I hope everyone had a nice Valentine's Day! thank you to Mrs. McHale and Mrs. Kain for organizing and running the party! Thanks to Mrs. Hernandez for coming in as guest reader.
Our letter this week was H. Our sight words were "look" and "little." We read A House For a Hermit Crab and designed our own shells. We wrote about beginning, middle, and end after hearing the story Hector the Hermit Crab. We read The Magic Hat and created a class book in response. After reading The Valentine Surprise, we went on a hear hunt and, using adjectives, wrote about where we found them. We learned a little bit about our first president George Washington and made fun portraits of him.
In math, we graphed the kinds of pet we have, discussed what we learned, and recorded it in our workbooks. We practiced patterning with shapes and colors. We played a game using attributes. We continued our math responses showing our knowledge of ordinal numbers.
Our cool tools this week are friendship, manners, and acts of kindness. We are trying to "catch" our classmates as they show kindness and fairness. We will write about our classmate and share at the end of the day!
Next week there is no school on Monday or Tuesday, Feb 20th and 21st. Our letter next week will be K. We will read and write about King Midas and King Bidgood in the Bathtub. We will meet a new author for our author study and begin enjoying those books. Math will focus on recognizing numbers 1-100.
Have a fun long weekend!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Friday, February 10, 2012
Feb. 6-10
We did not introduce a letter this week. We spent that time focusing on winter, Abraham Lincoln, our magnet unit, and 100 Day! Our sight words were "are" and "here."
We read Animals in Winter and learned about animals who migrate, hibernate, gather and hunt. We played a fun sorting game to recall what each animal from our story did in the winter. We read Jan Brett's The Mitten and, as a whole class, summarized the story into three parts: beginning, middle, and end. This can be tricky! Summarizing involves finding the main idea and letting the details fall away. It can also be a challenge to decide how to break the story up into three parts. We practiced again with Jan Brett's version of Goldilocks and the Tree Bears called The Three Snow Bears. We discussed and recorded the beginning, middle, and ending of the story. Jan Brett has been our author study this month. Check out her website to the left to learn more about her and her books! We read Abe Lincoln's Hat. We made a fun art project and wrote what WE would like to keep under a large, black hat if we had one! We read a few 100 Day books, and wrote about 100 things we would like to have and 100 things we are glad we don't have. We are really taking off in writer's workshop! We had a share day to celebrate writing and inspire the other authors in our room. We can learn from each other. I am sending HALF the pile of writer's workshop creations home today and saving the other half for another share day.
In science, we conducted a few experiments. The first was to see if magnets can attract to each other through a variety of objects. As we discussed our results, we found that our answers varied depending on the strength of our magnets. We also read a magnet book about the north and south poles. We had a blast discovering what happens when two north poles or two south poles are put together. do they magically move? NO! They repel!
Math involved measuring objects with our own feet and our partners feet (non standard measuring tools) and a tape measure set to one foot (standard measuring tool.) We continue addition and subtraction stories using dice, manipulatives, and dry erase boards. We counted to 100 MANY times this week! We counted by tens, created and repeated patterns, counted backwards, and estimated. During math extended response time we learned about ordinal numbers by finding and circling the second ice cream cone and the fourth ladybug.
Our cool tool this week completed the anti bully series. We will focus on friendship, manners, and acts of kindness...how appropriate for Valentine's Day!
Please send you child with valentines for 23 students in a bag labeled with your child's name. Make sure they are signed and ready for passing out.
Thank you to Mrs. Marron, Mrs. Hallissey, Mrs. Robin, and Mrs. Kain for running the 100 Day Celebration centers. This kids had a great time!
Please check your child's backpack for a white letter addressing conferences.
Have a great weekend!
We read Animals in Winter and learned about animals who migrate, hibernate, gather and hunt. We played a fun sorting game to recall what each animal from our story did in the winter. We read Jan Brett's The Mitten and, as a whole class, summarized the story into three parts: beginning, middle, and end. This can be tricky! Summarizing involves finding the main idea and letting the details fall away. It can also be a challenge to decide how to break the story up into three parts. We practiced again with Jan Brett's version of Goldilocks and the Tree Bears called The Three Snow Bears. We discussed and recorded the beginning, middle, and ending of the story. Jan Brett has been our author study this month. Check out her website to the left to learn more about her and her books! We read Abe Lincoln's Hat. We made a fun art project and wrote what WE would like to keep under a large, black hat if we had one! We read a few 100 Day books, and wrote about 100 things we would like to have and 100 things we are glad we don't have. We are really taking off in writer's workshop! We had a share day to celebrate writing and inspire the other authors in our room. We can learn from each other. I am sending HALF the pile of writer's workshop creations home today and saving the other half for another share day.
In science, we conducted a few experiments. The first was to see if magnets can attract to each other through a variety of objects. As we discussed our results, we found that our answers varied depending on the strength of our magnets. We also read a magnet book about the north and south poles. We had a blast discovering what happens when two north poles or two south poles are put together. do they magically move? NO! They repel!
Math involved measuring objects with our own feet and our partners feet (non standard measuring tools) and a tape measure set to one foot (standard measuring tool.) We continue addition and subtraction stories using dice, manipulatives, and dry erase boards. We counted to 100 MANY times this week! We counted by tens, created and repeated patterns, counted backwards, and estimated. During math extended response time we learned about ordinal numbers by finding and circling the second ice cream cone and the fourth ladybug.
Our cool tool this week completed the anti bully series. We will focus on friendship, manners, and acts of kindness...how appropriate for Valentine's Day!
Please send you child with valentines for 23 students in a bag labeled with your child's name. Make sure they are signed and ready for passing out.
Thank you to Mrs. Marron, Mrs. Hallissey, Mrs. Robin, and Mrs. Kain for running the 100 Day Celebration centers. This kids had a great time!
Please check your child's backpack for a white letter addressing conferences.
Have a great weekend!
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Jan. 30-Feb. 3
It was great to see everyone at Open House! Thank you for sharing that special time with your child. We had a busy week in kindergarten and there is a lot of news to share!
First, our week:
Monday was spent getting ready for Open House by decorating our brochures and invitations and writing what we LOVE about kindergarten. The letter of the week was L and the sight words were "come" and "have." We read This is the Jacket I Wear in the Snow and used describing words, adjectives, to describe our snow gear. We visited a website about lions to learn facts and watch video clips about lions. We made long lions by writing sentences about facts that we learned.
We talked about the subtraction symbol...how it is also called minus and means take away. We created take away problems using a minus sign stick and blocks. We practiced the vocabulary including stating that the remaining number is what we have "left over." We practiced addition and subtraction problems using the calculator and recording our number sentences on our white boards. We measured things with our feet and will continue measuring next week.
Our cool tool this week was...be and upstander, not a bystander. If you observe a friend being disrespected, stand up for the victim. We learned about different ways we can help make the situation better.
Our science unit is magnets! We began with exploring magnets in the classroom. We concluded that magnets stick to certain kinds of metal and not wood, plastic and paper. We predicted, experimented and recorded the data we collected to find out what objects stick to magnets. We will continue our magnet unit next week.
Now, the news:
100 Day- At the beginning of the week, I sent a 100 paper to be filled with items. Please send these back tomorrow or Monday. The students will share their papers on Monday.
Valentine's Day - Attached to the email reminder, you will find a letter informing you about the school's policies. (For example, no food can be attached to the valentines.)In addition, the kindergarten teachers are asking you or your child to address the envelopes "My Friend." I realize that this is less personal than a name, but it helps the passing out process go more smoothly. Thank you for your understanding. We will have 23 students participating at the Valentine' Day party.
CBM Benchmark - On Friday, the winter cbm's will be in your child's folder. The tests this month included: quantity discrimination (which number is greater 0-10), letter sound fluency (say the letter's sound), nonsense word fluency (decoding, or sounding out made up words such as nop), and highly decodable text (reading a passage with decodable words and sight words in it.)
Conferences - The day designated for conferences will be Tuesday, February 21st. Letters will be sent home shortly. While November conferences are scheduled for every student, the February conferences are for students new to the school and students with academic or behavioral concerns.
Have a great weekend!
First, our week:
Monday was spent getting ready for Open House by decorating our brochures and invitations and writing what we LOVE about kindergarten. The letter of the week was L and the sight words were "come" and "have." We read This is the Jacket I Wear in the Snow and used describing words, adjectives, to describe our snow gear. We visited a website about lions to learn facts and watch video clips about lions. We made long lions by writing sentences about facts that we learned.
We talked about the subtraction symbol...how it is also called minus and means take away. We created take away problems using a minus sign stick and blocks. We practiced the vocabulary including stating that the remaining number is what we have "left over." We practiced addition and subtraction problems using the calculator and recording our number sentences on our white boards. We measured things with our feet and will continue measuring next week.
Our cool tool this week was...be and upstander, not a bystander. If you observe a friend being disrespected, stand up for the victim. We learned about different ways we can help make the situation better.
Our science unit is magnets! We began with exploring magnets in the classroom. We concluded that magnets stick to certain kinds of metal and not wood, plastic and paper. We predicted, experimented and recorded the data we collected to find out what objects stick to magnets. We will continue our magnet unit next week.
Now, the news:
100 Day- At the beginning of the week, I sent a 100 paper to be filled with items. Please send these back tomorrow or Monday. The students will share their papers on Monday.
Valentine's Day - Attached to the email reminder, you will find a letter informing you about the school's policies. (For example, no food can be attached to the valentines.)In addition, the kindergarten teachers are asking you or your child to address the envelopes "My Friend." I realize that this is less personal than a name, but it helps the passing out process go more smoothly. Thank you for your understanding. We will have 23 students participating at the Valentine' Day party.
CBM Benchmark - On Friday, the winter cbm's will be in your child's folder. The tests this month included: quantity discrimination (which number is greater 0-10), letter sound fluency (say the letter's sound), nonsense word fluency (decoding, or sounding out made up words such as nop), and highly decodable text (reading a passage with decodable words and sight words in it.)
Conferences - The day designated for conferences will be Tuesday, February 21st. Letters will be sent home shortly. While November conferences are scheduled for every student, the February conferences are for students new to the school and students with academic or behavioral concerns.
Have a great weekend!