Word Study -ing Wheels

Spring has arrived and there is no better time to begin studying the ending -ing with the kids. Today they made -ing wheels that they will be sharing with you tonight. Please encourage your reader to spin through the wheel to read all of the -ing words to you.

Thinking Like Scientists

Today our team received a surprise visit from a very special scientist called Dr. Doofenstein. He talked with the kids about what scientists do and then jump started our unit on the five senses by showing the children how he studies bubbles using the scientific method. They loved it! Their budding curiosity makes them such wonderful scientists to work with. Here are a few photos from the skit from Dr. Doofenstein.

Budding Ornithologists

Today we had Hands On Nature. The children learned about Owls. Here are a few photos from today. They enjoyed a puppet show. They dissected own pellets. In Science, our current topic is Thinking Like a Scientist. The children will be thinking about two very important essential questions throughout this unit: What makes someone a scientist? and How do Scientist think? This afternoon I plan to read the children a big book about different types of scientists. How cool that they got to be Ornithologists today...Bird Scientists.

Read Across America Day

Today the children have been having fun celebrating Dr. Seuss's birthday. I am including a couple of photos from some activities that we have done so far. SCS had a special assembly in which Tom Messner, the Chief Meteorologist for NewsChannel 5, read Dr. Seuss's There's a Wocket in my Pocket.

What's Coming Up in March

When we come back from vacation, our school will be celebrating National Reading Week. We will celebrate Dr. Seuss day on Tuesday March 5th with a special assembly, Drop Everything and Read (DEAR TIME) whole school, and several guest readers will visit our room from different teaching positions around the school. I have several fun activities already planned including work with books and artwork. During the month of March we will be reading lots of books written by Dr. Seuss as some are great readers for beginning readers. The children will be working with word families within these books and making and writing lots of new words during our Fundations word study and Writer's workshops times. In math, the theme turns to Frogs and Toads. So while playing lots of new games around numbers and operation, algebra, and measurement, the children will be learning about these fun creatures. Our Bridges in Mathematics math program is so great about leaving room to incorporate science themes into the math! This makes it so much fun for the children to remain interested in their learning. This past week the children created sea creature math problems of their own and we will be working in March to solve every one of their problems as our math warm up. These problems will go home as we solve them. Be on the lookout for more sea creature art! Also, conferences are in March and progress reports will go home on Friday, March 15th. I have a scheduling conflict with the late night that I had planned for conferences on Thursday, March 21st. My sons' now have a science fair at their school that evening that they both will be participating in. So, if you signed up for conferences on 3/21st from 4:00 on, please revisit the wiki to reschedule. I am so sorry for any problems this may create. I will contact you after break as a reminder as well.

The Deep Sea Dive

Today was the culminating activity for our two month long Literacy, Math, and Science integrated curriculum unit about sea creatures. The children came together to enjoy some artwork they created about sea creatures and the layers of the ocean, to sing a couple of ocean songs, listen to some quiet ocean sounds music for a Mindfulness activity, shared their sea creature Specialist books with children from TreeHouse, and had a very special snack while watching all of the sea creature fact PowerPoints from all four Kindergarten Classrooms. Very busy little creatures! It was a lot of fun! Here are some photos from our fun today with the TreeHouse team.

Parent Teacher Conference Times

Please be sure to visit our team webpage to sign up for a conference in March. Many parents signed up at Open House. Please view the conference Wiki to be sure the time still works for you.

SCS Book Fair News

Hey there! It’s Book Fair week at SCS! Our class went to view the books that will be on sale at the SCS Book Fair today. Our classroom’s purchase time will be Thursday, February 14th at 9:00 AM. At that time, I will send the children who have brought in money to purchase books with Mrs. Maurice. If you wish to purchase books for your child, it would help me out a bunch if you could come with your child at one of the after school times listed below. If you choose to send your child to school with money, please be sure to put it in a sealed envelope with directions for us on what you wish for your child to purchase. After school purchase times: Tuesday 3-8 PM Wednesday 3-4 PM Thursday 3-8 PM Thanks for you help. Amy

Yikes! Sea Creatures in the Computer Lab!

We did something exciting and new today! We visited the Library computer lab! While there, the kids learned a new Paint program and created a sea creature habitat picture that connected to their research projects. These art pieces will be used for a PowerPoint presentation that the kids will be doing at our upcoming Open House. It will be a wonderful surprise so I hope you can make it.

Word Study Practice

I have been busy reassessing students to see the progress that they have made. This is my favorite part of the year. Their progress is tremendous. Tomorrow your child will be bringing home a list of Kindergarten sight words that s/he still needs to practice reading. For those who know all of the words, I will attach the first grade word list. Keep in mind that they do not need to be able to write these words, just read them. However, writing them does help...that is why they practice "Rainbow Writing" these words. See if you can encourage your child to practice his/her words at home.

Kindergarten Concert and Open House Reminder

Dear Parents: Just a reminder: The Kindergarten students will perform their winter program on Wednesday, February 6th. Please join us in the SCS large gymnasium at 9AM as we perform a variety of songs, and movement activities. Thank you. Sincerely, Diana Burritt Jason Lewis Jude Olson Mary Nelson (You are also invited to stay after for an Open House in our Classroom. More information will follow next week.)

WOW! Facts

Cute...I know! Today the kids learned that when they are reading informational texts they get to learn new cool facts. We are calling these "WOW FACTS". Ask your child to show you how we identify new interesting facts as we are reading.

What's Happening in Our Classroom

Happy 2013! I hope everyone is staying healthy and that resolutions are in full swing. Your children came back from vacation eager and ready to learn. It may not seem that way at home but I have to say that all workshops (Reading, Writing, and Math) continue to run smoothly and every one of the kids surprised me with their personal best writing pieces last week. I was so proud! I keep telling them that they are beginning to dive into First Grade work. Of course that brings instant smiles to their cute little faces. We are beginning a new unit on sea creatures that will incorporate all subject areas for the next couple of months. I have been working closely with my Kindergarten colleagues at SCS and from around the district for the past five Teacher In-Service days studying the new Common Core State Standards. As Kindergarten teachers at SCS, we had the opportunity to develop a common unit about Sea Creatures that connects science and technology with math, reading, and writing standards from the new Common Core Standards. Your children will be reading and writing about creatures of the sea. They will be learning what it means to be a specialist about a creature topic of their choice and will be writing "Specialist" books about their topics. They will be working with the Art and Music teachers to help inspire them to create and sing about this exciting topic. Our Bridges in Mathematics Program already used sea creatures as the manipulative the children used to dive into higher number recognition, addition concepts, and other fun math games. Math is where the sea creature topic came from and we were able to creatively design a unit that the children are VERY EXCITED to dive into! We have a very fun end of unit celebration scheduled for the end of February for both our Journey and TreeHouse teams. Be on the lookout for some fun activities coming home in the upcoming days!

Skulls and Teeth

Yesterday was Hands On Nature and the topic was very interesting. It began with a puppet show that had local wild animals as the characters. The children explored the differences between herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. They observed real skulls and teeth to determine what type of animal they belonged to. With a teaching snack during the lesson and an art project where they created their own animals using the outline of a skull later in the day, the lesson was truly a wonderful learning experience for the children. Here are a few photos of the experience.

Save the Date

On February 6th, the Kindergarten students will be singing some songs and doing some dances as part of SCS's traditional Kindergarten Concert. This year, all of the Kindergarten classes are inviting parents back to our class spaces as part of an Open House. There will be a scavenger hunt to work through as your child shows you the classroom. A big part of the Open House will be for you to come and play some of the fun math games with your child that are part of our Bridges in Mathematics math program. So, please save this date and time. More information will come home this Friday as well as a note from our Math Coordinator, John Madden, detailing some new cool ways to talk about math with your child. Please be sure to let me know if you cannot make it to these events on February 6th. It will be a lot of fun!

Thai Exchange Teacher

Today our class had a visit from a teacher from Thailand. Her name is Nina and she came in to talk to the kids about what life is like for Kindergarten children in Thailand. Did you know that Thai children begin Kindergarten at age 3 and remain Kindergarten children until they are 6? They also learned about the uniforms they wear to school and saw photos of a Kindergarten day there. Nina taught the kids how to say "hello" (Sa-wad-dee Ka-girls, Sa-wad-dee Krub-boys). They also learned how to count and write numbers to ten.

Reading to Pre-Buddies

Our class has been hard at work writing books that incorporate a patterned sentence structure. They have also been learning the first three reading strategies for reading predictable books. This week the children wrote two predictable patterned sentence structure books and they shared them with the Pre-School kids right next door today.

Starfall.com

Today the children were introduced to starfall.com. This is a fun interactive website that they can work on at home as well. They each have a designated computer time during the week in which to practice computer skills. They will be exploring several more learning websites in the upcoming months.

Rainbow Writing Popcorn Words

Today the children enjoyed eating popcorn while rainbow writing their popcorn words! Yummy!

We Are Readers & Writers!

Wow! These kids are really proud of all the reading and writing they are doing. Today I introduced a recording sheet for them to use while they are reading. On this sheet they have a list of eight sight words that have been formally introduced. They were instructed to use their "Super Hero Reading Powers" to read to find these words and to record the ones they found. They loved it, especially since they were also introduced to clipboards as a new "cool tool" for learning in our classroom! Here are a few photos I snapped as the children were quietly working during Reading Workshop today: