Sea Creatures!

Thank you for coming to our open house!  The children were so proud to share all of their hard work!  I look forward to celebrating more of their accomplishments when we meet for Parent Conferences in March.  If you have not signed up for a conference yet, please visit this link: Parent Conference Sign Up

In math, we have been working on problem solving.  Each day we have read several story problems about sea creatures and have used pictures, numbers, and equations to show our thinking.  We took it a step further and each child created their own sea creature story problem!  The children are doing a great job of solving these problems and explaining their thinking!  We also rounded out our geometry unit by making a paper quilt called the Shoo-Fly Quilt.  We used red and purple triangles to make our quilt squares and then made mathematical observations about the quilt!  We noticed an AB pattern in the colors; that the colors are the same when you look diagonally; that four triangles make a diamond; and that our quilt shape is a square made up of a lot of squares!.

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 anxiety.  Through the help of the puppets, the children learned to identify worries and the tools they can use to deal with worries.  The puppet show finished with a song; see if your child can sing you the chorus!





Lastly, we ended the week with a little celebration for all of our hard work on our sea creature study and for filling our Cat Coin Jar!  We watched a bit of Finding Nemo while enjoying some goldfish!  A nice way to end a busy month of February!  Enjoy the vacation...see you in March!

What a week...100th Day, Nearby Nature, Flynn Theatre, Valentine's Day!

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, goldfish crackers,sunflower seeds, 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!

We also had Nearby Nature on Tuesday and learned about squirrels!  Through several activities and a puppet show, we learned about three types of squirrels (gray, red, and flying!), their habits, where they live,  how they hide their supplies of food in the winter, and how to look for signs of squirrels in the winter.  The children also had a chance to investigate and explore squirrel skulls and pelts!  Thanks to Christine and Jackson for bringing us this new learning!

We had a wonderful time at the Flynn Theatre on Thursday!  On Wednesday, we read the story The Rainbow Fish.  We also read a Scholastic Magazine and learned about real rainbow fish.  We compared the fictional story to the nonfiction facts in the magazine.  When we got back from the Flynn, we each made our own Rainbow Fish for the classroom.  They look beautiful!




We had a great day on Friday 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 Valentine read alouds and a heart graphing activity. In math, they 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, we read our Scholastic Let's Find Out Magazine about hearts, hugs, and love!

When we weren't busy celebrating...we also learned about more sea creatures from our classmates.  This week we heard about Giant Squid, Sea Turtles, Pacific Viperfish, Octopus, Dolphins, and Sharks.  It is amazing how much we have learned about these creatures!  Ask your children to tell you any "fun facts" about these creatures!

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 started solving some story word problems about sea creatures.  When working on these problems we are practicing showing our thinking with pictures, numbers, and a number sentence (addition sentence).  The children did a great job of sharing their thinking!

It was a wonderful and busy week; however, we also have had a lot of illness in our classroom and many children absent from school.  Please take care over the weekend and we hope everyone feels healthy to start the week!

Stingrays and Shapes!

That was a quick week!  All the excitement about the Book Fair, Sea Creatures, and a snow day sure made the week sail by!

During theme, we continued to learn about many new sea creatures.  This week we learned about the clownfish, penguins, Yeti Crab, and dolphins.  These were some very interesting creatures! We continued our class study of sea creatures by researching and learning about stingrays.  We read a great nonfiction book with amazing photographs.  As we read, we listened for facts about what stingrays can do; what they need; what they look like; what they eat; and where they live. Then the children wrote down what they learned in their science journals and even completed a diagram of a stingray!  I am so impressed with how everyone's "best guess" spelling is coming along.  Everyone is working hard to really stretch out the sounds they hear in words!  What can your child teach you about stingrays?  Since we have done some extended research about stingrays and polar bears, each child chose an animal and is working on writing a report.  In Kindergarten, nonfiction report writing consists of sharing facts about the animal over multiple pages.  They are looking forward to sharing their reports with you at our Sea Creature Open House!

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!  We also did a fun art project with some shapes and sea creatures!  We learned about penguins this week during one of our sea creature shares and then read a book about penguins.  We then had a create a penguin using shapes like circles, triangles, and ovals!  It was a fun challenge! 

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!   Here is a quick recap if you did not see the note in your child's Friday Folder:

February 3rd: Book Fair Preview Day
Just to look and see what is for sale...not a purchase day!

February 5th: 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 10th: 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 chocolate free.

February 13th: Field Trip to the Flynn Theatre to see Rainbow Fish

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

February 19th 3:15-3:45pm:  Kindergarten Sea Creature Open House in our classroom OR
February 20th 7:30-8:00am: Kindergarten Sea Creature Open House in our classroom  (Just come to one Open House time that fits your schedule!)
*******************************************************************************
We had a wonderful week in Kindergarten with lots of learning about sea creatures! We had seven  shares this week and learned about the snail fish, seahorses, dolphins, angel fish, puffer fish, angler fish, and jelly fish.  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.

In Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop, we have been reading about Polar Bears and collecting information as we read.  Each child has a sea creature research journal to use to take "notes" about some sea creatures.  We started with Polar Bears and each child finished the following sentence starters:
Polar Bears can..
Polar Bears have...
Polar Bears live...
Polar Bears eat...
Polar Bears need...
Polar Bears look...
Next week, we are going to study stingrays and whales.  As we study these animals, we are working on writing predictable sentences to share facts about each of these creatures which will then help us write a report (or informational writing) later on in February.  What can your child teach you about polar bears?

We also 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.  We worked on adding labels to our photograph of a polar bear in our research journals!

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!

There is lots of information in the Friday Folder this week!  Let me know if you have any questions. Have a great weekend!

Kindness!

This week in our Scholastic Let's Find Out magazine we learned about Martin Luther King, Jr.  We watched a short video and learned about how he worked very hard to get unfair laws changed and to bring more kindness and peace to the world.  We then read several books about kindness. After reading The Kindness Book, the children each brainstormed what kindness means to them and created heart sun catchers for our classroom window!  Stop by our windows to check them out!

We have been immersed in nonfiction books! We began the week by looking through the books in our library determining which books are fiction and which are nonfiction.  We figured out that non-fiction books are about real things and are used to teach us facts and often have photographs.  Fiction books are stories that are made up and often have drawn illustrations.   We talked about how nonfiction books are used to teach or inform us about a topic. Prior to reading, it's important to consider our background knowledge about the topic and that helps us realize when we have new learning while reading.  We read a book about Polar Bears and stopped every few pages so classmates could share their new learning.  Did you know polar bears can swim up to 90 miles at one time?? We also read a non-fiction book called Wish for a Fish which taught us all about the different zones in the ocean and what creatures live in those zones.  As we read, we listened for important information and asked questions, and thought of "wonderings" about the zones.


During Fundations, we continued practicing our uppercase letter formation with the letters E, F, G, and H. This week we used a new tool to help us practice building words: a magnetic board and letter tiles.  We used the Fundations boards to find letters when I gave a sound and then I tapped out three sounds and the children built the word.  They did a great job listening for the sounds and identifying what letters are needed to make a word. Way to go!

Lastly in math, we have moved into a Geometry unit.  This week, we explored shapes by using pattern blocks.  We made observations about circles, spheres, squares, triangles, trapezoids, hexagons, and the rhombus.  The children were able to notice a variety of attributes of these shapes: sides, corners, and even parallel lines!  I was impressed!  You could ask your child to find some of these shapes in your home!  We also spent some time sorting pattern blocks by shape and then the children learned how to make bar graphs to show how many of each shape they had!

Please make sure to check your child's Friday Folder this weekend.  In his or her folder is a progress report for the first trimester of Kindergarten.  We have finished our narrative writing unit so there are also some writing pieces for your child to share with you too!  Have a wonderful weekend!

Sea Creatures!

A little snow fun at recess this week!








This week we began started our first science unit about sea creatures!  We began by brainstorming what we know about sea creatures and their habitat.  I found out that our class already knows a lot about some interesting sea creatures!  We then read Sea Life and Commotion in the Ocean to start familiarizing ourselves with more sea creatures.  We also read about an ocean and sea creature expert, Jacques Cousteau, and his love of the underwater world in a book called  Manfish.  We all got a new early reader for our book boxes about sea creatures and we learned two new sight words: can and of.  On Thursday, each child chose a sea creature to learn more about and become an "expert"!  In your child's Friday Folder is a note to you about an at-home project to complete with your child about his or her sea creature.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

During Reader's Workshop, we read a new Scholastic Let's Find Out Magazine.  This week's magazine helped us understand the difference between fiction and nonfiction text by comparing the story of The Mitten by Jan Brett to how animals really stay warm in winter.  In the book, all the animals squeeze into a mitten to say warm.  Our magazine shared information about how those same animals actually stay warm in winter...heavier fur, digging underground, or more feathers.  We also explored the difference between fiction and nonfiction by reading a National Geographic easy reader about sharks and comparing that to a fiction story called Misunderstood Shark.  We found that many nonfiction books have photographs and labels and that many fiction stories have animals that can talk and have drawn illustrations.  Be sure to ask your child if he or she can tell you the difference between fiction and nonfiction!

We enjoyed reading The Mitten so much that each child got an easy reader pattern book of the story for their book box.  We also acted out the story several times in the classroom as we practiced retelling the story.  There are some picture cards in your child's Friday Folder of the characters in the story if you and your child want to practice retelling this fun story at home!

In math, our focus has been on money this week!  We learned the names and worth of two coins: penny and nickel. We spent a bit of time making observations about the coins and then used them to play three games:  Which Coin Will Win?, Money March, and Beat You to 15 cents.  In these games, the children practiced recognizing coins, adding up coins, and trading pennies in for nickels.  See if your child can identify coins at home and tell you how much they are worth! A few friends even learned a new math game called Skip-Bo (the game in the pictures)!  A fun game to play with your family!

During Fundations, we are beginning to build small words and are tapping out the sounds of those words and then blending them together.  We also are working on identifying the final sounds in words.  Both of these skills are helping us in our "best guess" spelling! We have also begun a quick review of uppercase letter formation.  This week we practiced uppercase A, B, C, and D.

Lastly, during our Read Aloud time after lunch I have begun reading from chapter books this month.  One child's family introduced us to a series of books and read one of them this week. The series is called Zoey and Sassafras.  The book we read was called Dragons and Marshmallows.  The children LOVED this book and it has some great science vocabulary incorporated parts of the scientific method: hypothesis, observations, and conclusions.  Just thoughts I would share this with you if you are looking for some new read alouds at home.  It might be a good reading weekend (or skiing!) seeing that we are getting more snow!  Happy Weekend!

Nearby Nature!

 On Tuesday, we had our monthly Nearby Nature lesson with Christine and Jackson.  This month we were learning about how animals stay warm in winter and how they use different pieces of the ecosystem to help them survive the cold.  Through our puppet show and a memory match game, we learned that many animals stay active in the winter and have to conserve body heat by seeking out shelter or putting on extra fur, feathers, or fat.  Be sure to ask your child if he or she can tell you about some of these animals and how they stay warm!

During Reader's Workshop, we continued to strengthen are reading powers!  We talked about how readers re-read books to become more fluent in their reading.  We looked for patterns in the words of our emergent reader books and practiced reading those smoothly.  We also began to notice punctuation in our books and noticed how that helps us read the book.  We found exclamation points and question marks and changed the tone of our voices to match the punctuation.  We also got a new book for our book boxes from the Scholastic Let's Find Out magazine.  This book was about building snowmen and had a new sight word in it: be.  The children did a nice of job of following the pattern in the book, which helped them to read more smoothly and less like robots!

In math this week, we turned our attention to measurement and comparing numbers (greater than and less than).  We spent much of our math time using popsicle sticks and unifix cubes to measure the length of items in the classroom. Then we compared those numbers and talked about which were greater and which were less.  We also learned about the  <, >, and = signs that mathematicians use to compare numbers! Ask your child to tell you about the "shark mouth"!  Next week, we will work with coins: nickels, dimes, and pennies.





During Writer's Workshop, we continued to write our personal narratives with a beginning, middle, and end.  The children are continuing to tell their stories with detailed illustrations, but also adding more sentences.  I am so impressed with their work!  Our big focus for the week was putting spaces between our words.  This helps the reader better understand our stories!




We finished learning all of our lowercase letters and sounds this week in Fundations with Z and Q.  Now we are moving on to spelling and tapping out C-V-C words, such as map, cat, sit, etc.  For each letter in a word we tap a finger on our thumb and then "zip" the sounds together to say the word.  See if your child can tap out a word for you!  This knowledge will help with their reading and also their "best guess" spelling in Writer's Workshop.

Lastly, we welcomed a new student this week to our class!  The children were very excited to meet her and show her around our room and school!

Have a great weekend!