February 18

We had an exciting week last week! On Wednesday, we got to travel to the University of Wisconsin Whitewater campus to see the play The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Everyone had a great time watching the different Eric Carle plays. Ask your child about the puppets and black lights.

On Thursday, we celebrated the 100th day of school. In the morning, we had the opportunity to visit many other kindergarten rooms to do different 100th day activities such as licking a lollypop 100 times, building with 100 toothpicks and gumdrops, doing 100 exercises, and dressing like a 100-year-old.  In the afternoon, we compared our collections of 100 things. There were many different collections and we appreciate the time you took helping your child to count them out.

On Friday, we celebrated Valentine's Day.  In the afternoon, we exchanged valentines and made a. book of all our valentines.  I hope you had a chance to look through these at home.

This week, we are comparing and contrasting in Reader's Workshop.  Our new sight word is AND.  We will be finishing up our unit on dinosaurs this week.  During math, we will be studying even and odd numbers and practicing measurement.  

Here are some pictures from last week:

This is Logan's dinosaur that he made and painted.

This was one 100th day station...can you get to the center of a Tootsie Pop in 100 licks?

Building with 100 cups

Building with 100 gumdrops and toothpicks

Emma is 100 years old for the day!

Spending time in Miss K's room

Comparing our 100 collections using the balance

What had some long and short collections.

Friday, February 7

We have had such a fun week studying dinosaurs! Our class has been so motivated to finds answers to their many questions. We have watched a few videos online, looked through lots of books, and talked about what some children already know about dinosaurs.  This week, we learned what different types of dinosaurs eat and how big some of their footprints are.  We worked together as a class to make a mural and we also made clay models of different types of dinosaurs.  

In Reader's Workshop, we have been focusing on predicting.  We read a fun story called Who's in the Shed? Ask your child about this story!  We started making our own versions of Who's in the Shed this afternoon. I can't wait to read the clues and guess what type of animal each person hid behind their shed!

I have been so impressed with the reading and writing that is happening in our classroom.  I am excited every day to meet with my reading groups and see the growth in each child.  Today we wrote stories about a time that we got hurt.  They were so great!  Look for your child's story next week!  

I ordered some new math manipulatively with my budget money and we. Have be engravings. Great time with these new items.  One is a large number line.  Students have been using dinosaurs to add and subtract by jumping up and down the number line.  They have also been rolling a dice and racing to 30.  We got some colored links that the class has been using to count with and make patterns.  We have been focusing on problem solving and simple addition and subtraction this week.

Reminders:

Field trip money is due on Monday. $9.50 for students, $6.75 for chaperones. We have chosen our 2 chaperones already, but there is a field trip in May if any other parents would like to accompany our class!

Your preference sheets for multiage or single first grade are due next week on Wednesday.  (This does not apply to students going to Yahara next year). Please let me know if you need another form!

Wednesday is our field trip to the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Thursday is our 100th day of school. Be sure to send your child's collection of 100 things next week.  

We have lots of fun activities to do with these collections!

Friday is Valentine's Day! Send in valentines any time next week. We will be exchanging on Friday.

As always, library books are due on Fridays.

Here are some pictures from the week:

Haley makes fossils with our dinosaur toys.

Jacob shows how the dinosaurs fight with each other.

These students are racing to 30 by rolling a dice and moving their dinosaurs.

Our new math links!!

Jackson puts some meat into the carnovore's stomach.

These boys are playing a new math game. Spin the number, make it on a tens frame, and cross it off. The first one to make all the numbers wins!

Here is our mural.  We made clay dinosaur to add to it today and will be painting them next week.  Some children enjoyed playing with the dinosaur figures on this background during play time!