I am very thankful for each of my sweet Kindergarteners! They make me smile each day! I am glad they are in my class!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey Fun!

On Monday, we had fun with some turkey learning! We read a Scholastic News and learned about how kids helped long ago.

The Kinders had a lot of fun “writing the room” … they searched for Thanksgiving pictures around the room and had to write the words that went along with the pictures. They had fun hunting for pictures!

We read a Thanksgiving story and made a bracelet with colored beads that represented different things in the story.

We labeled and colored a turkey!

We read numbers, put them in order and wrote them in order. 

Stone Soup Fun!

On Tuesday, we made Stone Soup! We listened to the Stone Soup story and then added our vegetables to the pot along with a stone and let it heat up until we were ready to enjoy it! 

Before we tried the soup, we voted on if we thought we were going to like it or not. 

Then, we ate the soup. You can tell if we liked it or not!

After we were done, we voted on if we did like the soup or not. 

We had fun doing a Stone Soup word search and reading a Stone Soup book!

We were so lucky…Joshua’s mom made 2 pumpkin pies for our class to try and enjoy! The Kindergarteners loved it! Thank you for thinking of us and making us pies!

We even got to visit a second grade classroom, Mrs. Bast’s class! They taught us things from the non-fiction books they have been practicing! 

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! Enjoy your time with family and friends!

POPCORN WORDS: an, can, man, ran

READING: This week in reading, we added another power to our growing list of Super Reader Powers! The power we added was SOUND POWER! We learned and practiced looking at the first sound in a word and having that first sound help us read the word. We also learned that it’s important when reading to use more than one of your powers. If one power doesn’t help you, try another one! 

WRITING: During writing this week, we started a new small moment story. We came up with a new story idea…one that’s true and all about you! The Kinders practiced telling their story to a friend and then started writing their story by drawing pictures on the first page, labeling the pictures and then adding words to the page. We did this for the second and third page too. We talked about the words beginning, middle and end. 

MATH: This week in math, we finished unit 2. We finished the unit with a shape lesson, reviewing the shapes and looking for them in a picture. Then, we reviewed everything we’ve learned so far in unit 2 and took a math test. The Kinders love it when we get out the “offices” and use them to take our math tests. It helps us to stay focused on our own math paper. 

LITERACY: We enjoyed some turkey themed literacy activities this week! The Kinders practiced rhyming, syllables, beginning and ending sounds. We also practiced our popcorn words and our ABC’s. Way to go Kinders!

WANTS AND NEEDS: We continued learning about wants and needs. We sorted pictures of things that are wants and things that are needs. The Kinders then did a cut and paste about wants and needs. They cut, glued and wrote: I want ice cream. I need to eat. We will continue to practice wants and needs and then will do an assessment.

 

5TH GRADE BUDDIES: Our 5th grade buddies also came to our class recently! We love it when they come to visit! They helped us make a turkey craft. They are decorating our classroom for the next couple weeks. 

MYSTERY READER: We were surprised with a mystery reader last week! Elijah’s mom surprised Elijah when she came through the door! She read us a really fun book called Secrets of the Rain Forest! It was a neat book…we had to have the lights off and shine a flash light on the book to discover the rain forest animal they were talking about. We had a great time!

MYSTERY READER: Stella’s mom surprised Stella and came through the door as a mystery reader! The Kinders had a great time listening to a fun turkey book called, The Great Turkey Race! It was a cute story about the turkeys winning a race so they couldn’t be eaten for dinner. Stella’s neighbor and friend, Macon, was excited about Stella’s mom being here too! 

MYSTERY READER: Carmel’s mom surprised Carmel and visited our class to be a mystery reader! Carmel was thrilled! The Kinders had a great time listening to a wonderful story called The Giving Tree (one of my favorites)!

GVSU BASEBALL PLAYERS: This Fall we have been very lucky to gave many of the GVSU baseball players and their coach come and teach us how to play different math games on Fridays! It has been fun to get to know the different players. The Kindergarteners look forward to this each week! This Friday was their last day visiting our classroom…we will miss them! Thank you GVSU baseball for helping us to get better at math!

UPCOMING DATES:

Monday, November 25: STEAM; Library – remember to return your book!

Tuesday, November 26: Music; STONE SOUP DAY – remember to send in your veggies!

November 27 – November 29: THANKSGIVING BREAK – no school

December 12: HOLIDAY PROGRAM at 6:30 at Fair Haven Church in Jenison; Bring in a wrapped book for our book exchange – remember to put your Kinder’s name on it. 

December 13: Early Release Day – dismissal at 12:15

December 17: HOLIDAY SHOP – more details to come

December 18: GRINCH DAY!

December 19: HOLIDAY PARTY 2:00-3:00

December 20: POLAR EXPRESS DAY– wear your jammies! 

December 23 – January 5: HOLIDAY BREAK

If your kindergartener needs a sack lunch from the hot lunch program tomorrow for our early release day, please email me to let me know – along with their milk choice, chocolate or white. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll plan on your child eating lunch at home with you.

 

POPCORN WORDS: or, for

READING: This week in reading we continued learning about our Super Reader Powers! We practiced reading using our POINTER POWER, our REREAD POWER, our PARTNER POWER (which we practiced by reading The Itsy Bitsy Spider), our PICTURE POWER and our SNAP WORD POWER! Wow…we have a lot of reading powers! The Kinders loved looking for SNAP words (popcorn words) in their books and writing them down! I’m so proud of how hard they are working!

WRITING: During writing this week, we worked on writing a small moment story. We practiced writing a beginning, a middle and an end. The Kinders drew pictures on each page, labeled the pictures and wrote words to go on each page. They even added a speech bubble to tell what someone in their picture was saying! Way to take a risk with writing Kinders!

MATH: This week during math, we practiced writing the numbers 8 and 9 as well as identifying shapes. The Kinders had to find certain shapes and color them the correct color. Then they had to practice drawing different shapes around a hexagon. Ask them to sing you their hexagon song…it’s quite catchy! We finished the week by helping Puzzled Penguin write his numbers in the correct order. Good thing we helped him, he gets puzzled sometimes.

VETERAN’S DAY: On Monday, we learned about Veteran’s Day. We read about Veteran’s Day in our Scholastic News and then made a Veteran craft. I hope you enjoyed the soldiers! I sent my dad, a Veteran, a picture (he’s deer hunting) of the Veteran crafts and he loved it! 

WANTS AND NEEDS: This week we started to learn about the differences between wants and needs. We sorted pictures of things we want and need. We did a cut and paste activity about wants and needs and ended the week by reading a book about wants and needs. In the book, the Kinders drew a picture of something they want and something they need. 

MYSTERY READER: Brayden was excited when his mom surprised our class and was our mystery reader! It was fun to listen to her read us the story Flying High. It was a cute story written by a football player Julian Edelman. 

THANK YOU so much for the many boxes of Cheerios we received for our classroom! It’s greatly appreciated! We should be all set for awhile!

UPCOMING DATES…

Monday, November 18: Art; Book fair preview day; Parent-Teacher conferences

Tuesday, November 19: STEAM; Book fair preview day

Wednesday, November 20: Music; Book fair purchase day; Parent-Teacher conferences

Thursday, November 21: Gym; Book fair purchase day

Friday, November 22: Art

November 27 – November 29: Thanksgiving Break

December 12 – Holiday Program at 6:30 p.m. at Fair Haven Church in Jenison.  More details coming as date approaches. The kids are very busy practicing their songs!

I’m looking forward to meeting with you next week at parent teacher conferences!

Have a wonderful weekend!

POPCORN WORDS: am, are, little

READING: This week during reading, we started our new reading unit – We are SUPER READERS! The Kinders learned they have PICTURE POWER! They can use the pictures while they are reading to help them become readers. They also learned they have POINTER POWER! They use their pointer finger to point to each word they read one time. We practiced using our pointer power with fun wiggly eye rings. When learning about POINTER POWER, we practiced reading from left to right. We practiced with pictures and colored dots “reading” them from left to right. The last power we learned about this week was SNAP WORD POWER! When we see words we know, we read them in a SNAP! It was fun to use our new books – Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Who Do You See? during reading this week. Each Kinder has their own copy with pictures of all of their friends in the book. They have LOVED reading them this week! For now, they are keeping them in their blue book boxes at school. They will bring them home eventually. 

WRITING: During writing this week, we started writing small moment stories. These are stories about themselves, something that’s happened to them or something they’ve done. Each Kinder came up with their own idea, told their story to a partner, drew the pictures to their story, added labels, words and even tried adding a speech bubble! They worked very hard on their stories this week!

MATH: This week during math, we practiced showing numbers using pennies. We added one penny each time to make the number bigger. Then we practiced showing the equations. For example, 2 + 1 = 3. The Kinders enjoyed using real pennies during math! In our math workbooks, we practiced writing the number 10 and showing 10 objects along with working more on shapes. The Kinders have been working hard on writing their numbers 1-10. 

LITERACY: During our literacy time this week, we practiced name writing! The Kinders continue to work on using an uppercase letter or the first letter and lowercase letters for the rest. We also practiced syllables, did activities with our popcorn words as well as learned about concepts of print. 

MYSTERY READER: Xander was excited his mom visited our class as a mystery reader! She read us a super fun book called, I Wanna Iguana! After she was done, she had little “pet” iguanas for each of us! 

 

REMINDERS…

WINTER GEAR – Brrrr….our Michigan weather is changing quickly. Please be sure to gather up those warmer coats, mittens, boots, hats and snow pants. When it snows, this gear is mandatory to play outside. When the snow arrives we do go outside and play! However, if the temperature or wind chill get below freezing we do opt to stay inside. If anyone needs any help with getting these winter items PLEASE let me know. Keep in mind that the goal for all Kinders to get their winter gear on and off independently. Please LABEL your Kinder’s winter gear.  It will make it easier for me to help each child keep track of their own belongings.

SNACKS – Please remember to send your Kinder with 2 snacks each day. We have a morning and an afternoon snack. I always have Cheerios for kids who forget. Thank you so much for all of the Cheerios donations! That was so kind of you!

RAINBOW HAIR CRAFT!

UPCOMING DATES:

Monday, November 11: Art; Library – remember to return library books!

Tuesday, November 12: STEAM

Wednesday, November 13: Music

Thursday, November 14: Gym; Jet’s Pizza Night

Friday, November 15: STEAM; Popcorn Friday; Early Release – dismissal at 12:15. Please email me if your Kinder will need a sack lunch from the hot lunch program. 

Monday, November 18: Parent-Teacher conferences; Book Fair preview day; no library today

Wednesday, November 20: Parent-Teacher conferences; Book Fair purchase day

November 27-November 29: Thanksgiving Break

December 12 – Holiday Program at 6:30 p.m. at Fair Haven Church in Jenison.  More details coming as date approaches. The kids are very busy practicing their songs!

Have a wonderful weekend!

~Mrs. Baker