The Week of May 20 - 24

With only eight days of school left and the bright warm sunny weather, excitement is in the air. There are lots of loose ends to tie up, some skills to review, and even some new lessons to be presented. It’s a busy time of the year.

Math: Continuing our learning of spatial patterns, this week we are working with the bulls eye and “X” patterns. We will continue practicing subtraction using the vertical position. We will continue with the “All About” pages that we started last week for the numbers one and two, which reviews lots of different aspects of the given number.

Word Work: The children are eager to add more easy words to our “Retired Word Wall,” which already has 30 words that everyone agrees they have no trouble reading or spelling. We are doing more work with contractions and the long vowel sounds. The number words zero to ten will be added to our Word Wall this week. The children enjoy writing the Word Wall words on their whiteboards, especially using fat writing and rainbow writing.

Reading: Our book clubs have been discussing their characters, settings, and actions.  This week the children will be reading to find out what their characters like and how they feel. We are still shopping and reading “just right” books everyday.

Writing:  This week are publishing our best small moment writing.  The children will trace over their stories and illustrations to highlight their best work.  Next week we will offer an assortment of writing materials to let the children choose from All About, Small Moment, and How To pages to complete their Writer’s Workshop days in kindergarten.

Social Studies: With the help of our second-grade reading buddies, our class wrote welcome cards to accompany the totes created for the children of the Salvation Army Homeless Shelter.  Our study of houses and buildings has made us very appreciative of the wonderful homes we share with our families.

Science:  Our liquids investigations take us to another property of liquids, “miscibility”. The children will predict what will happen when we mix water and glue, shampoo, or oil.  They will observe some that float and others that sink. This lesson will teach them about making a mixture or a suspension. 

In our study of Creepy Crawlies we are learning more about ladybugs, bumblebees, ants, butterflies, and spiders.

Responsive Classroom: Our lessons with Ms. Fierce are finished for the year, but our final meeting taught us about the difference between tattling and reporting.  Her activity with Tattle Town and Reporting Road was both fun and very thought provoking.

Events to Calendar:

Tuesday, May 21^st – Kindergarten Relay Cookie Party served just after lunch.  No need to pack a dessert.

Thursday, May 23^rd – Special Helping Hands Town Meeting to honor Gayle Hordon and her many years of volunteering.

The charity quilts that each K class made will be presented to the Salvation Army for the children in the family units at their homeless shelter.

Monday, May 27^th – No School, Memorial Day

Thursday, May 30^th -End of the Year Party

Friday, May 31^st – Last day of school, noon dismissal

The Week May 13th - 17th

To brighten the tables in the cafeteria at the Salvation Army Homeless Shelter, the kindergarten classes delivered vases we had decorated and filled with tissue paper flowers. We hope your weekend was restful and filled with special moments for families.

Math: Continuing our learning of spatial patterns we are working with checks like in the book series Elmer. We will also work with the diagonal “x” pattern as well as the “plus” and bulls eye patterns. Using our Pattern Blocks, the children are now assembling more complex diagrams. Our addition with vertical position is taking us through the fact families that add to ten. We have been practicing the months of the year and reflecting on what happens in each month.

Jake D. creates a complex pattern.

Word Work: Our Word Wall board now has a partner…Retired Words. The retired words are still on display, but as a class we are so secure with reading and spelling them, that we moved them to the side and made room for new words to learn. Our Word Work activities vary from day to day, but practicing on our personal white boards makes for fun review. This week we are adding words with the “ow” spelling as in cow and town. Throughout the week we will be reviewing blends such as “st” as in star and the long and short sounds of letter “a” as in man and mane.

Reading: Our book clubs have been discussing their characters, settings, and actions.  This week the children will be reading to find out what their character like and how they feel. We will also practice reading number words one through ten.

Writing:  When writing small moments across three pages, the children will be using the elements of the “wh” questions…what, where, when, and who. When and where clues indicate their setting. Their characters (who) will be involved in an action (what). These elements of writing make their stories rich and meaningful.

 

Hands are raided to add examples of where stories take place.

Social Studies: Our city now includes Shorecrest School, a hospital, police and fire station to name a few.  There are street signs and traffic signals along with transportation. We have a few milk cartons left and will be constructing an airport for the planes to fly in and a marina for the boats. The children have really enjoyed watching the display grow from rural to urban living.

 

From neighborhood to city.

Science:  With our physical science investigation of liquids we will be exploring and comparing the flow of liquids on a slick surface to investigate which liquids move faster on an inclined plane. Our insect and bug study will include symmetry and body parts. On the computer we are writing stories about ladybugs that have true facts. We will also be writing about bumblebees and spiders.

Responsive Classroom: Our lessons with Ms. Fierce continue with making good choices. The phrase, “Don’t bite the hook.” is a reminder that when teasing begins, you can shut it down with not getting involved.

Events to Calendar:

Tuesday, May 14^th – Mrs. Samuel’s Day. There will be a presentation at the Janet Root Theater at 8:30.  Those students who were in her class are invited to attend and will be accompanied to the event by classroom assistants.

Friday, May 17^th - Splash Day. Wear your bathing suit under your uniform and bring a towel.

Tuesday, May 21^st – Kindergarten Relay Cookie Party served just after lunch.  No need to pack a dessert.

Thursday, May 23^rd – Special Helping Hands Town Meeting to honor Gayle Hordon and her many years of volunteering.

Monday, May 27^th – No School, Memorial Day

Thursday, May 30^th -End of the Year Party

Friday, May 31^st – Last day of school, noon dismissal

The Week of May 6 - 10

Duran as Wolfie and Ava P. as Little Red find themselves on the wrong set.

Los Pollitos 

Mi Cuerpo

Mrs. Minke's Class on the risers.

Goldie and the Bears along with Spanish songs and dancers, won the hearts of audiences Thursday and Friday in the Janet Root Theater.  The reception following was a wonderful way to celebrate the hard work and talent of all.  Visit the Shorecrest Ebytes page for a complete slideshow of the performances.

http://ebytes.shorecrest.org/?q=ld-5-3-2013

Math: We will continue our lessons with spatial patterns, addition, and subtraction. We are expanding our understanding of computation by introducing addition in the vertical position using a number line.  In the upcoming weeks will explore dividing shapes into fractions. Most of our emphasis will be on halves. We will also review the months of the year, talking about the common holidays and activities for each month.

Word Work: We have introduced five new words for our Word Wall that each use the sound of “ow,” as in the word cow. The story goes that o and w hit each other when them get together, and they say OOOOWWWW! This is also true when o and u join together. This little story will help the children remember the sound of these letters and apply them to their reading and writing. We also mentioned that “ow” has another sound, which we will talk about at another time. Ask your child to tell you about the “fat writing” we do and how it helps us remember new words.

 

Brianna listens and waits to ask questions about character, setting, and action.

Jake's turn to read. His buddy will ask the questions.

Ms. Deegan's class wrote us thank you notes for a great show.

Reading: We continue to have buddy reading each Monday morning with Ms Deegan’s second grade class. Again today the second graders each brought in a book to read to a kindergarten student. The partners sit shoulder to shoulder when reading with each other. The second graders discussed the characters, setting and action in the books they read. They also shared letters they had written to our class about our kindergarten show and how much they enjoyed watching it.

Writing:  Our new writing unit began today with a return to writing about events in our lives. Our first story was to zoom in on one small part of our kindergarten show and write just about that, including a beginning, middle, and end. The class was reminded to use periods at the end of sentences, spaces between words, and to spell all words correctly that are on our Word Wall.

 

Noah adds a finishing touch to his fire station.

Social Studies: On Monday the class brainstormed city buildings. As a class, the challenge was to name as many city buildings as they could think of. After much encouragement, the class was able to finally name 43 buildings. This was surprisingly challenging for the class. No one even thought to name a school as one of the buildings you would see in a city. Using mild cartons taped together and covered with paper, each child constructed a building to help create city on our back bulletin board.

 

Bug activities.

Science:  We have begun the second part of our physical science unit with our investigation of liquids. The first two liquids that we studied were water and glue. Last week we added oil and shampoo to our investigations of liquids. The study of insects and other creepy crawlies was started last week.

 

Ms. Fierce listens to a small group.

Responsive Classroom: We are continuing to talk about the difference between a peacemaker and a peace breaker, and how to “take a stand” to do the “right thing.”

Events to Calendar:

Friday, May 17^th- Splash Day

Monday, May 27^th – No School, Memorial Day

Thursday, May 30^th -End of the Year Party

Friday, May 31^st – Last day of school, noon dismissal

Kindergarten Show Week

This week we continue our performance momentum with rehearsals for our kindergarten show. The dress rehearsal will be on Thursday morning at 8:30 and the show on Friday at 8:30 for our families and friends. The children are doing a great job practicing and are looking forward to our performances.

Math: We are moving on from coins, but will continue our lessons with spatial patterns, addition, and subtraction. In the upcoming weeks will explore dividing shapes into fractions. Most of our emphasis will be on halves. We will also review the months of the year, talking about the common holidays and activities for each month.

Word Work: We will build words for the “ub” and “ug” families and add these to our Word Family books. We will look through dictionaries for words that use the letter “x” and include these in our personal dictionaries.

Using dictionaries to find words that contain the letter "x".

Reading: Reading “just right” books will continue daily, as will our new book clubs. The clubs have a mascot who represents one of the characters in each club’s books.

 

Clifford and his club of readers.

The busy Worm books.

Biscuit in the basket.

Noodles is a nice dog.

Froggy and friends.

Writing:  Our new writing unit will begin next week with a return to writing about events in our lives. We will look at the writing in our “just right” books to find out how the authors told their stories and what details they have included to make their books interesting to read.

Social Studies: From talking about our own houses and others the children are familiar with, our study of houses will turn to houses found in other parts of the world. We will talk about how these houses are alike and how they are different from ours and why they are not like our houses. We will be moving on to talk about other buildings you would find in cities.

Science:  We have begun the second part of our physical science unit with our investigation of liquids. The first two liquids that we studied were water and glue. Last week we added oil and shampoo to our investigations of liquids. The study of insects will begin by revisiting their symmetrical bodies and interesting shapes.

Responsive Classroom: The children are learning to greet each other by name and ask about their weekends or if they have any news to share. Sometimes we shake hands or high five greetings. The class enjoys playing “Toe to Toe” with partners. This team building activity helps encourage cooperation and following directions in a fun way. We are continuing to talk about the difference between a peacemaker and a peace breaker.

Events to Calendar:

Friday, May 3rd - Kindergarten Show 8:30 am

Monday, May 27^th – No School, Memorial Day

Friday, May 31^st – Last day of school, noon dismissal

The Week of April 23rd - 26th

Last week’s Celebrate the Arts fully immersed us in the visual and performing arts.  We had a turn telling a story in a drum circle, tapped along to the beats of a rock band, creative dance movement, a visit with a photographer, sewing our quilts, and a song dedicated to Mark Twain. This week we continue our performance momentum with rehearsals for our kindergarten show.

Duran and Lili show off their quilts.

Ava's all wrapped up in her quilt.

 

The Wit and the Wisdom

Math: Math lessons continue with addition and subtraction, spatial patterns, and coins. We are reviewing reading and writing tally marks up to 30. This requires the children to “count on” from 5, 10, 15, 20, or 25 be read/create numbers such as 7, which would be 5 and 2 more. “Counting on” in an important skill with both addition and money.

Kai F. trades in 5 pennies for a nickel at weekly banking.

Word Work: We are building words using the short sound of “u,” such as in the word tub. We are also practicing spelling the words from our Word Wall. The class is enjoying learning more compound words and looking for little words inside big words.

Reading: We will continue to read our “just right” books independently, with partners and with the teachers. In addition, we are starting book clubs. Three students are grouped together. They will be reading from baskets of books with the same characters. They will be encouraged to discuss together about what the characters are doing, where is the setting, and how are the characters feeling.

Writing:  Our new writing unit will begin next week with a return to writing about events in our lives. We will look at the writing in our “just right” books to find out how the authors told their stories and what details they have included to make their books interesting to read.

Social Studies: From talking about our own houses and others the children are familiar with, our study of houses will turn to houses found in other parts of the world. We will talk about how these houses are alike and how they are different from ours and why they are not like our houses.

Science:  We will begin the second part of our physical science unit and begin our investigation of liquids. The first two liquids that we will study will be water and glue. The garden is in full bloom and that has brought us to the bugs that live there too.  The study of insects will begin by revisiting their symmetrical bodies and interesting shapes.

Responsive Classroom: The children are learning to greet each other by name and ask about their weekends or if they have any news to share. Sometimes we shake hands or high five greetings. The class enjoys playing “Toe to Toe” with partners. This team building activity helps encourage cooperation and following directions in a fun way. We are continuing to talk about the difference between a peacemaker and a peace breaker.

Events to Calendar:

Friday, April 26^th – Pirate and Princess Almost Sleepover 5:30 – 9:00pm

Friday, May 3rd - Kindergarten Show 8:30 am

Monday, May 27^th – No School, Memorial Day

Friday, May 31^st – Last day of school, noon dismissal

The Week of April 15 - 19

Our Zoo Project Displays were amazing. They truly reflected all the great work, cooperation, and learning each animal team had accomplished. The children proudly and with confidence, talked about the animals that they had chosen to study. It was rewarding to have so many parents attend Our Kindergarten Zoo. The children loved dressing up as zookeepers, veterinarians, and zoo animals.

 

The tiger table:  show boards, clay models, and stuffed animals.

Kai shares his All About Penguin book.

Sofia the veteranarian.

Sasa the bengal tiger.

Three generations learn about rhinos.

Math: We are continuing to build two-dimensional patterns with a striped design. We are working on addition and subtraction and are making up story problems to match the number each child has selected for that day. We have a little “Toy Store” set up with prices for each toy. The children are counting out the nickels, dimes, and pennies to “buy” each toy. This is fun way to practicing naming the coins and to count out money. We are practicing building the numbers to 99 using sticks in groups of tens and ones and soon will be building the sets to represent the numbers over 100.

 

Briana and Ava shop with exact change.

Word Work: We are continuing with our study of compound words and will practice using them to write sentences. Each week we are adding five new words to our word wall. We will review reading, building, writing, and spelling these words during the week. We will learn many other words that have the middle sound of “u” as in the word “sun.”

Reading: We will continue to read our “just right” books independently, with partners and with the teachers. All the children are excited to have moved up to a higher reading level. We plan to have the reading envelopes go home each night for the children to read their new books to their families.

Writing:  Our new writing unit will begin next week with a return to writing about event in our lives. We will look at the writing in our “just right” books to find out how the authors told their stories and what details they have included to make their books interesting to read.

Social Studies: From talking about our own houses and others the children are familiar with, our study of houses will turn to houses found in other parts of the world. We will talk about how these houses are alike and how they are different from ours and why they are not like our houses.

Science:  We will begin the second part of our physical science unit and begin our investigation of liquids. The first two liquids that we will study will be water and glue.

Responsive Classroom: The children are learning to greet each other by name and ask about their weekends or if they have any news to share. Sometimes we shake hands or high five greetings. The class enjoys playing “Toe to Toe” with partners. This team building activity helps encourage cooperation and following directions in a fun way. We are continuing to talk about the difference between a peacemaker and a peace breaker.

Events to Calendar:

Friday, April 19 - Celebrate the Arts Picnic

Monday, April, 22 - No school

Friday, May 3 - Kindergarten Show

The Week of April 8th

What a busy time of the year! Projects to complete! Quilts to finish! A program to practice! Curriculum lessons to complete! The teacher appreciation lunches were delicious and a wonderful treat.  We thank you all.

Friday's trip to the Morean Arts Clay center was an fascinating
demonstration of turning a lump of clay into a beautiful vase.

Mariana and Jaiden explore making spatial patterns.

Math: We are introducing a new way to make patterns that are two dimensional as compared to the linear patterns we made earlier in the year. These are called spatial patterns and relate to our lives in the patterns in clothing, household items like towels, and in nature.  The first spatial pattern we will study is called stripes. Next we will learn the checks pattern as found on checkerboards. We are continuing to work on addition and subtraction.  

Word Work: We have been analyzing the words in our “just right” books and are looking for compound words. The children have learned that compound words are made up of two words that can stand alone, but when combined with another word, they make a new word.

Reading: We will continue to read our “just right” books independently, with partners and with the teachers. The children are using their decoding skills to figure out tricky words and to practice reading with fluency. We will continue to look for compound words and contractions in the books we are reading, also.

Writing:  We are studying the informational books that have been written by Gail Gibbons to help us gather ideas for our own non-fiction writing. Many of the children have checked out one of her books to read at home. These books will be available for book check out for the next few weeks.

Social Studies: From talking about our own houses and others the children are familiar with, our study of houses will turn to houses found in other parts of the world. We will talk about how these houses are alike and how they are different from ours and why they are not like our houses.

Science:  We will begin the second part of our physical science unit and begin our investigation of liquids. The first two liquids that we will study will be water and glue.

Technology: We are recording four important facts about our zoo animals on the computer. These will be added to the individual zoo animal reports each child is making.

We will be continuing our research of our zoo animals this week and are putting together our presentation projects to share with the other students on Friday morning and with our families on Friday afternoon on April 12. Monday our second grade buddy class helped our kindergartners make the Table of Content pages for their “All About” zoo animal book. Most of the children have between 12-13 pages completed with several enrichment pages to go for those who have extra time.

 

Briana and Nicholas take a little walk around the circle.

Back to back and elbow to elbow.

Responsive Classroom: The children are learning to greet each other by name and ask about their weekends or if they have any news to share. Sometimes we shake hands or high five greetings. The class enjoys playing “Toe to Toe” with partners. This team building activity helps encourage cooperation and following directions in a fun way.

Events to Calendar:

Friday, April 12, 2:00 - Zoo animal presentations for parents

Monday, April 15 - Quilting Day

Friday, April 19 - Celebrate the Arts Picnic

Monday, April, 22 - No school

Friday, May 3 - Kindergarten Show