Fun With Friends…

We had fun with friends in our class and with our 5th grade buddies! In our classroom, we drew a friend’s name and then made that friend a friendship bracelet. They had fun making something for a special friend! Our 5th grade buddies surprised us with puzzles we had to put together which led to a clue to meet them outside on the playground. They gave us Pop Rocks for a treat and we gave them the same thing along with a rock we decorated for them!! 

Kindergarten Olympics…

We had SO MUCH FUN at our kindergarten olympics!! There are so many pictures to share with you. Please click on the link below to view the fun pictures from that day! 

Kindergarten Olympic Pictures

Fun with Chalk…

We had fun outside drawing with sidewalk chalk! We traced each other, drew pictures, wrote numbers and wrote our popcorn words! Our sidewalk looks so pretty! 

Have Buckets of Fun This Summer!!

Each of the kids brought home a little gift yesterday that they can enjoy this summer! Here is a cute picture of each of the kids with their bucket! Enjoy!

First Grade Here We Come!

It has been a pleasure to teach each of your children this year! I have a special place in my heart for each of them! Thank you for sharing your children with me this year! I hope you all have a wonderful summer!!    ~Mrs. Baker

Tomorrow is our kindergarten olympics day! Please have your child wear something comfy for playing games. We are going to doing a couple of water activities too – you may want to pack a change of clothes in your kinder’s backpack just in case. Also, please send a labeled water bottle. We are looking forward to a fun day!!

We learned all about American Symbols! 

We learned about a new American symbol each day this week. We learned about each one by…

• reading about the symbol of the day
• writing about the symbol of the day
• labeling the symbol of the day
• making a craft to show the symbol of the day
• doing a math activity with each symbol

The Bald Eagle – we learned…

• they are the national bird of the United States of America
• they have brown feathers on their bodies
• they have white feathers on their heads
• they look bald because you can’t see the white feathers when they are in the air

The Statue of Liberty – we learned…

• she stands on a pedestal
• she has a crown on her head
• in her left arm she holds a tablet
• she holds a torch above her head
• she wears a robe

The Liberty Bell – we learned…

• it is a bell in Philadelphia
• it is a symbol of freedom
• it is made of bronze
• it isn’t rung anymore because it has a big crack in it

The White House – we learned…

• the president of the United States lives in the White House
• it is in Washington, D.C.
• John Adams was the first president to live there

The American Flag – we learned…

• it is red, white and blue
• it has 13 red and white stripes 
• it has 50 stars
• Betsy Ross sewed the first flag in 1776

We had a red, white and blue treat today…

Class of 2021 Graduates!! On Thursday, the graduating seniors that went to Georgetown Elementary paraded around the building. It was fun to see them in their cap and gowns! Mrs. Baker’s son, Zac, was in the group of seniors! We made signs congratulating Zac and we had fun cheering for all the seniors!!

Mystery Reader – This week Brendan’s sister, Evelynne, surprised him and was a mystery reader for our class! It was fun to have her come and read to us! She read us a fun book about a Yeti! 

Next week in kindergarten…

Monday, May 31: No School – Memorial Day

Tuesday, June 1: Gym

Wednesday, June 2: Art; Kindergarten Olympics

Thursday, June 3: STEAM

Friday, June 4 : Special – recess; Last day of school – early release at 12:15

From STEAM Studio – As part of their last lesson, each student shared a place they would like to go if they could go anywhere in the world.  We used the green screen to make a video showcasing their choices.

Here’s the link to the adorable video…  STEAM link

Have a fun and safe Memorial Day weekend!

The Kindergarten teachers are planning to have a “modified” Kindergarten Olympics for your amazing Kinders!  We are looking for some help with making this time “extra special” for your Kinders.  If you are interested and would like to donate to our Kindergarten Olympics please check out our Olympics Sign Up link:

  Kindergarten Olympics.

POPCORN WORDS: away, play, up

READING: This week during reading, we learned that Characters Perform! We read a script of The Little Red Hen. Each student chose which part they would like to practice and eventually perform. We even made a barn for our backdrop during play time!

In order to get really good at our parts we practiced…

• taking turns reading the script
• sounding like real characters when we read
• watching for punctuation
• using our face and body to become the character

WRITING: During writing this week, we wrote another small moment story. This time we wrote it all by ourselves! We started the week by thinking of a story that is absolutely true and all about you. We told the story to ourselves and then to a friend (what happened first, next and last). We drew a quick sketch of the beginning, the middle and the end on sticky notes. Then we started writing our story! We made a cover page, a beginning, middle and end. We added pictures and labels to our writing and did our best work! We ended the week reading our own writing – each student read their story to Mrs. Baker. 

MATH: This week during math we finished up our last math unit! Wow! It’s hard to believe we have worked our way through two math work books this year! We reviewed for our last math test and then took our last math test. Look for those coming home soon. We will continue to review math skills for the rest of the school year. 

LITERACY/PHONICS: During literacy and phonics time this week, the Kinders did literacy centers on their own again! I am so proud of how hard the kindergarteners worked during this time of our day! These are some things they worked on…

• writing our color words
• learning binders
• writing popcorn words on special mats
• lacing letters and numbers
• painting, writing and finding the word away
• making a “play” watch

MYSTERY READER…Flynn was so excited when his sister (a second grader) came to our room as a mystery reader! She read us a funny story called Mustache Baby that brought a lot of giggles. Thank you Emma for reading to us!

UPCOMING DATES…

Monday, May 24: Music

Tuesday, May 25: Gym; Return all Take Home Book Bags today! We will not be bringing home new books this year.

Wednesday, May 26: Art

Thursday, May 27: STEAM

Friday, May 28: Music; Wear RED, WHITE and BLUE today!

POPCORN WORDS: by, my, one

READING: This week during reading, we made connections to characters in our books by thinking…”Has that ever happened to me?” We talked about something special breaking or getting/wanting a pet. We thought…”Has that ever happened to me?” Then we learned more about characters in the books we read. We read more Froggy books and compared the adventures Froggy goes on in different books. Then we compared two different characters in an Elephant and Piggie book. We noticed what was the same about them and what was different. We ended the week comparing different characters in different books and finding things they had in common and things that were different. 

WRITING: During writing this week, we wrote another small moment story. We started the week by thinking of a story that is absolutely true and all about you. We told the story to ourselves and then to a friend (what happened first, next and last). We drew a quick sketch of the beginning, the middle and the end on sticky notes. Then we started writing our story! We made a cover page, a beginning, middle and end. We added pictures and labels to our writing and did our best work! It was fun to share our stories with our friends!

MATH: This week during math, we learned more about teen numbers – we drew out the teen number, found the partners for the teen number and wrote the equation for the teen number. We compared more numbers – finding the number that is L (less), G (greater) or E (equal). We also started to compare length and height in objects as well as comparing weight in objects. We are still working on adding and subtracting numbers too! 

LITERACY/PHONICS: During literacy and phonics time this week, the Kinders did literacy centers on their own again! I am so proud of how hard the kindergarteners worked during this time of our day! These are some things they worked on…

• finding popcorn words inside books
• learning the popcorn word on – writing it, finding it, painting it
• making watches with our popcorn words on it
• spinning a spinner to make rhyming words
• putting puzzles together and reading the words on the puzzles

UPCOMING DATES:

Monday, May 17: Music

Tuesday, May 18: Gym; Return Take Home Book Bags & Library Books!

Wednesday, May 19: Art

Thursday, May 20: STEAM

Friday, May 21: STEAM; Early Release Day – out at 12:15; Wear something that shows a place in Michigan!

Enjoy the sunshine and have a wonderful weekend!

POPCORN WORDS: have, of, on

READING: This week during reading, we made connections to how the characters in books are feeling.  We looked at their facials expressions, body language and actions to help us learn more about them. We read many different books and noticed how the character were feeling in the books. Some of our favorites were Froggy, Little Critter, Clifford and Elephant and Piggie books. It was fun to share what we noticed about how the characters were feeling! 

WRITING: During writing this week, we revisited small moment stories. We started the week by thinking of a story that is absolutely true and all about you. We told the story to ourselves and then to a friend (what happened first, next and last). We drew a quick sketch of the beginning, the middle and the end on sticky notes. Then we started writing our story! We made a cover page, a beginning, middle and end. We added pictures and labels to our writing and did our best work! It was fun to share our stories with our friends!

MATH: This week during math, we learned about the words greater, less and equal. We counted objects and compared them, telling which group was greater, less or equal. Then we crossed out or added objects to make the groups equal. We also practiced our teen numbers, drawing out a group of 10 and the extra ones. We keep practicing our adding and subtracting too! 

LITERACY/PHONICS: During literacy and phonics time this week, the Kinders did literacy centers on their own again! I am so proud of how hard the kindergarteners worked during this time of our day! These are some things they worked on…

• learning the popcorn word have – writing it, finding it, painting it
• learning the popcorn word on – writing it, finding it, painting it
• rolling a dice and making -ot word family words
• putting together popcorn word puzzles
• studying our popcorn words for the week – of, on, have

MAY THE 4th BE WITH YOU…On Tuesday, May 4th we thought it would be fun to have a May the 4th treat, brain break dance and coloring page! The kinders had so much fun!

STAR REWARD DAY…We had an extra fun reward on Friday!! The Kindergarteners are SOARING and earned a fun day! They voted and chose an extra recess and treat! We enjoyed yummy popsicles and had fun playing outside with our class! 

UPCOMING DATES: 

Monday, May 10: STEAM

Tuesday, May 11: Music; Return Take Home Book Bags and Library Books!

Wednesday, May 12: Gym

Thursday, May 13: Art

Friday, May 14: STEAM; Bring a flashlight to read with today!

I hope all of you amazing moms have a wonderful Mother’s Day! 

POPCORN WORDS: come, some

READING: This week during reading, we focused on learning about characters. These are some things we learned about characters…

• characters can be people, animals or objects
• characters are who the story is about
• the main character is who the story is mostly about
• we can learn about characters by noticing the way characters look
• we can learn about characters by noticing what they are doing or saying

WRITING: During writing this week, we finished writing all about books. The topic we studied was cows. We started by listing everything we already knew about cows. We learned a lot of information about cows by reading a lot of books, watching cow videos and then wrote about…

• things cows can do
• things cows have
• things cows are

We finished learning about cows by putting all of the information we learned about cows into a book. This week we had to do all of our writing by ourselves and show everything we learned about writing informational books. 

MATH: This week during math, we practiced recognizing partners of 7 and 10. We also practiced math mountains and drawing tiny tumblers to show the correct number on each side of the math mountain, showing different ways to make partners of 7, 8 and 9. We made two groups equal by adding shapes to one of the groups. We solved addition and subtraction equations and wrote our numbers. 

LITERACY/PHONICS: During literacy and phonics time this week, we tried literacy centers on our own! I am so proud of how hard the kindergarteners worked during this time of our day! These are some things they worked on…

• being detectives by sliding and reading 3 letter words
• choosing an alphabet letter and finding a popcorn word that starts with that letter
• writing popcorn words on magna doodles
• finding pictures that begin with the corresponding letter sounds 
• finding ch pictures and making a ch hat
• practicing sentence dictation – writing all the sounds we hear in the words
• going on a vowel hunt in books

OUR SUPER STARS AND LUCKY…had fun getting to hang out together on their Super Star Day!

MYSTERY READER: This week it was fun to have Mrs. Baker’s son, Zac, surprise us and be a mystery reader! He knew how much fun we had hearing about his basketball stories, so he read us a non-fiction book all about basketball! He even wore his Hudsonville Eagles basketball jersey! 

UPCOMING DATES:

Monday, May 3: Art

Tuesday, May 4: STEAM; Return Take Home Book Bags & Library books!

Wednesday, May 5: Music

Thursday, May 6: Gym

Friday, May 7: Art; Bring a joke to school today!

POPCORN WORDS: they, these

READING: This week during reading, we looked at books that were all about the same topic. We learned all the information that we could about our topics and shared it with our reading partners. We zoomed in on our topic books, looked closely at pictures and words and noticed things that were the same in both books and things that were different in the books. We had fun playing a game with our reading partners using non-fiction text features. We said, “Can you spy with your little eye…” and then gave a non-fiction text feature for our reading partner to look for in their topic books. We looked for things such as bold words, fancy words, photographs, labels, glossary. It was fun becoming experts on our topics!

WRITING: During writing this week, we continued writing all about books. The topic we studied was chickens. We started by listing everything we already knew about chickens. We learned a lot of information about chickens by reading a lot of books, watching chicken videos and then wrote about…

• things chickens can do
• things chickens have
• things chickens are

We finished learning about chickens by putting all of the information we learned about chickens into a book. We wrote complete sentences and drew and labeled pictures to go along with our writing. We added another page to our all about books this week – we added an ending page. We found a way to wrap up our topic on chickens. 

MATH: This week during math, we worked on noticing partners of 6. We learned that partners of 6 can be in different colors, shapes and arranged different ways. We also practiced adding and subtracting numbers – we are getting better and better at it the more we practice! We also counted groups of objects and circled the group that had FEWER objects. We finished the week by practicing drawing teen numbers showing a group of 10 and the extra ones. 

LITERACY/PHONICS: During literacy and phonics time this week, we tried literacy centers on our own! I am so proud of how hard the kindergarteners worked during this time of our day! These are some things they worked on…

• writing, finding and “painting” they and these
• rolling, reading and coloring short a words
• matching a lock (a word) and key (the matching picture)
• adding word endings to words using Play-Doh
• listening for and writing middle letter sounds
• making, reading and writing -op words
• retelling the story of The Little Red Hen

OUR SUPER STARS AND LUCKY…had fun getting to hang out together on their Super Star Day!

EARTH DAY…we learned about Earth Day this week and ways we can help our Earth. The Kinders listened to books about Earth Day, read and colored a book, did some fun recycling math, made an Earth Day crown and did a fun Earth craft – marble painting with blue and green paint! 

UPCOMING DATES:

Monday, April 26: Gym

Tuesday, April 27: Art; Return take home book bags and library books today!

Wednesday, April 28: STEAM

Thursday, April 29: Music

Friday, April 30: Gym