Dear Parents,
Happy Spring, Happy St. Patrick's day and congrats for all the learning that has been happening in kindergarten!!! I apologize that it has been a month since I last posted a blog. Life has been crazy busy since I have three major birthdays in my household this month plus it was report card time. Speaking of report cards, you should have all received them this past Friday so please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
So what have we been doing and learning in kindergarten the last month?! Here are some of the highlights....
Celebrations:
*We celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday on March 1st and read many of his books that week and really focused on rhyming words that week since so many of his books have rhyming words. The children loved all the silly Dr. Seuss characters, especially the Zizzer Zazzer Zuz from Dr. Seuss ABC book.
*We also earned our game day for being kind and respectful. Thanks to all of you who sent in board games and to Mrs. Duffek and Mr.Kellog and several 4th grade students who helped us learn how to play by the rules and take turns. Our next party we are trying to earn is a painting party where Mrs. Marshman will bring out many different kinds of paint and paper so that we can just paint. (Some children thought we would paint the walls, love their sense of humor!)
*We celebrated St. Patrick's Day by trying to catch a leprechaun. We caught his hat and his pants and but not the leprechaun. We did get some leprechaun gold and as one student said that is better than the leprechaun. The leprechaun also made quite a mess in room with our chairs, messing up the numbers on the calendar and leaving some leprechaun dust.
Readers Workshop:
*We have been focusing on learning and practicing reading "long and strong". We went to a first grade class and observed them reading long and strong. Then we made a list of what they did so that we could read like a first grader.
*We practiced picture reading a book and reading the words. We also learned how to "linger" in a book and not to rush through it.
*We learned how to use different voices for different charcaters in our stories to make them more interesting.
*We learned why we can read a book more than once and made a list of the reasons.
*We learned how to be a reading coach when we are reading with someone.
*We learned four different nursery rhymes, found the rhyming words in the nursery rhymes and made our own nursery rhyme book that we can read at home (it should have come home last week)
*We worked with the word families of "an", "ay" & "and" to make different words by chaning the first letter.
*We practiced reading our color words.
*We practiced matching upper and lower case letters.
*We practiced looking at the first, middle and end of word to figure out a new word.
Writers Workshop:
*We wrote a get well card to Mr. Dave (one of our maintenance engineers) since he had back surgery and a birthday message to Alyssa Netke who now lives in Indiana. The children did a great job coming up with their own their ideas of what to write.
*We wrote what would happen if we caught a leprechaun.
*We made a list of what we need to do so that somebody else (like our parents or our teachers) can read our writing.
*We read the a book by Jamie Lee Curtis that introduced us to writing fun and interesting in our stories.
*We continue to write several sentences about one topic.
*We also continue to try to write our super words correctly
Math:
*We practiced writing as many numbers as we could from 1-100.
*We made different Dr. Seuss characters using all the different pattern blocks and then writing down how many blocks we had for each different block.
*We have been learning about the different coins and the value of these coins. We learned a song to help us remember. We used a magnifying glass to investigate what it looks like and then we played a head and tails game with a partner.
*We solved shamrock addition and subtraction problems and we started to write number sentences with addition, subtraction and equal signs.
*We sorted and counted how many marshmallows are in our bag of lucky charms.We wrote down those numbers and then solved some addition problems with our lucky charms.
*We read the story Jack & the Beanstalk and then solved addition problems to help Jack go up the beanstalk.
Science/Social Studies:
*We have two students from Carroll University who volunteer through Junior Achievement who have been teaching us about buying, selling, saving and coins.
*We planted marigold seeds and learned what seeds need to grow.
*We finished our Keeping healthy unit by sorting healthy and junk food, counting and graphing how many teeth our class has lost, making toothbrushes so that we can keep track of how much we brush our teeth at home and reading a book about keeping our teeth healthy.
*We learned about ways to celebrate St. Patrick's day and we made leprechaun faces.
Important dates:
*April 12th Buddy day at 2:30
*April 13th Early Release at 1:55
*April 21st Spring Hat Parade and party
*April 22-May 1 Spring Break-No School
*May 30th No School-Happy Memorial Day
*June 3 Field Trip to see Miss Nelson is Missing at First Stage
*June 8 Last day of school
****We are again in need of more snacks and glue sticks. Please send in a snack for 24 children. In addition, please send in 6 glue sticks for your child and if you are able send in a some extra for other classmates, that would be very much appreciated!!!!**********Since spring is here and we are not sure what the weather may bring please make sure your child is dressed for the weather. This may include boots for quite awhile longer as it is still very, very wet with many puddles on the playground and extra socks for just in case. Thanks so much!****
