Puppets in Education!

On Wednesday, we had a visit from Puppets in Education.  Puppets in Education, a program of Vermont Family Network, teaches children to keep themselves safe and healthy and appreciate each other's differences, by using life-sized puppets in an interactive show.  This year, Kindergartners learned about feelings.  Through the help of the puppets, Natalie and Adam, the children identified feelings, discussed the word empathy, and talk about trusted adults to whom children could talk if they ever have uncomfortable feelings.  The puppet show finished with a song; see if your child can sing you the chorus!

This week during theme, we focused our attention on the sun.  We watched a BrainPOP jr. video about the sun and read The Sun: Our Nearest Star.   Afterward, we brainstormed all of our new learning about the sun.  We found out that the sun is a star and it takes eight minutes for its light to reach us here on Earth.  Our biggest "wow" fact was that the temperature on the sun is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit...hot!  We used what we learned about the sun to make lantern poems.  Lantern poems are four line poems.  The first line has one word; the second line has two words; the third line has three words; and the last line has one word.  The children did a wonderful job with their sun poems!  They also made some beautiful suns to brighten up our classroom.  Along with learning about the sun, we talked about temperature and how to read a thermometer.  Thanks to Ms. Mariah, we have a new outdoor thermometer outside our classroom window.  Our Number Corner helper now has to read the temperature each day along with reporting the weather!  If you have a thermometer at home, practice reading it with your child!

During Writer's Workshop, we are finishing up our first opinion writing pieces.  Each child chose a favorite piece this week to publish.  After choosing a piece, your child and I conferenced and made some revisions to his or her work.  Together, we made sure their writing had punctuation, capital letters at the beginning of sentences, sight words spelled correctly, and spaces between words.  Next week, we will publish our work and share it around the school!  Ask your child about the piece of writing he or she will be publishing!

Our Kindergarten readers continue to strengthen their reading powers!  This week, we learned that sometimes we have to look past just the first letter and look at the first couple of letters in a word and say their sounds.  We call two letters together, that each say their own sound, a blend.  Examples of blends are gr-, sl-, sm-, st, or bl-.  We practiced recognizing and sounding out blends in our books.  We also learned that it is important to look to the end of a word as well to help sound our the word.  These are great strategies to have your child try when reading at home!  

We also read another Red Clover Book this week:  The Book of Mistakes.  This book was a great reminder to us that mistakes can turn into masterpieces and that making a mistake is not a bad thing.  In our Kindergarten classroom, we celebrate mistakes and learn from them!  After reading the book, each child made a stray mark on a paper and then traded with a friend who made a picture out of that stray mark....we call this Squiggle.  Have your child make you a squiggle at home!

In math, we have been working on addition facts to five, six, and seven through two new games: Shake Those Beans and Unifix Cubes Trains. In each of these games, we found all the addition combinations that equal 5, 6, or 7 and recorded the equations. We also have been practicing with place value by counting ten strips and ones and writing double-digit numbers by playing Ten and More Bingo and a Dime and Some Pennies.  Ask your child about some of these games!

Have a wonderful weekend!

What's the Weather?

We continued with our weather unit this week by brainstorming weather words and then describing what those words might look like.  We found many of these words in a new weather emergent reader book.  The children did a careful job coloring in the pictures and circling the sight words.  We also have a new sight word this week: are! 

During Morning Meeting each day, we have been observing the weather and deciding if it is a "lion" day (cold or stormy weather) or if it is a "lamb" day (sunny or calm weather).  Now we are also observing the type of weather: sunny, rainy, snowy, windy, or cloudy. Together we are creating a picto-graph of weather in March and April.  The children also started their own weather journal.  A few days each week, we will write observations about the weather and record the temperature.  We also had a Scholastic News magazine about rainbows.  We learned how rainbows formed and where you may see them.  Can your child tell you?  After reading about rainbows, the children each made their own rainbow for the classroom and added a fact about rainbows.  What was your child's fact?

During Writer's Workshop, the children continue working on their opinion writing. This week I reminded them that they have all the strategies they need to spell words on their own and use best guess spelling.  They do not have ask adults!  We brainstormed all the strategies we could use...encourage your child to use the following strategies when writing at home:

• Use your sound power by stretching out and tapping out sounds
• Look around the room for familiar words
• Use the word wall for sight words

I am so impressed with their writing!  So many children are writing opinion pieces with an opinion and several reasons.  They are working hard!

In Reader's Workshop, we are continuing to work on using our reading strategies when we get to an unknown word.  I am amazed at the progress the children are making in our reading groups!  You will see more books in your child's Friday Folder this weekend.  Please encourage them to read these books to you multiple times to build up their reading fluency. 

Also during Reader's Workshop, we read another Red Clover Book this week called Crown: Ode to the Fresh Cut.  This was story about how a young boy feels when he goes to the barbershop and gets his fresh, new haircut.  Since we couldn't give ourselves real new haircuts or hairstyles, we did the best next thing:  we drew new hairstyles!  Check out our "fresh cuts" in the picture below!

In math, we did more problem solving this week.  This week's problem was about leprechauns and shamrocks.  If there are 4 leprechauns and they are each holding two shamrocks, how many shamrocks are there all together?  The children did a wonderful job of showing their math thinking in pictures and numbers. Not only did they label their drawings with numbers, they wrote addition equations to represent their thinking.  Even a few brave Kindergarteners came up and shared their math thinking in front of the class! We also learned two games that focused on addition:  Make it Five and Roll, Add, and Compare.

Have a great weekend!  Let's hope for some real spring weather soon...but while winter seems to still be here, please continue to send your child with snow pants, hats, gloves, and boots.  Thank you!

Recycle Rhonda!

It was so wonderful to meet with you all this week and have a chance to share and discuss your child's accomplishments thus far!  It's hard to believe we are already in mid-March. I am looking forward to all the learning we still have before the end of the year!

We had a visit from Recycle Rhonda from the Chittenden Solid Waste District this week.  She reminded us about the rules of recycling and visited the cafeteria during lunch to help remind us what is recycling, compost, and trash.  Be sure to ask your child about any new recycling rules they learned!





On Wednesday, Jane and Jess visited our room for Nearby Nature.  This month's theme was birds and nests.  We learned about different types of birds and the varied nests they build. First we investigated and made observations about what the birds use to make their nests and then the children then had the opportunity to engineer their own nests out of sticks, burlap, yarn, ribbon, paper strips, and string.  They all did a great job trying to weave like the birds do?  Did your child tell you about his or her nest?

We also began our next Science unit this week: Exploring Weather!  We have been observing the weather throughout the month of March and recording it.  Ask your child if we are having "lion weather" or "lamb weather"!  We also brainstormed all that we know about weather and came up with wonderings about weather. After brainstorming about weather, we read Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and made our own artwork depicting some unexpected food weather. What kind of weather was in your child's picture?  Pizza? Cake? Carrots?  For the next six weeks, we will be exploring weather by learning about precipitation, types of weather, seasons, clouds, and the job of a weather forecaster.  We are hoping to have some sunny skies and warm temperatures to go along with this weather study! 

We read another Red Clover book called Wolf in Snow.  This was a beautifully-illustrated wordless book about a little girl who gets a little lost on her way home from school and finds a small wolf pup. After reading the book, the children illustrated their favorite part of the story.  Be sure to ask your child how this story ended!

At Reader's Workshop, we continued with our small reading groups and practicing reading strategies with our just-right books.  We also learned about how patterns in the books we read can sometimes have a break in the pattern.  We practiced using sound power and picture power to help us when the pattern changes.  Ask your child to show your some of their reading powers at home this weekend.

In writing, we continued working on our opinion pieces of writing.  The children have been brainstorming problems in our classrooms, writing why it's a problems, and providing a solution. This week we learned what to do if you think your writing is done.  We found that strong writers add more reasons to their work, add colors and details, and check their punctuation and spelling.  How is your child's writing coming along? Be sure to ask them what they are writing about!

In math, we worked with more 3-D shapes.  We played a game of I Spy in the classroom and looked for spheres, cubes, rectangular prisms, pyramids, and triangular prisms.  This would be a great game for you to play at home too! We also played a 2-D and 3-D Shape Bingo Game, listening to the attribute clues about each shape.

Lastly, you will notice a new addition to our Friday Folder: Baggie Books!  Each Friday, your child will bring home 2-3 books that are at his or her "just right" reading level.  These are books that they can read mostly independently, but may need a little support at times.  Please have your child read these books multiple times over the weekend and then return them in the baggie on Monday.  I will refill the baggie and send more books home next Friday.  Thanks for supporting your child in this reading adventure!

Have a great weekend!  Please note next week is a four-day week.  There is no school on March 22nd.

Off to the Flynn!

We had a great trip to the Flynn to see three books come to life on stage: Rosie Revere, Engineer, Izzy Peck, Architect, and Ada Twist, Scientist.  These are three wonderful picture books that focus on science, mathematics, technology, engineering, and pursing your dreams.  After our visit to the Flynn, the children worked on their own engineering task. They had to create a tower that was at least 10 inches tall using only index cards and some masking tape.  The tower also has to be able to hold a beanie baby stuffie!  It was quite the engineering task!  Be sure to ask your child about his or her tower...was the challenge met?  Could anything have been changed or modified to improve it?

We also celebrated Read Across America Day and Dr. Seuss' birthday this week.  In our Scholastic News magazine, we learned about Dr. Seuss and how he became a writer.  We then spent part of the week reading several of our favorite Seuss stories: Green Eggs in Ham, Fox in Socks, and The Cat in the Hat.  We also watched a great tutorial video on how to draw the Cat in the Hat and the children had fun trying to follow along.  Some even tried to draw Thing 1 and Thing 2!  Dr. Seuss' books are great to read at home with your child.  Look for all the rhyming words!

During Reader's Workshop, we talked about that the books we are reading are becoming bigger and longer.  We sorted some books in the classroom from easier to harder and noted characteristics of books as they get more difficult: more words, smaller print, and longer sentences.  However, we did noticed that many early reader books have patterns.  If we can figure out the patterns in the sentences, then the book becomes easier to read. For example, "Mouse finds a cookie.  Mouse finds a strawberry.  Mouse finds a carrot".  If we do not know the word that changes at the end, we can use the picture to help us figure out the unknown word. See if your child can notice the patterns in the sentences he or she reads.

We have begun a new writing genre during Writer's Workshop: opinion writing.  We are working on stating an opinion and backing it up with reasons.  We first brainstormed some problems in our classroom or school (running in the hallway, marker caps being left off, a messy writing center, etc.) and then used words to write about why it is a problem and how it could be fixed. Some children wrote booklets, letters, or signs.  Be sure to ask your child what he or she wrote about!

In math, we are continuing our study of shapes; however, this time we are focusing on 3-D shapes.  We have discussed the characteristics of spheres and cylinders and have searched around our classroom to find examples. Also, in a new Work Place, the children have had the chance to build
2-D shapes using play dough and toothpicks.  After building each shapes, they have to count and record the number of sides and the number of vertices (corners).

Lastly,  I look forward to meeting with you all next week for Parent Conferences.  Please let me know if you have forgotten when you signed up to meet and I will resend you the time and date.  Have a wonderful weekend!