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