February is almost over

Can't you tell by the weather......

Important Reminders:

Progress will be coming home in early March.  They will be in your child's folder.

Yesterday I sent home a letter about Read Across America.  We are celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday and dressing up all week so make sure to look for that letter. 

Reading groups are going strong.  Your child's present level will be on their progress report.  We are learning about shapes in math, both 2D and 3D shapes.  The kids love this unit.  Easy practice alert:  go on a scavenger hunt around your home, outside or the stores and have them show you different shapes.  In writing, we are ending our nonfiction books and will be spending some weeks writing how to books (like how to make lemonade).  In science, we are learning about plant and animal habitats and external features of plants, animals and humans.

At the end of March we are having an in-school field trip.  Keep a look out for a permission slip to go home in their folder.  

Remember, March 3 is an early release day at 1:20,

Enjoy the spring weather.

February Updates

So February is flying by with this beautiful spring weather.  Are there any snow days in our future?

In class, we switched from narrative writing to writing about things we know a lot about.   We made a list of all things we are experts in and we are using graphic organizers to write about them.  We are really focusing on our 5Star writing.  Ask your child to tell you how we check to make sure we have it!  We are switching to plants from animals, now, too.  We watched our mealworms change to beetles and will soon say goodbye to our new pals.  We started our geometry unit in math, starting with 2D shapes and moving to 3D shapes over the next couple of weeks.

Today was the 100th day of school.   We got some great posters in with really cool collections of 100 things.  We made a sash with 100 designs, a necklace with 100 fruit loops, an ice cream with 10 scoop of ice creams (counting by 10s to 100!) and I gave each student "100" cookies to take home.  I hope they make it.

We are planning our Valentine's Day party for Feb. 14.  If you are able to and have not yet sent in a $ donation, please do that ASAP.  I also sent home a list of student's names for your child to label their Valentine's if you choose to give some out. We will be decorating bags in school to collect all the goodies.

I would usually end a February post telling you to stay warm.  Not today, but tomorrow we're supposedly back to "normal".  We'll see....

January is getting away from me

I didn't realize how long its been since my last post....Here's whats going on in our classroom....

We finished our winter testing for reading.  Reading levels will be on your child's report card which will be going home the beginning of February.  Reading groups are starting back up again with more books and some word family poems.

We have been fiercely writing narrative stories - stories about something that happened in our lives.  We are using graphic organizers to make sure we have a beginning, middle and end to our stories.  We are also editing our work for upper and lower case letters, spaces between words, correct spelling of our sight words and punctuation.  Yep, all in kindergarten!

In math, we are still counting to 100 but by 1s and 10s now.  We also started decomposing numbers.  For example, 3 and 4 make 7, 2 and 5 make 7.  This will lead us into adding and subtracting.

Our mealworms came in right after winter break.  We are watching them change into pupa and then into Darkling Beetles.  Its not as bad as it sounds.  They don't crawl out of their boxes and the beetles don't fly.  We are learning about what animals (including bugs) need to survive and will learn about different animal life cycles.

Remember there's no school Friday, January 20 or Friday, January 27.

A letter will be going home soon about our Valentine's Day party.  We are asking for a $ donation to cover snacks and I will send home a list of our students so, if you choose to,  your child can make cards for everyone.  There will be alternative activities if you prefer that your child does not participate in Valentine's Day.  Please send me a note to let me know.

Ok, we're all caught up.  Have a nice weekend.

What a week!

After the excitement of the bears and pajama day last week, we really exhausted ourselves with the winter rotations.  Everyday we went to a different class to make a snowman.  I'm sure you saw the "soup" and great paintings come home.

When we get back in January, though, we get back to work.  Our winter formal reading assessments begin right away.  We will be reinforcing some counting concepts and for science (drum roll).....

We will have a new class pet - meal worms.  They will delivered the first week we get back.  We will make them a home as we learn about what things animals need to survive.  We will be learning about the life cycle of the meal worm, too (as well as other animals).  Eventually, these meal worms will become darkling beetles.  Its not as bad as it sounds.  The kids love it.


Have a wonderful holiday season.

Gingerbread Week

We are all about the Gingerbread cookie this week - if only we were eating them.

We are reading different versions of the story, including the Gingerbread Boy, the Gingerbread Girl, Gingerbread Baby, and more fun and silly stories.  We are using gingerbread men to practice our measuring skills in math, too.  We will be making gingerbread houses for our friends, too.

In social studies, we are learning about landforms - mountains, hills, caves, and volcanoes.  After, that we will switch to bodies of water - oceans, rivers and lakes.

In writing, we are writing about true events in our lives.  We are learning about a beginning, middle and end to a story, how to add details to our pictures and writing, and about speech bubbles.

Next week, will be Teddy Bear week.  I will be sending a letter home on Thursday with details (they can bring a stuffed animal next week).  Another letter will go home later next week, about our Teddy Bear Picnic on the 16th.  Keep a look out for those letters.

Have a good week.

oops!

I just went to post an update and realized I never sent out our Thanksgiving picture with our pilgrim boys and girls.  Sorry for the delay.

Check out our Germs

We've been learning all about germs, washing hands and how to NOT spread germs.  Mr. Mohler, our school nurse, came to talk to us and we read lots of books including one about the Big Bad Wolf who blew down the three pigs houses.  Really, all he wanted was a tissue and he kept sneezing and blowing the houses down.  He wasn't try to hurt them.
This picture is our apple/germ experiment.  We put half the apple in a bag right after it was cut.  The other half was passed around so that everyone can touch and spread germs.  Can you guess which one has the germs?

We started writing narrative stories instead of informational books.  We are writing about stories that really happened to us - somewhere we went or did with friends or family.  We will be writing these kinds of stories through the end of the year.
In math we learned about more and less, longer and shorter.  We compared the length of our names with that of friends and some storybook characters with really long names like SkippyJon Jones and Tikki Tikki Tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo.

Have a great weekend.