Happy Holidays

What a fun week we had!  Ending our week in pajamas was definitely a highlight!

We loved having Mr. Deptula and the 5th graders come visit and share some holiday songs!

The Cardboard Challenge was such a fun event!  I was so impressed by the creativity, problem solving, and teamwork I saw in each group as they designed and built their gingerbread houses!

Thank you so much for all of the thoughtful cards and gifts!  I feel so lucky to be teaching your children this year.  I love seeing them work and play together, learn, and grow.  I wish all of you a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year!  I look forward to seeing all of the children back at school on Monday, January 8. 

Classroom News

It's beginning to look a lot like GINGERBREAD!  The hallway outside our classroom was transformed into a gingerbread house!  The students had so much fun creating the candies and gingerbread kids!

Reading
We have been learning a lot during our fiction reading unit!  The students have been focusing on the different story elements of characters, setting, problem, and solution.  We are reading several stories based on The Gingerbread Man and are working to compare and contrast the elements in each of these stories.  What wonderful observations these readers were making!

Our reading stamina continues to grow!  I am so proud of the progress these kindergarten readers are making during our independent reading time.  They enjoy reading from their book bins, and especially love sharing a good story with a friend!

Writing

The kindergarteners continue to work hard during our Writing Workshop time.  Each writer has to THINK of an idea, DRAW a picture with details, LABEL that picture, and then WRITE a sentence that matches that picture.  What fantastic authors they are becoming!

Math

We are currently working on Chapter 4:  Counting and Numbers 0 to 10.  In this chapter, students count up to 10 and down from 10.  Counting with one-to-one correspondence and determining numbers that are one more and one less are skills that are featured throughout this chapter.  The concepts of addition and subtraction are introduced, and students will be working to combine and take away objects and then count to find the result.  These activities help develop the meaning of addition and subtraction, which is a prerequisite for learning addition and subtraction facts. 

Centers

Our centers are even gingerbread themed this month!

Students are playing Gingerbread Bump to help practice adding two numbers together.

At the listening centers, the students are enjoying hearing the story, The Gingerbread Bear.

Using dry erase markers and gumdrop counters are a fun way to practice addition problems during Gingerbread Math!

Practicing sight words is a lot more fun with a gingerbread color-by-sight word page!

Students are identifying different shapes with a gingerbread house color-by-shape activity.

Cardboard Challenge

Thank you so much for sending in cardboard!  Our whole school will be participating in a Cardboard Challenge, where students will work in small group to plan and build a creation out of cardboard.  This week, the students worked together to plan out their design for their very own gingerbread house.  They first had to work together to come up with 3 things their house needs to have, as well as create a design for the outside of the house.  I loved hearing the creativity and compromising happening within each group!  The building will start next week and end in a school sharing assembly on December 19.  I will be sure to post pictures of the finished designs!

LMC

During our LMC time, the students are learning what it means to be a digital citizen and how to be smart and safe when using technology.  This month, we will also participate in coding lessons, which is always so much fun for the students.

All About Me Bags and Guest Readers

The students continue to love hearing about what their friends enjoy doing outside of school, and they especially love having guest readers surprise us with great stories!

We learned that Ryne likes sword fighting, fast race cards, and playing catch.

We were so lucky to have Ryne's mom join us to read The Giving Tree and remind us how good giving to others can make us feel.

 We learned that Annette loves her family, reading, and the color pink.

We loved having Annette's mom be our Guest Reader.  Reading Mo Willem's books with the silly characters of Pigeon, Elephant, and Piggie was a great way to end our week!

Winter Gear Reminders

Now that some snow has fallen, it is a good time to share some reminders that will help our kindergarten day run smoothly.  Please have your child's belongings labeled.  Many things look alike, especially snowpants, so having all your child's winter gear labeled helps a lot.

The students only go outside for recess on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so those are the only days that your child needs to have all snow gear brought to school.  In order to play in the snow at recess, students must be dressed appropriately in boots, snowpants, coat, hat, and gloves.  The school policy is that we do go outside if the temperature (with the windchill) is above 0 degrees.  Snowpants and boots are not necessary on days we go don't go to recess.  If something ever changes in our schedule, I will be sure to let you know.  

If your child wears boots to school, please make sure they have gym shoes in their backpack to wear while at school.  

I also ask that you practice putting on and taking off all winter gear with your child, so they can do it independently.  My two hands don't get very far (or very fast) with 20 students and each piece of snow gear, so your help with this is greatly appreciated!

Classroom News

As we are at the end of the first trimester of kindergarten, I just wanted to share how proud I am of each and every student!  I am so amazed with the growth I have seen these past few months, and I am even more excited to see what is to come throughout the next trimester!

I look forward to meeting with each of you during our conferences to celebrate your child's success!  Please remember that our conferences will be in the conference room, not our classroom.

Please read on to see what we have been up to in the classroom!

Reading Workshop

We are currently learning about fiction books during our reading workshop unit.  After listening to the book, Could Be Worse, the students were able to sort the characters, setting, events, and objects into the categories of realistic or fantasy.

We then read the book, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, by James Marshall.  The students loved this funny version of the story.  I was so impressed with their retelling skills as they were able to identify the characters and setting of the story.  With some help, they did a nice job of being able to describe the important events in the story as well!  

A favorite part of our reading workshop time is the independent reading time!  Students love shopping in the classroom library for books to fill their individual book bins.  I am so proud of their increasing stamina when reading and they are continuing to remember the three different ways to read a book.  

Writing Workshop

The kindergarteners are doing such a great job with their Jolly Phonics sounds.  Thank you for all your support at home with their notebooks!  As we have now introduced and practiced the majority of our sounds, the students are working hard to apply those sounds in their writing.  Each time during writing workshop, the students think of an idea, draw a picture of that idea, label the important parts of the picture, and then try to write a sentence.  During this time, students are encouraged to stretch out their words by saying them slowly to hear the beginning, middle, and ending sounds so they can write the sounds that they hear.  I am excited to share some writing samples with you during our conference!

Math

We have been working hard on Chapter 3 in our math program.  This chapter gave students an introduction to measurement and focused on ordering objects by size, length, and weight.  It was so exciting to hear the students begin to use our math vocabulary when explaining their reasoning.  We learned and explored the following words: bigger, smaller, taller, shorter, heavier, and lighter, while also reviewing the words same and different.

The students loved using a variety of math manipulatives to demonstrate their understanding of these words!

Centers

Center time continues to be a class favorite!  Our most recent rotation of centers allowed students to listen to The Runaway Pumpkin on the computer, build towers to match the numbers on a number line, use Legos to make the letters of the alphabet, use dice to "Roll a Sight Word", and use unifix cubes to match the pattern shown on a card.  

Veterans Day

We were so lucky to be able to honor local veterans last Friday!  From a special breakfast to an amazing assembly with videos, poems, and songs, we hope these veterans know how thankful we are for their service!

Art Appreciation

We are so thankful for Mrs. Pellum who generously volunteers her time to come in once a month to share art with us!  The students love the discussions about the art pieces, but especially enjoy the fun and engaging art projects they get to create!

All About Me Bags

We love learning about our classmates each Monday morning!  The sounds of "ME TOO!" as a student shares shows how many similarities the students have with one another!

Recently, we learned that Dasha has a favorite stuffed animal, loves to make art projects, and has a special necklace!

We learned that Nikola likes to make art projects, enjoys building with Legos, and his favorite animals are snakes and crocodiles.

We learned that Steven loves his family and his teddy bear, loves building with Legos, and likes playing with cars.

Halloween

Just in case you missed seeing some of the Halloween pictures on Twitter (@mrsheathercoyle), here is a short slideshow with a few of the highlights of that fun day!  A very special thank you to all of our parent volunteers that day:  Mrs. Sluder, Mrs. Brancato, Mrs. Kubow, Mrs. Manglaris, Mr. Pellum, and Mrs. Stuckey. 

Halloween from Heather Coyle on Vimeo.