Polar Express

The kindergarteners had so much fun coming in this morning wearing their pajamas. We started off the day reading the book all together.   We also took a "train" ride to Mrs. Christen's and Mrs Feldman's classroom to do fun activities.  We watched the movie too!  It was fun to compare the book to the movie.  It's been such a fun day already and we haven't even had our Christmas party yet.  Here are some photos from the day.

What's Happening This week?

Wow,  I didn't realize how long it was since I posted anything here. It has been such a busy few week!! I hope you all enjoyed the Christmas Program.  We work very hard to learn those beautiful Christmas Carols.  We should have a very fun week this week.  We will finish up our math chapter on subtraction.  We will continue with our Christmas thematic unit as well.  On Thursday we will have our first annual Pete the Cat Saves Christmas Day and of course on Friday we will have our Christmas party and Pajama Day for Polar Express. 

Last week we had so much fun reading and writing about the Grinch and how we would make him grin.  Here are some great photos of what they came up with. 

7th grade buddies

Today we met with our 7th grade buddies for board games-I apologize!!  I forgot to send an email out to let you know.  Luckily the 7th graders all had one.  There were a lot of fun games. 

I hope you all have a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving!  Enjoy the extra time with your family and friends. 

What's Happening

This is another busy week learning in kindergarten.   In Language Arts, we are learning how to form and the short sound of Oo.  This is the third vowel we have learned already.  We will also learn the popcorn word do. We will learn what an adjective is and encourage adding them to our writing.   In Writer's Workshop we are using Thanksgiving sentence starters to write in our writing journals.  In Math, we will continue to focus on addition.  We will find addition sentences using number pairs for the numbers 6, 7, 8 and 9.  We will continue with our Thanksgiving unit this week as well.  Today we will chart all the things we are thankful for that God gave us and  make Thanksgiving crosses.  It's hard to believe but we are approaching the  end of the first trimester.  Report cards will be coming home next week.  Have a wonder ful week.

Here are the letters we have covered so far:
Aa, Cc,  Oo,  Ii,  Ss, Tt, Pp, Nn, Mm

These are the popcorn words we have learned to date as well:
I  can  the  see  you  to  we  and  go  like  number words and color words. 

Literacy stations

One of our favorite times of the day is at the end of the day when we do literacy stations. Literacy stations are independent learning activities that the students work on to reinforce skills taught in the classroom.  They are typically hands on and manipulative in nature.  Some examples include puzzles, write the room, games, library, listening to books and manipulatives that work on letter knowledge, phonemic awareness skills, phonics, and so much more.  I typically change them once a month.  Here are some pictures of the students engaged in these learning activities.

Happy Veteran's Day!

We had a wonderful Veteran's Day Celebration this morning!  The kindergarteners did a wonderful job singing to the military and veterans.  Before the ceremony, we had a couple of retired military talk to us as well as some cadets from UC.  Here are some photos of the day.

 

I was also able to take a very short video of them singing on stage.  Enjoy!

Pilgrims

We have been learning a lot about the Mayflower and Pilgrims this week.  Today we learned how life of the Pilgrims was different then ours.  We made fun pilgrim portraits too! Here they are. 

We also enjoyed learning more about Pilgrims and the Mayflower by visiting this website:

http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/voyage/

Dem Bones

Here is a really fun Halloween song I found on youtube. We had a great time listening and dancing to it.   It's great for differentiating left from right!

What's Happening this Week?

We have a full week of learning in store and are always doing many many things!. I will be out of the building on Thursday and Friday of this week for a workshop and my Professional Learning Community class on Friday, but the stdents will be well taken care of and have the same sub for both days.


In Language Arts, we will be reading books all about the sounds we hear around us.  We will learn the letter Nn, the popcorn word and, and blend together words using all the letters we have learned so far.  We will also be talking about what makes a sentence.

In Math, we are starting addition and discussing what it is, what a plus sign and are equal sign are and how to solve addition problems.

In Religion, we will talking and discussing all the things we are thankful for the God has given us.

We will start our month long thematic unit of Thanksgiving.  This week we will focus and the Mayflower, Pilgrims and the differences between what they had then and what we have now. 


Here are some great photos of the Halloween party from Thursday.   Thanks so much to the moms and dads who organized it and helped.  The kidnergarteners had a great time!

What's Happening This Week?

It should be a really fun and short week.  Our Halloween Party is Thursday afternoon.  It sounds like there is alot of wonderful things planned by our fabulous moms!

In Language Arts, we will start a new unit.  This week we will learn the letter Ii and it's short sound, the popcorn word to, and the comprehansion strategy of visualization. We are progressing in Writer's Workshop talking about letters to make words, words to make sentences, and sentences to make stories.

In Math, we will be working with numbers to 10 in sets and 10 frames.

In Religion, we will talk about Noah and the Ark.

Our thematic unit this week will be Halloween, so we will read many Halloween stories and make some fun Halloween crafts.

Last week, we did some activities with scarecrows.  Here are some photos of the scarecrows the kindergartners made.

Happy Columbus Day! -A little late

On Monday,  we learned all about Christopher Columbus and how he sailed the ocean blue in 1492.  Wee Talked about what it means to be an explorer.  After we read a couple books about him, we completed a very fun art activity.  Here are some photos of the Nina sailing the ocean blue.

What's Happening This Week?

This week we will be meeting our 7th grade buddies for the first time on Friday and making a Halloween craft with them.  This is always so fun and exciting for both grades!  Pictures will be posted.

In Language Arts, we are continuing to work on the comprehension strategy ask and answer questions.  We will learn how to correctly form letter Tt, it's sound and blending it with letters a, m, s, and p to read words.  We will also be learning about verbs-we call them action words too, but also say verbs. In Writer's Workshop we will be working on conventions of print such as when to use an uppercase letter and ending punctuation marks.  In Math, we will be comparing, ordering and counting forward with numbers to 10.  In Religion, we will discuss ways to care for God's world. Our thematic unit will focus on pumpkins this week. 

I will be sending home reminders of your conference times we have set up.

As a special request, I would like you to pray for my dear friend Sally Langenbahn, who taught kindergarten here with me for many years.  She just lost her son in law leaving behind Sally's daughter and 18 month old son.  Thank you for  thinking of them.  I know many of you know her, and for those who don't she is an amazing person with a wonderful family.

Blending

Now that we have learned some consonants and the short vowel a, we have started blending these sounds to read words.  Each week we will add another letter and sound. Blending letter sounds is an early reading strategy to read words we are not familiar with. It is such an important skill, even if we can read fairly well in kindergarten. As we read more complex text, we need this skill to break down and blend larger words and their word parts.  So far we have learned letters p, m, s and a.  Today, we used these letters to blend the words am, Sam, Pam, map, maps and sap.  There are many fun apps, and online games for blending.  Here is a link to one of those games.  Happy Reading!

http://pbskids.org/lions/games/blending.html

Read to Someone

As often as we can, we do what I like to call Read to Someone.  I pair up the students and they read to each other.  We like to sit EEKK (elbow to elbow, knee to knee) and say this poem:

Elbow to elbow, knee to knee

I'll read to you, you read to me.

Elbow to elbow, knee to knee

Book in the middle so we both can see.

 

In order to become better at anything, we just need to do it and experience it.  Reading is no exception.  I always tell the students how much fun reading is!  Here are some pictures of the kindergarteners reading to each other. It's amazing how far they have all come in just a few short weeks! 

 

 



What's Happening This Week?

This week we will be doing many fun things!  In Language Arts we will be learning the letter Ss and it's sound and blending letters Ss with Aa and Mm to read words.  We will also learn the sight word see.  We will continue to learn about nouns being naming words that name a person, place or thing.  And we will be talking about non-fiction texts. 

In Math, we will learn the number 8 and 9, ways to make eight and nine, and compare numbers 0-9. 

In Science, we will be discussing how an apple grows, parts of a tree and the seasons of an apple tree.

In Religion, we will be discussing the ways to pray.

Next week on Monday, interim reports will be coming home.   Also look for an email for parent teacher conferences.  They will be held the week of Oct 21. I will send home a schedule of available times. 

COSI

COSI was great! It was all about Chemistry this year.  Thanks to all the moms and dads who volunteered.  The children made some slime, which was a big hit.    We first went to a whole group session and later we were able to do all the fun stations and experiments.  I would like to say a huge thank you  to the PTA for providing the funds needed for this wonderful science enrichment oppotunity.  Coming home is a nice letter from COSI, eplaining what we did today, as well as a coupon to go to COSI in Columbus.  Have a great weekend!

Here they are in action!