Dear Kindergarten Parents,
It is hard to believe that spring break is almost here! I have heard several stories about all the fun activities your children will be doing with you during spring break! Enjoy this special time with your child and hopefully the weather will cooperate! It is also hard to believe that as of today we only have 30 school days left of the school year. Where did the time go?! I look forward to seeing you this Thursday as we celebrate the amazing reading and writing that your child has learned this year. I get so excited this time of the year when I see all that the children have learned!!! It just amazes me what a five and six year old can do! I hope you will enjoy our author's celebration and spring hat parade. If you are unable to come please be sure to have your child read the book that they wrote and illustrated to you and everybody you know. They have worked so hard on it and you can see so much of what they have learned about writing this year.
Important dates:
April 21st Authors celebration and spring hat parade at 10:30 until 11:30
April 21st Spring party planned by our room parents 2:15 (bunny hop in gym at 2:50)
April 22-May 1st Spring Break
May 2nd Back to school
May 5-13 Map testing (Please make sure your child is at school during this time)
May 17th Zoo Field Trip (All families are welcome:more information will be coming)
May 24th Our baby chicks will hatch
May 25th Kindergarten concert in the afternoon (families are invited)
May 26th Wellness walk
May27th Raindate for wellness walk
May 30th No School: Memorial day
June 3 Field trip to First Stage to see Miss Nelson is Missing (if you have not turned in the permission slip and money please do so asap)
June 8th Last day of school
What have we been learning:
Reader's workshop:
*we reviewed that we are all author's and illustrators and what that means
*We started our author study about Audrey Wood and read many, many books that she wrote and that her husband or son illustrated
*We made a list of all the books that we read by Audrey Wood
*We compared The Napping House and Quick as a Cricket both by Audrey Wood
*We learned some interesting & fun facts about Audrey Wood and we had a "mock" interview with Audrey Wood (aka Mrs. Marshman)
*We compared and contrasted two different alphabet books by Audrey Wood
*We read the book Piggies and listed all the characters and the words the author used to describe those characters to help us learn about good word choice
*We read The Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry and The Big Hungry Bear and came up with words to describe the Mouse and the Bear
*We shared what is our favorite Audrey Wood book and why we like it
*We started to learn about a new author who lives in Milwaukee (Lois Ehlert). We learned some fun and interesting facts about her and we have begun to read some of her books. We really discussed how she illustrates books as she uses many different types of media in her books.
*We shared all of the rhyming bags by guessing which item did not rhyme. Thank you so much for your help with this activity.
Writers Workshop:
*We read the book Grow Flower, Grow by Lisa Bruce. We modeled our book after this book.
*Every day we wrote and illustrated a new page for our book. This included a dedication page and an about the author page. (Our books have at least 7 pages!!! WOW!!!)
*We focused a lot on using good word choice and using voice (writing how we feel) into writing our Grow Flower, Grow books.
*We illustrated the cover to our books.
*We wrote in our plant journals so that we can see how much our plants have grown. We also measure our plants when we do this,
*We wrote about favorite season and included that in our four season book.
Math:
*We reviewed telling time by the hour and half hour. We made our own clocks so that we can practice telling time at home.
*We practiced learning about different ways to add to 6 and 7 and wrote number sentences to help us with this.
*We are learning about greater than and less than by guessing the mystery number of the day.
*We continue to practice learning our coins and the value of the coins.
Social Studies & Science:
*We had our last day with Miss Sara & Miss Heidi from Junior Achievement who taught us so much about coins, how to save money, make money and spend money.
*We learned about the different parts of a plant and we continue to take care of our plants.
*We learned about six different National symbols and what they mean.
*We sorted pictures of items from the four different seasons.
Okay!!! We have been busy learning!!!! I can't wait to see you on Thursday and don't forget to make and send in your kids spring hat.
Sincerely,
Lori Marshman
