Tuesday, December 6, 2016

December 5-9
DATES:
Dec 19—Delayed start
Dec 21—1/2 day/Sing-a-long at 8:30
Christmas party, PJ day, gift exchange.

I’m sorry I forgot to send the book orders home last week!  December book order now due by Thursday, December 8.  If they are gifts please send me a note and I will contact you when the order arrives.


Please remember to send in shoes every day.  Gym shoes on Tuesday and Thursday.  I don’t allow boots in the classroom as we are on the floor often and we want to keep their clothing and floor dry and clean for our activities.  Children are welcome to leave shoes in the bottom of their locker.

The children are doing an amazing job getting ready to go outside for recess and undressing after recess!  Keep practicing with zippers and putting on mittens!  It’s helping!!!

December 21 is our last day before Christmas vacation.  It is a half-day.  Kindergarten is having a PJ day!  Children can come to school in their PJ’s or change when they get here.  If they come in PJ’s, have extra clothes in their back pack just in case.  At 8:30 we go to the cafeteria to sing carols with the rest of the elementary, followed by gift exchange and our party with a Christmas movie.  For the gift exchange, each child brings a gift between $3-5—wrapped.  Girls buy for girls and boys buy for boys.  The tag should read “To: a boy (or girl),  From:  (your child’s name).  (Art supplies are a great idea!)  Please have the gift at school by Monday December 19.  We will have a class Christmas tree to put them under.

I also forgot last week to include a list of what you signed up to bring for our Christmas party—I have it this week! J


Reading:  Jobs
Book:  Whose shoes?
Letter: Oo
Sight Words:  you, on
Vocabulary:  equipment, uniform
Category Words: job words
Beanie Baby strategies:  With a vowel this week, we are using Flippy the Dolphin to remind us when sounding out a word we may have to flip the vowel to either a short or long vowel to make the word make sense! Chunky Monkey helps us chunk up the work to learn to sound out –like /s/ at for sat,  /m/ at for mat, etc.  Dot the Giraffe reminds us to look at the end marks and use our voice to reflect wither a period, exclamation or question mark.
Writing:  We write every day in our journals—December journals are mostly related to Christmas and families.  We will also be continuing our work on making pattern books.
Math:  Math this week will be looking at teen numbers, reminding them that teen numbers start with a 1!  Then we will look at making numbers (1+2=3, 3+1=4, 2+2=4)
Science/Social Studies:  December will be a month of exploring our 5 senses as well as reading about Christmas and holiday things families do.

Christmas party

24 plates—Nathan
24 napkins—Levi
24 cups—Payton
1 container raspberry sherbet—Natalia
1 container raspberry sherbet—Lyndon
1 2-Liter 7-Up—Abby
1 2-Liter 7-Up—Emelia
Apple Juice—Natalia
24 candy canes—Brian
Finger Jell-o—Kaitlyn
Snack Mix—Sophie
Cheese & Crackers—Bailee
Hot Cho mix for January sledding party—Easton
Parent Volunteers for the party—Ashley C, Jessica O, Katiane M, RJ

Student of the Week:  Chloe

Chloe is silly, very outgoing, loves learning!  Her favorite food is apples.  Chloe’s favorite movie is Tinker Bell.  She wants to learn as fast as she can and make friends.  Her favorite books are Princess Adventure stories, Rapunzel and Little Mermaid.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

November 28-December 2

DATES:
Dec 19—Delayed start
Dec 21—1/2 day/Sing-a-long at 8:30/Christmas party,
    PJ day, gift exchange.

Thank you so much for your donations and help with everything with Stone Soup!  The children had a great time!  There wasn’t much soup left!  A few went back for seconds!

Please send in the November Book-it calendar.  December has been sent home.

December book order due by Monday December 5.  If they are gifts please send me a note and I will contact you when the order arrives.

We had our Pizza party for being in first place with the Coins for Kids!  The children enjoyed pizza, cinnamon sticks and a small glass of pop.

Please remember to send in shoes every day.  Gym shoes on Tuesday and Thursday.  I don’t allow boots in the classroom as we are on the floor often and we want to keep their clothing and floor dry and clean for our activities.  Children are welcome to leave shoes in the bottom of their locker.

The children are doing an amazing job getting ready to go outside for recess and undressing after recess!  Keep practicing with zippers and putting on mittens!  It’s helping!!!

December 21 is our last day before Christmas vacation.  It is a half-day.  Kindergarten is having a PJ day!  Children can come to school in their PJ’s or change when they get here.  If they come in PJ’s, have extra clothes in their back pack just in case.  At 8:30 we go to the cafeteria to sing carols with the rest of the elementary, followed by gift exchange and our party with a Christmas movie.  For the gift exchange, each child brings a gift between $3-5—wrapped.  Girls buy for girls and boys buy for boys.  The tag should read “To: a boy (or girl), From:  (your child’s name).  (Art supplies are a great idea!)  Please have the gift at school by Monday December 19.  We will have a class Christmas tree to put them under.

I will include a list of items you signed up to bring for the party.

I am attaching a list of the sight words Kindergarten needs to know by June.  We will be through the first 15 this month.  Report cards go home the end of January.

I hope you enjoyed reading through the November journals.  Remember the notebooks you brought in the first week of school are your child’s scrapbooks!  Hang on to the journals if you want them in the scrapbook!

READING:  We are reading about places we go (neighborhood, community)

Comprehension:  setting, character, events of the story
         (As you read with your child, have a discussion of where the story takes place, who is in the story and what is going on in the story)  Have your child retell the story to you.

Letter: Cc
Sight Words:  go, in
Vocabulary:  routine, neighborhood
Category Words:  sequence words (first, next, then, last,)
Writing:  We have begun our December journals.  We are also looking at pattern books and will be writing a pattern book of things we see.

Math:  Sorting and identifying shapes according to attributes—what is the shape, is it big, small, thick, thin, what color is it?, etc.)


Science/Social Studies:  December will be a month of exploring our 5 senses as well as reading about Christmas and holiday things families do.

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

November 14-18 Weekly News

November 21 Delayed Start
                       Kindergarten Thanksgiving rotations in the afternoon
November 22—Vegetable cutting
November 23—Stone Soup feast in the afternoon
November 24-25 –NO SCHOOL--Thanksgiving break
November 26—PTO craft show

Student of the week:
Marie loves animals and jumping on her trampoline.  She has a big brother and a little sister.  She likes chicken “on the bone”, pizza and fruit.  Marie’s favorite movie is Tangled and her favorite book is The Night Before Christmas.  Marie wants to learn to count to 100 and make new friends!

Thank you for coming to Parent Teacher conferences.  I truly enjoyed connecting with everyone!  Looking forward to working with your child and you through the coming months of Kindergarten!

READING:
Letter Nn
Sight words : and, but
Vocabulary:  listen, volume
Category words:  sound words

Writing:
We took a nature walk around the school last week and gathered nature items and we also walked over to the Butterfly Garden to see the changes from our walk over there a month ago.  We have drawn pictures and written on our time line poster what we saw at the butterfly garden.  Now we will write a fall book about our fall discoveries.

I’m enclosing a copy of the article from the Cadillac News that was in the paper Monday regarding the garden!  Exciting to see the report of our efforts.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
We will finish up our fall exploration.  This week with the opening of firearm deer season we will be learning about gun safety.  Eddie Eagle will be showing us how to STOP!  DON’T TOUCH!  LEAVE THE AREA!  TELL AN ADULT!  If they should see a gun!
We will also be reading a variety of Stone Soup books in preparation of our friendship soup week next week.  Our discussion will be around wants and needs and fair trade.  Please send in 1 carrot by Friday (18th) or Monday (21st) for our stone soup. The carrots we are bringing in will be traded with things from the other classrooms so we can make stone soup next week!
We will also read various Thanksgiving books.

MATH:
Math will be playing number games involving ordering numbers.  One is called Monster Squeeze.  The children have brought home a paper version.  They have also learned the I pad version.

I’m enclosing also a list of things you signed up for and a list of things still needed.  Please send in by Friday November 18 or Monday November 21 as we will be using a number of these items on the 21st.  Thank you so much for helping us out!

Monday,November 21 activity help:  (12:20-2:30)
1.  Ashley Cundiff
2.  Jessica Ouwinga
3.
4.

Tuesday, November 22 (Cutting veggies for soup)
1.  April Dodde
2.

Wednesday November 23 (1:45-2:30)  Serving and cleaning up for Stone Soup
1.  Katiane Myers
2.

 THANKSGIVING FEAST and other NEEDS
12 red apples                Sophie
1 bag of colored mini marshmallows Natalia
24 small paper plates                Levi
24 Styrofoam bowls:         Tanner
plastic knives:         Abby
24 napkins:         Payton
2 liter bottle 7 up:                Brian
2 liter bottle 7 up:             Case
1 package Oyster crackers:   Natalia
1 package Saltine crackers:   Case
 Package tri beads:           Lyndon
Package tri beads: _____
Package tri beads: _____
Package tri beads: _____
2 Jiffy corn muffin mixes:   Bailee
1 pint whipping cream:   Bailee
3-aluminum foil pie pans: _____
3 aluminum foil pie plates: _____
can shaving cream:   Tanner
can shaving cream: Tanner
bag of feathers:   Kaitlyn
White lunch bags:   Taylor
Brown lunch bags:   Nathan
Gallon zip lock bags:   Sophie
Gallon zip lock bags: Marie
pasta large enough to put yarn through: Marie
Large pasta _____
2 eggs:           Ms Thompson
Milk for muffins:   Ms Thompson






(Cadillac Evening News   November 14, 2016)

McBain, Lake City students working to protect declining monarch population
By Gabrielle Haiderer
LAKE CITY — The monarch population has declined by about 90 percent in just 20 years, according to the Center for Biological Diversity; and students at Lake City and McBain schools are trying to do their part to halt the decline.

Students at Lake City middle and high schools have partnered with the Missaukee County Conservation District as part of their class projects.

Students in Katie Clous’ plant and animal science class at the high school are working to help maintain butterfly gardens. Additionally, this spring the class will create a monarch habitat, or WayStations stations, with seed packets provided to them by Laura Quist, conservation educator with Missaukee Conservation District.

Clous said working on this project so far has given her students “awareness of what is going on with the monarch population. They are a familiar insect that everyone recognizes. When you mention the population is in decline, they do recognize that they are seeing fewer monarch butterflies and their caterpillars than they did when they were younger.”

Kindergarten students at McBain Elementary School participated in monarch education programs this fall as part of the district’s efforts to raise awareness about monarchs and their declining populations.

In addition, kindergarten teacher Melissa Thompson, a kindergarten teacher at McBain Elementary School, has raised and tagged monarchs with her students for a number of years.

And last fall, the McBain High School leadership class helped care for the community pollinator garden, called “Gardens for Wings.”

Quist said getting students engaged in the process of protecting monarchs is critical to the survival of the species.

“If people never have a chance to see and experience it themselves it’s harder to have an interest in the bigger issues,” she said. “When people see that for the first time and they watch the caterpillar go into its chrysalis or watch it emerge and the wings unfold, it’s amazing.”

Through this project, students are beginning to care about taking an initiative in protecting the monarch species. Currently, there is a bill in Lansing to make the monarch the state insect. Michigan is one of just three states to not have an official state insect, and it is thought that this effort could raise awareness of the declining monarch population.

Clous said her students are showing interest in this bill and may look into what they can do to advocate for the bill.

While some may want to protect monarchs just for their beauty, Quist said there is a bigger reason to get students interested in their protection.

“Pollinators are so significant agriculturally,” Quist said. “So much money is generated from our farming community. So many livelihoods and families are affected ... what we’re finding is worldwide there is a decline in pollinators. It’s affecting the farmers, the crops that come to the grocery store. When their numbers go down you have to pay attention economically, agriculturally and ecologically.”

For information about what you can do to protect the monarch population, call the Missaukee County Conservation District at (231) 839-7193.


Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Week of November 7-11
DATES:
Thursday November 10    ½ day afternoon and evening Parent Teacher conferences
November 11   ½ day—Veteran’s Day
November 15  NO SCHOOL –Deer day—Safe hunting!
November 21 Delayed Start/Kindergarten Thanksgiving rotations in the afternoon
November 22—Vegetable cutting
November 23—Stone Soup feast in the afternoon

READING:
Our focus this week is rules that we follow.  We will look at rules we follow wherever we are!
Letter:  Ii
Sight words:  it & to
Vocabulary:  cooperate, rules
Category words:  action words
Beanie Baby:  Introducing Chunky Monkey—the monkey reminds us to look at chunks (may be word family words)  -ig, -in, -it, ip are a few we will be using chunky monkey to help sound out words.

WRITING:
We went on a nature walk on Monday and brought back leaves, sticks, seeds, rocks and grass to be a scientist and explore.  We will sketch and write about the things we discovered in nature.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
The beginning of the week we looked at voting.
We also are beginning to talk about wants and needs and fair trade in preparation for our Stone Soup week.

MATH:

We are looking at numbers and putting them in order.

Sunday, October 23, 2016

OCTOBER 24-28

DATES TO REMEMBER:
October 25:  Picture retakes

***October 21-31 Book Fair:  Have money and book wish list to school by Tuesday October 25—remember to add state tax!
      Buy books on October 26 (12:20-12:45)

October 31--Bat program with Mrs. Quist in the morning, Halloween parade and party in the afternoon.

November 1:  NO SCHOOL--Teachers have professional development
November 4:  report cards go home
November 10: 1/2 day and Parent/Teacher conferences (1-4, 5-8—you will receive a scheduled time soon)
November 11: 1/2 day

Coins for kids has finished!!  Thank you to all who donated!

HALLOWEEN: 
The morning we will be having a guest speaker to help us learn about bats. 

Halloween party is fast approaching. 
I will send reminders of what you indicated the first day of school that you might be able to help with for our party.  Children are to bring their costumes in their backpacks to school on Halloween.  Please NO face paint, make up or weapons of any kind, including fairy wands.  Please make them easy on and off costumes,  and send comfortable shoes to walk in as we follow the upper elementary children in an Elementary parade downtown  (weather permitting)—when we return back from downtown we parade through the middle school and high school before returning to our classroom.  Once back, we will take our costumes off and eat our treats.  We encourage parents to be down town by 1:00 for the children to parade past you!
We will be making ‘trick-or-treat’ bags in the classroom if you would like to send in candy, pencils, stickers, etc. for your child to pass out to their friends (we now have 22 children in our class).


All of the children’s home books should be returned home from their book box here.  Please check to make sure your child has the correct books—some might have taken someone else’s book home by mistake.  Please return any books that went to the wrong home!

READING:
Letter Tt
Sight word: like ( we sing to the Barney song:  “I like you, you like me, we spell like l-i-k-e!”)
We are learning about shapes around our world.
Vocabulary words:  materials, nature, decorations, games, world
Category words:  shape words
Beanie Baby:  Picturing Penguin—He tells us to picture the story in our minds while we are reading.
WRITING:
We will write in our journals every day. 
We will be finishing up with writing sentences then move on to List, observe and label.
We will make a “What will you be for Halloween?” class book

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:
We will continue to read stories about spiders, bats and pumpkins.  We will be talking about Halloween trick-or-treating safety.
Last Friday we carved our Jack-o-Lantern that Sophie brought in!  We exercised our right to vote, by each voting on the eyes, nose and mouth we thought we should have on it!  Then we worked together to sort out seeds.  Ms. Thompson will roast them for us to try at our Halloween party.  We will also be making our own applesauce this coming Friday to enjoy at our party!

MATH:
We have a number of Halloween pieces (erasers and table scatter pieces) that we have been using to pattern, count and sort.  We will continue to use them during Math work time.
Our lessons will be about shapes, number books, figuring out longer and shorter and doing an obstacle course using position words (over, under, around, etc.)  We will learn a geo board ap on our Ipads.

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:  Payton:

Payton loves dinosaurs and swimming!  He lives on a farm.  Payton’s favorite foods are cupcakes, watermelon, ice cream cones and BBQ ribs.  His favorite movie is Jurassic World.  His favorite books are dinosaur books.  Payton wants to learn to read, write, and drive a tractor.