Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that you all have a wonderful and relaxing time with family and friends next week!  Please note there is no school the entire week.  School resumes on Monday, November 26th.

This week in our Scholastic News we learned about the First Thanksgiving and learned about what it means to be thankful.  We read a book called I Am Thankful also practiced reading our emergent reader book called What are you Thankful for?  We even made a fun turkey craft to share our thankfulness!  Be sure to check your child's folder for their turkey collage!

In Reader's Workshop, we finished our first "We Are Readers" unit.  During this unit the children learned how to partner read and to read "old favorites" by looking at the pictures and remembering how the story goes.  We celebrated all our accomplishments by reading our stories to Miss Deb's third graders.  Our Kindergarten readers did a wonderful job!   Also during our literacy time this week, we learned two new letters "r" and "p" and we learned a new sight word "for".  We have learned ten sight words so far this year.  See if your child can find them in books when you are reading aloud to them.  The words we have learned are...
a, am, can, for, is, I, my, see, the, you.

We also had Nearby Nature on Wednesday.  This month's theme was conifer trees (fir, spruce, pine, cedar, etc.) and cones.  Thanks to Jess for pulling off a one-person puppet show in which the children learned about different types of conifer trees and what their branches, cones, and needles look like!  The children had a chance to observe pine cones and dissect them, noticing their seed patterns and noticing they had a some sap on them!

Lastly, we had two special activities this week!  On Monday, we had Mix-It-Up with Mr. Badillo's middle schoolers.  They visited our classroom during choice time and we had the chance to play and learn together.  Be sure to ask your child what he or she did during Mix-It-Up.  Also, Kelly, one of our school nurses, visited to talk about the importance of hand washing and staying healthy.  She read us a story and then gave a us a special glow orange liquid to put on our hands to represent germs.  Then we had to go wash our hands and see if we could get all the germs off by washing and drying our hands well.  Then she took a black light to see if we got all the "germs" off!  How did your child do washing his or her hands?  She reminded us to scrub well while singing the ABC song and dry our hands completely!

I hope you all have a lovely Thanksgiving!  Stay healthy!

A Walk Through Shelburne!

We had two great walking field trips this week!  On Monday, we visited the Shelburne Supermarket and the People's United Bank.  At the bank, we learned about the importance of a bank in the community; what it means to save money;  the different kinds of coins, and even got to see the vault where the money is kept!  We then had a tour at the supermarket and saw the different sections: produce, dairy, meat, etc.  We even got to go in the cooler and see how the grocers fill the shelves in the dairy case!  It was chilly in the cooler!  On Wednesday, we walked to The Flying Pig and the Shelburne Craft School.  At the Craft School, we had a tour and go to see where they hold all their art classes.  We even saw some clay students at work, firing their clay vases!  At the Flying Pig, we heard a few stories from the owner, Elizabeth.  We loved looking for all the flying pigs in the bookstore! Back at school we finished our community unit by creating a map of Shelburne with some of our favorite locations.  Each child chose a place that is a part of our community and added it to our map.  It looks great!

This week in writing , we started something BIG!  We have been drawing all of our stories thus far and making our pictures with many details. This week we learned how to add words or labels to our stories to help the reader better understand what is happening.  We learned how to stretch a word out and listen for the sounds and write down the letters that make those sounds.  I was so impressed with these Kindergarten writers!  Everyone wrote labels for their illustrations in their stories!

During our literacy time, we learned the letters "s" and "e" this week.  We learned how to form the letters, make the sounds of the letters, and identify words that begin with those sounds.  Can your child tell you the sounds those letters make?  We also read a Scholastic News about Veteran's Day and learned a new sight word that we found in the newspaper: my.

Lastly in math, we have been exploring shapes in our calendar.  The pattern on our calendar has been flat shapes and three-dimensional shapes.  We have learned about spheres, cylinders, cones, and cubes.  We continued our work with shapes during a new Work Place: Pattern Block Puzzles.  The children had to fill in larger shapes with the pattern blocks and in a variety of ways.  Also in math, we been exploring the idea of pairs and counting by twos.  The children each colored in a pair of mittens for a growing pattern chart and we used that chart to help us find the numbers we say when counting by twos.  Can your child count from 2-10 by twos for you?

Have a wonderful weekend!

Community!

Next week, we will be taking two walking Field Trips!  On Monday, November 5th, we will be walking to the Shelburne Supermarket and People's United Bank and on Wednesday, November 7th, we will be walking to the Shelburne Craft School and The Flying Pig Bookstore.  We are visiting these places to learn more about our Shelburne Community.  If you are fingerprinted and have filled out the volunteer forms at our district office, you are more than welcome to join us for either trip!  We continued to learn more about communities by discussing communities helpers.  We read a book called Career Day and talked about all the important people in our community who help us or our families and neighbors.  The children all created a Community Helper Flip Book.  This book is in their book boxes to practice reading it!  It had two or our new sight words..."am" and "a".  We also continued learning about maps. We first made maps our bedrooms and then made maps of our classroom! What did your child include in his or her map?

At Reader's Workshop, we continue to read "Old Favorite" books.  Old Favorites are books we have heard over and over again and know how the story goes without even reading the words.  Examples of "Old Favorites" for us are Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Bear Snores On,
Caps for Sale, and The Carrot Seed.  We have been reading and re-reading these books:  looking at the pictures, remembering how the story goes, and telling what happens on the pages.  We've also learned how to say more on each page and using transition words, such as "then", "next", and "also" as we move from page to page.  If you have any of these books at home, ask your child to read it to you!

Also, this week the children got their own "Brown Owl, Brown Owl" book for their book boxes!  It is based on Brown Bear, Brown Bear, but with a Halloween twist!  This book had many of our sight words which made it easy to read!  We practiced pointing and touching each word as we read.  This is a great skill for your child to use when reading at home with you too!  In Fundations, we have been introduced to the letters g, o, d, and a.  We practiced handwriting and brainstormed words that have those letters as initial sounds. We are almost halfway through the alphabet!

In Writer's Workshop, we continue to tell stories in our Talking, Drawing, Writing notebooks.  Prior to getting to work, we talked about adding details to our stories, focusing particularly on the people in the stories and adding clothing, hairstyles, and physical traits, such as skin color that match the character in the story.  Be sure to ask your child about his or her stories this week!

Lastly in math, we learned about using tally marks as a way to count.  We practiced counting and making tally marks using popsicle sticks first and then played a game of Tally Mark Bingo to practice counting and recognizing tally marks. We also did some work with shapes and patterns and made a  paper Butterfly Quilt.  Each child was responsible for making two paper quilt blocks.  We attached them all together in a pattern and then made observations and noticings about the shapes and patterns in our quilt. Be sure to ask your child what he or she noticed!

Shelburne Farms

We had a wonderful visit to Shelburne Farms last week, despite the cold and rainy weather!  We went to Shelburne Farms as a part of our community because it is a part of our community, but also it allowed us to work together as a community to make a vegetable soup!  As a class, we were in charge of chopping the onions and the garlic for the soup.  Everyone did such a great job even though they had "onion tears" streaming down their faces!  We also had a visit to the farmyard, fed kale to the goats, saw how cheese was made, and took a tractor ride!  Enjoy some pictures from the day!

Short Week!

This four-day week went by so quickly!  Please note that there is no school tomorrow, October 19th!
Although it was a short week, lots of learning still occurred for these fabulous Kindergartners!

In Writer's Workshop, we are still telling our stories through drawings.  We continue to focus on adding lots of detail to our stories to better help the reader.  This week our lessons were about adding clothes to the people in your stories and drawing people in action, to make them look as though they are moving in the story.  Ask your child about his or her stories from the week!

During theme, we read a book called Where Do I Live?. This book took us from the small community of our family and house to the larger communities we belong to such as, town, state, United States, continent and  Earth.  Next week we are going to turn our attention to maps and make maps of parts of our communities.








In Reader's Workshop, we learned the new sight word "you".  We are finding that word a lot in our morning message and in books in our book boxes.  The word "you" was found a lot in our newest edition of the Scholastic News magazine. This week we read about an important community helper: a firefighter.  We learned about firefighters' gear and how they prepare to do their job.  The children are keeping these in their book boxes to practice the strategy of re-reading.  When readers re-read it helps them to think more about what they are learning and allows them to make connections to the learning!



In math, we were introduced to a new tool that we will use to think flexibly with numbers called the number rack.  We explored numbers between 0 and 10 by showing quantities with the beads on the number rack and by building combinations of five beads, using both the red and white beads. We even wrote a few addition statements that equal five after looking some  combinations of white and red beads on the number rack!

This week in Second Step, our social skills lessons with Ms. O, we learned about being assertive.  In this case, assertiveness related to asking for help when you are confused and do not know what to do.  We role played some scenarios that could occur in the classroom and the children practiced asking friends and me for help in certain situations.

I want to let you know that I will be out of school next Friday, October 26th and Monday, October 29th.  I will be getting married that weekend and am taking off those two days to be with family. 

Have a great weekend!

30 Days of Kindergarten!

Each day, as a part of Number Corner, we determine how many days we have been in school.  On Friday, we hit day 30!  It's hard to believe that much time has already passed.  It has been so wonderful to meet with all of you last week to discuss your child's growth and learning over these thirty days!  Although we do not have another formal conference until March, please feel free to contact me with any concerns or questions, or if you just want to stop by our room one day to see what is happening in Kindergarten!

We began our first Social Studies theme this week!  For the next month, we will be learning about our community and identifying the many communities to which we all belong.  We were introduced to the concept of community by reading On the Town: a story about a boy who explores his town with his mom.  We learned that a community is a group of people who live, work, or play together.  We brainstormed a list of people, places, and things in our community of Shelburne and then each child made a pocket flap book with a picture of themselves and four places in our community.  Which places did your child draw?  We also read a book called Windows which tells the story of a young boy who goes out for a walk at night and looks at what is going on at the houses in his neighborhood community.  We talked about neighborhoods as a community and that family is also a community.  Each child then made a pop-up picture of his or her home!  If you swing by our room, be sure to check out how your child replicated your house!  We will be going on some community walks toward the end of October.  We hope to visit the Shelburne Supermarket, the bank, and the Flying Pig Bookstore.

In Fundations, we were introduced to two new sight words this week: "I" and "the".  These sight words were found in a new emergent reader book for us called Pumpkins.  In this book the phrase "I can see the..." is repeated and then the last bit of the text is changed on each page.  We began reading the book by going on a picture walk and talking about what we saw on every page.  Then we did some choral reading and finally, the children read independently.  Also in Fundations, we focused on the letters M and I.  We practiced the sounds for each letter and practiced letter formation.  Ask your child to tell you the keyword picture for each of these letters!


In math, we continued working with five frames and ten frames as a tool to count efficiently and  to see numbers in groups.  We also learned a new game called Count and Compare.  In this partner game, the children each turn over a ten-frame card filled with dots.  They have to decide which card has a greater number of dots and which have a lesser number of dots.  They put the cards on the game board and then spin a "greater than and less than spinner" to see who wins the cards.  Ask your child to tell you about this fun new game!

Lastly, we had our second Nearby Nature session of the year.  This month we learned about leaves!  We began by going out in to the school yard to collect different kinds of leaves in the beautiful, sunny warm fall weather!  When we brought the leaves back inside, we sorted them by color, shape, veins, lobes, etc.  The children also watched a puppet show and learned about what leaves need (water, sun, and soil) and why leaves change color in the fall.  Thanks to Jane and Kendra for a great leaf lesson!

Happy Weekend!

Partner Reading!

It was great to see so many of you last night at our Kindergarten Open House!  Thanks for making time in your busy schedules to check out what your child does all day in Kindergarten.  I know they were very proud to share their work with you!  I look forward to meeting with you all next week to share more about your child's learning so far this year!

Please check your child's Friday Folder. There is information about our rescheduled field trip to Shelburne Farms and there is information about some of the social/emotional skills we have been learning and practicing this year.  There are some home letters from the We Thinkers program which will give you some ideas of ways you can practice social thinking at home with your child.  This week we read a book called Thinking With Your Eyes.  When our eyes are looking at someone or something, other people can tell what we are thinking about.  We talked about the importance of using our eyes for thinking when adults or our friends are talking to us.

This week in Reader's Workshop, we had some new experiences!  We have spent most of our time doing independent reading, looking at the words and pictures in the book.  This week we had the chance to try out partner reading!  Successful reading partnerships happen when two readers sit side by side, put the book in the middle, and take turns reading (see-saw reading).  I was so impressed with our reading partners!  They were taking turns and even sharing pages that were their favorites (Wow! pages).  We also read our first Scholastic Let's Find Out Magazine.  This is a non-fiction magazine that we will read every week.  It often relates to seasonal events/holidays.  Our first magazine was about the start of Autumn.  After choral reading the magazine together, each child got his or her own book to read independently.  We learned the sight word "can" and that helped us to read this Autumn counting book.

We also learned the sight word "see" this week while reading a poem about pumpkins.  We read the poem many times together and then the children practiced reading it independently with their own mini-pumpkin books!  We also completed an art project to accompany our pumpkin books.  I hope you had a chance to admire your child' pumpkin patch out in the hallway last night!!

During Writer's Workshop, we began using our Talking and Drawing Notebooks.  These are notebooks we will be using to tell, illustrate, and write our stories throughout the year.  We are beginning by creating detailed illustrations to tell our stories.  As I confer with children, I ask questions about their drawings and stories, encouraging them to add more detail (hair, clothes, weather, etc) so that their readers really understand what is happening in the story.  We had a great first three days with our notebooks...lots of stories to tell and pictures to illustrate!

In math, we continue to work on numeral formation (6 and 7); however, this week we also worked with patterns.  We created patterns using ourselves and patterns with animal noises.  It was like an animal chorus!  Then we used unifix cubes to copy and extend patterns.  We even learned that some patterns are named by letters, such as ABABAB or ABCABC.  Can your child demonstrate a pattern for you at home? We also learned three new Work Places this week:  Beat You to Five, Which Numeral Will Win?, and Unifix Cube Patterns.  Which was your child's favorite?

Lastly, we learned the letters N and F in Fundations this week.  We read stories which highlighted those letters, brainstormed words with those letters as the initial sound, and practiced letter formation.  Ask your child to name some items that begin with those letters!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!