Highlights From Our Classroom

Welcome back!  I was so happy to see the students back at school this week!  They came back excited to share about all the fun they had over break.  Read on to see what we were up to during our first week of 2017.

Math

During math this week, we learned a new game called Monster Squeeze.  Monster Squeeze is a game that challenges your child to guess a secret number while becoming more comfortable with using a number line.  The directions and materials for this game were sent home in your child's Take Home Folder, so you can practice and play at home.

The students were also introduced to a pan balance.  They had the chance to predict and compare the weights of different objects while using this new math tool.  I was quite impressed with the reasoning behind their predictions!

Last, we used dominos to help practice our counting and sorting skills.  The students did a great job of noticing patterns on the dominos as well!

Writing

The kindergarten authors continue to do a great job during Writing Workshop.  They are becoming quite the experts at our 4 steps:  Think, Draw, Label, and Write.  This week, we began adding another part to our writing!  Students are now working to think of two ideas for each prompt.  Then, they can draw and label those ideas before working to write TWO sentences!  I was so proud of the hard work and effort I was seeing with this challenging task.  We will continue to work on writing sentences with a capital letter at the beginning, a period at the end, and spaces between each word.  

Reading Workshop and Guided Reading

We are still working on fiction books and stories during our Reading Workshop unit.  This week, we used two different short stories to help work on the skills of making predictions and finding repeating words and patterns.  

Hopefully, you saw the note in your child's Take Home Folder that we began guided reading groups this week.  During guided reading group time, students are matched with books at their appropriate instructional level and we work on a variety of reading strategies and word work activities, depending on the needs of each group.  After meeting with me, students place their book in their blue book bag to take home.  The letter that was sent home gives many tips and ideas for ways to have students read this book at home.  Please keep this book in the book bag, as this will help the students be ready when I call their group on any given day.  When they meet with me for a new lesson, I will collect the old book and they will bring home a new book.  Thank you so much for your support with this at home.  I can't wait to see the students continue to grow as readers!

Art Appreciation

We were so excited to welcome Mr. and Mrs. Turcotte to our room for an Art Appreciation lesson. We had a chance to learn about the artist, Horace Pippin.  We enjoyed hearing the story, A Splash of Red, which told us about his life and how he enjoyed using a splash of red in his artwork.  The students had the opportunity to see one of Horace Pippin's paintings titled "Domino Players" and find the splashes of red throughout.  Last, the kindergarteners really enjoyed becoming artists themselves and creating a pictures about something they enjoy doing with their family!  Thank you to the Turcottes for a fun lesson!

Winter Weather

As we are now well into winter, I wanted to send a few reminders about dressing appropriately for the weather.  Please make sure your child comes to school each day with a coat, hat, and gloves.  Even though we are not outside for recess each day, the students do line up outside before school and do need to walk to buses and cars after school.  

The students will only be going outside for recess on Wednesdays and Fridays, so those are the days to have all the 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.  Snowpants and boots are not necessary on any other days.  If something changes in our schedule, I will be sure to let you know. The school rule is that we do go outside for recess is the temperature (with windchill) is above 0 degrees.

If your child wears boots to school, please make sure they have shoes in their backpack to put on.

I know those zippers can still be tricky for little hands, so extra practice at home is definitely helpful.

Stay warm and have a great weekend!

Highlights From Our Classroom

The last few weeks have been full of gingerbread fun in kindergarten.  Take a peek and see what we have been up to!

The hallway outside our classroom was transformed into a gingerbread house!  The students had so much fun creating the candies and gingerbread kids to add to the house!

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 have read several stories based on The Gingerbread Man and were able to compare and contrast the elements in each of these stories.  What wonderful observations these readers were making!

                    
                                           




Gingerbread Engineering

As an extension to our learning from the gingerbread stories, we participated in Gingerbread Engineering!  Mrs. Wasik, our Advanced Learning Facilitator, came into our classroom to help us think and plan like engineers.  We began by thinking about the problem the Gingerbread Man faced in the different versions of the story.  The students quickly pointed out that the Gingerbread Man had trouble crossing the water in several of the stories.

Once the problem was set, the students set about planning different ways to solve that problem.  Each group had to brainstorm several different ideas to help the Gingerbread Man cross the water safely. Then, each group of students had to decide which of their ideas was the best one.

The fun began soon after that!  Once the students decided on the best way to get the Gingerbread Man across the way, they had to choose their materials and build their object!  From speed boats to submarines to bridges and jet packs, the ideas were flowing!  We definitely have some future engineers in K-1!

Math

Gingerbread men even found a way to be in our math lessons these last few weeks!  We were lucky to have Mrs. Schwarz's 4th graders join us to help us measure different objects with gingerbread men! The kindergarteners loved working with these older students!

We learned about the concept of area, when trying to see how many pennies it would take to fill the inside of a gingerbread man.  

The students have also been working hard on counting to 100 by 1's and 10's.  These are great activities to also practice at home to help your child feel more confident with these important skills.

Science

We have finished up our unit on Rainbows, Color, and Light.  This fun-filled unit allowed the students to participate in many different hands-on science experiments.  The kindergarteners hunted for rainbow effects while observing CDs and blowing bubbles!  We also looked at how sunlight plays an important role in creating our shadows!  We ended the unit by creating our own rainbow colored stained glass windows, which are brightening up our classroom on these cold and cloudy days!

Hour of Code

The kindergarteners had a chance to participate in the Hour of Code, which gives all students an introduction into coding.  Mrs. O'Kelly, our LMC director, has put together a list of coding resources for the students.  These highly engaging and fun activities help nurture creativity and problem solving skills, which helps students in all areas!

Please visit this link to see all of the resources available for your child:

http://drydenlmc.weebly.com/coding.html

Me Bags and Guest Readers

A highlight of kindergarten is definitely learning about our classmates when it is time to share the Me Bag.  The children 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 Nathan loves playing with many of his toys, especially his cars and trucks.

Charlie loves having Minion Bob in his room each night!

Ryelan shared a very special picture of her visiting with Santa!

Benjamin shared that his favorite thing to do is play video games!

Caroling

Mr. Deptula and the 5th grade carolers visited our class to share some holiday spirit!  The kindergarteners loved singing "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer" with them!

Recess Reminders

To help our kindergarten day run smoothly, I ask that you have your child's belongings labeled.  Many things, especially gloves and snowpants, look alike, so having it all labeled definitely helps.  

The students will only be going outside for recess on Wednesdays and Fridays, so those are the days to have all the 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 windchill) is above 0 degrees.  Snowpants and boots are not necessary on any other days.  If something changes in our schedule, I will be sure to let you know.    

If your child wears boots to school, please be sure they have shoes in their backpack to put on.  We had several students without shoes today for gym class.  

I also ask that you practice with your child at home putting on and taking off their snow gear independently.  My two hands don't get very far (or fast) with 18 students and each piece of their snow gear, so your help with this is greatly appreciated!

Happy Holidays!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a very happy holiday season!  I feel so fortunate to work with your children each day.  They truly bring a smile to my face! Enjoy your time with your families!  School will resume on Tuesday, January 3.