Sunday, January 27, 2019

Kindergraten Happenings!

A short week but a busy one!  The children apparently thought it was hat day on Wednesday!  I was at a Literacy Conference with a team of teachers but the children did a great job working, playing and learning while I was out.  It looks like they had fun with pattern blocks and puzzles. 


 A little magnetic sand fun with Valentine cookie cut-outs! 
 We talked about the different ways animals adapt in the winter. We discussed migration, hibernation, storing food and searching for food.  We learned about bears and hibernation through a Let's Find Out pamphlet and short video.  The children had a hands on experience of trying to get to blueberries in a frozen ice cube.  It wasn't really easy which helped them to realize why some animals hibernate so they don't have to search for food in the winter.  It's not as easy as it might seem.  
 A game of Monopoly Jr.  They really enjoyed learning how to play and began to get the hang of it.  They didn't get to finish the game because we all know how long Monopoly games can last.  
 Meira is posing so Journey can draw a picture of her!  How cute!  
 Adding a poem about a snowman into our poetry books.
 Practicing reading and writing sight words.  We have learned quite a bit of words but will continue to learn more.  It is important to practice both reading and writing these words.  It will help your child as they read books and during writing activities.  We learn a total of 42 words!  
 Practicing the letter g. It is also a magic c letter.  We are almost halfway through our lower case letters.  Now it is time to work on writing them using lines properly.  

A few things to mention.  We have two school wide fundraisers happening right now.  One is box tops!  Cut those box tops off of your food packages and send them in with your child.  The kindergarten classes are helping to count the box tops and the classroom who brings in the most usually gets a little prize.  Mrs. Whitehouse class is currently in the lead!  So help us out and send in some BOX TOPS!!  

The second is the FUN RUN!!  This is new to our school and sounds like a blast.  It is important for each child to sign up and try to earn some pledges to help out with field trips and other school related activities!  It looks like we have 4 students who have signed up so far.  It's fairly easy to do!  Go to funrun.com and the instructions are there.  Thank you for your help.  The children will have a lot of fun on this day!  

Finally, we have had a lot of sickness in our class and I am trying to keep the tables and chairs as clean as I can.  It would be very helpful if you could send in some wipes so I can continue to do this.  I received one after the holidays and it is almost gone. Any donation would be very much appreciated.  Thank you so much!  

I hope you had a wonderful weekend!!  


Monday, January 21, 2019

Kindergarten Happenings!

 I hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend! Here are some happenings from last week.  
We had a few special moments to recognize.  
 Write them room - practicing counting and recording using numbers 0-20
 Adding a MLK poem into our poetry book. 
 building with pattern blocks
 This week we have had some difficulty with "going with the flow" as they say.  Some of us are choosing to grunt, groan & complain about things that we have to do or things that don't go the way we want.  Mrs. Checola came to help us with this and revisit the book we read earlier in the year, "You Get What You Get". I have also had some class meetings and discussions with the children as a group and individually about this behavior.  We will continue to work on this and recognize the children who are demonstrating positive reactions and behaviors.  

 Practicing writing our names using an upper case letter and the rest lower case letters.  Come February the children will be asked to write their name this way all the time. 
 Rhyming pairs
 A special Mystery Reader! 
 Julianna was our Mystery Reader!  Bennett was so excited to have his sister come down and read his favorite story to the class!  Thank you Julianna for taking some time out of your day to read to us!  We loved having you!!

 Michael was our Star Student last week!  Michael was very excited to share Woody with us!  He did a fabulous job sharing his family page and all about himself.   Way to go Michael!  
 "Let it shine" - We talked about Martin Luther King Jr. and got together with our buddies to do a special project.  The children each made a sun and wrote about how they could let their light shine.  They enjoyed their special time with their buddies! 



 Happy Birthday Journey!  Journey celebrated her 6th birthday on Thursday.  
We hope you had a wonderful day Journey!  
 We continue to practice Read to Someone to build our stamina.  It is getting longer each time.  We are almost ready to add Read to Someone into our Daily Five rounds.  

 I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  I was out Friday because of a sick child and will be out Wednesday for a Literacy Conference I am attending. I heard the children loved the dance party!   

Friday, January 11, 2019

Kindergarten Happenings!

Here are some of the activities we have been busy working on the past week.  
 Organizing sentences so they make sense. 
A great way to practice some skills like capital at the beginning, punctuation at the end. 
 Counting, graphing and adding winter pictures! 
 Signs of Winter
We made a list of signs of winter and then wrote in our journal. 

 Practicing cutting and organizing a sentence. 
 A new Daily Five was introduced
Read to someone.  Here are the kids practicing the station




 Slime all the time!  The kids love playing with the slime in the class.
 Snowman cover up
A fun game to practice addition

 Writing addition equations

 CCVC words ~ A challenge a few were excited to try!

 Reading CVC words and deciding if it is a real word or silly word
 The boys playing with interlocking cubes.  
We earned another marble party that we will plan on Monday for sometime next week!  The kids are working hard and I am very proud of them!  
Have a wonderful weekend!