Mystery Readers!

I've had such fun continuing Miss Livingston's "Mystery Reader" tradition! It is so exciting to read the clues each day and watch children get excited at the prospect of someone they know coming to read to the class! Here are several pictures from recent Mystery Readers.

Kate's grandparents were the Mystery Readers on her birthday!

Kristin M. reads to us from Olivia and the Fairy Princesses

If you are interested in signing up, please visit the online sign up here: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090B48AFAC2C7-mystery There has been some talk about who is "allowed" to be a Mystery Reader. In my opinion, anyone who is willing and interested, is welcome! Grandparents, older siblings, moms, dads, or others! Let me know your ideas!

All About Erosion!

A couple of weeks ago, we had the pleasure of having Laura Howard and Doug Stewart visit our classroom to teach us about this month's Four Winds topic of Erosion. We had so much fun watching a puppet show to learn what causes erosion and then did a couple of experiments and a demonstration using our bodies. Take a look at these pictures!

A puppet show to start things off!

Shaking rocks in water!

Shaken vs. unshaken rocks.

Creating a "rainstorm" on a mountain to learn about erosion.

Our miniature version of Mt. Mansfield!

We went from a boulder....

...to pebbles!

Winter Fun!

The lack of fluffy, white snow outside our windows hasn't stopped us from jumping into our winter unit! We have spent lots of time learning about this chilly season, from reading popular winter books during read aloud to completing beautiful art projects. We even created snow people using the letters in our names!

Name Snow People!

We had fun reading this poem:

If snow came down in colors

How splendid would it be,

To make bright, jolly snowmen

For everyone to see!

and then created fabulous Rainbow Snow People. If you have a chance, stop by to see how beautiful they look in the hallway outside of our classroom!

Happy New Year!

Upon returning to school following the holiday break, we spent some time talking about the new year and what that means. We read a fun book, Squirrel's New Year's Resolution by Pat Miller and discussed what resolutions are.

After reading and discussing, we completed some New Year's self-portraits, complete with party hats! We then wrote our goals for the coming year and shared them with each other. I must say, we have a very ambitious group! Please scroll through the pictures below and enjoy what these kindergartners came up with for their New Year's Goals!

Lexi: In 2014, I want to build with legos.

Blake: In 2014, I want to read books.

Anderson: In 2014, I want to watch football with my dad.

Ella O.: In 2014, I want to read more books.

Haysen: In 2014, I want to help my Papa build my house.

Trey: In 2014, I want to ride a yak.

Stephanie: In 2014, I want to finish reading.

Clement: In 2014, I want to make people happy.

Wyatt: In 2014, I want to play baseball.

Ella S.: In 2014, I want to write more.

In 2014, I want to play baseball.

Addie B.: In 2014, I want to loose my two front teeth.

Brendan: In 2014, I never want to sleep.

Leo: In 2014, I want to build a house.

Addy O.: In 2014, I want to pet more puppies.

Kate: In 2014, I want to finish reading.

Dylan: In 2014, I want to use the computer.

Jared: In 2014, I want to read more books.

In need of Mugs!!

Hello Everyone,

I hope everyone is staying warm with this new extremely frigid weather.  Thank you for sending your students in with lots of layers!  Although the kindergarten classes stayed inside on Monday, it’s great to have the layers just in case we decide to go out to get some fresh air.  

This is what life looks like when you are trying to take a picture of 35 reindeer:)

Missing Reindeer...

Your students may tell you that I finally moved into my new house!  Sometimes during literacy this comes up as a non-fiction event for me to write about and they have been asking me for updates.

This week we will be focusing on uppercase letters and tapping out words in Fundations.  The uppercase letters this week will be A, B, C, D, E, F, G, & H.  Students should now be displaying a growing confidence in all of their lowercase letter formation and in the beginning stages of their uppercase.  The student packets coming home today will provide excellent practice over the winter break.  Try asking your student questions such as, “What says /a/ (like a in the beginning of “apple”)?” or “What says /g/?”   

In Bridges we are moving into Unit 4.  We will be extending our rote counting to 40 and counting objects will be extended to 20 (counting on, one-to-one correspondence, counting to answer, “How many?”).  Our hands on activities will continue to focus on representational addition with sums to 10 and subtraction with minuends to 10.

During theme this week we will be collaborating with the other kindergarten classrooms and watching the Polar Express and focusing on christmas and the chinese new year.  We recently read the Polar Express book and after each viewing we will be comparing and contrasting the book and movie.      

On Friday morning we will celebrate our winter break with a class breakfast.  I will bring in hot chocolate and strawberries.  If anyone else would like to bring in anything, please feel free to let me know what you would like to send in.  The breakfast will go from 9-9:30am.  In the afternoon we will have an assembly in the gym from 12:20-1:00pm..

Our community service project will be making dog and cat treats for a local animal shelter.  Animals in need appreciate love and kindness too:)

Many parents have asked me about the Brain Break video we have been watching in class.  It’s called “What I Am” and is part of a Sesame Street production.  You can google it on YouTube, the students love it and are starting to sing a long and understand what the song is saying.  We usually dance around to wake up our brains for our next learning adventure.   

I will be sending you more information before I leave about Lexia.  Some parents have been asking about it but some students are still not able to login.  If Lexia is new to you I will send you more information about this literacy program available to access at home.  

Students have been eagerly practicing their sight words in class and I have noticed a lot of students coming in to tell me they have been practicing at home.  Thank you for all of your hard work!  There has been a slight change in the sight word list for kindergarten and I was unaware of it.  If you would like to continue practicing at home here are some words you can add to your list:)  These will be the ones they will be expected to know leaving kindergarten.  

no

is

can

me

you

and

he

at

a

so

on

in

up

am

we

like

see

I

go

it

do

an

the

my

to

We will be making a craft tomorrow that will be coming home on Friday but WE NEED EACH CHILD TO BRING IN A MUG.  The mug will come back home on Friday and will not be glued or painted.  I just can’t tell you what they will be doing with it.  If you have an extra mug, please do not hesitate to send it in:)  

Thank you again and I am sorry you are receiving this so late!

-Jenn

Chilly Week Ahead...

Hello Everyone,

Hopefully everyone was able to enjoy the sunny but chilly weekend!  I read a quote over the weekend, "There's no such thing as bad weather, just inadequate equipment and poor planning."  I read this after my poor planning and apparel for an extremely cold morning run...  With that in mind, please make sure your student is coming to school with the right “equipment” for the elements.  Students go out to recess each day for around 20 minutes and they can get very muddy and wet in that time.  When students forget their sneakers they end up wearing their wet boots for the remainder of the day after recess, when they forget their boots they end up wearing wet sneakers for the remainder of the day...And I’m sure you can imagine what a classroom of wet boots and shoes looks like after 18 kindergartners walk all over it:)  I welcome you to send a pair of sneakers to leave overnight in his/her cubby. 

This week in kindergarten we will be continuing our exploration of holidays around the world.  Last week students had so much fun making bread and beginning to learn about Hanukkah.  We will explore other holidays such as Ramadan, Dawali, Kwanza, Christmas, and more!

Thank you very much for all of your suggestions for our community service project.  We are still trying to finalize our options weighing time, resources, and need.  Our class will talk about it and decide this week.

During Fundations we will be starting Unit 2 which moves our focus from beginning phoneme awareness to more advanced phoneme awareness.  In this unit we will learn how to blend and read three-sound short vowel words.  These are often called CVC words.  You may see students independently “tapping” our words with their fingers.  Encourage it!!!  They should be starting with their pointer finger and “tapping” it on his/her thumb, then moving on to the middle finger to the thumb and so on until all of the sounds are “tapped.”   Each sounds gets its’ own finger tap.  

We will continue building on our previous knowledge for Bridges Math by building a number line to model the number sequence from 0-10.  We will continue to practice counting forward and backward between 0-50, starting with any number in the range.  Count up and down when timing something in the oven or microwave.  You can also play hopping games where you start and stop counting.

During Number Corner (calendar) are learning to use positional and directional language to assist us.  Our new vocabulary words consist of "behind, in front of, to the left, to the right, inside, outside, under and above."  Try using this vocabulary when giving directions to your student.  They can be directions such as, "Please put your jacket in front of my jacket." or "Can we read the book that is to the left of the Legos?"  Have fun being creative!  During our

In Writer's and Reader's Workshop will be focusing on Leo Lionni.  If this author is new to you, he is famous for the books Swimmy, Fredrick, Inch By Inch, Fish is Fish and many more!  We will be comparing his books for similarities and differences. We will take our observations and create a class matrix and Venn diagram.  Students will be encouraged to work in groups to explore the plot, setting, and characters. When you are reading at home, see if you can identify these text features together:)

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our school food drive!  We built a structure out of the cans/boxes we have so far.  As we continue to receive more food items, we will continue building!

Thank you for being such an amazing community!