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!

Sea Creatures!

Thank you for coming to our open house!  The children were so proud to share all of their hard work!  Here are a few pictures from this morning!

 We had another wonderful Nearby Nature lesson with Jess and Jane!  We learned about animals in winter and the types of tracks they leave.  We had the chance to go outside and search for some tracks and we found quite a few!

Lastly, we had a special assembly this week about choosing healthy nutritious foods to fuel our bodies.  Our guest, Toby Fit, juggled, did magic tricks, and danced while teaching us about "go foods".  Can your child name a "go food"?

Have a wonderful vacation!  See you back at school on Monday, March 4th!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Wow!  Let's hope our weather gets a little more spring-like soon and that it's the end of our snow days!  We had a wonderful day on Thursday celebrating friendship and kindness!  The children had so much fun delivering their Valentines and opening their bags.  I was so impressed by all the "thank yous" I heard as the children were opening their Valentines...very sweet!  We continued our Valentine's Day fun with a craft, valentine book, and a heart graphing activity. Each child created a beautiful window hanging for home, filled with lots of colorful hearts!  They also each got a box of candy hearts and had to sort their hearts by color and then graph the results.  Which color was found most in your child's box of candy hearts?  Lastly, each child read an emergent reader book called Animal Hugs and practiced reading and finding the new sight word "do".

During Reader's Workshop, we began Guided Reading Groups. This is my chance to work in small groups with your child on building reading strategies, learning sight words, and building reading fluency.  When your child is not in a reading group, he or she is rotating between independent reading from book boxes, a sight word game, or using Starfall.com on the ipads (this is a letter/sound recognition app).  Be sure to ask your child about Reader's Workshop this week!

We are working very hard on our sea creature reports and we cannot wait to share them with you at our Sea Creature Open House!  Last week, we finished our penguin reports and have now moved on to writing a nonfiction piece of writing about our sea creatures.  Each day the children are writing and illustrating another page for their reports, teaching about the sea creature.  This week they added pages about where the sea creature lives and what type of sea creature they have.  Everyone is working very hard to use best guess spelling and to have spaces between their words!

In Math, we continue to work with shapes and their attributes.  This week we learned a new game called Hungry Caterpillars. In this game, the children have to fill up all three sections of the caterpillar with pattern blocks.  During the game, we are practicing naming shapes: triangle, rhombus, and trapezoid.  We also played a fun game working with shape attributes.  I hid a shape card in my pocket and the children had to ask questions about its attributes in order to narrow down which shape I had.  They did a great job asking about the number of sides, the size, and the number of corners to figure it out!

Lastly, I will be holding Parent Conferences in March.  Please sign up for a time using the link below or if you have trouble with the link, let me know and I can help!
Parent Conferences
Have a wonderful weekend!

100th Day of School!

Wow! We have made it to the 100th day of school!  What a milestone for our Kindergartners!  So much learning and growing has happened in these 100 days.  I can't wait to see what the rest of the school year brings!

We had a fun day celebrating the number 100! We began by making 100th day crowns.  The children colored in 100 stars on their crowns!!  We had a delicious Hiyaku (Japanese for 100) trail mix snack!  The children enjoyed finding their favorite treats in there: marshmallows, jellybeans, chocolate chips, goldfish crackers, raisins, and pretzels.  We also had a visit from Zero the Hero!  Zero the Hero was here to talk about the importance of the number zero when making bigger numbers like 100.  Ask your child to tell you about our new friend Zero the Hero!  We finished our day by reading a few 100th day stories and playing a game called Race to $1.00.  This game involved counting pennies and making trades for dimes and then making a final trade for $1.00.  Ask your child how many pennies you need to make $1.00!

During theme, we continued to learn about many new sea creatures.  This week we learned about the Hatchet Fish, Jelly fish, Gulper Eel, Puffer Fish, and Viper Fish.  These were some very interesting creatures!  We continued our class study of penguins and added more to our penguin reports.  This week we learned about the nonfiction features maps, diagram, close up, and table of contents.  We then used these features in our books as we wrote about what penguins look like, where they live, and what they eat.  We also added a fun fact about penguins.  What was your child's fun fact?

Next week during Reader's Workshop, we will begin Guided Reading Groups.  During this time, I will be working with the children in small groups on reading strategies and reading fluency.  While I am meeting with groups, the other children will be participating in reading stations.  The three stations we will be doing are Starfall.com on the ipads, sight word games, and independent reading from book boxes.  This week we practiced the stations so that the children will be independent when I am working with groups.  We are looking forward to trying out Reading Groups and Reading Stations next week!

In math, we learned several new shape Work Places:  Pattern Block Designs, Geoboard Shapes, and Shapes and Spinners Graphing. Each of these new activities encouraged us to look at the attributes of shapes and gave us a chance to practice drawing shapes. Some of the shapes, like a hexagon and rhombus, were tricky to draw!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Happy February!

It's hard to believe we are already in the month of February and have almost reached the 100th day of school!  February is filled with many exciting events!  I hope that you were able to read through the note I sent home last week.  Here is a quick recap if you did not see the note:

February 4th: Book Fair Preview Day
Just to look and see what is for sale...not a purchase day!

February 7th: Book Fair Purchase Day
Your child does not need to purchase books that day. The book fair is open a couple of evenings and you and your child can purchase then.

February 8th: 100th Day of School
We will be celebrating with a special Hiyaku (100th Day trail mix) snack. Your child can bring in 100 small food items to add to our trail mix: pretzels, goldfish, raisins, etc.  Please make sure everything is nut free.

February 14th: Valentine's Day
If your child is making Valentine's, please make sure there is one for each child.

February 22nd:  Kindergarten Sea Creature Open House 8:00-8:30am in our classroom

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We had a wonderful week in Kindergarten with lots of learning about sea creatures! We had four more shares this week and learned about the sting ray, angler fish, octopus, and shark.  Can your child tell you any interesting facts about these creatures or tell you which zone the creatures live in?  The children also had a chance to draw and paint some sea creatures for our hallway mural. They did a great job!  Be sure to ask your child about his or her contribution to our mural.

During Reader's Workshop, we have been reading nonfiction texts and learning how to be better readers of nonfiction books. As we read nonfiction, we may learn some facts or information that we did not know.  We call this new learning.  As I read a book about insects, the children jotted down words and drew pictures of any new information they learned about insects.  We also learned that readers of nonfiction ask questions to learn more.  So as we read a book about spiders, we stopped and thought of questions or wonderings we might have about spiders.  We will continue to use these two comprehension strategies as we read nonfiction books independently.

At Writer's Workshop, the children have been working on their teaching books. This week we learned that nonfiction books have special features that help a reader learn more.  We call these nonfiction text features.  The first feature we explored was labels.  We found that many books had labels, explaining about parts of the subject of our book.  The children were then encouraged to add labels to their writing.

Each child also began their own informational book about penguins.  We have been reading many penguin books, listening for new learning, and are going to use that learning to create a book to teach about penguins.  This week we worked on the first page..."Penguins are...".  We look forward to sharing all of sea creature knowledge with you at the end of the month!

In math, we continued with our geometry unit.  This week we have been sorting shapes. We are recognizing their attributes and using those attributes to sort.  We were sorting by color, shape, and size.  We even began to look at the sides and the corners and sorted by curved sides and straight sides and the number of corners a shape has.  Look for shapes at home with your child and ask him or her to tell you the shapes' attributes!

Please contact me if you have any questions about upcoming February events. Have a great weekend!