Have a Wonderful Winter Holiday Break!

Thanks again for such a great party, a generous gift and a superb first trimester!  While I am looking forward to a 2 week vacation, I can honestly say I cannot wait to get back to work with these kids in January!  I am expecting great things from them!

Just a few things:

In your child's backpack is a gift from them to you.  Enjoy!

I am keeping folders so I can freshen them up in January.

I attached a math packet to your child's work and the school fliers.  The "homework" is optional, but I know some kids might enjoy some routine at some point over the break.  They should be able to do the whole packet independently.

Try to log in to Lexia a few times over break.


See you all in 2015!  Have a safe and happy break!

Report Cards Go Home Today!

I hope everyone is surviving the Winter Holiday frenzy of activities.  We have been super busy in Kindergarten with all things Gingerbread!

Reading:  We have read 6 different Gingerbread stories and practiced our retelling with each of them.  We have also compared and contrasted the different versions.

Writing:  While we have stuck to our routine in writing, we have been focusing on our formal handwriting curriculum and also using only lower case letters in the middle of a sentence.  Finally, we are working on segmenting words as we write so we can write all the sounds we hear.

Math:  We have worked on graphing, sorting, patterns, counting and number bonds!  Number bonds are a big part of our second trimester.  More on those after the holidays!

Theme:  Gingerbread!  We have decorated gingerbread babies, gingerbread houses and made gingerbread glyphs with our book buddies.  Next week we will learn about Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Christmas and Diwali.  (Diwali was actually celebrated in November this year, but all these holidays have a celebration of lights, so we will focus on that common theme.)

REPORT CARDS:  Report cards go home TODAY!  As I write this, the report cards that are printed and stuffed into envelopes do not have Spanish grades on them-only comments.  There was a glitch in our recording system.  Now there seems to be a glitch in the server that is not allowing us to print report cards.  If this is resolved in time for me to print new report cards and stuff them I will do that!  If not-I will be sending home Spanish grades separately next week.
THE REPORT CARD IS YOURS TO KEEP, BUT I NEED THE SIGNED ENVELOPE BACK!

Winter Concert:  Thanks so much to our crew of room parents for organizing our party again!  If you have not yet seen the sign up genius, please click the link below and see if there's anyway you can help!
www.SignUpGenius.com/go/9040F4CA9AF2A1-winter/6809437

Finally, I am opening up the Scholastic Book orders.  I will place an order when we get back in January.  Please click on the link to see all the catalogs available. A sample catalog was sent today, but there are thousands of books to choose from.  It might be nice to have a few new books when headed into the depths of winter!

December 3, 2014

It is a busy time of the year!  We have a few things going on at school in these next few weeks that you should have on your calendar.  Here's a midweek edition of the blog!


Friday, December 6th:   Jack Frost Jam- Dancing in the gym and  food in the cafeteria makes for a fun and easy night out with the kids.  Proceeds go to 5th grade activities.  I hope to see you there!

Saturday, December 13th:  Annual craft fair and cookie crumble-This is a great event, too. Come and see some amazing crafts and artisans.  The cookie crumble is also a big hit!

Friday, December 12:  Report Cards go home.  These report cards are very length.  They contain a lot of information.  Please look over them carefully and let me know if you have any questions.

Wednesday, December 17th:  Winter Celebration and Concerts-one concert is at 8:30, the next at 9:45. Both concerts are the same.  We will have a snack after the first concert and a party after the second one.  Please check email regularly for updates from our room parents.  Thanks!

We are beginning trimester 2 Common Core State Standards in both English Language Arts and Math. We will continue to visit Trimester 1 Standards.

In reading we will focus on retelling fiction stories.  We will also learn how pictures and words work together to bring meaning to a story.

In writing we are enjoying a week of narrative writing before starting some opinion writing next week. During Shared Writing we are working on using lower case letters and sounding out longer words.

During math we are working on the concepts of greater than and less than.  We are also working on counting objects to 20 and decomposing numbers up to 5.

We finished our study of bears and we are enjoying reading lots of Gingerbread Man stories this week and next.  We will also be learning about holiday traditions.

We had such a fun HIBERNATION day!  We learned about other animals that hibernate, did some great bear measuring and made a hibernating bear craft.  All in all it was a success.  See the pictures linked on the left.

Reading:  We got new books this week in guided reading groups.  Students are learning how to do picture walks and use the first letter of a word to help them figure out unknown words.  I finished trimester 1 assessments this week, too.

Writing:  We are doing a lot of non-fiction writing during Writers Workshop.  Students chose new writing goals during writing conferences.

Math:  We worked on shapes a lot this week during math stations.  We also did some number stories.

Bears:  We learned about polar bears and finished up our panda bear writing.

Field Trip:  We will go rain or shine.  If the weather is too cold we will adjust times to make sure there is plenty of time in the indoor exhibits.

•  Please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather.  
• Please make sure your child has a disposable lunch!  (No lunchboxes, tupperware, no thermoses, etc.)  The chaperones will have their hands full of hats and mittens and other gear.  Carrying heavy lunches is too much to ask!  
• Make sure your child is on time Tuesday morning.
• Finally, there is no limit on chaperones.  If you would like to join us you are more than welcome!  

Upcoming Dates:
November 25th:  Zoo Field Trip
December 17th:  Winter Concerts-These are always in the morning.  There will be two times.  There will be a reception after the second concert.
December 12th:  Report Cards go homefff
December 19th:  Last Day of School before Winter Break
January 5th:  School Resumes

November 16th

We had a great week in Kindergarten finishing up some of our Reading Literature Standards and beginning to learn about how to read Informational Texts.

Reading:  We worked with our Book Buddies twice this week to begin our bear research projects.  The students had to answer four questions about bears and then present it using an app called  Explain Everything.  When these are completed you will see a digital copy of them.  They are very impressive!

Writing: We continue to work on informational writing.  This week our focus has been on bears.

Math:  We are working on naming shapes and on number stories within five.  Please practice identifying these shapes at home:  square, rectangle, triangle, circle, hexagon, rhombus.  In general the students know the shapes, but right now only one student knows all 6 shapes consistently.  Keep practicing!

Bears:  We are gearing up for our trip to the zoo!  We have learned a lot about bears and will continue to learn about them this week.  One thing we are very excited about is our HIBERNATION DAY on Friday!  Students can wear pajamas to get ready to hibernate.  They can also bring a special book from home to read (under our tables...I mean...in our dens).  Students can bring a bear snack- such as fish..or goldfish, teddy grahams, honeycomb cereal, berries, gummy bears, etc.  We will also have a teddy bear picnic...so a TEDDY BEAR is a must!  We will all eat in the Kindergarten pod on towels with our bears.  Parents are welcome to join us for our picnic, but there will be nothing formal.  If your child plans on getting hot lunch on Friday, we will make sure they get their milk or hot lunch. 

50th day of School and Bears...Oh My!

We had a great 50th day of school.  Your kids looked great!  They had a lot of fun learning about the number 50 and about life in the 1950s.  The dance party was great.  The pictures, taken from the ipad, were all pretty out of focus.  As you can imagine...it's hard to get kids to stop moving when at a sock hop!



Dates:
Monday, November 10th:  No School in honor of Veterans Day
Friday, November 14th:  Permission slip due
Tuesday, November 25th: Field Trip to Brookfield Zoo

 Reading: We took our summative assessment on characters, settings and main events this week.  The students have made so much progress on this standard and I expect they will continue to show great things.  As we discussed at conferences, we most expect to see an AP (approaching proficiency) at this time of year.  We will be looking at these assessments as a grade level and scoring them together. As soon as that is done I will copy the assessments and send them home.

Writing:  We started nonfiction writing this week!  We started by writing about things we know a lot about.  Soon we will look at text features, like captions, labels and diagrams and add that to our writing.   This will all come in handy when we do our BEAR RESEARCH project!

Math:  We continue to work on writing numbers correctly.  We used the "wet, dry, try" method of practicing during math stations.  Mr. Degman came in again to help us learn the names of all the pattern block shapes.  Look for an assignment to be emailed to you.  Of course we also spent some time counting to 50!  (Look for the rest of the pictures linked to the left!)

Bears:  We will begin a study of bears for the next few weeks.  We will learn about bears while applying our nonfiction writing, reading nonfiction books, using technology to publish writing and to address the science standards of animal habitats.  Be sure to send in the permission slip by next Friday to the Brookfield Zoo!

Stand up to Cancer:Has your child come home talking about funny pictures of the teachers standing in funny places?  This is part of a "Stand up to Cancer" campaign that the student council is sponsoring.  Your child can "vote" for their favorite picture by putting some money in the their favorite picture's envelope.  All the money goes to Cancer Research.  Money accepted until next week!

Happy Halloween!

Let's get right down to the business at hand!  While we have been learning a lot this week about bats, segmenting words and good number writing...what we are really thinking about is
Halloween!
A few things to remember!!

• Do not send your child to school in costume.  
• Costumes will be put on at 1:00 in the afternoon.
• Label ALL parts of a costume. 
• NO weapons as part of a costume.
• Room Parents have worked hard to plan a party with some "fun food".  Please do not send additional food or candy to the party unless you signed up on our sign up genius.  
• All parents are welcome to watch the parade at 1:40.  If it is not raining-we will be outside-so please help your child think about how to wear the costume over a jacket or under a jacket.  They don't like to cover it up once it is on...but with the temps predicted, they will freeze without a jacket!  
• All parents are welcome to join us for the party.  We will likely go right up to the bell.  Please come in and help us pack up at the end of the day! (No need to wait outside for us...just c'mon in and help your child gather all their belongings.  

Picture Retakes is MONDAY NOVEMBER 3rd.  If your child was absent, plan on getting pictures taken.  If your child's picture was unsatisfactory, please return the whole package and write a note explaining why you want a retake.

Wednesday, November 5th is our 50th day of school!  Remember to dress up like it was the 1950s!  Just a few ideas:  Boys can wear rolled up jeans, put gel in their hair and wear a cardigan.  Girls can wear a poodle skirt or longer skirt, bobby socks and a high pony tail!  Pearls are a lovely touch!

Monday, November 10th:  No School for Veteran's Day

Tuesday, November 25th:  Field Trip to Brookfield Zoo!  Can you chaperone?  Let me know!  We'd love to have you.  Chaperones don't ride the bus, so the earlier we plan carpooling, the better!