Our classroom is in need of a couple supplies…

If you are out shopping this weekend and would be willing to pick up either one or both of these items for our classroom, I would really appreciate it!! 

Graham Crackers: When the kids forget their snacks (please remember to send 2 snacks each day) I keep graham crackers at school to give them. If you wouldn’t mind picking up a box and sending them in, I would appreciate it! Thank you!!

Disinfecting Wipes:We are trying to do extra cleaning in our classroom right now with all of the germs going around. If you wouldn’t mind picking up some disinfecting wipes for our classroom, that would be wonderful! Thank you!!

 

This Week in Kindergarten…

Popcorn Words: he, she 

Our popcorn words this week were he, she. We did many different activities this week to reinforce learning these new words.

    

Math: In math this week, we continued working on Unit 3. We focused on sorting by different sizes, colors and attributes. We talked about things that are the same and different. We practiced our number sense, by drawing circles to represent the number shown. We also practiced counting a number of objects and writing the correct number that’s represented by objects. Learning if numbers/objects are equal or not equal is something else we learned this week. 

Math Games: We had fun on Friday playing math games. We made an addition snow globe. The kids had to color some of the snowflakes blue and leave some white. They then had to use those numbers to write an equation as the base of their snow globe. Another game we had fun playing was to read a number on the snowman and use unifix cubes to build that number of “snowball” on the snowman. The last math game we played was to go on a polar bear hunt. The kids had to search for numbers hidden around the room and match them to their paper. Math games on Fridays are always a favorite!!

           

Reading: In reading this week, we practiced using our “SUPER POWERS” when we read!! We focused on our “POINTER POWER” and our “SNAP POWER”. When your child is reading to you at home when practicing their take home book, please practice using these powers. 

“POINTER POWER” is when you practice pointing to each word as you read. The kinders have learned to tap one time under each word when reading. They were given rings with wiggly eyes to wear on their pointer finger and to help them remember to use their pointer power!

      

“SNAP POWER” is when the kinders practice reading the words they know in a snap. We talked about how we’ve practiced a lot of popcorn words this year. They can read those words in a snap!

Peanut Butter & Jelly Reading: This is also known as Partner Reading. This week we read with our PEANUT BUTTER & JELLY PARTNERS! We practiced the “peanut butter” partner reading and the”jelly” partner pointing to make sure we only read the words that are pointed to, then we switched jobs. It was fun!

          

Writing: Writing small moment stories is hard work! The kinders are doing such a great job of learning to think of a story, tell their story to a writing partner, sketch and then write their story. We use the words FIRST, NEXT and THEN to keep our stories in order. Wow…that’s a lot of work! It is so exciting to see them become writers!

 

Literacy Centers: This week during our literacy time, we practiced many different skills. One of the things we practiced was stretching out the sounds that we hear in words, writing them on paper and drawing a picture to match. 

 

Handwriting: This week in handwriting we practiced the letters w and t. We also practiced writing some words with these letters in them. It’s exciting to see their handwriting and letter formation continue to improve! 

  

VALENTINE PARTY AND VALENTINE EXCHANGE:   Wednesday, February 14 from 1:50-3:00pm. I have heard back from many parents. Thank you all for offering to help out at our party! You will be hearing from someone soon regarding what to bring or where you can help at. 

VALENTINE EXCHANGE:  Information has been sent home. Be sure to have your kinder write their names on each valentine.  Please have your kinder bring their Valentine Cards back to school by Monday, February 12. 

100 DAYS OF SCHOOL CELEBRATION:  Friday, February 9. Start thinking about what 100 items your kinder will like to collect and bring to school.  Your kinders 100 collections will be due on Feb. 9. This is the day that they may bring them into school. Please do not send them into school earlier. The collections will return home the same day. Begin collecting 100 items and decide how your kinder would like to display them.  Have fun! 

UPCOMING DATES:

MON. JAN. 29-PETAKE-HOME BOOKS; Happy Birthday to Dean!!

TUES. JAN. 30–MUSIC; Last day to order PE apparel.

WED. JAN. 31ART; HOMEWORK DUE; LIBRARY-Please remember to return your child’s book; TAKE-HOME BOOKS

If your kinder would like a sack lunch on Friday, please email me (jbaker4@hpseagles.net or send a note by Thursday 2/1.

THURS. FEB. 1STEAM

FRI. FEB. 2-PEFAST FRIDAY…Dismissal at 12:15pm; NO TAKE-HOME BOOKS TODAY

NO SCHOOL: Monday, February 5 WINTER BREAK

NO SCHOOL: Tuesday, February 6 WINTER BREAK

WED. FEB. 7—Back at school

FRI. FEB. 9Day 100 Celebration!

WED. FEB. 14—Valentine’s Day Party  1:50-3:00pm. Parent volunteers who are working at a party center, please arrive by 1:40pm for instructions & set up. THANK YOU!! NO TAKE-HOME BOOKS THIS DAY. 

 

 

Dear Kinder families,

Today your kinder took home their very first TAKE HOME book. They had huge smiles when they found out they were taking books home to read today!! You will find inside their bag a yellowish note with more details about this exciting learning adventure.  Their bag is labeled with their name and days to return their books.There is a step by step home directions sheet,  a parent comment sheet, a reading strategies bookmark and a book just right for them to read.  Remember that TAKE HOME books are not meant to be challenging for your kinder to read.  They should feel successful to be able to read these books.  We will save the challenging books for school learning. 🙂 Our goal is to read at a B level by February and a D level by the end of the school year.

Please encourage and support your kinder as needed when they read their book to you.  It is good to read the book more than one time and on different occasions.  PLEASE KEEP THIS BOOK HOME UNITL WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24. Wednesday will be the first day that your kinder will read their book with a parent volunteer at school. Parent volunteers will read with the kinders on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The kinders were very excited to begin this new adventure.  Happy Reading!!!! 🙂

THIS WEEK IN KINDERGARTEN…

POPCORN WORDS: Our popcorn words this week were said, make. We did many different activities this week to reinforce learning these new words.

 

MATH: This week in math the kinders explored with shapes. They used shapes to make new shapes…using triangles to make squares and rectangles and using squares to make rectangles. They did a great job exploring and are getting to know their shapes so well! This week we also focused on sorting pictures and objects. The kinders practiced sorting colors and shapes, types of animals, people and animals. They also had fun exploring different ways to sort buttons, insects and animals. We finished our week by talking about positional words. We made astronaut books that taught positional words.

 

MATH GAMES: On Friday, the kids had fun playing different math games. The practiced their math skills by drawing a number  of buttons on the snowmen, working on number sense using Play-Dough, sorting objects and “Roll A Snowman.”

WRITING WORKSHOP:  We are diving deeper into writing Small Moment stories that are true one time, one place stories. At the beginning of the week we worked together to choose a small moment story about trying a gummy bear. We practiced telling the story over our fingers, drew detailed pictures and worked on stretching out sounds in the words we wrote. Don’t forget that we also work to include spaces between popcorn words and sentence stoppers (punctuation). Wow!! Next week the kinders will have the opportunity to choose their own small moment to write about.    This is a VERY challenging unit for kinders! I am so proud of them working hard and trying their best!! Way to go Kinders!!

READING: This week in reading we learned that Letters Help Us Read! We learned that when you read, you need to…look at the first letter, switch up the first letter if it doesn’t match the word you’re saying, look all the way through a word (to make sure it’s the right word), and to stretch out the word you’re reading. We practiced this in our reading every day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Martin Luther King, Jr. often spoke about wanting people to get along and worked hard to change laws (rules) that were not fair.  We made friendship bracelets, found popcorn words within a simple book about Dr. King and looked at a Let’s Find Out newspaper and talked about his initials  MLK. I love that we can together celebrate our uniqueness and friendship!  It is so heart warming to see the kinders fill each other’s buckets each day.  

SPLIT LIT: This week during our split lit time, we practiced many different literacy skills. We practiced reading, our popcorn words, sight words, letters and sounds, rhyming and listening to books on CD. We were able to choose which station we wanted to go to…all by ourselves!! Mrs. Baker, Mrs. Hatfield and Ivy (a 5th grade helper that comes to our class to work with us) were able to work with us during this time too.

 

DRAMATIC PLAY: We had so much fun this week during our free choice time! We had a new dramatic play area set up…a vet clinic! There are animals (dogs, cats, bunnies, birds, hamsters), scrubs, doctor tools, food dishes, collars and leashes, pet information sheets, even real dog bones! We are excited every day to get to play at the vet clinic!!

SNOWMAN CRAFT: On Friday, we made our own puffy paint!! We painted paper plates with the puffy paint, added eyes, a nose, a mouth, and a hat. They turned out so cute and are hanging up in our classroom!

     

KINDERGARTEN FUN: The past two weeks we have gotten together with other kindergarten friends for some playtime. Last week we got invited to Mrs. Bohl’s class to play with our friends. This week, Mrs. Stutz’s class came to our classroom to play with our friends. It is so fun to get to see our kindergarten friends and get to know them better! 

    

   

 

UPCOMING DATES

*MON. JAN. 22–-STEAM; reading TAKE  HOME BOOKS

*TUES. JAN 23–-PE, LIBRARY…bring back your books 🙂   

*WED. JAN. 24–MUSIC;  HOMEWORK DUE; readingTAKE HOME BOOKS

*THURS. JAN. 25–-ART

*FRI. JAN. 26STEAM; reading TAKE HOME BOOKS

*FRI. FEB. 2—Fast Friday (Early Release)

*MONDAY, FEB. 5 & TUESDAY, FEB. 6—Winter Break Day—No School

*TUES. FEB 7—School begins again

*FRI. FEB 9—Day 100 Celebration

*TUES. FEB. 13—Valentine’s Day Party 2:00-3:00pm Planning will begin soon.

Happy New Year!!

   

Popcorn Words:  at, that.

Math:  This week we got back into our Math routines.  Warming up our Math brains counting by 1’s and 10’s to 100.  We dove deeper into number partners that make a new number.  The Kindergartners were able to identify what number partners make up the number 6.  Exploring that different numbers that make up 6.  Noticing 1 and 5, 2 and 4, 3 and 3 and 6 and 0 are all partners that make up 6 total.  We also explored teen numbers deeper as well.  Noticing ten groups and then some more to make a teen number.  The Kindergartners are learning that a ten frame has ten in it and that a ten stick has ten in it.  These tools are used to make teen numbers.  We had a lot of fun exploring our Math games that had us working on partners, teen numbers and number identification. 

        

Writers Workshop:  This week we are revisiting our Small Moment writing.  The Kindergartners are learning what makes a small moment story.  Discovering that a small moment story is a single event that has happened to them.  They have also explored that some stories are “watermelon” stories.  These are stories that are too big to write about.  We are learning that we need to pick one “seed” out of that watermelon story to write about.  For example, a watermelon story is my whole holiday break.  A seed story would be one event that I want to share.  An example of a seed story would be my favorite present that I opened.  The Kindergartners have been working with guidance to write this specific story across 3 pages.  Together we have talked this story over our fingers.  First, we sat down to open our present.  Second, we ripped open the paper.  Last, we were so excited!  It was a ___.  The Kindergartners have done a great job revisiting this small moment idea of story writing.  We will continue to build on our skills of small moment writing all month.  

Readers Workshop:  This week we are talking about “Revving up to read.”  What does that mean?  We have been learning how we warm up our brains to read!  We have talked about how readers will follow a few steps before they read a book.  First, they might take a look at the cover of the book and the title.  Then, they might even open the book to take a picture walk, even tell the story in their mind of what they think the story could be about.  Last, a reader will even guess at some of the words they might see in a book.  We practiced using these warming up activities all week.  During readers workshop we would take a look at our books first, take a picture walk and then even think about some of the words we might see in our books.  The Kinders practiced these skills all week while reading/looking at books back to back with their reading buddy during readers workshop.

Take Home Book Program:  Wow!!  Thank you to all of you that have sent in your yellow forms saying that you are willing to volunteer for our Take Home Book Program!  I am so excited to begin our program!  I will begin this program on Monday, January 22.  On this day the Kinders will bring home their Take Home Book Bag with instructions inside the bag.  If your child has already been bringing home books, this new book will replace that bag.  I will be testing all of the Kinders before this date to get their most accurate independent reading level.  Each Kinder will receive a Take Home Book bag and instructions on Monday, Jan. 22. I am sending a calendar home this week for all of the volunteers. If you are still interested in coming to listen to kids read at any time, please let me know! I’m always happy to have subs and/or add you to the schedule. 

Rainbow Behavior Chart:  After our holiday break we have started to use our rainbow behavior chart as a behavior tool in our classroom.  Our goal everyday is to be on GREEN!!  Sometimes if a Kinder is asked repeatedly to attend to a task or change their behavior then they will be asked quietly to move their individual name clip to yellow.  I always try to catch them quickly making a better choice and then they will get to clip back up to GREEN, ready to learn.  If a Kinder is repeatedly making good choices, listening in a snap then they will be asked to clip up to blue on our rainbow chart (Good Choices).  The Kindergartners have done a GREAT job with this new behavior tool.  We do still use a class clip!  With our class clip we have earned 10 superstars!!!  This earned us a special day!!  I will send out what our special day will be after we vote on it this week in class. 🙂

Split Lit. Centers:  What do we do at Split Lit. Center time?  Well, we get to chose from 8 different centers to explore.  The Kinders get to navigate these stations all by themselves!   They can pick from several “word work” activities, listen to books, read to a beanie baby, read with sunglasses on, etc.  They may also get some one-on-one time with Mrs. Stutz or Mrs. Hatfield (one of our K-para pro’s) during this time to work on specific reading skill building.  The kids were so excited to choose what station they wanted to go to!! 

 

Upcoming Dates:

  • Monday, Jan. 15…ART  
  • Tuesday, Jan. 16…STEAM, LIBRARY, Mrs. Baker gone – all K teacher learning day.
  • Wednesday, Jan. 17…PE, Homework due.
  • Thursday, Jan. 18…MUSIC
  • Friday, Jan. 19…ART, Popcorn Friday.
  • Monday, Jan. 22…Take Home Book Bags sent home.  
  • Wednesday, Jan. 24…Bring Take Home Book Bag back to school.
  • Friday, Jan. 26…Bring Take Home Book Bag back to school.