Welcome to Kindergarten!

Now that it is our eleventh day of kindergarten, we are settling into a great routine and are already hard at work doing lots of learning! I am sure you have heard some of the highlights of our first few weeks of school, including:

• our hunt for the missing gingerbread cookies!
• hatching and releasing two monarch butterflies
• watching a puppet show from Mrs. Lasher about the Gingerbread Man
• filling each others' buckets
• learning how to play the "Counting Game"
  
• earning stars
• learning routines and procedures for MANY different things
  

and much, much more. We are spending time practicing, practicing, and practicing some more the routines of our day and discussing and learning about school rules and expectations. I am proud to say that this is a group of children who clearly care about each other, their school, and their teacher and they are working and playing very nicely together! I have been handing out many stars each day when I "catch" a student being respectful, responsible, and/or safe. Ask your child what he or she did to earn a star this week!

I plan to use this blog as a way to communicate some of the activities that we complete in the classroom. I will also post my newsletter here for those of you who prefer electronic copies of information. Feel free to share the link with family members and friends who may be interested in seeing what your child is up to in kindergarten! Please let me know if you have any questions or ideas about this blog.

I will end this post with a picture of one of our favorite things that happened this week in Room Eight: Mr. O'Hara, our assistant principal, visited to read us some of his favorite children's books. He read Where the Wild Things Are (his daughter's favorite) and The Monster At the End of This Book (his favorite when he was a child). The children enjoyed having a guest reader and Mr. O. was thrilled to have a chance to visit our classroom. We look forward to having him visit again!

Goodbye Kindergarten, Hello First Grade!

It has been a wonderful year in kindergarten! We have learned together, laughed together, and grown together. Thank you all for sharing your amazing children with me this year!

June 17, 2011 Newsletter

June 3, 2011 Newsletter

June 3, 2011 Newsletter

Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home

We spent most of the month of May immersed in "Ladybug Land," learning all there is to know about ladybugs (as all of the students will tell you: "Mrs. Johnson's favorites!") We studied the life cycle of these little creatures by "growing" our very own ladybugs. I sent away for live ladybug larvae from a company called Insect Lore, and our new pets arrived in early May. Over the next few weeks, we carefully observed the larvae as they grew and changed from larva to pupa to adult ladybug. We also spent a lot of time reading some great literature about ladybugs and playing ladybug games and singing ladybug songs. Finally, it was time to release the ladybugs into our school gardens, where we hope that the ladybugs will help protect our new plants from pesky aphids, which happen to be ladybugs' favorite foods. To celebrate the end of our unit, we enjoyed some food of our own: yummy ladybug cupcakes!

Here are a few photos from our ladybug unit:We examine the ladybugs in their house before releasing them.

The ladybugs landed on our hands and fingers before finding their new homes!

Yum! Ladybug cupcakes, complete with red wings and black spots!

As a part of our ladybug unit and our problem solving unit in math, students wrote and illustrated "Ladybug Picture Problems." Please click on the link to enjoy this photo story of their work!

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BwTa0ql-ggedMDlhMzJlOWYtY2ZhZS00ODhjLWE1MTMtMTJkMWE5NWQ3MGQx&hl=en_US&authkey=CNvt76wH

Sea Creature Picture Problems

We have spent a great deal of time over the last several weeks writing, illustrating, and solving picture problems during our math block. Please visit the link here to enjoy our class book of Ocean Problems:

http://www.storyjumper.com/book/index/1834202/Ocean-Math#

Ask your child to help you solve his or her classmates' picture problems!

Parent-Teacher Conference Sign-Ups

Dear Families,

You should have received an email from me inviting you to sign up online for Spring Parent-Teacher Conferences (held the week of April 4). Please visit the link below to choose your time slot:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/spring896

If you do not have access to email or the Internet OR you do not see a time slot that is convenient for you, please contact me (by email: mjohnson@cssu.org or phone: 482-6208) and we can schedule a time to meet. Thank you in advance for taking the time to meet with me for this important conference. I look forward to sharing your child's progress with you!

Mo Willems Author Study

We spent several weeks doing an in-depth study of the author and illustrator, Mo Willems. Mo is the author of many wonderful children's books, including Knuffle Bunny, Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, Elephant and Piggie books, and more. Our unit kicked off with a field trip to the Flynn Theater to see an amazing performance of Knuffle Bunny. We spent time during our author study exploring Mo's writing style and getting to know his lovable characters. We tried to emulate his style by writing using speech/talking bubbles and learning how to draw the pigeon! We even had a visit from Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct. She left dinosaur tracks in the snow and left us a special chocolate chip cookie treat! Here is a picture of us wearing our Knuffle Bunny hats that we made with our Big Buddies:
We completed a writing response to the question: "What would happen if the pigeon drove the bus?" Please enjoy the video that I made of the children's responses!

Untitled from Miranda Johnson on Vimeo.

We had so much fun getting to know this great author! Make sure to ask your child what his or her favorite Mo book is! If you would like to learn more about Mo Willems, please visit his interactive website at: http://www.mowillems.com/