Happy Monday! As I am sitting here at jury duty (hence why I am absent today, tomorrow and possibly Wednesday if I get on a case), I thought it would be a great time to catch you up on what's been happening in Kindergarten. It is hard to believe we are almost 2/3 of way through the school year. Where did the time go! Even though the snow is still flying outside, I am quite excited by all the learning that is happening inside!
Readers Workshop:
*Since the Florentine Opera came to our school we read two different versions of the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff and wrote about the setting, characters and what happened in the beginning, middle and end of the story.
*We continued and now finished our non-fiction unit. We are now able to identify the table of contents, the glossary, index and we can tell you "fun facts" when we read a non-fiction book.
*We started to learn about the Daily 4 which will be a new way that our Readers' Workshop will sound and look like. The first part of the Daily 4 is to read to self which we have been doing for a long time but now we are trying to get better at it. This includes reviewing that to be a strong reader you must practice everyday, to find a good spot to sit and to have good stamina so that you can read the whole 15 minutes that we need to do in kindergarten this time of the year (by the end of kindergarten we need to read for 20 minutes).
*We were introduced to the second part of Daily 4 which is to read with someone. We have also been doing this for quite awhile but we are also trying to get much better at this by sitting Elbow, Elbow, Knee to Knee, reviewing the different ways to read a book with someone and making sure that both children can see the book.
*We have started to do more word work in our morning message and in our word work lesssons. This has included reviewing about syllables in words, learning to look at the beginning, middle and ending sounds of words, identifying the long vowels sounds in words, and sorting our super words in several different ways.
Writer's Workshop:
*For our 100 day party we wrote what we would want a 100 of and we would not want a 100 of and drew a picture of our 100 year old self. This pages have been placed in a book that will be rotating to all the children to take home and read with you.
*We wrote prompt about what a fun thing we have done with a family member or a friend and how we felt about it.
*We have practicing putting more details in our pictures because soon we will need more details in our writing.
*We have been continuing to learn to write neatly which includes writing our letters on the line, using spaces and putting ending marks.
*We have been been practicing writing the first letter in a sentence with an uppercase letter and the rest with lower case letters.
Math:
*With our 100 day party, we practiced writing the numbers 1-100, counting to 100 by ones and tens, made a 100 activity chart that had 10 items and 10 of each item which equals 100, made 100 day badges that allowed us to color the numbers by tens.
*For Valentines day, we solved Valentines story problems and graphed, estimated and measured using candy hearts.
*We sorted dominos and played a domino game called domino path that allowed us to count and add the dots on a domino.
Science/Social Studies:
*Made Butterfly Valentines for our families and wrote them a message inside.
*Decorated Valentines bags to put our Valentines in.
*We read books about healthy me including books about the importance of heatlhy eating, keeping clean and exercising. We have started to make our own book to help us write fun facts about each of these areas of being healthy.
Important dates:
Thanks to all of you who came to conferences!!! It is always great to meet with each of you to discuss how your child is doing! We had 100% attendance!Yeah!
Thanks to those who donated food and non-pershiable items for our 100 day food drive. Our class was one that donated over 100 items. We had a total of 124 items. WAY TO GO!!!
Feb. 24 and 25 No school for students!
March 2 Read across America day (AKA Dr. Seuss birthday)
March 8 end of the trimester
***Please continue to have your child wear their boots and snowpants to school and bring an extra pair of socks. It gets really wet outside so all of this will help them stay dry when they are done with recess.****
***We use hand santizer so if anyone is willing to donate a bottle of hand sanitizer I would greatly appreciate it. In addition, if you would be willing to donate some extra glue sticks that will be used by a class member that would also be much appreciated. Thank you for all you do!!!
*Books in a bag will start coming this week so please read, read, read with your child!!!!
Enjoyt the shoveling and spring will be here soon (I think)!!!!
Lori Marshman
Monday, February 21, 2011
Valentines Day
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Environmental Education Field Trip
Oh "Deer"! What great looking kids!
Touching a live turtle!
Making our bead necklaces. What did you learn?
What we are learning: Feb. 6th
Happy Super Bowl Sunday!!! I hope you are enjoying a great day with family & Friends! It sure has been a snowy week and continues to be as I look outside.
Thanks for continuing to send all of the snow gear that is required for this weather. The children will be allowed to play in the smaller snow banks on the playground but not on the one's on the Pendelton side of our school. Thanks for your understanding in this matter.
*A little reminder to make sure you ask or tell your child what they will be having for lunch the Next day. Several of the children are saying they are either having hot or cold lunch the next day and this information is incorrect. This makes it difficult for our 5th graders who eat last. They might not get the food they asked for. Thanks for your understanding and help with this!
*Our Valentine's day party is on Feb. 14th. A note went home regarding the party and my room parents will be contacting parents about helping out with our party.
What we are learning:
Reading:
*We have been focusing on learning more about nonfiction books. We read many different books about Polar animals and Martin Luther King, Jr..
*We looked at all our non-fiction books that are in our classroom and sorted books between fiction and non-fiction.
*We reviewed why we read non-fiction books. We realized that nonfiction and fiction books look and sound different.
* We also learned that you don't have to start reading non-fiction books from the beginning.
*We reviewed the strategy to check for understanding by reading the book Knuffle Bunny by MoWillems.
*We were introduced to the concept to expand our vocabulary by looking for fun and interesting words. We did this by reading the book Kitten's Full Moon.
*We learned about the reading strategy to cross check which is to make sure the words and the pictures make sense together.
*We learned to look at the beginning sound to figure out unknown words.
*We reviewed ten of our kindergarten high frequency words. We used magnet letters to create these words and we wrote the words on the dry erase board. We also read two poems that had many of these 10 super words and then found them on our SMART board and read them in our poetry binders.
*We have also started to do our morning message on the SMART board. You will notice that those messages are coming home so that you can read them with your child.
Writing:
*We read Owl Moon and listed the details that we heard in the story and reviewed that we need details in our story.
*We wrote a small moment about our princess and pirate day and then they practiced writing their own small moment.
*We learned how to write non-fiction by raeding aboug and writing facts about a polar bear, a walrus and a penguin.
*We did a picture walk through Knuffle Bunny and looked at what different things the author did with the words and the details in the pictures.
*We also noticed that the author of Knuffle Bunny used speech bubbles so some of us tried to use speech bubbles in our writing.
Math:
*We practiced writing our numbers by filling in the missing numbers on the snowflakes.
*We solved polar animal story problems on the smart board and individually.
*We practiced writing our numbers with a polar counting book.
*We continue to play buzz but now we count up to 100.
*We played teen & twenty bingo to help us learn those numbers.
*We learned a money song and our beginning to use to pennies and dimes during calendar time to count how many days we have been in school.
*We practiced estimating many different objects and see how close our smart guess is.
*We learned about numbers that are greater than by playing the card game war.
*We practiced measuring by using links to measure our long jumps and then we graphed our jumps on the SMART Board.
*We played football math by coloring different footballs and counting how many we had of each.
Science/Social Studies:
*We have been learning about Arctic & the Antartica and the animals that live in these two places. We have been making our own non-fiction book about these animals.
*We wrote about living and non-living book. These are shared at conferences.
Important Dates:
Feb. 8 Florentine Opera comes to our school
Feb. 9 100 day party (please bring in canned goods all week for our all school food drive)
Feb. 14 Valentine's day party
Feb. 24 No school for kids-budget inservice day
Feb. 25 No School for everyone-winter break
Thanks for continuing to send all of the snow gear that is required for this weather. The children will be allowed to play in the smaller snow banks on the playground but not on the one's on the Pendelton side of our school. Thanks for your understanding in this matter.
*A little reminder to make sure you ask or tell your child what they will be having for lunch the Next day. Several of the children are saying they are either having hot or cold lunch the next day and this information is incorrect. This makes it difficult for our 5th graders who eat last. They might not get the food they asked for. Thanks for your understanding and help with this!
*Our Valentine's day party is on Feb. 14th. A note went home regarding the party and my room parents will be contacting parents about helping out with our party.
What we are learning:
Reading:
*We have been focusing on learning more about nonfiction books. We read many different books about Polar animals and Martin Luther King, Jr..
*We looked at all our non-fiction books that are in our classroom and sorted books between fiction and non-fiction.
*We reviewed why we read non-fiction books. We realized that nonfiction and fiction books look and sound different.
* We also learned that you don't have to start reading non-fiction books from the beginning.
*We reviewed the strategy to check for understanding by reading the book Knuffle Bunny by MoWillems.
*We were introduced to the concept to expand our vocabulary by looking for fun and interesting words. We did this by reading the book Kitten's Full Moon.
*We learned about the reading strategy to cross check which is to make sure the words and the pictures make sense together.
*We learned to look at the beginning sound to figure out unknown words.
*We reviewed ten of our kindergarten high frequency words. We used magnet letters to create these words and we wrote the words on the dry erase board. We also read two poems that had many of these 10 super words and then found them on our SMART board and read them in our poetry binders.
*We have also started to do our morning message on the SMART board. You will notice that those messages are coming home so that you can read them with your child.
Writing:
*We read Owl Moon and listed the details that we heard in the story and reviewed that we need details in our story.
*We wrote a small moment about our princess and pirate day and then they practiced writing their own small moment.
*We learned how to write non-fiction by raeding aboug and writing facts about a polar bear, a walrus and a penguin.
*We did a picture walk through Knuffle Bunny and looked at what different things the author did with the words and the details in the pictures.
*We also noticed that the author of Knuffle Bunny used speech bubbles so some of us tried to use speech bubbles in our writing.
Math:
*We practiced writing our numbers by filling in the missing numbers on the snowflakes.
*We solved polar animal story problems on the smart board and individually.
*We practiced writing our numbers with a polar counting book.
*We continue to play buzz but now we count up to 100.
*We played teen & twenty bingo to help us learn those numbers.
*We learned a money song and our beginning to use to pennies and dimes during calendar time to count how many days we have been in school.
*We practiced estimating many different objects and see how close our smart guess is.
*We learned about numbers that are greater than by playing the card game war.
*We practiced measuring by using links to measure our long jumps and then we graphed our jumps on the SMART Board.
*We played football math by coloring different footballs and counting how many we had of each.
Science/Social Studies:
*We have been learning about Arctic & the Antartica and the animals that live in these two places. We have been making our own non-fiction book about these animals.
*We wrote about living and non-living book. These are shared at conferences.
Important Dates:
Feb. 8 Florentine Opera comes to our school
Feb. 9 100 day party (please bring in canned goods all week for our all school food drive)
Feb. 14 Valentine's day party
Feb. 24 No school for kids-budget inservice day
Feb. 25 No School for everyone-winter break
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Pirate & Princess day
What a fun day it was!!! Arrgh!!
We read pirate and princess books, talked like a pirate and had a wonderful snack! 
Monday, January 17, 2011
Happy Snow:(
Jan. 17, 2011
I hope you are enjoying the beautiful snow and of course the shoveling that goes along with it!
A few reminders...
*please send your child's snowpants, boots, hat, mittens (maybe an extra pair as they get very wet during first recess) and an extra pair of socks every day! They will go outside every day (if it is not below 0 degrees).
*Parent/teacher conferences are Jan. 27 and Feb. 1. You may sign up for conferences on line. Thanks to those of you who already have.
*Our Pirate/Princess day is this Thursday, Jan. 20. Your kindergartner may wear pirate or princess clothes. No weapons please.
*Our field trip to the Environmental Education building was a huge success. Thanks to Mrs. Jenkins, Mrs. Escobedo and Mrs. Eklahare who chaperoned! If anyone took pictures please send them to me electronically so that I can put them on this blog.
*Our next field trip will be in May to the zoo and all parents will be welcomed to come. We will going to see the play "Miss Nelson Is Missing" at First Stage on June 4th. I will able to take 2 chaperones.
*No school this Friday, Jan. 21. (teacher planning day)
*This week and next week the children will be on the computer participating in MAP reading and math testing in the classroom.
What we are learning:
Readers workshop-
*We reveiwed usig picture clues to help us figure out unknown words
*We reviewed using getting our mouth ready to help us figure out unknown words
*We were introduced to a chart that is in our poetty that gives us different strategies to help us figure out unknown words.
*We learned what stamina is and how we need to read the whole time during read to self time. At this time, we are trying to read 15 minutes by ourself. Our goal is to read 20 minutes by the end of the year.
*We learned about connections. We made text to self connections to the book "The Mitten" by Jan Brett and "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day". We also made text to text connections with the books
"The Hat" and "The Mitten" both by Jan Brett.
*We compared and contrasted two different versions of the story "The Mitten".
*We learned the sight words "Did" and "can".
*We started to participate in literacy centers after our buddy reading time.
Writer's Workshop-
*We used to descriptive words to write about a snowman we created.
*We reviewed putting spaces between our words and using a popsicle stick to help us with this.
*We reviewed writing the sounds you hear.
*We learned that strong writers write about what they are doing and what they are going to do. We call this writing about their own lives. We are trying to practice doing this.
*We were given paper that has more lines on it so that we can write more than one idea.
Math-
*We played teen and twenty Bingo. This helped us write and recognize our "tricky teens" and our twenties.
*We solved winter story problems on the SMART board and then practiced by ourself.
*We learned what an addition, subtraction and equal sign look like and what they mean. We also practiced writing number sentences.
*We filled out a January calendar on the SMART board.
*We practiced writing our numbers by filling in the missing numbers in the snowflakes.
Science/Social Studies-
*We reviewed the five senses and the season of winter. We made a winter book about the five senses.
*We learned about the characteristics of living and nonliving. We worked with a partner to find pictures of living and nonliving things and then shared our chart with the whole group.
I hope you are enjoying the beautiful snow and of course the shoveling that goes along with it!
A few reminders...
*please send your child's snowpants, boots, hat, mittens (maybe an extra pair as they get very wet during first recess) and an extra pair of socks every day! They will go outside every day (if it is not below 0 degrees).
*Parent/teacher conferences are Jan. 27 and Feb. 1. You may sign up for conferences on line. Thanks to those of you who already have.
*Our Pirate/Princess day is this Thursday, Jan. 20. Your kindergartner may wear pirate or princess clothes. No weapons please.
*Our field trip to the Environmental Education building was a huge success. Thanks to Mrs. Jenkins, Mrs. Escobedo and Mrs. Eklahare who chaperoned! If anyone took pictures please send them to me electronically so that I can put them on this blog.
*Our next field trip will be in May to the zoo and all parents will be welcomed to come. We will going to see the play "Miss Nelson Is Missing" at First Stage on June 4th. I will able to take 2 chaperones.
*No school this Friday, Jan. 21. (teacher planning day)
*This week and next week the children will be on the computer participating in MAP reading and math testing in the classroom.
What we are learning:
Readers workshop-
*We reveiwed usig picture clues to help us figure out unknown words
*We reviewed using getting our mouth ready to help us figure out unknown words
*We were introduced to a chart that is in our poetty that gives us different strategies to help us figure out unknown words.
*We learned what stamina is and how we need to read the whole time during read to self time. At this time, we are trying to read 15 minutes by ourself. Our goal is to read 20 minutes by the end of the year.
*We learned about connections. We made text to self connections to the book "The Mitten" by Jan Brett and "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day". We also made text to text connections with the books
"The Hat" and "The Mitten" both by Jan Brett.
*We compared and contrasted two different versions of the story "The Mitten".
*We learned the sight words "Did" and "can".
*We started to participate in literacy centers after our buddy reading time.
Writer's Workshop-
*We used to descriptive words to write about a snowman we created.
*We reviewed putting spaces between our words and using a popsicle stick to help us with this.
*We reviewed writing the sounds you hear.
*We learned that strong writers write about what they are doing and what they are going to do. We call this writing about their own lives. We are trying to practice doing this.
*We were given paper that has more lines on it so that we can write more than one idea.
Math-
*We played teen and twenty Bingo. This helped us write and recognize our "tricky teens" and our twenties.
*We solved winter story problems on the SMART board and then practiced by ourself.
*We learned what an addition, subtraction and equal sign look like and what they mean. We also practiced writing number sentences.
*We filled out a January calendar on the SMART board.
*We practiced writing our numbers by filling in the missing numbers in the snowflakes.
Science/Social Studies-
*We reviewed the five senses and the season of winter. We made a winter book about the five senses.
*We learned about the characteristics of living and nonliving. We worked with a partner to find pictures of living and nonliving things and then shared our chart with the whole group.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Happy Holidays & Happy New Year!
Wow! I know it has been awhile since I posted and I apologize for that. I guess the busyness of December got the better of me. I hope you had a wonderful holiday with your kindergartener and you are getting ready for a fantastic 2011! I want to thank each of you who were able to come to the Author's celebration!!!It was such a pleasure to see each of you share the Gingerbread book with your child and to play the Gingerbread games. It just warmed my heart!
Lori Marshman
****On Monday, January 10 we are going to the EB Shurts environmental education building for a field trip. In order for this to be a successful trip, I need 4 parents to come and chaperone. This would involve arriving at the EB Shurts building at 8:45 for a 15 minute training on what you will be doing and then helping the children through this field trip beginning at 9:00 until 11:15. Please let me know as soon as possible if you are able to chaperone. Thank you so much!!!*****
What we have been learning:
Readers workshop:
*We read many different versions of the Gingerbread Man (Girl) and talked about the different story elements including the characters, setting, and the plot. This helped us write our own version of the gingerbread man. We compared and contrasted the different versions of these stories.
*We reviewed what just right books are and how many they should read at the beginning of read to self time.
*We reviewed the strategy of looking at the first letter and then the whole word to help us figure out new words. We called this getting our mouth ready.
*We learned about identifying the beginning, middle and end of several stories.
*We introduced the reading strategy to ask the question "Does it make sense?". This helps us figure out a new word.
*We learned about rhyming words and made rhyming Rita and rhyming Roy.
*We practiced identifying how many syllables are in different words.
Writer's workshop:
*We reviewed that we need details in our pictures so that we know where we are and what you are doing.
*We reviewed getting our mouth ready to help us write new words.
*We reviewed the expectations for writer's workshop so that we were sure we were ready to begin to write our gingerbread story.
*We reviewed putting spaces between our words and we used a popsicle stick to help us with this. (A great way to also practice at home.)
*We reviewed putting ending marks in our writing.
*The biggest accomplishment was writing our first story which was our gingerbread story. The children did an amazing job and I am quite proud of how much they learned from writing their first story!
*We learned about voice bubbles and wrote about what Rudolph said.
Math:
*We continued to practice counting to 100 by ones and counting how many days we have been in school (73 so far!!!). We also started to practice counting by fives and tens.
*We learned different ways to add to five by reading Five little monkeys.
*We practiced writing our numbers by filling in the missing numbers in the number train.
*We practiced putting the numbers 1-20 in the correct order.
*We solved many holiday math story problems.
*We graphed our favorite toy by using our new SMART board. We look forward to using our SMART board much more in the new year.
*We made different holiday items using pattern blocks and then counting how many blocks we used.
*We practiced measuring different objects using unifix cubes and links.
*We played a gingerbread man game using a dice.
Project time:
*We made practiced lacing by making a holiday stocking.
*We made bells with a paper chain link so that we could countdown until our winter vacation.
*We made holiday wreaths to decorate our classroom and now your homes.
*We made our covers, our author page and our dedication pages for our gingerbread books.
*We made a rudolph to go with our rudolph voice bubble.
Important dates:
Jan. 10 Field Trip to EB Shurts environmental education building (9:00-11:15)
Jan. 21 No School-Teacher record day
Jan. 27 & Feb. 1 Parent Teacher Conferences 3:45-7:15pm
Lori Marshman
****On Monday, January 10 we are going to the EB Shurts environmental education building for a field trip. In order for this to be a successful trip, I need 4 parents to come and chaperone. This would involve arriving at the EB Shurts building at 8:45 for a 15 minute training on what you will be doing and then helping the children through this field trip beginning at 9:00 until 11:15. Please let me know as soon as possible if you are able to chaperone. Thank you so much!!!*****
What we have been learning:
Readers workshop:
*We read many different versions of the Gingerbread Man (Girl) and talked about the different story elements including the characters, setting, and the plot. This helped us write our own version of the gingerbread man. We compared and contrasted the different versions of these stories.
*We reviewed what just right books are and how many they should read at the beginning of read to self time.
*We reviewed the strategy of looking at the first letter and then the whole word to help us figure out new words. We called this getting our mouth ready.
*We learned about identifying the beginning, middle and end of several stories.
*We introduced the reading strategy to ask the question "Does it make sense?". This helps us figure out a new word.
*We learned about rhyming words and made rhyming Rita and rhyming Roy.
*We practiced identifying how many syllables are in different words.
Writer's workshop:
*We reviewed that we need details in our pictures so that we know where we are and what you are doing.
*We reviewed getting our mouth ready to help us write new words.
*We reviewed the expectations for writer's workshop so that we were sure we were ready to begin to write our gingerbread story.
*We reviewed putting spaces between our words and we used a popsicle stick to help us with this. (A great way to also practice at home.)
*We reviewed putting ending marks in our writing.
*The biggest accomplishment was writing our first story which was our gingerbread story. The children did an amazing job and I am quite proud of how much they learned from writing their first story!
*We learned about voice bubbles and wrote about what Rudolph said.
Math:
*We continued to practice counting to 100 by ones and counting how many days we have been in school (73 so far!!!). We also started to practice counting by fives and tens.
*We learned different ways to add to five by reading Five little monkeys.
*We practiced writing our numbers by filling in the missing numbers in the number train.
*We practiced putting the numbers 1-20 in the correct order.
*We solved many holiday math story problems.
*We graphed our favorite toy by using our new SMART board. We look forward to using our SMART board much more in the new year.
*We made different holiday items using pattern blocks and then counting how many blocks we used.
*We practiced measuring different objects using unifix cubes and links.
*We played a gingerbread man game using a dice.
Project time:
*We made practiced lacing by making a holiday stocking.
*We made bells with a paper chain link so that we could countdown until our winter vacation.
*We made holiday wreaths to decorate our classroom and now your homes.
*We made our covers, our author page and our dedication pages for our gingerbread books.
*We made a rudolph to go with our rudolph voice bubble.
Important dates:
Jan. 10 Field Trip to EB Shurts environmental education building (9:00-11:15)
Jan. 21 No School-Teacher record day
Jan. 27 & Feb. 1 Parent Teacher Conferences 3:45-7:15pm
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