Happy Summer!

We had a wonderful last week of Kindergarten!  On Tuesday, we started the day with a Summer Reading assembly to get us excited about all the reading we can do over the vacation!  Then we had a few guest readers in our class and had our Lights Out Read Party!  The children had so much fun building their little cozy reading nooks and then spent about an hour of our day reading independently!  It was very cute and amazing to see how far they have come with their reading!  We also read our Scholastic News about summer and using our five senses to identify that summer is here.  We then used that "summer sense knowledge" to write summer poems in small groups.  This was a nice way to finish our Writer's Workshop this year.

 We ended the week with Step Up Day.  Each child had a chance to meet their teacher for next year and some new classmates. Everyone seemed very excited! Your child's last Friday Folder, that came home yesterday, was very full.  I hope you will take some time to look through it.  There is a lot of work from the year, your child's progress report, and a small gift for your child from me.

This has been an absolute amazing year!  As many of you know, this was my first year back in Kindergarten after teaching first, second, and third grades, for the past eight years.  Although, I love every grade I teach, I have been reminded this year that there really is something special about Kindergarten and Kindergartners!  I am so thankful to have laughed, danced, read, smiled, and learned with your children.  What a wonderful class!  Wishing you a summer with lots of beautiful summer afternoons!

Marble Race, Jewelry Shop, and More!

We have had another great week in Kindergarten!  What a treat to end the week with some warm and sunny weather, too! Only one week left...so hard to believe!

One of the highlights from the week was finishing our Forces and Motion unit with a Marble Raceway Challenge!  The children worked in partnerships to create a marble raceway that takes a marble the longest amount of time to go down.  We were not looking for speed this time!  We were trying to figure out how to make the marble go slowly.  These engineers did a great job!  Be sure to ask your child about his or her raceway!  How long did it take the marble to travel from the top to the bottom?

During Literacy, we have been busy reading and writing!  We read a Scholastic News about staying safe during the summer. We circled sight words in the the mini-book and looked for digraphs. As a part of our summer reading preparation, the children drew the cover of their favorite books to put on a book recommendation bulletin board in the front of the school.  What was your child's favorite book?  Speaking of reading, we are going to have a Lights Out Reading Party on Tuesday, June 11th.  Your child can bring in a flashlight and blanket and we are going to pretend like we are camping and read in the dark!  There is a note in your child's Friday Folder with more information.   Lastly, the children wrote messages to my incoming Kindergarten students, sharing with them how to have a successful Kindergarten year!  We brainstormed lots of ideas such as, bring a water bottle, make new friends, have fun on the playground, and read a lot  Then they wrote a letter that I will send to one of my new students over the summer!  They were very proud of their work!

In math, we continued to build our number sense fluency and our fluency with addition and subtraction.  We looked at ten frames filled with a certain number of dots and then the children had to come up with as many equations as they could for that number.  I was impressed with the subtraction equations they generated!  We will continue to practice addition and subtraction through some fun games as we finish Kindergarten math!

Lastly, we had a wonder time walking to shop in our community: Matthew Taylor Designs.  Penelope's family invited us to walk over for a tour of the jewelry shop and to learn what Matthew does as a jewelry designer and maker.  The children then got to pick out stamps that were imprinted onto a little copper charm for a bracelet!  The children were so amazed by all the tools that Matthew uses!  Thanks so much for having us!  We loved the bracelets!

Enjoy the sunny, warm weekend!!!