Shelfari

I enocurage you to take a look at the bottom, right-hand corner of my blog. Here, you will find my Shelfari Book Shelf. This is an online tool that I have added to my blog to showcase some of the books that we are reading in the classroom. Some of the books are our story bit books, some are read alouds that support our social science themes, and some are just my personal favorites that I enjoy sharing with the class! If you would like, you can sign these books out of the school or town library to share them again with your children. Remember: you can never hear a good book too many times! Happy reading!

The First Few Weeks of School

Wow! It is hard to believe that we have been in school for almost four weeks already! I am happy to report that I am lucky to be working with an energetic, curious, and capable group of kindergartners! They have already become very comfortable with the school, the classroom, the routines, and the expectations of being at H.C.S., and the learning has already begun! We spend time each day engaged in literacy activities, math exploration, and discussing various social science themes. Currently, we are learning about a favorite fall treat: apples! We enjoyed the autumn story, Lucky Leaf, as our story bit last week. Ask your child to retell this funny story using his or her cutout leaf story bit to remember what happened.

Early this week, as a part of building our classroom learning community and establishing rules and expectations, I asked each child to identify his or her "Hopes and Dreams" for this school year. Please enjoy reading through the varied responses that I received!

My hope and dream for this year is:
*to meet a lot of people!
*to go on the swings!
*to earn stars!
*playing games with my classmates!
*playing with people inside and outside!
*learning about a T-Rex!
*to learn more about my family!
*to make necklaces!
*sledding down the hill near the park!
*learning my ABCs!
*to enjoy the sunshine!
*to share a book at the library!
*to write home!
*learning more new letters and numbers!
*to learn about dogs!
*to get a lot of stars!
*to learn about wildlife!

I explained to the children that, if we all work hard to follow our classroom rules, we will all be able to achieve the "Hopes and Dreams" that we came up with!

By now, you have probably heard about the "Be A STAR" program. This is a way for children to learn and remember our school-wide behavior expectations. Be A STAR stands for:

Belonging
A
Sharing
Trust
Accepting Responsibility
Respect

Adults around the school spend time each day "catching" children practicing these core values. If a child shows one of the core values, he or she may earn a star: a paper voucher for a special sticker to be placed on the giant poster in the main hallway. I have found that this program encourages adults to be more positive and proactive in their approaches to managing student behavior, and children are encouraged to behave appropriately in all areas of the school. So far, I have an amazing group of "star" students who are earning more stars than I can count! Take a peek at the cool photo that was taken at last week's Be A STAR celebration:


I look forward to an exciting year with your little superSTARS!

Goodbye Kindergarten...Hello First Grade!

It is hard to believe that it is finally here....the very last day of kindergarten! It seems like just yesterday that your bright-eyed, curious, somewhat nervous children joined me in September to begin their school experience. We have spent the past 180 days working, playing, learning, laughing, problem-solving, and growing together. We have created a bond similar to that of a family and it was incredibly hard saying goodbye to each one of them this afternoon. Each child has brought amazing skills and strengths to our group and added to the cohesiveness of the group as a whole. I have spent time this year documenting our experiences through photographs and I created a photo story to share with all of you here. The children had a chance to view it with me, and can fill you in on what was happening in each of the photos. I hope you enjoy watching the slide show as much as I enjoyed creating it!



I hope you all have a wonderful, fun, and safe summer with your FIRST GRADERS!!!! Thank you so much for sharing them with me this past year!

Miranda

Lovely Ladybugs!

Wow! What a whirlwind the last month has been (and I predict the next month will be just as wild!) We have had a vacation, started our final weeks of kindergarten, and done lots of great work, too! You have probably heard from your kindergartner that there will be some changes in the upcoming weeks. Due to the renovation of the Primary Wing, we will be relocating to the library for the month of June. The children have begun to see me packing boxes and organizing materials, as the classroom must be empty by May 28th to prepare for our move. They have had lots of great questions, but seem to be looking forward to our new adventure and I believe that we will be able to make the transition to our new space relatively smoothly. The kindergarten team is planning many fun activities and field trips so that we will not be spending too much time in the library, but we will also attempt to keep some sort of routine to our days, so that we can minimize anxiety and behavior problems. I will keep you posted about important dates and exciting happenings as we decide on them!

Since we returned from April vacation, our classroom has transformed into "Ladybug Land." We ordered ladybug larvae from a company in California called Insect Lore, and the larvae arrived on May 10th. We have begun our in-depth exploration of the life cycle of a ladybug and are enjoying observing the larvae. Yesterday, we found that our first larva has started the pupa stage of the life cycle! Within the next week or so, we will watch for signs that a ladybug will be emerging from the pupa. The children have been very engaged in this new unit and have shared their prior knowledge about these lovable insects and have asked many wonderful questions about them, as well. We have done and will continue to do many projects and will eventually release the ladybugs when they have all emerged from their pupas.

I have included here a slideshow of the ladybug number stories that the children wrote and illustrated during math. Each child created an addition or a subtraction story and then painted a gorgeous watercolor picture to accompany their problem. Feel free to stop by our classroom bulletin board to check out their work in person!

Digital slideshow personalized with Smilebox

I have spent the last several weeks completing spring assessments with all students. I am truly amazed at how much learning and growth has taken place over the last nine months! Teachers are still working on placements for first grade. Families will be notified of your child's new teacher in early June.

Please mark your calendar for the following important dates:
Friday, June 4th: Shelburne Farms Field Trip
Monday, June 7th: Mt. Philo Hike (***Chaperones still needed!***)
Friday, June 11th: Move-Up Day
Wednesday, June 16: Last Day of School (1/2Day 11:30 Dismissal)

As always, please contact me by email (mjohnson@cssu.org) or phone (482-6205) if you have any questions or ideas.

Tasting Party

We will be having a Tasting Party next Friday, April 23rd, to celebrate the end of our Five Senses unit. My hope is that the children will be able to try a variety of foods: some sweet, some sour, some salty, and some bitter. We will do "blind" taste tests and try to determine what food we are tasting. Please visit the sign-up sheet if you are able to send something in for the party next week.

Sign-Up Sheet: Tasting Party

If the link does not work for some reason, please feel free to email me or send a note in your child's homework folder letting me know what you can send in. Thank you in advance for your support of this fun culminating activity!

Important News and Events

H.C.S. has moved to a new email system. We will now by using Gmail for all of our email correspondence and all staff members now have a new email address. My new email is mjohnson@cssu.org. Please be sure to use this new address to contact me from now on. Thank you!

Next week is Spirit Week here at H.C.S. Each day will have a different theme and you can feel free to help your child dress according to the theme each day. The schedule is as follows:

Monday: Tropical Day (Hawaiian shirts, capris, shorts, sunglasses (no bathing suits, please)

Tuesday: Mismatch Day

Wednesday: Twin Day (Children can plan with a friend to dress in similar outfits to look like twins!)

Thursday: P.J. Day (Children may wear their pajamas to school)

Friday: Charlie Fortin Day (Charlie Fortin is our beloved head custodian, who is retiring on Friday, April 23rd. Children are encouraged to dress like Charlie! Denim pants, suspenders, and work boots is Charlie's normal attire for a day here at H.C.S.)

Please have fun with Spirit Week and feel free to be as creative as you and your child would like!

Spring Fever!

While it has been a rainy week, the kids can certainly sense that "spring is in the air" and are looking forward to some sunshine and warmer temperatures! Before we know it, our favorite kindergartners will be big old first graders! Yikes! We continue to be busy here in Room 5, with lots of special happenings and exciting activities! On Monday, we were fortunate enough to have a guest teacher during Writer's Workshop. Leah Mermelstein, an author and expert on teaching writing to young children, visited H.C.S., and our classroom was selected for her to do a teaching demonstration in! The children were thrilled to learn that "famous" Ms. Leah would be coming to see all of the fabulous writing that they have done. While Leah was in our classroom, she taught a lesson on how to begin our small moments stories, as a way to show other teachers in our building different strategies to use during Writer's Workshop. The wonderful writers in Room 5 knocked everyone's socks off with the amazing work they can do! All of the adults who gathered to observe the lesson were impressed with how engaged and focused the children were on their work. Leah conferenced with several students about their writing and the children were thrilled to share their work with her! Check out the article in the next Hinesburg Record about our time with Leah!


We have had several guest teachers this week, as I was unfortunately out sick for a couple of days. Changes to the routine can always be challenging, but it sounds like most children handled their time with the substitutes well. I am enjoying getting back into the swing of things. A big thank you to Mrs. Pelkey and Mrs. Twarog for working so hard and helping the children while I was gone!

I am beginning to assess students' progress in all academic areas for third quarter report cards. I continue to be pleased with the remarkable growth and learning I am seeing and I can't wait to share this information with you at parent-teacher conferences on April 15th and 16th! Please return the paper that I sent home in your child's homework folder today to let me know if the conference time that I scheduled for you is a convenient one. If it is not, please let me know a time that may work better for you. At our conference, I plan to share your child's report card and also to discuss the placement process for first grade. I truly value parent input during this process and would like to make the transition from kindergarten to first grade as stress-free as possible!

Today was very exciting, as we wrapped up our ocean unit. The children have been incredibly engaged in learning about all things sea-related and they don't seem to want the unit to end! We have spent time reading many great fiction and non-fiction books about the ocean, each child completed a research project on a sea creature of their choosing, we have made a classroom under the water mural with many ocean-dwelling animals, and we had a great time at our beach party today! Check out the picture of our class mural here!


Over the next several weeks, we will be spending time learning about our five senses and how they help us to navigate the world around us. This is always another favorite unit with lots of fun activities to complete!

Enjoy the wonderful weather with your kindergartners!