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.
Monday, January 17, 2011
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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