Working on Classroom Blog

This is a picture of me during a summer Blogging course. I am working these next few days learning about great, fun ways to blog with my little computer wizards this year! I am so excited!

Think Sunshine!

I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for sharing your wonderful children with me this year! I had a lot of fun watching them learn and grow! I hope that you have a fun summer with your family and friends!

A Big Thank You

Thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedules to play with us today! Your children enjoyed spending the time with you. They were so excited for the sing along!

Picnic Reminder

Please be sure to mark your calendars for Thursday, June 6th as our team will be holding our annual team picnic at Shelburne Farms. Our goal is to have every child have someone from their family or extended family circle attend. More information about details will be coming home with the kids next week and also via this blog. Please be sure to email me if you have a conflict with the date. We look forward to sharing this fun afternoon with you!

Dog Safety with Zynnia

Our class was so lucky to have a special presentation from Angelina's mom about how to be safe around dogs. She is a dog trainer and did a fantastic job at teaching the kids some very specific safety points. Your child took home a fun packet of information to share with you. This is such an important topic that I wish were a part of our yearly curriculum. Thank you so much Zynnia for sharing this great talent of yours. We all learned a lot!

Millipedes, Pill Bugs, and Salamanders

Call us crazy but we are "Living Critter City" this week! The kids are having a blast learning about and exploring the amazing world of invertebrates and amphibians. Here are some pictures from today:

Organisms

This week the kids are learning about living and non-living things. Today I brought in some critters from a pond that I have at home. The children learned about the needs of animals and plants. They planted grass seed in cups and will be observing and caring for this plant. A fun project is in store for these crazy grass seed projects!

News Flash

Unfortunately the weather will not be favorable for the Jog-a-Thon this week. It has been rescheduled for Tuesday, May 28th. Anyone is welcome to come and cheer the kids on.

Exploring Movement

Fun, fun, fun! The children used their creative minds to figure out how to make things move today. They were given five investigations in which they had to plan and conduct trials where they had to figure out how to make objects move. Here are some fun photos:

Here Comes the Sun

Your Earth Scientists are coming home today with a very cute project that should help them explain why the sun is important to Earth. Please be sure to listen as they have lots of new facts to share.

Special Music Presentation

Mr. T from the Vermont Symphony Orchestra came in to do a short presentation with the SCS Pre-School and Kindergarten students today. He told stories using some of the instruments and they learned about the instrument families.

Earth Poems

We have been reading and learning many new facts about Earth this week. Today, the children finished a fun art project that will be displayed in the hallway. Come on in to see our Earth Poems.

Learning About Bees

Today was the last Hands On Nature lesson of the year. Thank you so much Zynnia, Allison, and Karen for volunteering for this important teaching opportunity. This final lesson was about bees. Be sure to ask your child about the types of bees and how honey is made!

Frog Jumpin' Good Time

In math today, the kids turned into frogs. They made predictions about far they could jump. We were also working on making close estimations and the idea that sometimes mathematicians change their minds about their thinking as they are collecting data.

Recent Activities

Learning about time, pedometers, and our May math calendar pattern pieces.

What's Happening in May

Your little thinkers are so busy this time of year putting together all of the learning and skills they have been taught! We have begun a new Narrative Reading and Writing unit. I have used the Rosemary Wells Max and Ruby books to explore the concept that fiction books are also called narratives and they have characters, settings, problems, and solutions. We will move to another character/author theme next week to continue to explore these narrative concepts. In science, the children are continuing to be scientists. In the coming weeks, they will be exploring with an inquiry task where they have to problem solve using balls and ramps. They will also be learning lots our Earth and Sky. The concepts will include the sun as a Earth's heat source, plant and animal needs, and the importance of taking care of our Earth. In our May Math Calendar, the children are exploring the topic of measurement using time. Yesterday the kids made our math calendar pieces and put them in the following pattern: things that happen in the morning, in the afternoon, and evening. They also learned beginning time telling concepts like what makes up a clock and how to make a clock tell time to the hour. The month of May is also a fitness month at SCS. Today and yesterday, I gave the children pedometers and we walked the track at Choice Time. They loved seeing those numbers on those pedometers get bigger! Throughout this month, we will be going outside to move as a class. It would benefit the kids if they started to wear sneakers on a daily basis as walking and class community building games outside will be a huge part of our extra fitness activities.

Kitchen Scientists

On Friday our school will be having a taste test for two types of pear compote. The children were invited to go down to the cafeteria today to help prepare the ingredients. They learned about where pears come from, that nutmeg is not a nut but a seed, and cinnamon comes from the bark of a tree. In small group centers, they each got to slice pears, peel and grate ginger and nutmeg, and grind up cardimom. Of course they taste tested these ingredients as well. Once again they used their 5 senses to explore their world. What lucky Scientists!

Studying Our Five Senses

Today my young scientists explored their five senses using popcorn. After learning the 5 Senses Song (to the tune of BINGO), we popped popcorn and the children used a grid to write about what they observed. It was a very motivating reading, writing, and science lesson.

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.