The Gift of Oneself!

Shopping for holiday gifts is lots of fun. Our class certainly went all out with providing gifts for our needy family. What a huge pile of colorful gifts, including a shiny new bike, we had stacked up in the K hallway outside our classroom door. The class was very excited to walk to the athletic center carrying gifts to be placed on the gym floor next to our class family's number. It was amazing to see the gym floor covered with large piles of gifts for needy families all over the St. Petersburg area.

At Town Meeting this Monday, our guidance counselor, Mrs. Lippencott, challenged the students to do more than just shop for gifts for their families, but to think of meaningful things to do that would delight our parents. She suggested that the children volunteer to help with family chores around the house. She suggested thinking about their mothers and fathers, and deciding what would be something their parents woud really appreciate, such as washing the dishes, cleaning their own bedrooms without being asked, and pulling weeds in the garden. How about volunteering to set the table before dinner and clearing the table after dinner, making one's own bed, getting dressed without help, brushing your teeth without being reminded or doing your homework neatly without assistance? These are truly gifts from the heart. All these acts of kindness encourage the children to be to think about other people's feelings, needs and wants. It also encourages them to be more responsible and independent.

Dr. Bianco reminded the students of Mr. Murphy's challenge to us to have Shorecrest be the nicest school in the America, and for us to work hard, play hard, and to take good care of each other. Great words to live by!

Happy Holidays to all our families. Enjoy your special times together and safe travels to all. Mrs. Minke will be in Michigan at the family cottage up north and in Detroit visiting her grandson, Jaxon. Mrs. Keirnan will be with her family skiing in Utah. We are both hoping for snow!

Mrs. Minke and Mrs. Kiernan

From Seeds to Soup

Last September the kindergarten classes all helped to plant various vegetables, herbs, and flowers in the new Lower Division Community Garden. Each of our classes has their own garden bed filled with rich soil prepared by Shorecrest parents with the advice of parent, David Abbey. It's rumored that his special garden soil mix even contains dog food! For whatever the reason, all the seeds and tiny seedlings we planted in the fall grew like crazy! Each week showed a huge increase in the size of the plants.

Each day throughout the fall when returning to the classroom from recess, we were able to monitor how our garden flourished. Several times our class went to the garden to pull out the weeds and trim the rapidly growing plants. We harvested our herbs in November, and each child was able to take home a baggie full of fresh herbs.

Last Friday all three kindergarten classes contributed to the making of Stone Soup. Inspired by the award winning tale by Marcia Brown, each class contributed to our pot. From the Shorecrest gardens we included fresh herbs, egg plant, green peppers, cauliflower, green beans, tomatoes, and cabbage. The ingredients simmered and the air was filled with a delicious scent. Later in the day we all had a chance to enjoy the recipe created in our kindergarten kitchen by good will and sharing. Yum, delicious and nutritious!

Discovering Patterns in Reading and Writing

Today we are beginning new units of study in both our reading and writing workshops. We will first be discovering patterns in our reading books. Analyzing patterns in stories helps early readers to read effectively and with greater fluency. Today's reading example will be about the classroom. We will reread a story we shared early in the fall to see how the pattern in the first pages of the book helps us predict the rest of the story. The book goes something like this: "See the computer." "See the crayons." etc. We will also revisit a class favorite, "Brown Bear, Brown, What Do You See?" to talk about the story's pattern and discuss why this book is so popular. During December we will quickly transition to more complex story patterns. First, the sample books will be more like lists in book form. Later, we will explore pattern books that tell a story.

In writers' workshop we will begin creating our own pattern books using the formats we discovered in our reading. We will be writing about a number of non-fiction topics chosen from a long list of topics that the class brainstormed. Later, we will include stories that are fiction, too, as well as ones that ask questions.

In our study of pattern books we will emphasize reinforcing basic vocabulary both to read and spell, ( look, here, come, etc.) We will stress working neatly, using spaces between words, including periods and question marks at the end of sentences, staying on the chosen topic, and writing stories that are easy to read. Our lessons will include changing the characters, places, and settings to create patterns stories. We will introduce adding colors, numbers, and other descriptive words to our sentences to make our writing come alive. We will discover that many pattern books have a twist at the end to summarize book, such as "My Classroom." Sometimes the twist is also the same as the title.

With so much to learn about pattern books, December will find us very busy.

Service Learning: Our Community Involvement

After our informative visit to the homeless shelter on Fourth Street South last month, our kindergarten classes wanted to find a way to help make Thanksgiving enjoyable for the guests who would be eating at the shelter that day. The Salvation Army usually serves over 100 meals on the 24 tables in their dining room.

First we decided that each of our three classes would make eight paper turkeys with real feathers to serve as center pieces for the 24 tables. This will help add a festive atmosphere to the dining hall.

Then, we remembered those 58 cans of pumpkin that we were challenged to use for the shelter. Six cans has been baked into pumpkin crisp and delivered when our kindergartens toured the shelter, which left 52 cans. The children voted unanimously that we should make pumpkin pies to be delivered along with our turkey decorations in time to be served for the Thanksgiving meal. We calculated that we would need to make one pie for each of the 24 tables to ensure that each guest would have a piece. A special thanks to all our families who provided the necessary ingredients and assistance to help our students make so many pies.

Today began our assembly of pies. Recipes were doubled and tripled to be sure each classes participation would yield the amounts needed. We have frozen the pies for delivery and the Salvation Army Shelter kitchen will be baking them in their extra large ovens next week. We hope you and yours have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

Investigating Solids and Liquids

Our science lessons and explorations are now focusing on a brand new unit for kindergarten, the study of solids and liquids. We began our investigations by observing and describing two solid objects, a blue plastic spoon and a steel ball. The children did a great job comparing the properties and recording an observation in their new science journals.

With the help of a partner and our science volunteers, children then sorted a tray of 20 objects, first by color and then by shape. Comparing items elicited a broad number of attribute classifications such as metal, lines, round, clear, bounce, and shine.

Today students will continue their observation of solids and record their findings on a Venn Diagram. This will provide a graphic organizer to compare and contrast the characteristics of the various items. Which items can roll, stack, or do both?

Our study of matter will continue with investigations of hardness, solids in water (float and sink) and testing solids for magnetism. Next, we will expand our exploration to discover how many other ways are we able to sort these 20 items. This section concludes with a fresh observation of two new items as an assessment of the lessons on the properties of solids.

The latter section of this unit will investigate how liquids flow, mix, drop and spill.

The Halloween Scene

Today our class visited the Pumpkin Patch at Clearview United Methodist Church. Farmer Don and his helpers led us through a variety of activity stations. The children followed the life cycle of the pumpkin plant, where it is grown, how it is harvested, and the journey pumpkins make as they travel to us from from Four Corners, New Mexico.
They learned the difference between a pumpkin and its cousin the gourd. Then had the opportunity to make music and sing Halloween songs with the dried gourds.
Using tape measures, the students helped each other predict, measured, and confirm pumpkin height and circumference. This was a great opportunity for them to observe the many colors, shapes, textures, and sizes of the pumpkins.
Lastly, each child got to pick out their own personal pumpkin. Our trip was rainy, but the damp didn't drizzle out our Halloween scene. We wish all a safe and happy Halloween.

Learning About Word Families

We have begun our study of word families. As early readers begin to understand the patterns and relationships in words, their reading and spelling powers greatly expand. It is not necessary to memorize each word separately, but instead, to look for the similarities between words. How are these words alike and how are they different? This is a very valuable skill as young children learn to decode our written language. It is an important part of our word study. The student are taught to apply phonics to reading and spelling many words.

We have started with words that rhyme with "at." Emphasis is being placed on the following words: bat, cat, fat, hat, mat, pat, rat and sat. We will also introduce the challenge words, "that" and "chat." All the words in the "at" family will be recorded in our new Word Families on Tuesday. Using the keyboard on a computer template, the children will select four of these words to practice typing, and then they will draw pictures to match. We will also make up silly sentences using at least two "at" words, such as, "The rat sat in the hat."

Later, will will study other word families with the short sound of "a." These will include "an," "am," "ag," "ad," "ap," "and," and "ack," For the rest of the school year, a new word family will be introduced at least once a week, for a total of over 25 word families. This skill will be reviewed in first grade and and then expanded on to include many words. What a valuable tool this is!

October Math

This month we are continuing our exploration of patterns. We have made simple patterns, which are called "AB," with colors, shapes, numbers, sizes, objects, and with our initials. We will explore other ways to create patterns using a vary of other attributes such as position, gender, and time. Odd and even numbers form another "AB" pattern. Day and night can be described as an "AB" pattern, for instance. Soon we will advance to more challenging patterns such as "AABB," "AAB," "ABB," and "ABC." Understanding patterns are important because they relate to our everyday lives, and they help us understand our number system. Patterns can also be found in word families (cat, bat, rat, etc.) and in stories.

Using a vary of activities, in October we have been working on the concept of more and less for numbers 0 to 10. An example is that in our class there are more boys (8) and less girls (6.) Also, we are working on understanding what number is one more than and one less than a given. For instance, 7 is one more than 6 and 5 is one less than 6. This is helpful in developing a working understanding of our number system and is the beginning of addition and subtraction. Soon we will include activities for the numbers up to 20.

For geometry we are learning the names and characteristics of a vary of shapes. First we are talking about the more basic shapes such as circle, square, triangle, and rectangle. We will compare and contrast these shapes, build pictures and patterns with them, and construct the shapes themselves using clay, straws, pipe cleaners, etc. Later, we will learn more about the hexagon, rhombus, trapezoid, oval, and other two dimensional shapes.

The children enjoyed exploring and sorting coins today with Keira's mother. We have another activity planned that includes pouring beans into a vary of containers to expand on the concept of capacity. Of course, calendar activities continue daily and are an important part of our opening activities.

We have having a great time learning about so many different facets of math.

Writers' Workshop

Two weeks ago our class completed the first writing unit called "Launching." In this writing unit the children first drew pictures of events from their lives. With encouragement and modeling by the teachers, they began to add labels using their phonetic spelling to the drawings. Next the children began to write a sentence or two about their stories. We talked about including characters, setting, and action. The children made great strides in their ability to write about their personal lives. They eagerly shared their stories with partners and with the whole class using the document camera.

For the past two weeks we have been talking about making lists. This mini-unit emphasized being brave spellers as the children worked independently to create their lists. These lists have included colors, animals, foods, activities, etc. After brainstorming numerous topics, on Friday the children selected their own catogories for their list making assignment. These included "things in my bedroom", "art supplies", "pets I want to have," "favorite games," etc. Today we are brainstorming new topics as part of the final list making unit. The children will consider what is needed to "go on a picnic," "plan a birthday party," "get ready for school," etc. Tomorrow each child will read their favorite list to the class using the document camera so everyone can easily see each writing piece.

On Wednesday we will begin our next writing unit called "Stretching Small Moments Across Pages." We will be using three page story booklets to write out our stories each day. We will practice adding more details to our stories and to include a beginning, a middle, and an ending. We will try to use interesting words to make our stories come alive. We will continue to use phonics to sound out challenging words and to learn conventional spelling for short, common words.

The children have wonderful stories to tell from their personal lives. As each child's writing skills grow, their good stories will become even better. Great work, class!

Service Learning in Kindergarten?

Here at Shorecrest each grade level is challenged to help make a difference by being involved in a community service project. Since our kindergarten classes over the past three years have made a total of ten quilts for children in the homeless shelter run by the Salvation Army here in St. Petersburg, we decided to expand our involvement with the homeless shelter.

To launch this effort and to help our students understand the mission of the shelter, we invited a representative from the Salvation Army, volunteer coordinator, Mrs. Gail Stark, to speak to each kindergarten class on Friday afternoon. Mrs. Stark explained how the shelter helps people who are homeless by providing meals and places to sleep. She told us that we can help them in many ways by collecting items they can use and by making cheerful posters and placements. Mrs. Stark had told me on the phone that they had received a donation of cans of pumpkin, and she was looking for volunteers to bake these into dessert for their soup kitchen. I told her I thought we could help out with this effort. Imagine our surprise when she arrived Friday with three cases of pumpkin! The class helped me count the number of cans. Now the challenge is what to do with 58 cans of pumpkin? We will deliver the assorted recipes (pumpkin pies, muffins, loaves, soup) during our visit to the Salvation Army Homeless Shelter on Wednesday, October 12th.

Science in Kindergarten

The kindergarten children are very interested and enthusiastic with learning about science. Science is taught daily and includes activities in our classroom, outside in our gardens, and in the kindergarten common area.

A major focus for our study of science occures on Wednesday afternoons when each of our kindergarten classes come out one at a time to the K common area for an introductory lesson connected to the theme for that week. This may include the reading of a science related big book or a brief discussion on the current topic. The children are then broken into three groups where they each experience hands-on science activities that are planned by the K teachers but run by parent volunteers. Often these include science experiments, observations, and collecting data. During this 40 minute block, the children will rotate to all three stations. Many of our activities so far revolve around the theme of our Five Senses. Soon we will be exploring the huge world of animals.

In the classroom we frequently continue with related science activities often integrating these with reading, writing, math, and the computer. In addition,we have been talking about the weather and the seasons. We graph the daily weather in our calendar folders. Our discussions about fall have include changes in the weather which effect both plants and animals, sports and activities common to fall, and holidays in fall.

Our class has been working in our classroom garden every week. We have pruned over-grown plants, weeded, and watered the plants that survived from last spring. Soon we will be planted new flowers, some of which will attract butterflies. Last week we also began working in the lower division community garden where we have our class has our own raised garden bed where we planted herbs.

Yes, science is a vital part of life in the kindergarten. Everyone is learning so much and having fun, too!

We Help the Crayon Puppets

As part of our character education program, the twelve crayon puppets were introduced to the class one at a time. The crayon puppets each told the class about the problems they had in trying to be the "best that they could be." They asked the class if they would help them by being good role models for the crayons. The class has been working very hard to help the crayons improve their behavior. Nicky Nice, who represents all the colors, is helping, too. It creates a beautiful picture when all the colors work together.

Greedy Green is learning how to share with the other crayons and children.
Rudy Red is trying to remember to use better manners.
Yelling Yellow is practicing using a softer voice inside.
Pokey Pink is trying to finish her assignments on time.
Ornery Orange is working on being cooperative with the other crayons and the teachers.
Pouty Purple is learning to take turns and be better sport.
Betty Blue, Butt In Brown, Tan Tattle, Bossy Black, and Wiggly White are all trying hard to improve, too.

With so much to learn and practice, we all have to help each other to be the "best we can be." What a wonderful world when we all cooperate and work together.

Reading Workshop Is Conducted Daily!

A large block of our day is devoted to reading. These activities are integrated through-out our day and are included as part of our math work and even with our science and social studies lessons.

Our actual reading lessons usually occur in the morning. We talk about what Reading Workshop looks like and sounds like. This includes private reading as well as partner reading.

Reading Workshop looks like the readers quickly picking a book and doing a picture walk. It looks like children having their eyes on their books and their fingers pointing to the words looking to match words with the pictures. Reading Workshop looks like the readers sitting and turning pages carefully and focusing on their stories. It looks like lips moving as readers enjoy their books.

Reading Workshop sounds like students quietly turning books pages and using soft whisper voices to read or tell the stories. It sounds like children making the letter sounds as they work on figuring out new words. It sounds like a low hum with readers busy with their books.

Monday is Book Shopping day. Children select five books from a basket of "just right" books (those books that are on their reading level.) They place their five chosen books into a large zip lock baggie and go off the to a quiet reading spot to explore their new books privately. During the week the children continue to read their five books, sometimes privately, sometimes with a classmate or with a second-grade buddy reading student, and sometimes with a teacher. The books are read on many different levels from examining and talking about the pictures, to storytelling, to actual or memorized reading. We can think about what might happen next after the book ends and how the story could be extended. Towards the end of the week, the children enjoy teaching each other to read their books.

Most importantly we are fostering a love of reading; an opportunity to connect with characters, their actions, their locations, and the joy of their stories.

Writer's Workshop

Our daily writing includes a lesson that links us to the work we have done previously, teaches us a new skill, provides time to practice and apply the lesson, and to share our work with others.
The children begin by first sketching their story and labeling people and things using their kindergarten spelling. We have been practicing crafting sentences from the words labeled in our sketches. So many of the stories have included action that many children are writing words that end in -ing.
This week in Writer's Workshop we are introducing the setting of our stories. Setting clues can be seen in the children's sketches with examples of the sun in the sky or the tables in our classroom. These details demonstrate inside or outside locations and lend themselves to adding this information to their stories.
The sharing of work is very rewarding. We share in a number of ways. Some days we sit in a circle and retell our stories, other days we conference individually with the teacher, we read our stories to a partner, and use the document camera to point out our quality work.
For kindergarten, writing is a process that involves thinking about an experience and taking the time to draft words from the letter sounds the children hear as they sound out their words. This is a brave task and we encourage all to embrace writing by including it at home.

Our Class Marble Jar

What is a marble jar? This special jar fills with marbles as individual children or the whole class "do the right thing." A marble is added to the jar when children are cooperative with each other and with their teacher. A marble is earned when a child tries a skill for the first time that is challenging. Other marbles are earned by cleaning up quickly, helping a friend or a teacher without being asked, and generally by being a good role model for the other children. This helps build community spirit and reinforces positive behavior.

How many marbles has the class earned so far? The children are very proud of the 54 marbles that our class has earned over the first six and a half days of school. Natalie suggested that we make a chart to record the number of marbles we have earned as far. When the jar is full of marbles, we will plan a party to celebrate our accomplishments.

How do we know how many marbles are currently in the jar? The class asked to count the marbles to find out. The marbles were dumped in a big pile, and I started to point and count. Avery suggested that this was not a good way to count our marbles. Julian said a better counting plan was to move the marbles from one place to another as each one was counted. In this manner we were able to accurately count out the 54 marbles.

Great Work, Class!

Back to School Night!

This Thursday, starting at 7:00, our parents are invited to join us for "Back to School" night. This is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about our school, as well as about our kindergarten class and your child's teachers. Mrs. Kiernan and I will talk with our parents about our procedures, activities, curriculum, and policies, as well as opportunities to sign up to volunteer in the classroom and for our class parties. We'll be looking forward to meeting all of you again and sharing our passion for kindergarten with you.

Every Monday we will publish an update in the Blog of some of the highlights of life in
kindergarten. Most often there will be current photos of our students busily involved in a variety of activities. These Blog entries will be a great way to stay in touch with our lesssons and activities. If your child comes home saying that he or she did nothing at school today or they just played, by reading our Blog, you'll have some specific questions and statements to get them started talking about what they really did at kindergarten.

Things to ask your child:

Tell me about the "Morning Time March."
What about your personal calendar folder?
What is the Marble Jar?
What was the Question of the Day?
Tell me about pattern blocks.

Our Final Full Week

This last full week of kindergarten will find our class busy finishing up various lessons and introducing some new ones. We have six more groups of rhyming words to add to our Word Family Books before they go home at the end of this week. That will make a total of 30 word families that we have introduced. Understanding the similar letter patterns in each of these families will help the children as they are developing their literacy skills to read and spell so many more words. If a child is able to phonetically read and spell the word "ball", they will be able to read and spell "wall" and "tall", also.

New topics to be explored this week will be the concept of opposites. We will have fun writing stories that include a pair of opposites. We will find out about three dimensional shapes, such as cubes and spheres, and ways to build three dimensional structures with of straws and twist ties, and with toothpicks and gumdrops. The class will have fun with these activities.

Next Tuesday is our End of the Year Party. All morning we will be rotating through the three kindergarten classes for a variety of activities planned by our Room Representatives and teachers. In the afternoon the children will go shopping in the kindergarten store in our K common area. They will spend the money they have earned for their school piggy banks. Also, that afternoon our class will celebrate the the birthdays of the children who have summer birthdays or who have not already celebrated with our class.

How busy, fun, and rewarding these last days will be!

Where Has the Time Gone?

With only a few days left of school, we are starting to have closure with some of our lessons and activities.

In handwriting we finished the lessons in the workbooks on upper and lower case letter formation, as well as the numeral 0-9. The children are checking their books to complete any page they may have missed. These workbooks will then we taken home to be reviewed over the summer. Next the children are learning to print their first, middle , and last names using the correct letter formation. What a challenge for some with long names and those with nicknames. Alex is learning to spell Alexander and Cate, Catherine. But Aurora is the winner with a total of 25 letters in her complete name!

This week will we be studying the last alphabet letter for our personal dictionaries. We will be searching books looking for words with the letter "x" either in the middle or at end of words to add to our individual books. Then we will look through our books to find letter pages to complete. After that, the dictionaries will be added to our Bag of Books.

The class will continue to write poetry in Writer's Workshop, as well as letters to people around campus and to our friends and relatives. How about encouraging letter writing at home over the summer. If your child writes to me over the summer, I will write back.

We are researching insects and bugs. Each student has selected a bug to research and then write factual report about that creature.

In reading we continue to "book shop" each Monday for five new "just right" books to read for the next week. We practice by ourselves, with partners, and with the teachers and visiting adults. We are learning to think about what we read and then answer questions about each story.

Math work continues with two dimenional patterns, numbers to 100 and above, and base ten (building numbers using sets of tens and ones.) We will also learn about halves and whole, solid shapes, and vertical addition.

Today is the 164th day of school and although we have selected photos and work samples for our portfolios, there is much learning that continues.

Word Families

Skilled readers recognize patterns in words. Word families allow children to practice rhyme and chunk letters with stable vowel sounds. Readers can also decode by analogy-use. What they know about one word can be used to decode another. If a reader knows the word tack they are likely to know other words in the -ack family such as snack or jack. With the understanding of how words are related, a student's reading and spelling vocabulary in greatly increased.

All year our children have been learning about word families. We have been practicing reading and spelling them in our Word Family books. To date we have introduced 25 word families and have several more to add to our collection. We started with the -at family last fall, working with common words like cat and bat. Today we were working with the -ug family using words like mug and slug to create silly sentences. (The big slug sat in a mug next to the rug.) The students did a great job and seemed to enjoy the challenge of making up these little poems.

More work with word families will continue and be expanded upon both for the rest of kindergarten and in first grade next year.

Classroom News

Have something to share, show, and tell? Each morning our students have the opportunity to write their own headlines. This form of writing incorporates sentence structure, summarization, and spelling.
Later in the day, those who have written their messages read their news to the class. This offers the children practice with rereading their own writing, public speaking, and holds them accountable for correctness of word wall words.
They truly enjoy their moment to share and answer questions. We have learned so much about each child by listening to what is important to them. The classroom news makes for great dinner conversation. Ask who reported today!

Presenting our Animal Facts

Initially our discussions helped us craft a driving question of "What can I teach others about animals that live in the zoo?" Our Lowry Park Zoo visit served as field work to kick off our projects on zoo animals. Each child was asked to choose their favorite animal to research. Although, investigations continue both in our classroom, the library, and on the computer, next Monday, May 2nd, each child will share an unusual fact during the 8:10 Town Meeting. We would love to have you join us as each child presents their individual teaching poster accompanied by their non-fiction writing.

Writing Letters to Other People

In addition to writing our Small Moments stories, we have begun a unit on letter writing. Two weeks ago we wrote thank you letters to our P.E. coaches for organizing field day for the lower division students. The coaches were very pleased to receive our letters and complimented us on doing such great job. Last week we wrote to the Morean Art Center thanking them for our interesting trip to their museum. We received an email of appreciation for our thoughtfulness.

Today we will two more letters, thanking our visiting artists who helped make the Celebrate the Arts day so special. Mrs. O'Mullane, second grade teacher here at Shorecrest, presented an interesting introduction to using our bodies to dance in many fun ways. This was followed by Mr. Rim Carnivicus, an opera singer, who explained about opera. He demonstrated various opera characteristics, such as high and low sounds, and loud and soft ones. We watched a cute Bugs Bunny cartoon which was done in an operatic style.

At other times we will write letters to Dr. Bianco asking her questions or commenting on different areas. Writing letters to friends here at school and to our parents will be fun, too.

Copies are made of all the letters that we are writing so they can be bound together for individual books for each student. We are talking about the various purposes of writing letters and the different components of a letter.

How about encouraging your child at home to write letters to family and friends that live far away?

Meet Our New Student!

Alissa Simkin joined our class today , coming from Jamerson Elementary School in St. Petersburg. We are excited to have another girl in our classroom. Now we have ten boys and nine girls. We had fun interviewing Alissa and learning lots about her. Her favorite food is pasta, and apples are her favorite fruit. She like ballet and to go swimming. She has a pet hamster. At school she likes art and to draw pictures. Alissa's favorite flowers are daisies, and she likes the colors pink, purple, and blue. Alissa is very outgoing and excited to be at Shorecrest. She lives in Clearwater and speaks both English and Russian at home. Welcome to Shorecrest, Alissa and her family!

Researching Zoo Animals

Yes, we are conducting research in kindergarten! Our kick-off to learning more about zoo animals was our fabulous trip to the Lowry Park Zoo. Next, the class explored a variety of information books about exotic animals that are located in the new Kindergarten Research Station at the center of the kindergarten common area. They recorded four or more animals that each student found interesting. This list is a possible resource for selecting the final animal that each student will research.

Once all the animals have been selected, we will find out what each child already knows about his or her chosen animal, and what we want to learn about each animal. Each child will answer the basic questions of what their animal usually eats, where it lives, what is its body covering, and how it moves. Using parents, teachers, and reference books as resources, the children are challenged to learn at least three other facts about their chosen animal.

Finally, each child will answer the question, "What can I teach others about my animal?" At school, each child will demonstrate their new found knowledge in a presentation format of their choosing. This week's Kindergarten News Calendar assigned each student to gather three additional facts other than those previously mentioned.

From a shared experience to research, and on to learning from each other, each child will present of project of their choice to share with their classmates. These will demonstrate the new information we have learned about our animals, and also our new appreciation of them.

Yes, kindergartners can be involved in research!

Creative Play

At first glance we see that the Grand Prix has come to room K-3. In reality the track built by Lucas, Fin, and Noah is a fine example of creative play. This team effort took planning, cooperation, and self-discipline.

While all this fun might be called "free choice" time it actually helps build a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of elements, such as working memory and cognitive flexibility. But perhaps the most important is self-regulation — the ability for kids to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline. Executive function — and its self-regulation element — is important. In fact, good executive function is another predictor of success in school as well as a child's IQ.

Everyday Math Is Everywhere!

While our scheduled math lessons are first thing in the morning before our P.E. class at 9:15, math related concepts are frequently integrated through-out the school day, and beyond. Just look at the math related activities the class has been involved in today.

*Reading and rereading Monday's schedule, noting the times on the classroom clock
*Finding page 55 in our handwriting books so we can practice printing the letter "e"
*Counting and comparing answers on the "Question of the Day" graph
*Traveling in number order with a new line leader each week
*Using our time wisely when given two more minutes of snack or work time
*Recognizing where to sit in both Art and Music according to our classroom seating locations
*Writing with the sequence of time that spans morning, afternoon, and night
*Using the digital cameras to take pictures of things with shapes on campus
*Creating working partner pairs, which led to counting by twos, and recognizing we are an uneven group when one is absent
* A brief discussion of odd and even numbers, and what that means
*Looking at the clock for when the long hand lands on 6, it is 30 minutes after the hour...12:30...recess!
*Counting the seconds backwards from 15 as we watch for recess time to begin
*Counting by tens the marbles in our "Do the Right Thing" jar (341 marbles!)

Revising Our Small Moment Stories

For the past several weeks in writers' workshop the children have been learning how to make their good writing even better. We have talked about extending our stories, inserting words in the middle of sentences using carats, and using talk bubbles so our characters can speak. All of these revising techniques add more detail to our stories and make them more interesting. Each student used a purple felt-tipped pen to add their revisions to their stories. Using the purple pens was very motivating and the children eagerly looked for ways to add to their stories.

We have talked about what we need to do to complete a whole three page story, including the illustrations and the writing, in one writing session. Everyone agrees that concentration is the most important skill needed; but, it is also important to limit erasing and to focus on the story you are writing about. Most of the class is able to write a new story each day.

This Friday will be our celebration for the end of the revision unit. Each child will select their best story to "pretty up." We have invited Mrs. Cameron's second grade class to come down to share our celebration with us and to hear our stories. We will begin at 12:30. Parents are also invited to join us. Please let me know if you plan to attend. The children are very proud of their great stories and are eager to share them.

Celebrating Reading

What an exciting week this will be! The children loved dressing up as a favorite book character and sharing their book with the class. It was great fun to see all the other kindergarten classes and well as the rest of the lower school at Town Meeting this morning dresses up in costumes, too. What a terrific variety of favorite books were represented. Ms. Dias-LaRoy was Charlotte the spider from Charlotte's Web, Mrs. Smay came as Raggedy Ann, and Mrs. Minke was Miss Bindergarten.

Tomorrow we will meet Mr. Frank Remkiewicz , who illustrated all the popular "Froggy" books. We have 15 books from this series in our classroom library.

Wednesday is "Drop Everything and Read" Day. Starting at 8:15 until 8:50, we will join the rest of the lower school outdoors to read, read, read. Students are invited to bring towels to sit on while they enjoy reading in the fresh air. Parents are encouraged to join us to listen to the children read.

Thursday our class will join Mrs. Cameron's second grade class for Buddy Reading. We will also be joined by a few local community authors who will share with us their love of books.

Friday is of course the "Oldie Goldie Book Sale". Our class will be shopping from 12:50 - 1:10 pm. One or two dollars will be plenty to spend and we invite parents to join us for this special event.

Celebrating Reading

Families

Family and its many components is our topic for socials studies learning. We will be drawing and writing to answer "who" is in our family, "what" our family likes to do together, and "where" our family likes to go. Talking with your children and helping them think of the memories your family has created will surely make for wonderful writings and illustrations.
February ends with the beginning of Reading Week. On Monday the 28th, children are invited to dress as their favorite book character and share their books in class. Tuesday's highlight is visiting illustrator, Frank Remkiewicz, whose work includes The Froggy Books. We will drop everything and read on Wednesday. Bring a towel in case the lawn is damp. Thursday we'll be buddy reading and visits from community authors. Don't miss Friday's Oldie Goldie Book Sale. Clear off those shelves and bring in titles you and your family wish to donate.

Science Matters!

Every Thursday afternoon each kindergarten class meets in our common area for 40 minutes for science related activities. These topics have ranged from learning about our five senses and how they help us find out about the world; to an extensive study of animal groups, how they move, where they live, and what they need to live; and to different kinds of weather and the four seasons. Now our focus will be on healthy foods and the various food groups. We will talk about how different foods help us grow and stay healthy.

We will also find out about taking care of our teeth and how that helps us stay healthy, too. On March 1 at noon our class will go to Dr. Levitt and Dr. Dan's dental office to learn about the important job of the dentist. Please let me know if you would like to go with us on this field trip.

Has your child been talking with you about how our loft was changed to the dentist office? Upstairs is the examining room and downstairs is the secretary's desk and the waiting room. Our dentist office has been very popular with both the boys and the girls as they dramatize the different roles of the secretary, dentist, nurse, and the patients. Now you know why your child has been comes home wearing stickers from the dentist office.

I would be very helpful if the parents talk with their children about having a healthy life style and what that means.

This Wednesday, February 16th students will participate in the "Science Matters Teach-In" from 1:00 - 2:30 pm. The kindergarten class will be learning the principles of insulation and how things stay hot or cold. Activities include working with Jello and Baked Alaska. The children will rotate from station to station and using the scientific method, form a hypothesis and record data through their observations. All this will be set-up and run by our wonderful parents! It should be great fun and educational, too! We can't wait!

Reading 100 Books?

My class accepted the challenge of reading 100 books in one hour last Thursday on Day 100. At 10:00 we started reading books to both Mrs. Kiernan and me. We were quickly joined by Bronwyn's, Cate's, and Wiley's mothers. Soon Dr. Bianco, Mrs. Weinman and Mrs. Smay arrived to help us meet the 100 book challenge. Readers were zooming all over the classroom reading to the different adults. As each book was read, it was collected and added to the finished pile. By 11:00 all the read books were stacked up and then counted into pile of ten books each.

The class then counted the piles by tens until we reached the grand total of 170 books read! With much cheering, we celebrated our exciting accomplishment. This meant that each child read about 9 to 10 books each during the hour. We had a lot of fun and each child was proud to be able to show off their terrific reading skills.

Great Job, Class!

IMPORTANT ONLINE RE-ENROLLMENT INFORMATION:
We are excited to announce that we are moving to an online re-enrollment process! This will allow you to complete your enrollment contract online, as well as make payments online. We believe that this will save you time and effort.

You will no longer need to complete lengthy paperwork, as student information will be pre-populated on each student's individual enrollment form. Once the enrollment contract is submitted online, you will be able to print a copy of the contract for your records.

In addition, we are pleased to offer you an easy, secure online payment system to make electronic payments of tuition deposits, tuition refund plan payments, tuition, and donation payments. This convenient alternative for families will allow you to make electronic payments by e-check or credit card (Master Card, American Express or Discover only).

A convenience fee of 2.75% will be charged if you use a credit card; however, there is no fee for using e-check, which is a direct debit to your bank account. You will be receiving further information the week of February 16.

100 Days of Kindergarten!

This Thursday, February 3, will be our 100th day of school! Just think how far each student has come! We are all reading many words and writing many numbers! Everyone is writing terrific Small Moments Stories! We have learned so much about our five senses, about where animals live and how they move, and recently about weather and the five seasons! We have learned about our classmates and about the holidays! We have learned about cooperating and sharing, about being dilegent with our assignments, and always doing our personal best! And 75 more days of kindergarten to have fun and to continue to grow and bloom!

On Day 100 I will challenge the class to read 100 books. If you can help us fulfill this goal, please stop by our classroom on Thursday from 10:00-11:00 to listen to the children read. If you can't stay the whole hour, come for what ever part you are available.

Other events on Day 100 will include writing to 100, drawing 100 things, touring the 100 Day Museum with all our great projects that we made with 100 items, and creating a snack with 100 treats! We will also talk about what we would like to have 100 of and what we do NOT want to have 100 of! Day 100 will be a very busy and fun-filled day!

Partner Reading

The children read daily in a variety of different ways. Each week the students shop for five new books from book baskets that hold books on their reading levels. We call these their "just right" books, meaning that they are books that are not too hard or too easy for them to read independently. These five books go into their baggies which are stored in their seat pockets.

The first day we read these books privately, practicing using picture clues and decoding skills to read some unfamiliar words. The teachers circulate, listening to each child read a page or two from one of their new books.

The next day will find the children choosing reading partners. Off they go to various parts of the classroom, sitting shoulder to shoulder, helping each other read their new books. Having a reading buddy is very helpful as the children assist each other to figure out new words and to make sense of the new books. Partners are exchanged often. By rereading a new book several times, the students develop more confidence in their reading abilities and their oral reading will become more expressive and fluent.

The teachers continue to listen to each child read individually throughout the week, encouraging continuous growth both in reading skills and self-confidence. After several days, the children each select one of their baggie books to read the whole book to the teacher. Often this book is sent home in an envelope to be read at home. Many of these books become favorites to be read over and over. Some of the books that were read with partners are often chosen the following week by another student who had the pleasure of having it read to them the week before. The children enjoy partner reading and learn so much from each other.

Writers' Workshop Stories

The class is very motivated to write their personal stories each day. We are continuing to write stories about small moments in our lives. In our daily lessons about writing, we have been talking about how to make our writing so it is easy to read. Using examples from student writing from our class, samples were shown that illustrate good writing that is easy to read. We focused on pictures that were drawn clearly, words that had spaces between them, drawings with labels, printing that was neat, and sentences with good spelling, both standard and phonetic. After writing for about 25 minutes today, the class brought their stories to the circle to share how their stories were easy to read. We also discussed that one of the purposes of writing is so that it can be read by ourselves and by others. The class is doing a terrific job!

Celebrating Our Writing

Since early December we have been busy learning to write books written with word patterns. First we started writing lists of items that were related. Next we transformed these lists onto book pages by adding words to create sentences in patterns. Next, we illustrated each page, added titles and page numbers. Since the winter break we have been talking about changing the words on the last page to make a "twist" ending. These ending usually summarized each book and are often similar to each book's title. Each child went back through his or hers stack of completed books, adding a page at the back to create "twist" endings. We checked to make sure all of our books were completed and reported our book count. Most children have completed about 7 books, some as many as 11. Choosing their best work to share, each child took a turn reading and displaying their publish piece on the Elmo document camera. During this "Author's Celebration" we enjoyed popcorn, juice, and rounds of applause. Each child's completed set of books are kept in individual book baskets to be reread often. In the future we will also be making additional books to add to our collections. But for now, we are returning to writing more three page stories about our own lives. We will be stressing writing so that our stories are easy to read both for ourselves and for others.

It's not too late to reply for our upcoming "Math Night", January 20th at 7:00 pm. We look forward to sharing the Everyday Math Program for grades Kindergarten through fourth.

Thank you to our parent volunteers for their support with science, cooking, book check, and classroom activities.

Welcome, Bronwyn, to Our Class!

Today our class welcomes the New Year and a new classmate, Bronwyn. We are very excite to have another girl in our class, bringing the number of girls to eight, plus our ten boys for a total of 18. Mrs. Kiernan and I like having an even number of students in our class since we do so many activities with partners.

We had fun today interviewing Bronwyn. We found out that her favorite color is pink, favorite food is spaghetti, favorite fruit is watermelon, and her favorite vegetable is green beans. She has a dog, a hedgehog, and fish, but no pet cats. At school she likes to play with her new friends and use the slide on the playground. Her favorite place to go is Busch Gardens and her favorite animals are dolphin.

To find out more about our math curriculum from kindergarten through fourth grade, which is based on the "Everyday Mathematics" program, plan to attend Math Night on Thursday, January 20 at 7:00.

I had an enjoyable holiday in Michigan with my family. I was busy taking care of Baby Jaxon. Thank you to all of you for your special interest in my infant grandson. He is adorable!