A Special Visitor

We had a special visitor today who told us all about his pets and home, showed us his photo album, and read us a story.  It was a very special morning!  Many more photos are posted above in a slideshow!

PJ Day

Don't forget that our special Polar Express activity and PAJAMA day is tomorrow! I can't wait!

PJ Day

Don't forget that our special Polar Express activity and PAJAMA day is tomorrow! I can't wait!

Winter holidays

We have been learning about different winter holidays this week and have made many projects. We learned about Hannukah and made a menorah and played the dreidel game. We talked about Kwanzaa and wove mkeka mats. This was very tricky, but our class stuck with it and had lots of fun. We talked about Ramadan and learned about the phases of the moon. This was very interesting! Take a look at the moon each night and have your child they and remember words like waxing, waning, new moon, full moon, crescent, quarter, and gibbous. There are also some neat videos on YouTube to watch!
We made Christmas trees by ordering branches by length and then decorated them! We will be making poinsettias and rangoli designs next week!

Gingerbread math centers

During our gingerbread unit the kids visited several gingerbread math centers. They measured their height and the length of their jump with gingerbread, made graphs, made gingerbread glyphs, and measured a gingerbread's perimeter and area using candies and math cubes.  They also decorated a gingerbread by rolling two dice, adding the numbers, and adding the correct decoration for the number.  They loved these centers! There are some pictures below!

Assertion Assembly

On Friday, we attended an assembly on assertion  with our buddies.  We learned what assertion is and some ways to be assertive (stand tall, shoulders back, look the person in the eye, use a firm but respectful voice).  The high school acting group performed a couple of short skits showing what assertion looks like and the staff surprised the kids with this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2NWkndNtF8

We had a ton of fun and the kids seemed to love it too!!!

Finished Houses

Here are some pictures of the finished houses. This week we also did some math and writing with our houses. We counted and graphed the types of candies, chose the candy with the most and fewest, and added different candies together. We also wrote sentences describing our gingerbread houses. Our second grade buddies helped us with some of the math and writing on Friday!

Gingerbread Houses

We made gingerbread houses this week and painted them with shaving cream "snow." Our class thought this was amazing!! They loved finishing off their pictures with this new type of paint!

Visualizing

For the last two weeks we have been focusing on visualizing during reader's workshop. We learned that visualizing is when you make a picture in your brain based on the words the author writes.  I read the story The Napping House without showing the illustrations and this is one example of what our class visualized!

Green Snack Bags

I forgot to mention that I am missing most of my green snack bags!  If you have any at home, please return them.  I try and send them home with your child as a reminder of his/her assigned day, but please continue to send snack even if the bag doesn't come home!

Thanks you!

Saturday, November 17

Over the last couple of weeks, we have been practicing asking questions before, during, and after reading.  The class seems very excited to talk to one another about the books in their book bags.  They also enjoyed flagging their questions with post-its and sharing all the things they wondered about while reading. 

This week we have been practicing a new sight word: IS.  Please be sure to review all our sight words at home with your child.  There are many ways to learn new words.  Some of the things we do in class include making words with magnetic letters, play dough, and other materials, finding words around the room and in books, singing the sight word songs from Have Fun Teaching (Youtube), reading poems and predictable books with the sight words, and writing the sight words on paper, writing boards, and marker boards.

We have been spending time talking about things that we are thankful for.  On Monday, look for a little book in your child's backpack about all the things they are thankful for.  We also made a class recipe book that will come home on Monday.  I had a great time recording each child's version of their favorite recipe.  I hope you enjoy these!

This week we have been learning about the very first Thanksgiving.  Ask your child about some of these words: Pilgrims, England, Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, Native Americans, and log cabins.  You will see a book about the first Thanksgiving come home on Tuesday.  Ask your child to tell you the story of the first Thanksgiving!

On Friday, we had two special activities in the morning.  We went to the High School EPAC for the first time and got to watch a concert by the music group Break of Reality.  This was a group of four cellos and one drum who play a mix of classical and rock music.  The kids enjoyed clapping along to the beat!  We also had a special guest (a mother of a kindergarten student) come to talk with us about the winter holiday Diwali.  Each student got to make their own diyas.  We will be learning more about this and other winter holidays in December and will bring home our diyas then!

Next week is a short week.  We will be reviewing all our sight words and finishing up our work on Thanksgiving projects.  We have a fun activity planned with other kindergarten classes on Tuesday and your child is welcome to wear his/her PAJAMAS to school on Tuesday!      

I hope that you all have a safe and relaxing Thanksgiving and are able to spend time with your friends and families. 

Tuesday, November 6

We have been busy over the last week learning about Lois Ehlert, community helpers, and new sight words.  We have been practicing all kinds of different patterns in math and have been reading, reading, reading!  Last week we visited several reading and writing centers throughout the week.  There are some pictures of some of the centers below! 

This week, we started talking about ASKING QUESTIONS during reader's workshop.  We talked about the difference between asking and telling and came up with several question words such as who, why, do, what, could, and several more!

Tomorrow we will be starting our centers for the week.  Many will be the same such as reading books from the book bin drawers, reading charts and poems, practicing sight words with play dough and magnetic letters and listening to stories on CD.  We will add a few new centers for the week as well.  Watch for the center sheet to come home on Friday and ask your child about the centers he/she visited. 

Reminders:
We will be opening the book fair next week.  Our class will visit on Wednesday morning.  We will make a "wish list" to take home.  Then if you choose, you can visit the book fair with your child before or after your conference or you can send in money and I will send your child to the book fair to pick up the books that you choose.

Please continue to work on your turkeys at home as well as the family questionnaire.  Return these and a few FAMILY PICTURES by next Monday for our project!  We have received several turkeys with great disguises!!! 

Remember that Parent/Teacher conferences will be held next week with an early release day for students on Tuesday.  If you don't remember when your scheduled conference is, please let me know!

Last week we had a hard time with clean up.  We ended up missing half of our library time on Friday and weren't able to check out new books!  This week we have had a more limited amount of centers open and clean up has been going much better.  Having your child help clean up and be responsible for his/her belongings at home is helpful to us here at school, too!

Here are a few pictures from this week:

The play dough center

Writing word on the writing board

A Lois Ehlert activity: painting with feathers



Another Lois Ehlert activity: pumpkins, owls and leaves using different craft materials

More Lois Ehlert activities: Leaf Projects



Our November Calendar

Some Pictures

Here are a few pictures from our walking field trip and our Halloween celebration last week!  We had a great time!!!  I am working on a new slideshow with many more pictures.  Look for it above this post!

Reminders this week:
Wear ORANGE on Wednesday!



All the costumes



A few pictures of us with our 2nd grade buddies



The Police Station



The Park



Mario's

The Bank

Mario's

October 21

We have been learning lots about community helpers over the last two weeks!  We have read many books on different people in the community.  We are working on making a book about different community helpers that will come home in a couple of weeks.  We made a class book about community helpers and will be making another class book on what everyone would like to be when they grow up!  Ask your child about different community helpers and what they do! 

Last week we got to visit Edgerton's fire station to see what a firefighter does. Our class had so much fun learning about the different vehicles and tools that the firefighters use!  I have posted a slideshow of pictures from the trip above! 

In the classroom, we have been working on a map of Edgerton.  First, we added roads, bodies of water, a title, and a key.  This week, each student made their house to add to the map.  Next week, our class will be working in small teams to make a place in Edgerton for our map such as a park, the Piggly Wiggly, Ray's, etc.  It is exciting to add all these new things to the map!

We have been doing lots of sight word and reading practice.  The sight words we have now learned include I, see, a, and the.  We practice these words every day by finding them around the room, reading poems together as a class and individually from our book bins, reading simple, repetitive text, and dancing and singing sight word songs from Have Fun Teaching.  This week, we will be adding the word WE to our sight word list.  I sent a packet of poems that we have been or will be learning.  Have your child practice these at home.  They are so excited when they see word they recognize and can read poems on their own!  Remind your child that we always point to the words as we read them.  This helps develop good reading skills as your child begins to read more challenging texts. 

Reminders for this week:
TUESDAY: RCC (Rascal Community Club) Meeting at 6:30 p.m.  Community Elementary LMC 
WEDNESDAY:  Walking field trip to local businesses.
FRIDAY: Halloween dress-up, Buddy Day, Early Release, and Parade!!!

Links to sight word songs:

the
I
a

A few pictures:

One fun activity that we did was to pretend to be architects and builders.  The kids built towers with blocks and then drew the plan so that other kids could try to build the same tower.  Their plans were so good that we put them into a book and put them in the block center!!!

This was the tower built from the plan.

Another tower built from the plan

This was the first page in our community helpers journal.  We decided to write about an electrician.  We wrote a sentence together: "An electrician fixes wires."  The students illustrated their sentence.

More Apples

During the end of our apple unit last week we made applesauce together as a class.  Each child peeled and cut up an apple to add to the crock pot.  The kids were VERY excited to be cutting with "real" knives...don't worry - they were just butter knives! Everyone worked very hard to get all the skin cut off and the seeds cut out.  We cooked the apples all day until they were soft and yummy.  You could smell them cooking from down the hall!!  Everyone got to taste the applesauce at the end of the day and it was delicious. 

This week, we have been starting to learn new sight words.  Our first words are I, see, a, and the.  We will be practicing these words for two weeks before going on to new words.  We have done many word activities with sight words.  We read words around the room, highlight words in little books and poems that are in our book bin drawers, make words with magnet letters, glue letters to make words, and practice writing words on the marker boards and on paper.  Repetition and practice will help all these new words stick in our brains!  Your help practicing sight words at home will help your child as well.  I will be sending a poetry packet home later in the week.  Your child has a copy here at school, so he/she will be able to read many of these poems on his/her own.  Have your child practice reading several times each week.  Make sure to have your child point under each word as he/she reads!

This month, our theme is community helpers.  We have many fun activities and a couple of field trips planned for this unit.  I am excited about the fun things we will be doing!  Look for a special homework project to come home late this week or early next week.  I hope you have fun with this activity!!

Reminders:
**We will be walking to the fire station on Friday. 
**We will be going on a walking field trip in a couple of weeks.  Watch for more information on this trip!
**Library is on Friday of each week. Please return your library books on time!


Here are some pictures of our applesauce project and other activities from the week:

This is a season book that we made.  Have your child tell you about the seasons of the apple tree.

 

This is a fall tree picture that we made last week.

This is our nursery rhyme anchor chart.  Have your child practice the nursery rhymes we learned at school!