyming books about foods we like this week. Look for them to come home next week.
Writers in our room have been tackling some great challenges this week while saying, "Sure, I'll give it at try!" Sometimes a writer wants to draw a story about something that is hard to draw. I recently went to a farm stand and picked up a lot of vegetables. It was pretty hard to draw all those vegetables in my bag but I tried. Then we all learned that labels in stories help teach about the story , thank goodness. I labeled some of the vegetables in case my readers might not recognize what I drew. Writers in our class also worked on adding labels to stories for the same reason.
Then we took a huge step as writers. We started stretching out words and writing the sounds we could hear. Kindergarten Writers know that words are so important in our world. It is the beginning of an exciting adventure as they begin the process of adding words and sentences to make stories.
Kindergarten writers start with writing sounds they can hear in words. Soon we will begin practicing and adding words that writers need all the time-high frequency words.
Math this week started with a little geometry. We noticed circles all around us in our world. Then we discussed how we can recognize a circle...curved, no corners or vertices, no straight lines. Everyone learned about 10 Frames this week as well. This is the basis for our number system. A pretty important concept! Using a ten frame (a rectangle divided into ten equal parts) we experimented with making 5 using counters. We discovered that there are many ways to show 5 ( and 6 and 7). We will return to 10 Frames over and over throughout the year.
Finally we have begun learning some songs about Native Americans of Long Ago. Have you heard Land of the Silver Birch at home yet? It is a favorite! We also have been learning A Wigwam is My Home. An important point to make with kindergarteners is that though Native People did live in wigwams and use canoes long ago now most Native People live in houses just like us.
We had an amazing visit to White Pine on Friday for our Native program. A highlight each year is to hear stories told by David Sanipass, a member of the MicMac tribe. David is the storyteller for the MicMac tribe. Stories were (and still are) a form of entertainment and also a teaching tool in the Native culture. David has been practicing his art for most of his life. He is also a nationally recognized Indian flute maker and player. We are fortunate to have this authentic experience right here in York! Check out the photos in the Gallery section of this web site.
I hope you had a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Monday, October 30---Halloween Celebrations---Thanks for signing up to help!
Tuesday, November 7---Election Day--- Please go VOTE
Friday, November 10---No School---Veteran's Day
Monday, November 20(after school and evening) and Tuesday November 21---Parent-Teacher Conferences
Thursday, November 23---Happy Thanksgiving!
Friday, October 13
Happy Fire Safety Week!
On Wednesday our class met a firefighter during their special class time. Students saw all the gear the firefighter put on piece by piece. He also demonstrated all the noises the equipment made, especially the mask and air tank. Even though most kids have seen this demonstration before it bears repeating. Should any child ever be in the frightening situation of being in a fire we want them to know that the "fire monster" (firefighter) is a good guy!
We have all been enjoying meeting each student's family through sharing a family photo. It is an easy and comfortable way to begin Share Time each year. Each month we will continue to have a theme which usually reflects our curriculum in some way.
At Literacy Centers this week we have been rhyming up a storm. Everyone helped add rhyming words to a song we learned. We also read the nursery rhyme 'Jack Be Nimble'. It was fun to read it again and change Jack to someone's name. This was the first poem to be added to our Poetry Journal. Throughout the year we will continue to add poems and songs we know so kids can read and reread them. Kids began to work on 'writing the room' with fall words. This is always a popular center.
Writers in the Super Writers Club have been continuing to learn about labels this week. Sometimes it can be hard to draw something so adding a label can help remember the story. We have also talked about adding thought and speech bubbles to our stories.
Weather is such an important part of our day. Each day the Weather Watchers for the week look at the sky and check the (color-coded) temperature.
We have learned more about Weather Conditions this week by playing Weather Bingo. The class always cheers for everyone the first time he/she gets a bingo with a rousing hip-hip-hooray! Today we made Weather Wheels. I read a story with lots of clues about the kind of weather. The students used their spinner to show what kind of weather it was.
Sorting was the most fun in Math this week. Everyone learned the word 'attribute'. An attribute is one feature of an object, like size, shape or color.
Students used four different materials to sort. The challenge was to stick to one attribute (like color) while sorting!
This week you will see your child started earning points on Class Dojo for Working Hard. When we work hard we keep going and keep trying even if someone else is forgetting to work hard. I some some awesome hard work not only at literacy and math times but also at cleanup time!
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Looking Ahead
Friday, October October 20---Field Trip to White Pine Programs
Monday, October 30---Halloween Celebrations---more info to follow on Monday!
Happy Fire Safety Week!
On Wednesday our class met a firefighter during their special class time. Students saw all the gear the firefighter put on piece by piece. He also demonstrated all the noises the equipment made, especially the mask and air tank. Even though most kids have seen this demonstration before it bears repeating. Should any child ever be in the frightening situation of being in a fire we want them to know that the "fire monster" (firefighter) is a good guy!
We have all been enjoying meeting each student's family through sharing a family photo. It is an easy and comfortable way to begin Share Time each year. Each month we will continue to have a theme which usually reflects our curriculum in some way.
At Literacy Centers this week we have been rhyming up a storm. Everyone helped add rhyming words to a song we learned. We also read the nursery rhyme 'Jack Be Nimble'. It was fun to read it again and change Jack to someone's name. This was the first poem to be added to our Poetry Journal. Throughout the year we will continue to add poems and songs we know so kids can read and reread them. Kids began to work on 'writing the room' with fall words. This is always a popular center.
Writers in the Super Writers Club have been continuing to learn about labels this week. Sometimes it can be hard to draw something so adding a label can help remember the story. We have also talked about adding thought and speech bubbles to our stories.
Weather is such an important part of our day. Each day the Weather Watchers for the week look at the sky and check the (color-coded) temperature.
We have learned more about Weather Conditions this week by playing Weather Bingo. The class always cheers for everyone the first time he/she gets a bingo with a rousing hip-hip-hooray! Today we made Weather Wheels. I read a story with lots of clues about the kind of weather. The students used their spinner to show what kind of weather it was.
Sorting was the most fun in Math this week. Everyone learned the word 'attribute'. An attribute is one feature of an object, like size, shape or color.
Students used four different materials to sort. The challenge was to stick to one attribute (like color) while sorting!
This week you will see your child started earning points on Class Dojo for Working Hard. When we work hard we keep going and keep trying even if someone else is forgetting to work hard. I some some awesome hard work not only at literacy and math times but also at cleanup time!
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Looking Ahead
Friday, October October 20---Field Trip to White Pine Programs
Monday, October 30---Halloween Celebrations---more info to follow on Monday!
Friday, October 6
Happy Columbus Day weekend!
If your children are talking about going on an adventure this weekend, it was probably based on a conversation we had a school!
One student at Morning Meeting asked what the boat was on the calendar. I explained that the boat was a symbol of Christopher Columbus' adventure. I also explained the Columbus was an explorer who ended up here in America a long time ago. I also suggested that maybe students might do some exploring and discovering this weekend in honor of Columbus Day. Kids suggested lots of different places they might explore, like their backyard, the beach or even in a book! So happy exploring this weekend! No boats required!
Here at school we continue to explore and discover interesting things about our names. Now that we are getting pretty good at reading each other's names we discovered that we can use this information to help us be better writers. In addition to drawing our stories we can add labels and letters to help identify people in the stories. Of course, we can also label ourselves in our stories, too! We also practiced using the names we know to help with other words. If I want to label my story about a pumpkin I might realize that Pattison and pumpkin start the same. So now I can write 'p' for pumpkin!
Everyone also chose their best story to share on the Writing Wall from the month of September. We spent a little extra time 'fancying up' that story.
Now they are posted for all to enjoy. Take a look next time you are in the building!
We have also been learning a lot about color words this week. I hope you enjoy our class book, A Colorful Class, that is now circulating home to families. Have your child help you read the class names! Next we worked on a book about Pete the Cat's colorful shoes. This book will come to you after the weekend. Finally we began Write The Room. This activity has kids walking around the room with a clipboard, paper and pencil to find words. In this case students were looking for color words. Students colored the word on their paper once they found the match (in color) around the room.
This is usually a favorite center activity through the year!
Math has been full of a variety of fun activities. Students played Top-It (War) with dot cards. I noticed partners who encouraged each other and were good sports no matter whether they won or lost! Everyone colored and cut out triangles for a shape lesson. And we built a number board from 0-10 with cubes. It was fun to describe what our finished number boards looked like. See a photo below of work in progress on number boards.
Today I am the student as we work with our grade level, building and district to find ways to make our teaching better!
Enjoy your long weekend!
Looking Ahead
Wednesday, October 11---Permission slips for White Pine due
Friday, October October 20---Field Trip to White Pine Programs
Monday, October 30---Halloween Celebrations---more info to follow
Happy Columbus Day weekend!
If your children are talking about going on an adventure this weekend, it was probably based on a conversation we had a school!
One student at Morning Meeting asked what the boat was on the calendar. I explained that the boat was a symbol of Christopher Columbus' adventure. I also explained the Columbus was an explorer who ended up here in America a long time ago. I also suggested that maybe students might do some exploring and discovering this weekend in honor of Columbus Day. Kids suggested lots of different places they might explore, like their backyard, the beach or even in a book! So happy exploring this weekend! No boats required!
Here at school we continue to explore and discover interesting things about our names. Now that we are getting pretty good at reading each other's names we discovered that we can use this information to help us be better writers. In addition to drawing our stories we can add labels and letters to help identify people in the stories. Of course, we can also label ourselves in our stories, too! We also practiced using the names we know to help with other words. If I want to label my story about a pumpkin I might realize that Pattison and pumpkin start the same. So now I can write 'p' for pumpkin!
Everyone also chose their best story to share on the Writing Wall from the month of September. We spent a little extra time 'fancying up' that story.
Now they are posted for all to enjoy. Take a look next time you are in the building!
We have also been learning a lot about color words this week. I hope you enjoy our class book, A Colorful Class, that is now circulating home to families. Have your child help you read the class names! Next we worked on a book about Pete the Cat's colorful shoes. This book will come to you after the weekend. Finally we began Write The Room. This activity has kids walking around the room with a clipboard, paper and pencil to find words. In this case students were looking for color words. Students colored the word on their paper once they found the match (in color) around the room.
This is usually a favorite center activity through the year!
Math has been full of a variety of fun activities. Students played Top-It (War) with dot cards. I noticed partners who encouraged each other and were good sports no matter whether they won or lost! Everyone colored and cut out triangles for a shape lesson. And we built a number board from 0-10 with cubes. It was fun to describe what our finished number boards looked like. See a photo below of work in progress on number boards.
Today I am the student as we work with our grade level, building and district to find ways to make our teaching better!
Enjoy your long weekend!
Looking Ahead
Wednesday, October 11---Permission slips for White Pine due
Friday, October October 20---Field Trip to White Pine Programs
Monday, October 30---Halloween Celebrations---more info to follow
Friday, September 29
Smile!
It was Picture Day today. Every child gets a picture taken for school records. Pictures will be sent home at a later date for you to preview and purchase if you like. Individual student pictures will be put together for a composite class picture.
This week we have been practicing rotations for Literacy Centers. Students work in small groups at an activity. When the timer rings we stop and change centers. This way kids get to practice lots of different literacy skills each day. Everyone had a chance to practice with the Listening Center. Thanks to the Book Club I have been able to collect quite a few book/CD sets for our classroom. Mrs. Lombardi did a Let's Find Out magazine with her group, and the students watched a short video about an unusual pair of friends. On their own, kids continued to work on pokey-pinning. You may have seen your child bring a paper pricked full of holes with a letter and a picture. Yup, that is pokey pinning. See the example of our class names hanging in the window. You windows at home will also be full of pokey pin art soon! Not only is it great fine motor practice for little hands, it is also engaging.
Writers in the Super Writers Club learned this week that writers are the boss of their own writing and they need to try to solve their own problems! Don't know what to write about? Check you writing ideas list. Or go back and add more to an old story! Writers are problem solvers!
We also practiced closing our eyes and visualizing the place or event we are writing about. Sometimes looking around in your mind can help to remember details.
The scientists in our class started studying Weather Conditions this week. Our first activity was to look at pictures of shoes and to predict the weather it would be to wear each kind. Scientists have to be able justify their thinking so kids had to give a reason to explain their thinking. Flip flops would be good for hot weather so your feet can stay cool. Today I hung four weather conditions pictures ( rainy, snowy, sunny, windy). Each student got a different picture of an activity or an item. Kids had to figure out which weather would be best for the picture they had and stand near that weather condition picture. So a student with a snowman photo would stand by the snowy picture. A student with a photo of raindrops would stand by the rainy day picture. Some of the photos were challenging and caused some lively discussion!
We love pattern blocks! This week everyone worked to make patterns with pattern blocks during Math. Students tried to make repeating patterns and growing patterns. Ask your child what a growing pattern is! We also learned how to play dot-card memory (matching two dot cards with the same value but not the same arrangement). Card games are a fun way to practice math!
I hope you have been hearing about how well your children are doing with Class Dojo! Our class has been focusing on earning points for Body to Self and On Task. We have also watched a couple of short videos about Growth Mindset. The first taught kids that a brain is like a muscle and it needs exercise (challenges) to get stronger. Another short video taught about the Magic of Mistakes...mistakes help us learn to do better or to try another way next time.
Smile!
It was Picture Day today. Every child gets a picture taken for school records. Pictures will be sent home at a later date for you to preview and purchase if you like. Individual student pictures will be put together for a composite class picture.
This week we have been practicing rotations for Literacy Centers. Students work in small groups at an activity. When the timer rings we stop and change centers. This way kids get to practice lots of different literacy skills each day. Everyone had a chance to practice with the Listening Center. Thanks to the Book Club I have been able to collect quite a few book/CD sets for our classroom. Mrs. Lombardi did a Let's Find Out magazine with her group, and the students watched a short video about an unusual pair of friends. On their own, kids continued to work on pokey-pinning. You may have seen your child bring a paper pricked full of holes with a letter and a picture. Yup, that is pokey pinning. See the example of our class names hanging in the window. You windows at home will also be full of pokey pin art soon! Not only is it great fine motor practice for little hands, it is also engaging.
Writers in the Super Writers Club learned this week that writers are the boss of their own writing and they need to try to solve their own problems! Don't know what to write about? Check you writing ideas list. Or go back and add more to an old story! Writers are problem solvers!
We also practiced closing our eyes and visualizing the place or event we are writing about. Sometimes looking around in your mind can help to remember details.
The scientists in our class started studying Weather Conditions this week. Our first activity was to look at pictures of shoes and to predict the weather it would be to wear each kind. Scientists have to be able justify their thinking so kids had to give a reason to explain their thinking. Flip flops would be good for hot weather so your feet can stay cool. Today I hung four weather conditions pictures ( rainy, snowy, sunny, windy). Each student got a different picture of an activity or an item. Kids had to figure out which weather would be best for the picture they had and stand near that weather condition picture. So a student with a snowman photo would stand by the snowy picture. A student with a photo of raindrops would stand by the rainy day picture. Some of the photos were challenging and caused some lively discussion!
We love pattern blocks! This week everyone worked to make patterns with pattern blocks during Math. Students tried to make repeating patterns and growing patterns. Ask your child what a growing pattern is! We also learned how to play dot-card memory (matching two dot cards with the same value but not the same arrangement). Card games are a fun way to practice math!
I hope you have been hearing about how well your children are doing with Class Dojo! Our class has been focusing on earning points for Body to Self and On Task. We have also watched a couple of short videos about Growth Mindset. The first taught kids that a brain is like a muscle and it needs exercise (challenges) to get stronger. Another short video taught about the Magic of Mistakes...mistakes help us learn to do better or to try another way next time.
Friday, September 22
Happy Fall everyone!
Another busy week here in Kindergarten.
This week we learned that readers can look and think and read! Readers in Kindergarten "read" the pictures. Students have been introduced to pretend stories (fiction) and true stories (non-fiction). This week readers read privately to themselves. Later in the week readers practiced reading with a partner. See the photos below! Kids love partner reading!
The writers in our Super Writers Club learned about drawing WOW pictures this week. And boy did they make me say, "wow!" I read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems. Writers practiced their best "wow" drawing to show what the pigeon might drive next. Today we returned to our writing folders. Again, I had to say, "wow". Everyone was adding so many more elements in their drawings, drawing with pencil first and then coloring in, outlining the important parts of the picture and using lots of different colors!
Thanks for returning the Writing Ideas lists! It can be so helpful when a writer can't think of something to write about!
We have begun Special Student! This year we are going in "math number order" or in ABC order by last name. The special student comes to the front of the room. We cheer his name, clap, snap and stomp his name. The letters that spell our special student's name are all mixed up on the board.
Our special student fixes the name, then counts the letters. Finally, we take a careful look at our special student. Everyone draws our special student just exactly ( in their own kindergarten way) how he looks. The book of drawings will come home in the Home/School folder. This week we have also been practicing centers. Students work with a group of 5 to do an activity. We repeat this three times as the groups move.
Math has been focused on counting in lots of ways. Everyone represented 5 with lots of different materials. We learned the 5 is 5 whether it is pattern blocks or popsicle sticks! We also made a class age graph. It will be fun to watch over the year as our five year olds turn to 6 year olds!
Next week Mrs. Slone is coming in to help teach us about Class Dojo. I am excited to try this with the kids and with you! If you see some texts pop up on your phone, it may be from us!
Finally we had our first All-School monthly assembly today. The whole school gathers in the gym. We begin with the pledge. Next we celebrate the birthdays for the month. Our two September birthday celebrants stood along with all the other kids who share their birthday month. We sang our VES happy birthday song. I got some cute photos of the hands up part of the song!
Please remember to wash blankets/towels and return on Monday!
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Friday, September 29---School Picture Day---send in envelopes if you are ordering pictures, please.
Friday, October 6---No School---Teacher Workshop Day
Friday, October October 20---Field Trip to White Pine Programs---More info to follow
Happy Fall everyone!
Another busy week here in Kindergarten.
This week we learned that readers can look and think and read! Readers in Kindergarten "read" the pictures. Students have been introduced to pretend stories (fiction) and true stories (non-fiction). This week readers read privately to themselves. Later in the week readers practiced reading with a partner. See the photos below! Kids love partner reading!
The writers in our Super Writers Club learned about drawing WOW pictures this week. And boy did they make me say, "wow!" I read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems. Writers practiced their best "wow" drawing to show what the pigeon might drive next. Today we returned to our writing folders. Again, I had to say, "wow". Everyone was adding so many more elements in their drawings, drawing with pencil first and then coloring in, outlining the important parts of the picture and using lots of different colors!
Thanks for returning the Writing Ideas lists! It can be so helpful when a writer can't think of something to write about!
We have begun Special Student! This year we are going in "math number order" or in ABC order by last name. The special student comes to the front of the room. We cheer his name, clap, snap and stomp his name. The letters that spell our special student's name are all mixed up on the board.
Our special student fixes the name, then counts the letters. Finally, we take a careful look at our special student. Everyone draws our special student just exactly ( in their own kindergarten way) how he looks. The book of drawings will come home in the Home/School folder. This week we have also been practicing centers. Students work with a group of 5 to do an activity. We repeat this three times as the groups move.
Math has been focused on counting in lots of ways. Everyone represented 5 with lots of different materials. We learned the 5 is 5 whether it is pattern blocks or popsicle sticks! We also made a class age graph. It will be fun to watch over the year as our five year olds turn to 6 year olds!
Next week Mrs. Slone is coming in to help teach us about Class Dojo. I am excited to try this with the kids and with you! If you see some texts pop up on your phone, it may be from us!
Finally we had our first All-School monthly assembly today. The whole school gathers in the gym. We begin with the pledge. Next we celebrate the birthdays for the month. Our two September birthday celebrants stood along with all the other kids who share their birthday month. We sang our VES happy birthday song. I got some cute photos of the hands up part of the song!
Please remember to wash blankets/towels and return on Monday!
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Friday, September 29---School Picture Day---send in envelopes if you are ordering pictures, please.
Friday, October 6---No School---Teacher Workshop Day
Friday, October October 20---Field Trip to White Pine Programs---More info to follow
Friday, September 15
Thanks, families, for coming out for Open House last night. I try to provide a glimpse into what your child is doing all day long! As the year rolls on the schedule will remain the same for the most part (except for Quiet Time) and the routines and learning will build layer on layer. Just watch as we develop into readers, writers, mathematicians and scientist! And, of course, kind people!
Did you know today is Dot Day? I read The Dot by Peter H Reynolds. We watched a video clip of The Dot Song. Now we know if you just make a mark and sign your name you never know where it will lead!
Watch the video here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_I43cxDQ-o&index=4&list=PLpIC6MpOkTdoHKqZfSq3zXFr9RGemZANj
In Reading Workshop this week, kids learned that we can read the pictures in stories. We can also read signs all over the place. We loved playing Environmental Print Bingo. Your kids can read stop signs, restaurant signs and store signs! Our class also went on a word walk around the school. We found so much we could read!
Did you know your children are part of the Super Writers Club? We just named our writing club today. The writers in our class practiced drawing a story, writing their name on the paper and stamping the date.
Everyone practiced our first all-school FIre Drill. Everyone did a great job!
At Literacy Center time the theme was names! Students put together their own name puzzles, then tried a friends. We made our names in kidney beans while learning about white glue. Some students started to independently use our class name chart to spell friends names!
At Math the class played Count and Sit. We count around the circle from one to ten. The student that says 10 sits down. We keep playing until there is only one person standing. Today we made our class birthday graph. This is the first year in many that we don't have any birthday "twins" in the class.
Keep talking about ways to be kind! We will be talking about it here,too!
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Monday, September 18---Book Orders Due
Friday, September 29---School Picture Day---send in envelopes if you are ordering pictures, please.
Friday, October 6---No School---Teacher Workshop Day
Friday, October October 20---Field Trip to White Pine Programs---More info to follow
Thanks, families, for coming out for Open House last night. I try to provide a glimpse into what your child is doing all day long! As the year rolls on the schedule will remain the same for the most part (except for Quiet Time) and the routines and learning will build layer on layer. Just watch as we develop into readers, writers, mathematicians and scientist! And, of course, kind people!
Did you know today is Dot Day? I read The Dot by Peter H Reynolds. We watched a video clip of The Dot Song. Now we know if you just make a mark and sign your name you never know where it will lead!
Watch the video here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_I43cxDQ-o&index=4&list=PLpIC6MpOkTdoHKqZfSq3zXFr9RGemZANj
In Reading Workshop this week, kids learned that we can read the pictures in stories. We can also read signs all over the place. We loved playing Environmental Print Bingo. Your kids can read stop signs, restaurant signs and store signs! Our class also went on a word walk around the school. We found so much we could read!
Did you know your children are part of the Super Writers Club? We just named our writing club today. The writers in our class practiced drawing a story, writing their name on the paper and stamping the date.
Everyone practiced our first all-school FIre Drill. Everyone did a great job!
At Literacy Center time the theme was names! Students put together their own name puzzles, then tried a friends. We made our names in kidney beans while learning about white glue. Some students started to independently use our class name chart to spell friends names!
At Math the class played Count and Sit. We count around the circle from one to ten. The student that says 10 sits down. We keep playing until there is only one person standing. Today we made our class birthday graph. This is the first year in many that we don't have any birthday "twins" in the class.
Keep talking about ways to be kind! We will be talking about it here,too!
Have a great weekend!
Looking Ahead
Monday, September 18---Book Orders Due
Friday, September 29---School Picture Day---send in envelopes if you are ordering pictures, please.
Friday, October 6---No School---Teacher Workshop Day
Friday, October October 20---Field Trip to White Pine Programs---More info to follow
Friday, September 8
We did it!
Everyone managed the first week beautifully!
Thank you, families, for sending in forms, completing questionnaires and numbering snacks. It really does make a difference.
This week was full of 'guided discoveries'. A guided discovery is a focused careful introduction of a material or area in our school. With a careful introduction kids can see and practice how to use a new material. In this way kids are clear on expectations from the very beginning and it makes our classroom and school run so smoothly!
You will see many 'guided discovery' papers coming home over the next few weeks.
Our class practiced a fire drill as well. This time it was just our class. Next time it will be with the whole school!
Please keep sending Home/School folders and 'crayon box' bus tags EVERY day.
Every Friday I send home blankets/towels for washing. These also need to come back every Monday.
I will be able to share more details and answer questions next Thursday at Open House from 5:30-6:15. There is NO child care so please try to arrange care for your child.
Below are a few photos from our week!
Looking Ahead
Thursday, September 14---Open House Information Night---Parents only, please.
Friday, September 29---School Picture Day---send in envelopes if you are ordering pictures, please.