Highlight Reel # 27!

Here are a few highlights from our week!  

This week in reading, we learned about retelling non-fiction books by remembering specific facts.  We also began talking about inferring using the book, "Where in the Wild".  This book is all about camouflage animals.  Each page is devoted to a different animal.  The animal is pictured hiding in plain sight and a poem reveals clues as to what the animal might be.  We used our inferring skills to listen for clues and predict what animal might be hiding.  After we made our predictions we open the flap to reveal the animal.  Then we are able to learn some non-fiction facts about each animal.  This is an amazing book that has a lot to teach us!  We will continue to do this next week.  We will respond to this book in writing as well! 

In writing, we worked on using a capital at the beginning of our sentences.  We also learned about using a checklist to help us remember all the important parts of a non-fiction book.  We are working on writing teaching books with a beginning, 3 facts in the middle and an ending that wraps it all up.  These kids are pretty impressive with their writing!  

We learned about syllables.  We clapped each word and then worked on spelling each syllable slowly to help us spell larger words.  Check out some of our hard work!  

Each week, we use poetry to practice our reading skills.  We focus on no-excuse words, matching the words we say to the words that are on the page and fluency.  This week our poem was about weather.  With all the crazy weather we've had lately this poem was perfect!  This poem goes in our personal poetry collections.  We draw mental images to show what's happening in the words.  The poem is also cut into separate words and put back together as one of our Daily 5 reading rotations.

In math, we worked on finding combinations of 6,7,8,9 and 10.  We found all the possible ways using a systematic approach. Ask your child to tell you how to use this page!  

Congratulations to our citizen of the month!  We are proud of you!  

Enjoying the beautiful weather!  

 We got Lenny out!  He was super friendly this week!

General Announcements:  

• I kept Friday Folders this week just so they wouldn't get lost on the long break.  I did send some work from the week home and a couple of notes about our PTA carnival in April.  Our class is putting together a camping basket for the raffle.  This flyer is in your child backpack but just in case, I'll post it here too. 
  
• For part of our service project we will be making butterfly feeders.  We will need some help with supplies.  When we come back from spring break, the kindergarten team will send a sign up genius for this so be on the lookout.  
• Hope you have a great spring break!  I will see you all in a week!  

Quick review

This week was a strange one!  I missed a couple of days with my daughter being sick.  So I don't have as many pictures to share as I usually do.  Here's a quick recap of this week's learning goals. 

Shared Reading:  Remembering and retelling facts from the non-fiction books that we read.

Guided Reading:  Strategies for solving unknown words, letter formation targeting reversals, writing CVC words using lowercase letters

Math:  Finding different combinations of numbers. For example:  9 birds are in a tree.  Some are red and some are blue.  How many of each color could their be.  The kiddos explored as many different combinations of these two colors as they could find.  We also worked on number formation and correcting our reversals.

Writing:  Good writers name their topic and add facts.  We even touched on a way to bring your non-fiction book to a close.

Here are some of the pictures from our week.  Hopefully next week everyone will be healthy!  Have a great weekend!  

General Announcements:

• In Friday folders this week there is a book order.  This is totally optional.  If you would like to order books, please send the form back or order online before spring break.  I will get them finalized during spring break and hopefully they'll be here when we come back! 
•  Keep up the fabulous reading!  I will collect the March reading logs next Friday.  Please send them in on that day.
• Library day is Monday.  Thanks for remembering your books!
• We are collecting pennies for our Monarch Penny Drive.  Thanks to those that have sent some in already.  Our jar is getting full!  It's time to empty it and start filling again.
• Spring Pictures are Monday, March 20th.
• Spring Break is March 27 - 31st.  
• Flash's Big Top Circus will be on April 29th from 5-8.  This event is organized by our fabulous PTA and will support our school community and help raise funds for our school.
• Kindergarten Music Program will be on April 20th at 6:30 and our last brown bag lunch is on May 12 from 11:00-11:25.  You can come to recess too!  That starts at 10:40.

Have a great weekend!  

Found a couple more pictures!

This week we practiced writing sentences using correct capitals, punctuation, and word spaces.  We tapped the words to hear the sounds.  Everyone tried it out on their white boards.  Check out our good work!

Today we started lunch bunch.  Here are our first group of friends!  I hope to include everyone in a lunch bunch by the end of the year.  These friends and I enjoyed lunch in the classroom and good conversation.  We had lots of fun and giggles too.

Highlight Reel week 26

This week we continued our work about combining numbers.  We explored combinations of numbers using colored apples as a way to organize our thoughts.  I asked the kids to help me figure out how many different ways we could have red and green apples in a box.  First we started with 5 apples.  Then we moved on to 10 apples.  We wrote number sentences to go along with our work.  

We have been reading about alligators this week.  We made a "can, have, are" chart to help us share our knowledge.  We will take this chart and use it next week to write three page teaching books.

Each week, we use a morning message to teach no excuse words and practice reading strategies as a class. Our words this week are go and up.  Here is one of our messages this week using these two words.  

With this message, I began by circling a word that I knew would be tough.  I had them just say the first sound when we got to the word and keep reading.  After we finished reading the sentence I asked them to think about what could go in that place that would start with the word r.  They used their big brains and got it!  This is a word that if they tried to tap it, it would have been really tricky to figure out.  We call this strategy, read on and think.  This allows the kids to use their understanding of language to figure out words.  It's pretty neat to see them realize when they've figured it out.  

Many of you have heard your kids talk about Class Dojo.  We earn class points for following directions, doing good work, making good choices etc.  We are working on getting up to 500 class points.  Earlier this week, we figured out that we needed 49 more to complete our goal.  The kids helped me figure out that we'd need to fill four tens frames and nine loose ones.  (Yes they really did that thinking! Smarties. :)  I drew tens frames and spaces for loose ones on the board and we are counting them down as we earn stars.  Today we earned 3.  I asked them to figure out how many more we need.  Some counted by ones, some counted the tens frames first and then counted on from the ones and some remember that we needed 49 and counted backwards.  I am amazed at the big thinking going on in here.   They blow me away every day.  

General Announcements:

• No reading group books will come home this week.  I was gone on Monday.  So we aren't quite ready to share the new books with you.  If you still have your reading bag from last week, please send it back Monday.  We use these during "read to self" to practice our skills.  
• We hope to see you all at Math Night next Tuesday!
• We are collecting our pennies!  Thanks to all that have sent them in!  

Highlight Reel

Dr. Seuss day was a hit!  Lots of us dressed up to celebrate.  Each grade level decorated their hallway with the theme of one of his books.  Today we toured the school to see everyone's hard work.  We tried to guess what book each hallway did!  

We started a new unit in math called, "Bunk beds and Apple Boxes".  We read a book about a sleepover.  There were 8 friends there.  The friends kept moving up and down on the bunk beds to create different combinations.  We used rekenreks.  If you haven't seen one, it looks like this.  

The left side represented the bunk bed.  We used the beads and put them on the "bunk bed" to show many different ways that the kids could sit on it.  We did this for 8 and 10.  

In writing, we worked on using word spaces.  We talked about how the letters in a word should be close together and the words should be spaced apart.  We use two fingers to help us space our words.  

We have been working on using tapping to spell words.  We say the words slowly and write all the sounds that we hear.  You can find some of this work in the Friday folder.  We also used that time to practice correct letter formation of lowercase letters.  

We began talking about long vowels and short vowels.  Last week we learned about the bossy e helping the other vowel to say it's name.  This week we had to distinguish which words were long vowel words and which words were short vowel words.  It was pretty tricky!

We began learning about living and non-living.  We made a list of things we thought were living and things we thought were non-living.  Then we discussed what made them living or non-living.  These smart little lovelies figured out that living things grow, and eat.  We also discussed how somethings that are dead, used to be living but aren't any more.  Some examples we came up with are...

Living:  Fox, people, flowers    

Non-Living:  Chair, books, paper

Dead:  dinosaurs, flowers after they are cut

We used this information and created a paper collage board of living things we might see in the spring.  Check it out!  

We had counselor this week.  We are learning lots about safety.  Click here to see some of our never never rules.  

We had some neat show and tells this week!  If you didn't see the show and tell calendar here is a picture.

  

Things to note:  

• Our kindergarten service project is helping Monarch butterflies.  We will be beginning a penny drive to donate to the conservation department.  You can find more information in the Friday Folder.  
• Earlier this week, I sent home the March reading log.  Please keep these in a safe place at home and return at the end of the month.  I am collecting them each month for book it.  I have received most for February.  If you have yours at home, I can still take it.  Thank you for understanding about the routine change and keeping it at home.  It has been much better keeping the folders here all week.  
• Kindergarten registration for incoming kindergartners is next Thursday.  If you know someone please share this information.  Click here to access the flier.
• BEU math night is on March 14.  Please send back your RSVP on Monday.  You can order pie too!  
• We will not have school from March 27-March 31 due to spring break
• Mark your calendars for April 20 for the kindergarten singing program.  It should be fabulous!  
• Don't forget to check and sign your checklists!  Let me know if you need your link again.