Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Friday, March 27, 2015
Friday Facts!
It is almost Spring Break! We have found that we have been saying that lot this week. :) To help with our growing excitement we have started our paw pride "pump up". This is a whole school activity where the children that display their paw pride behavior through out the day will earn a blue ticket. If we are able to earn 1,000 tickets (as a grade level) by next Wednesday, our entire grade will earn a special reward on Thursday. The classes are also working on earning free seating time in the lunch room for displaying their paw pride behavior. We had a great day today and we are well on our way!
This week in class, we have been working on writing how-to stories, working on editing stories using our "COPS" rules, and practicing reading sight words. At this point of the school year, we are looking for the children to be able to read at least 3/4 of the kindergarten sight word list. Please continue to practice these words at home. Some fun ideas would be to write them in shaving cream or the carpet, arm spell them (your child can show you how to do this), or even write them down using different colors. The possibilities are endless.
I sent home a blank VIP book with your child today. This is a favorite project where the children get a chance to share fun facts about themselves! The instructions have been included with each blank book. Please have them returned to me by Monday, April 13th. We will keep the finished books at school until the end of the year. These books are always the first choice that children go to when looking for a fun book to read.
Have a great weekend!
This week in class, we have been working on writing how-to stories, working on editing stories using our "COPS" rules, and practicing reading sight words. At this point of the school year, we are looking for the children to be able to read at least 3/4 of the kindergarten sight word list. Please continue to practice these words at home. Some fun ideas would be to write them in shaving cream or the carpet, arm spell them (your child can show you how to do this), or even write them down using different colors. The possibilities are endless.
I sent home a blank VIP book with your child today. This is a favorite project where the children get a chance to share fun facts about themselves! The instructions have been included with each blank book. Please have them returned to me by Monday, April 13th. We will keep the finished books at school until the end of the year. These books are always the first choice that children go to when looking for a fun book to read.
Have a great weekend!
Friday, March 20, 2015
Leprechaun Traps!
This is one of my favorite days in Kindergarten! We have so much fun seeing what the leprechaun does to our classroom! This year he left a "gold" trail all over the place and even left us a note that was written backwards. Even though no one caught him, he did end of leaving some clothes and hair behind from those tricky traps!
Friday Facts!
Happy Friday! Between the leprechaun visiting and the decent weather to have outdoor recess, life is pretty good in Kindergarten these days!
The leprechaun did visit Carmel Elementary and we had a great time! We had a lot of sad children since they did not catch that tricky little fellow, but he left some of his hair, clothing, and shamrocks for everyone to enjoy. Thanks for participating in this activity with us!
Don't forget to get out and sell those flowers! This is the last weekend for this fund raiser and it is a great opportunity to earn money for our wonderful PTO. Thanks so much to those that have already sold some!
Some big news in our classroom with OG time this week is that we are working on learning the sound -ck. We have learned that you write a -ck at the end of a short word after a short vowel. Ask your child if they can tell you this information. We are practicing finding words in books and children's writing that have the -ck written in it for extra practice. Next week we will be working on the phoneme -dge.
Did you know we can write "how to" stories? We have just started working on this type of story in class. Some key words that we are practicing using are the words "first, next, then, and last." We are starting out by thinking about what steps are necessary to complete a task and then we have been writing down those steps using our key words. After the children are done with a story, we check the steps to see if anything was missing. This has been the fun part in class! The children have fun trying to "catch" mistakes in a story.
With the second semester just about half way done, this is a great time to pull out your child's report card from January and check those skills that needed some practice. Keep working on learning the sight words, retelling stories, and the math skills listed on the report card. I have been revisiting syllables this week in class and have noticed that several children are having trouble with this skill. Thanks for all of your help at home! It does make a difference!
Hope everyone has a great weekend!
The leprechaun did visit Carmel Elementary and we had a great time! We had a lot of sad children since they did not catch that tricky little fellow, but he left some of his hair, clothing, and shamrocks for everyone to enjoy. Thanks for participating in this activity with us!
Don't forget to get out and sell those flowers! This is the last weekend for this fund raiser and it is a great opportunity to earn money for our wonderful PTO. Thanks so much to those that have already sold some!
Some big news in our classroom with OG time this week is that we are working on learning the sound -ck. We have learned that you write a -ck at the end of a short word after a short vowel. Ask your child if they can tell you this information. We are practicing finding words in books and children's writing that have the -ck written in it for extra practice. Next week we will be working on the phoneme -dge.
Did you know we can write "how to" stories? We have just started working on this type of story in class. Some key words that we are practicing using are the words "first, next, then, and last." We are starting out by thinking about what steps are necessary to complete a task and then we have been writing down those steps using our key words. After the children are done with a story, we check the steps to see if anything was missing. This has been the fun part in class! The children have fun trying to "catch" mistakes in a story.
With the second semester just about half way done, this is a great time to pull out your child's report card from January and check those skills that needed some practice. Keep working on learning the sight words, retelling stories, and the math skills listed on the report card. I have been revisiting syllables this week in class and have noticed that several children are having trouble with this skill. Thanks for all of your help at home! It does make a difference!
Hope everyone has a great weekend!
Friday, March 13, 2015
Happy Friday!
Hello Kindergarten Families! We made it through another week of school. I love this time of year, because the kids make so much growth and they start to see it as well and get so excited about their learning!
On Friday, we started a new unit on weather in the classroom. We have been talking about weather and the changes that we have finally been seeing. We have reviewed the seasons and how to tell when a new season begins. A fun activity we did was using watercolors to paint a weather picture. I played two classical songs- one named winter and the other named spring. I challenged the children to listen to each song and try to think of what weather picture each song reminded them of. After they had an idea, they then needed to paint that picture on their paper. It was a lot of fun to see what style of music each child connected to the different weather. Then, we took these pictures and did some writing to try to describe each picture. I was really impressed with the results! I will be hanging these up in the hallway for a bit to share with those that pass by our classroom.
Don't forget to work on your leprechaun traps over the weekend. We have been having some "strange" things happening in the classroom and the class thinks that it may be a leprechaun starting to play tricks on us. We have had books misplaced, chairs in the wrong spot, and even backpacks have been mysteriously moved during the school day. This is a really fun day in kindergarten and I look forward to seeing what great traps everyone comes up with!
Unfortunately our field trip to the planetarium was canceled this week due to the delay. We have been able to reschedule it for April. I am so happy that we could still get a date for this school year. This is a really fun trip that the children enjoy. When we get closer to the date, I will resend the permission slips so everyone can attend.
Your child will be bringing home some books from our Daily 5 stations today. These are books that can be kept at home. If there are some unfinished pages, feel free to work on them for added practice. We have started new books at school with more difficult skill work.
Finally, the 2015 Carmel
Elementary Flower Sale is in full swing! This is CE's largest fundraiser, a 30+
year tradition! We count on big proceeds from this sale to create new
opportunities that directly benefit our students and our school. From
Friday, March 6th through Monday, March 23rd, we will
be collecting preorders and awarding daily prizes. Your student has
received a packet of detailed information. Be sure to look it over together.
Please consider helping your child participate to not only reap the rewards, but
to feel the pride that is associated with being part of this incredible
tradition.
Also, consider SHARING your success this year via social media!
Post your student’s excitement and progress throughout the presale using #CEFlowerSale.
Search #CEFlowerSale today to view fun posts from other CE families!
Questions? Visit flowers4ce.com or email flowers4ce@gmail.com.
Have a great weekend!
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Ruth Lilly Field Trip
We had a great field trip today. Ruth Lilly came to us and the kids had a great time! We learned about our body and the organs in our body. They also taught us about keeping our heart healthy and the importance of exercise. Next we discussed healthy foods and eating sometimes food versus anytime foods. Last we talked about germs and staying healthy. It was a fun discussion since we have all been sick lately. The stories they shared were really funny!
Classroom updates
Wow! It has been a while. Sorry for the delay in posts lately. We have all been recovering from some form of sickness in here and some even getting sick more than once as have my own family and myself. I am definitely ready for warmer weather so we can go outside and get away from indoor recess.
We have lots of great things happening at CE in Room A these days. We have been reading as many leprechaun stories as we can to help us learn about that tricky little fellow. We are writing about being a leprechaun, making a trap to catch one, and even learning about shamrocks. We will continue to work on this topic next week as well.
Our writing focus these past few days has been trying to write stories using the key words "first, next, then, and last." We are using these words to help us include details in our stories and to have more to talk about. We have also been using our "COPS" rules when checking stories. These are C=capitals, O=organization (spacing), P=punctuation, and S=spelling. If we notice an error, then the writer receives a "ticket". The goal is to write a story without any tickets after you have proof read it before passing it on to someone else to read. It has become a fun competition in the room to see who can get the least amount of tickets.
During shared reading we have really been working on identifying the main idea in stories. We have also use the sentence starter, "This story is about..." to help us remember what the main idea is in a story. We have also been working on identifying non-fiction vs. fiction stories in class. I have noticed that when I use that vocabulary, a good number of children are getting confused on what I am asking. This would be something to work on at home when you read a story. Finally, we are starting to discuss the setting in a story. We have talked about how it describes where and when a story takes place. This is a difficult skill and we will continue to work on it as the month goes along.
Next Wednesday we will be taking a field trip to the high school planetarium to learn about the planets and stars. This is a free trip for us and a very short bus ride. :) A permission slip will be sent home soon.
Hope everyone has a great week!
We have lots of great things happening at CE in Room A these days. We have been reading as many leprechaun stories as we can to help us learn about that tricky little fellow. We are writing about being a leprechaun, making a trap to catch one, and even learning about shamrocks. We will continue to work on this topic next week as well.
Our writing focus these past few days has been trying to write stories using the key words "first, next, then, and last." We are using these words to help us include details in our stories and to have more to talk about. We have also been using our "COPS" rules when checking stories. These are C=capitals, O=organization (spacing), P=punctuation, and S=spelling. If we notice an error, then the writer receives a "ticket". The goal is to write a story without any tickets after you have proof read it before passing it on to someone else to read. It has become a fun competition in the room to see who can get the least amount of tickets.
During shared reading we have really been working on identifying the main idea in stories. We have also use the sentence starter, "This story is about..." to help us remember what the main idea is in a story. We have also been working on identifying non-fiction vs. fiction stories in class. I have noticed that when I use that vocabulary, a good number of children are getting confused on what I am asking. This would be something to work on at home when you read a story. Finally, we are starting to discuss the setting in a story. We have talked about how it describes where and when a story takes place. This is a difficult skill and we will continue to work on it as the month goes along.
Next Wednesday we will be taking a field trip to the high school planetarium to learn about the planets and stars. This is a free trip for us and a very short bus ride. :) A permission slip will be sent home soon.
Hope everyone has a great week!
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