Happy Summer!

We had a great last week of remote learning!  I so enjoyed watching everyone's talents during our Star Show!  I was so impressed with the variety of talents and the children's willingness to participate!  I also enjoyed sharing stories two times this week with the children as we wrapped up this school year.  It is always so nice to see their smiling faces!

I know this was not the end of the year we all had imagined, but I wanted to thank you, the families, for all you have done to help make our remote learning time successful.  Without your endless support of your children, the continuation of learning would have been more difficult.  Thank you to you and your children for your hard work, flexibility, and positive spirit during this time!

I always feel so lucky to call myself a teacher, but even more so, a Kindergarten teacher.  There is something so magical and special about Kindergarten students and the start of their schooling journey.  Each day I am so thankful to have laughed, danced, read, smiled, and learned with your children.  This is a very special class...and a year to remember!  May you all have a wonderful summer filled with health, happiness, and lots of sunshine!  Please keep in touch over the summer and I will be sure to share my exciting news as my husband and I welcome Baby Pinillos into the world in August!

Home Visits!

It was so wonderful to see you all this week!  I have so missed my students and enjoyed seeing and hearing what they have been up to over these few months! Thank you for welcoming me into your yards and driveways.  This was definitely a highlight of our remote learning time!

Our last week of school is approaching and I gave your child a checklist for the last week in their bag I dropped off at home (as well as the Memory Book and bingo sheets). I realize I made an error on Thursday's assignments so I will recap the activities for next week here:



Monday:

• Work on your Kindergarten Memory Book pages: All About Me, Self Portrait, My School, My Teacher
• Complete 1-2 squares from the Reading Bingo Sheet

Tuesday:

• Kindergarten Star Show at 10:00am for half of the class!  Check your email for the invite.
• Kindergarten Memory Book pages: Friends, What I Learned, Favorite Books, Field Trip
• Complete 1-2 squares from the Math Bingo Sheet

Wednesday:

• Story and Snack Time at 9:30am. Check your email for the invite link.
• Kindergarten Memory Book pages: Recess, Memories, Summer Plans
• Complete 1-2 squares from the Reading Bingo sheet

Thursday:

• Kindergarten Star Show at 10:00 for half of the class.
• Complete 1-2 squares from the Reading Bingo sheet
• Complete 1-2 squares from the Math Bingo sheet
• Optional:  Read the Summer Safety issue of Let's Find Out magazine.  The password is scskindergarten

Friday:

• Last Day of School!
• Story and Snack Time at 9:30am

 You will also be able to access the Last Week of School checklist by clicking on this link on Monday morning.  Have a wonderful weekend!  I am looking forward to connecting with your children next week as we celebrate the end of Kindergarten!

The last two weeks of school are headed our way....lots of information for you to read!

Wow...it was hot this week!  Hope everyone found some ways to stay cool!  Thank you for helping your child to still attend our online sessions even though it was so hot and sticky!  This was our last week for our small group math and literacy sessions on Google Hangouts.  Next week, I will be doing Home Visits instead of the small group work and the following week (the last week of school!), we will be doing four large group activities to help wrap up the year.

There will still be a checklist posted for the upcoming week with activities for your child to complete so please check that out!  There is still some poetry to write, Scholastic News to read, math to do, and a special writing activity: writing to your child's first grade teacher.  Although we don't know the teacher placements yet, I will be passing these letters along to their first grade teachers when I find out.
Here are some highlights for next week:
June 1st:  Home Visits
June 2nd: Home Visits
June 3rd: Home Visits
June 5th: Story Time and Snack Time

The last week of school there will not be a checklist posted; however, I will be sending an email with some activities for your child to work on and there is note with the activities in the package I will be dropping off during our Home Visits.

Here are a few highlights for the last week of school (you will be receiving Google Hangout invites for these events):
June 9th:  Kindergarten Star Show (see below for information about the Star Show!)
June 10th: Story and Snack time
June 11th: Kindergarten Star Show
June 12th:  Story and Snack time....for the last day of school!

Kindergarten Star Show!!
During the last week of school, we will be having a virtual talent show...called the Star Show! I will be splitting the class into two groups: one will have a Google Hangout Talent Show on Tuesday, June 9th at 10:00am and the other group will have its Google Hangout Talent Show on Thursday, June 11th at 10:00am. You will receive a Google Hangout invite in your email!

Check with your child...does he or she have a talent or something to share with the class? This is optional, but it is definitely more fun if everyone shares something! Here are some ideas of star show “talents” from my past classes:
Tell a joke
Read a poem
Sing a song
Show a picture or a project that the child created
Demonstrate some karate moves
Dribble a basketball
Show a Lego project that the child created
Read a few pages from a book
Demonstrate yoga positions
Hula hoop
Do a dance
Do a magic trick or science experiment

The only requirements are that the talent show act be safe and appropriate for school and that it takes one minute or less! Please make sure that on your child’s day he or she is prepared with materials to demonstrate his or her talent! Please let me know if you have any questions!

Have a great weekend!

Happy Friday!

A fun flash-back Friday picture from February!  I miss spending                    time with these faces in our classroom!

Hello Friends!  It's amazing to see that there are only three weeks left of Kindergarten!  A reminder...no remote learning on Monday due to Memorial Day.  The checklist will be posted for the week on Tuesday morning on the SCS Remote Learning Site.  I hope you and your family can get outside and enjoy this beautiful stretch of weather!

Last week I sent out an email about signing up for a Home Visit the week of June 1st.  I am planning to stop by with small end-of-year gift for your child and some materials to use during our last two weeks of learning.  Please sign up if you have not already. If the times do not work for you, then I will just drop the gift and materials off on your front step some time that week.  Thanks!  Here is the Home Visit Sign Up link.

If you did not have the chance to listen in on this week's live Google Hangout sessions, we continued practicing our reading and reading comprehension skills using a Scholastic Let's Find Out magazine.  This week's magazine was about plants and plant parts.  Can your child name for you four plant parts and the jobs they do?  The children worked very hard using their reading powers to sound out tricky words...way to go!  In math, we started with a shape scavenger hunt.  I asked the children to find a circle or sphere and then a rectangle or rectangular prism.  After finding the object, the children then had to justify how they knew it was certain shape, explaining attributes.  We also played a game called Double Top Draw that focused on counting dots in a double-ten frame efficiently, writing and recognizing teen numbers, and comparing numbers using the greater than and less than sign.

That's all for this week!  I look forward to seeing everyone next week!  Enjoy the sun and warmth!

Lantern Poems

It was so fun to read these friends' lantern poems!  Nice job!

Red Clover Vote!

Happy Friday!  I was all excited to tell you the results of our class vote for the Red Clover Vote for the year, but only 8 children completed the Red Clover writing activity.  So I can share the following, but we don't really have enough votes to declare a winner in our class:
Misunderstood Shark- 1 vote
Girl Running-1 vote
Hawk Rising- 2 votes
Potato Pants-2 votes
                                                      Counting on Katherine-2 votes
Thanks to those friends who wrote about their favorite Red Clover book and shared it with me!

This week in our online lessons we practice our reading skills using a mini-book on the Scholastic Let's Find Out site.  This week's book was about Earth Day and taking care of the Earth.  I was very proud of our Kindergarten Readers. They were using so many of their Reading Super Powers!  If you are reading at home with your child and he or she gets stuck on a word, remind them of their reading powers:

• Use picture power....look at the picture to help figure out the word
• Use sound power...use the sounds at the beginning and end of the word to help figure out the word
• Use re-read power....start the sentence again and try the word using other powers as well
• Use sight word power....read the words you know first and then go back
• Use pointer power....point to the words to stay on track

In math, we did more problem solving.  The problems this week were asking children to do repeated addition.  For example, we had 6 frogs.  How many eyeballs in all?  Many children drew a picture and then counted by ones and twos.  Others wrote an equation such as,  2+2+2+2+2+2=6.

I've have noticed that many friends in our class have tried out Lexia and Raz-Kids.  If your child has not tried these programs out yet, please feel free to reach out if you have questions on how to log in.  Also, please reach out if your child mentions that the books on Raz-Kids are feeling too easy.  I am able to easily change the books to a different level, if needed.

Have a wonderful weekend!  Enjoy the warmer temperatures!

Poetry!

Here are some poems about friends!  Enjoy!