Frog Pond and Jog-a-thon!

This has been a quick, but eventful week!

On Wednesday, we walked to the frog pond behind the Fieldhouse for our last Nearby Nature session of the year.   As we walked near the soccer fields toward the pond, we saw and caught our first frog hopping through the grass!  Then we spent about thirty minutes walking around the ponds looking for more frogs to catch!  In the end, we caught five frogs and we had some brave children we even held the frogs.  When we returned from the frog pond, we watched a puppet show about frogs and learned about their different sounds and the difference between a frog and a toad.  What was your child's favorite part of our field trip?  Thanks to Jess and Jane for a wonderful year filled with so many nature adventures!

On Friday, we had a wonderful time at the Jog-a-thon.  So many children said it has been their favorite day of the year so far!  We first went running around the circle and for each lap, the children received a tally mark on their race bibs.  Every ten laps equals one mile!  Be sure to ask your child how many laps he or she did.  They were all working hard out there!  Then we had a picnic lunch outside and enjoyed music from the DJ, games and activities from the Big Blue Trunk, and smoothies from the City Market smoothie bike!  So much fun and excitement....everyone will sleep well tonight!

Have a great weekend!

Laundry Basket Race!

Important Dates!
Wednesday, May 29th:  We will be walking to the Frog Pond by the Shelburne Athletic Club.  Please make sure your child has boots for that day and is dressed for the weather.

 Friday, May 31st: We have the PTO Jog-a-thon.  This is a very fun and exciting day for us at SCS!  We will be running around the bus circle from 9:00-9:30 that morning and then will eat lunch out on the playground at 10:45am. We will spend some time outdoors enjoying all the activities and the music from the DJ!  Please make sure your child wears sneakers that day and that your child brings a water bottle.

Friday, June 14th:  The last day of school is a half day.  Children will be dismissed at 11:30am.
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We had another wonderful week of Kindergarten!  We have been working on our Alphabet Countdown Memory books and cannot believe that we are already on letter N on Monday.  It has been nice reflecting about the wonderful activities we have done this year and all the memories we have made!

Your child may have mentioned to you that we have been reading Charlotte's Web during Quiet Time. Each day after lunch, we all meet at the carpet and the children rest while I read aloud to them.  We finally finished the book on Monday and as a celebration for filling our Cat Coin jar, we are watching the movie!  Be sure to ask your child who his or her favorite character was in the book and the movie!

During theme, we continued learning about forces and motion and push and pull.  This week we added the idea of friction to our discussions.  We put our forces to work by participating in the Great Laundry Basket Race!  I filled a laundry basket with books from the library and a cute bear stuffie!  The children then each took turns pushing it from one end of the classroom to the other as I timed them.  Prior to pushing, they all made estimates about how long it would take and then afterward we compared our estimates with our actual times.  We also did the race again, but this time the children had to pull the basket.  Which was more difficult?  Which needed more force?  Ask your child to tell you about our laundry basket race! 

At writer's workshop, we are continuing to write poems.  Many children are writing concrete poems, that we learned about last week.  These are poems in the shape of the subject of the poem.  This week, many were writing lantern poems.  Lantern poems are five lines with one word on the first line, two words on the second line, three words on the third line, four words on the fourth line, and one word on the last line.  I am very impressed with their poems...creative!  Next week, they will each choose two poems to publish in  our Kindergarten poetry anthology.  Be on the lookout for this anthology!

Lastly, in math we started the week by making paper frogs and counting the eyes.  We were practicing counting my 2s and looking for number patterns as we count by twos.  Then we practiced more with estimating and measuring with a unifix cube measuring activity. The children worked on precisely measuring objects in the room with unifix cubes.  Finally, they learned two new card games:  Make Ten and More Than 1/Less Than 1.  One game worked on building our fluency with make ten math facts and the other worked on the idea of subtracting and adding ones.  We continue to be very busy mathematicians!

Have a great weekend! 

VSO Petting Zoo

We had a great time at the VSO Petting Zoo on Thursday morning!  We first learned about the origins and different kind of instruments:  woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings.  Then the children had a chance to explore and try out all the instruments. Did your child tell you about his or her favorite instrument?   Enjoy the pictures below!

This week we continued with our Forces and Motion unit by participating in some investigations  We learned about that force is a fancy word for pushing and pulling an object.  We tested out what happens when you use a different amount of force while doing an activity called Domino Bowling.  The children set up nine dominoes and then rolled a marble to try and knock the dominoes down.  They tested out rolling the marble with different amounts of force and from different distances.  Many children found that rolling it with more force knocked the most down. Some found rolling the marble from close up knocked more down and some found that farther away knocked the most down.  What did your child find out?  We also did an investigation called Racing Ramps in which we looked at motion.  The children were given blocks to make ramps of different heights.  Then they sent a matchbox car down the ramps and measured how far the cars went.  We were looking to see if the height of the ramp made the cars go faster or farther.  Ask your child what happened with the distance the car traveled and its speed with a one-block, two-block, or three-block ramp!

During our Word Study time, we began the Alphabet Countdown.  Each day we celebrate a different letter, starting with Z and ending with A on the last day of school.  We are using this as a time to practice letter formation one more time and we have created an alphabet memory book to fill out with pictures and words about some of our favorite parts of the year.  It's hard to believe we have just 19 days left!

In math, we learned two new subtraction games: Bug Catcher and Piggy Bank Subtraction. In both games, we practiced subtraction by putting either pennies or bugs on a ten frame number mat and then physically removed them.  We also practiced writing subtraction equations to represent the subtraction action we had made!  We also did another measuring activity...Frog Jump Measuring.  The children had the chance to jump in the classroom and then estimate how far they jumped and then measure with popsicle sticks!  How far did your child jump?

Have a wonderful weekend!

Avid Readers!

It has been amazing to see the growth in our Kindergarten Readers!  We learned this week that we have become avid readers. Avid readers enjoy reading, have a stack of books ready to read, pay close attention when they read, read everywhere, and they can identify the feelings of the characters in the books.  This week we worked on identifying the feelings characters have in books and making connections to those characters and feelings.  We had fun re-reading Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems and many of us could identify with Trixie when she lost her special bunny!  As you are reading with your child at home, see if he or she can make connections with any of the characters and their feelings.

During Fundations, we continue our work with digraphs. We have been practicing building words with digraphs during our reading groups and this week we looked for digraphs in the room.  We called this activity "Read the Room".  The children had a sheet with the digraphs listed at the top and their job was to find words in our room with each of those digraphs.  This is an activity your child could do at home with books are with written print in your home.  When reading your next book with your child, have him or her point out the digraphs!

Our poetry writing is just blossoming this week!  We have reading many Kindergarten poems and have been enjoying poems by Shel Silverstein.  As we investigate poems, we are noticing that poets often repeat lines or words in a poem and have an ending line.  The children have been working hard to use those ideas in their poems as well.  Ask your child about his or her poems this week!

In math, we have been working on place value. We are looking at numbers as tens and ones.  We built numbers using popsicle sticks in bundles of tens and ones and then practiced writing those numbers.  We also explored a hundreds chart and looked for the patterns on that chart.  After working with place value, we began practicing subtraction through a new game called Bug Catcher. We talked about that minus sign means to subtract or take away.  In this game, we used manipulatives to show subtraction and then wrote a subtraction equation....impressive!

We began our last science unit this week: Forces and Motion.  Our focus is going to be on the forces of push and pull; however, we began by brainstorming all the different ways we and other things can move.  Our list was quite long and included, walking, running, rolling, wiggling, pushing, pulling, jumping, skipping, and prancing...just to name a few!  We then had fun testing out those types of movement in a game of Simon Says.  We also read a book called Motion: Push and Pull, Fast and Slow.  In this book we learned some new vocabulary such as, gravity, inertia, and friction.   We also spent some time moving objects in our room and observed if the force needed to move the object was a push or a pull.  Then we took images of children moving things and sorted them into a push, pull, or both category.  Can your child name something that he or she can both push and pull?

Lastly, we have been working hard on a small Mother's Day gift.  Be on the look out in your child's backpack!  Have a wonderful weekend!

Weather Hats!

Here are some pictures of our weather hats from a few weeks ago!