Monday, February 28th

Our new sight word this week is at and we will be reading many of Dr. Seuss's books!  This morning we read Green Eggs and Ham.  We talked about Dr. Seuss's books having lots of rhyming, many sight words, and silly characters.  In our Dr. Seuss journal, we drew a picture from the story and wrote a sentence to go with it.  We also checked if the story had rhyming, sight words, and silly characters, which Green Eggs and Ham had!  Later in the morning, we tasted 5 types of green foods (broccoli, celery, olives, cucumbers, and limes) and checked whether or not we liked them.  We continued to practice skip counting in math and reviewed patterns with a Dr. Seuss activity.  In the afternoon, we went to music during our specials block.  Mrs. Casaz came to our classroom for the first time today.  She will be spending time with us every afternoon to work on reading and writing with part of the class while Mrs. Skeels works on reading and writing with a small group of our classmates.


Tomorrow we will be making our March calendar and doing a fish bowl math activity.  Our new classmate, Peter will also be starting tomorrow!!!!!


Reminder: Field Trip money for next week's trip to Whitewater is due by Friday. The cost is $9.55.

A sample of from our Dr. Seuss Journal: "Thank you, thank you, Sam I am.  I do like green eggs and ham!"

Making -at words

A poem that we wrote as a class using -at words for rhyming

green food taste-testing

Sour Limes!!!!

More Sour Limes!!!!

Wednesday, February 23

We started our week on Tuesday by discussing Presidents' Day and learning about the United States' first president, George Washington.  Students made a picture of Washington and wrote facts about his life in a journal.  We read a Let's Find Out magazine about Washington and saw a picture of his teeth!  We also discussed the similarities and differences of life during the time of George Washington and in the present.  In the afternoon, we began chapter 7 in our math series.  We practiced counting by 10s and 5s to 100.  Then, we made a number line with hand prints to help us practice counting by 5s. 

On Wednesday, we learned about the 16th president, Abraham Lincoln.  We made a picture of him with his stovepipe hat and wrote  more facts in our journals.  In the afternoon, we made a picture of his log cabin.  We also started a book about American symbols.

Tomorrow is Pajama Day!  In the morning, we will be learning about President Obama.  We will make pictures of him and write in our journal again.  We will also have time to finish our book about American symbols.  After specials in the afternoon, we will be watching The Land Before Time with other classes as a closing to our dinosaur unit.  We will be discussing fiction and nonfiction as we learn about different dinosaurs from the movie. 

Reminders:  Tomorrow is Pajama Day!  Book Orders are due tomorrow!  No School Friday.  Multiage/Single Grade request forms are due on Monday. 

I hope everyone has a wonderful 3-day weekend!

"They won the battle.  He was born in 1732. He liked to ride horses."

He built 3 log cabins.  He has a beard.  He has a top hat."

A page from our "Let's Find Out" magazine about George Washington

Abe Lincoln

George Washingtons



Posters about the dinosaurs we learned about



Pajama Day

Pajama Day on Thursday!

We will be having our second pajama day of the year on Thursday, February 24^th.  We will be watching The Land Before Time with other kindergarten classes as a closing to our dinosaur unit and to compare fiction and nonfiction.   Your child is welcome to wear pajamas on Thursday, but please be sure to send regular shoes for him/her to wear through the school day. 

Thanks!

Book Orders

Your child will be bringing home a SeeSaw magazine from Scholastic.  I like to send out orders a few times a year because they are a nice way to build your personal library for a reasonable amount of money.  Some books in this month's magazine are as cheap as 1 or 2 dollars.  If your family would like to order books, please return your order and a check payable to Scholastic to school by Thursday.  I will put the orders in, and the books usually arrive in about a week. 

Friday, February 18th

We are finishing up our unit on dinosaurs.  Today we discussed the Brontosaurus and other Sauropods.  Your child will be bringing home the nonfiction book that we have made.  Please take some time to read it with him/her!  We also discussed living and extinct reptiles and the characteristics of reptiles.  Each student took a survey of our class's current favorite dinosaur!


REMINDERS:  Monday will be an early release day with conferences in the afternoon and evening.  Next week Friday there will be no school.


PREFERENCE SHEETS: Your preference sheets for multiage or single grade classrooms for your child next year are due soon.  Please turn in your sheet or let me know if you need another one.  If you live in the Yahara boundaries, you do not need to turn in a sheet.


Have a wonderful weekend!

Wednesday, February 16



Saying Thanks for the Valentines

On Monday, we celebrated Valentine's Day!  In the morning, we did some math activities using candy hearts: graphing, sorting, and measuring.  We finished our valentine book and took it home for someone special.  We hope you enjoyed reading it!  We spent time opening valentines from our teachers and classmates.  It was wonderful to see the interactions as students opened their cards and thanked their friends!  We did one dinosaur activity as well using cookies and toothpicks.  We pretended to be paleontologists excavating fossils.  It was a lot of fun!

Thanks, Jackson!





Candy Heart Math



On Tuesday, we continued with our dinosaur unit.  We did a math estimation activity with fruit snacks and made our own fossils using coffee grounds, salt, and flour.  We are just waiting for them to dry and then they will be coming home.  The books that we are reading about dinosaurs are very interesting and full of facts!  We are making our own nonfiction dinosaur book about 5 types of dinosaurs.  This will be coming home later this week, so be sure to help your child read it and talk about the things we have learned at school.



Noodle Skeletons



Today, we learned about skeletons.  We learned that scientists use skeletons to learn about animals that are extinct.  We also talked about different bones that animals and people have (skull, backbone, ribs, legs, knees, etc.).  Our class made dinosaur skeletons using different types of noodles.  They are wonderful and we will be displaying them in our own kindergarten "museum" outside our classroom!

Other dinosaur activities that we are doing this week include finishing our dinosaur fact book, taking a survey, making a class graph, making a little book, and measuring dinosaur tails.  This has been a great unit!  Next week we will be learning about different U.S. presidents.





Making Valentines for our Fourth Grade Buddies





Opening Valentines





Measuring Dinosaur Bones



Drawing a Dinosaur

A Graph of Our Class's Favorite Dinosaurs



Making Dinosaur Fossils



Adyn Excavates Chocolate Chips

Chocolate Chip Excavation

Friday, February 11

Yesterday we went to our second literacy centers and learned about the triceratops.  We wrote in our dinosaur journal about some of the facts we learned!  In the afternoon, we continued through our math book and reviewed numbers 1-30 with our number tiles.  We also set up a dental office in our dramatic play center!  Our class is having a fantastic time waiting in the waiting room, taking appointments, checking teeth, and writing after-visit summaries!  It is fun for me to hear the conversations that they have as "dentists" and "patients."


Today, we had an early release day.  We made valentine bees that turned out great!  Our class also made some conversation hearts to put on our valentine bulletin board.  We wrote another page in our valentine book as well.  We will finish it up and send it home on Monday!  We have had a great week, I just hope that next week is a little warmer so we can get outside for recess! 


Have a great weekend and send in your valentines on Monday!

Valentine Bees

The new room favorite - A Dentist Office

Sydney in the waiting room

Isabel explains how to better brush your teeth

Dr. Marcus

Valentine's Day

Here is a list of names of our classmates again for anyone who needs them!  If you would like to send in valentines, please be sure they are here by Monday!


Jenna, Jackson, Kamrin, Shane, Sydney, Adyn, Kylie, Adelynn, Isabel, Kyle, Ali, Marcus, McKenna, Brody, Mason, Mrs. Skeels


We also have some other teachers and helpers that come to our classroom: Ms. Ashley, Miss Cindi, Miss Cindy, Miss Ashley

Wednesday, February 9

This week we celebrated our 100th day of school!  We had a blast on Monday doing many, many 100th day activities.  All the kindergarten students were able to go to the other kindergarten rooms and do activities such as 100 exercises, 100 pancake/sausage snack, 100 piece puzzle, 100 spotted dalmatian, 100 noodle picture, and 100 fruit loop necklace.  The kids had a great time being with some other friends and teachers in the morning.  In the afternoon, we made our snack mix of 100 snacks and also colored in a secret 100 on our hundreds chart.  What a great day!

On Tuesday, we started our center rotations.  This week, we will be talking about the words he and she.  Our centers include reading the room, listening to a dinosaur story and writing a response, writing and illustrating a sentence, a phonics activity, word work, adding another book to our book bin drawer, and letter centers.  While students go to their centers, I also meet with our reading groups.  Everyone is doing a great job.

On Wednesday, I had intervention training in the morning, so Mrs. Wanless came to guest teach in our classroom!!!  The children made their valentine mailboxes and began learning about dinosaurs.  They read about the T-Rex and started a nonfiction journal.  We will be learning about other dinosaurs and doing LOTS of fun activities over the next 2 weeks.  Students also brainstormed -ing words and made a book of some of the words they came up with.  We will continue working on a special valentine card this afternoon, and also continue to work in our math books on chapter 6!  We are learning/reviewing numbers 10-30.  This is a great thing to review at home to be sure your child is confident recognizing and writing these numbers!

Reminders:  If you would like, send in your valentines by Monday.  I had several people volunteer to send items/food in for Valentine's Day - Thank you so much!!!!

I am also in need of some extra conversation hearts and various shapes of noodles (wheels, spaghetti, macaroni, etc.) for a project that we will be doing.  If anyone has some at home or is able to donate some, we would appreciate it very much!

100 footsteps through the school

100 exercises

100 fruit loop necklaces

100 noodle artwork

100 piece puzzles

February 4th



Go Pack Go!!!!!!



Yesterday we learned about Groundhog's Day, even though we were a day late!  We did a fun math activity in the afternoon where we made a two-sided groundhog coin and graphed our results from dropping it.  We also took a look at our collections of 100 things.  We put some of our collections into a line to see how long 100 is.  We glued some into a "jar" to see how full the jar was with 100 things.  It was a lot of fun!

On Friday, we took a poll in our classroom of who we predict will win the Super Bowl.  We also made cheeseheads!!!  We searched for 100 numbers in our room and then put them in order.  We also made great pictures of what we will look like when we are 100 years old.  In the afternoon, we went to library and computer lab.  I checked out several Mo Willems books for our classroom which we will be reading.  I think our class will love these books!

Next week, we will be celebrating our 100th day of school, getting ready for Valentine's Day, and learning about dinosaurs.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!  Go Packers!!!!



How long are 100 cotton balls?





We compared weights of our 100 things using a balance.





"This is what 100 pieces of cereal looks like."



We had a "snowball" fight with 100 cotton balls!!!

"If I had 100 dollars, I would save it."

Jenna is putting her collection in a line to see how long it is.



100 year old self-portrait
"When I am 100 years old I will use a walker."



SUPER BOWL

We will be doing a few football activities tomorrow in preparation for the Super Bowl this weekend.  Your child is welcome to wear Packers (or Steelers :) )apparel to school tomorrow if you would like!

Go Pack!!!!!

February 1

This week, we are getting ready for the 100th day of school by doing lots of things with the number 100.  On Monday, we finished the sentence, "I could eat 100 _______."  Many people thought they would eat 100 Skittles!  We also learned two partner games: race to 100 and connect the dots.  We had a fun time playing each of these games throughout the day.  Our new word this week is and, so we read a chart and poem and found the word.  We also made a list of words with and in them.  Some of those words are Amanda, candy, hand, and band.  In the afternoon, we had an assembly to celebrate the work we have done for Operation Hallway.  We got to have a dance party in the gym!


On Tuesday, we finished the second sentence in our 100 book: "If I was 100 feet tall ____________."  We thought about ways we could help people if we were 100 feet tall and also problems that we might face, like where to sleep!  We also wrote about what we would do if Mrs. Skeels gave us $100.  Most of us said we would save it :)  In the afternoon, we colored in a 100 maze and compared some of our 100 collections on the balance.  We learned that different sets of 100 can be heavy or light and that even large things (like cotton balls) are sometimes lighter than small things (like conversation hearts). 


Tomorrow we will learn about Groundhog Day and do some different activities to go along with this fun day!  If we end up having a snow day, our weekly schedule will be pushed back a day and our 100th day of school will actually be next week on Monday.  Don't forget to send in both your 100 snack items and your 100 collection to be glued ASAP!!!



Stay safe in the snow!

Jackson's Name Pattern

Shane's Name Pattern

Kylie and Mason playing "Race to 100"



"If I had 100 dollars I would save it."



"If I was 100 feet tall I would help people pick apples that are way high."