Week of March 28-April 1

Dear Families:

Friday is PJ day!  Please have clothes in your child’s backpack incase they want to change out of PJ’s!  Thank you for allowing your child to bring in a flashlight and stuffed animal!  They have enjoyed reading in the dark or in my tent! This has been a fun reading month!

Friday afternoon we will be watching a movie with our stuffed animals.  We will be building a trail mix.  Each child can bring a small Ziploc bag of trail mix type food (fish crackers, pretzels, M&M’s, raisins, etc.) and we will dump it all together and make a snack to go with our movie.  I will have apple juice available.

Friday is the last day of the Pizza Hut coupons!  This is the end of the book it calendars!  Send in March calendars Friday and get the coupon to use over break!!  Thanks for all who participated!

Spring break begins Friday at 3!  Hope you all have a restful week!  We will see everyone back on April 11!

RAZ KIDS notes went home!  I’m doing my best to listen to all the stories.  It’s something I have to do on my own time.  Wednesday nights I have no Internet, so any done on Wednesday will be listened to Thursday or Friday.  After I listen I can give the children stars to their account for building their robot or rocket.  Sometimes I also write them a note—it can be found at the bottom of their log in screen in the white box labeled Messages!  It’s exciting to see them excited about reading!  When they are recording at home, try to have them do it in a quiet space so there is no background noise.  Please do not allow older siblings on your kindergarteners RAZ kids login!  I want to hear what our kindergartener can do! J

Thursday April 14 is a half-day.  4:00-7:00 is parent/teacher conferences.  If you do not receive a conference note, I will try and call you the week we get back!  Report cards go home when we get back so you can see where your child is!  The last report card period is pretty busy!  We are now getting 3 sight words a week!  I will include the whole list with report cards.  The end grade level expectations on the report card are what we are shooting for from now until June!!!

This week we are working on the following:

LETTERS:  Vv, Xx

SIGHT WORDS:  said & want

VOCABULARY:  habitat, wild

CATEGORY WORDS:  Animal homes

We are reading Bear Snores On

WRITING:  March journals (these will go home with report cards or with conferences!)

MATH:  addition

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:  We are working on where we live, maps, and spring.

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:  HARMONY

Harmony likes camping, waterpark, beach and Michigan Adventure.  She is 5 and has a May birthday.  Harmony likes to each chicken nuggets and mac & cheese.  Her favorite movie is Scooby Doo and she likes the book The Worm.  She wants to learn to drive a car and visit South Carolina!

Hope you have an amazing spring break!

Melissa

Week of March 14-18

DATES:

  Thursday March 17—Wear Green!  Irish Dancers in the afternoon.

Friday March 18—Dress mix-matched. 

                              Donuts with Dad’s

Ms. Thompson gone for the day.

Monday March 21—DELAYED START

Friday March 25—NO SCHOOL—GOOD FRIDAY

READING:

We are reading stories about pets.  Children will learn how to care for different kinds of pets—feeding, grooming, walking, etc. 

VOCABULARY:  Responsibility, training

CATEGORY WORDS:  pets

PHONICS:  Gg & Ww

SIGHT WORDS:  they, of

COMPREHENSION:  Character, setting, plot—reading a story talk about the characters, setting, and plot.  Make up a story using these 3 skills.

SOCIAL STUDIES/SCIENCE: 

We will begin talking about maps—exploring the United States (the country we live in), state, city. 

We will also be reading some St. Patrick’s Day stories.

MATH:

We will introduce subtraction.  We will also be making some graphs and looking at the results together.

WRITING:  We continue to write in our journals every day, We are focusing on using a capital letter at the beginning, sounding out words, using sight words we know, leaving spaces as we write a word and using ending punctuation. 

OUTDOOR WEAR:

Unless our weather changes back to winter, children do not need to wear snow pants or boots for recess.  Most of the wet spots have dried up.  If it gets wet, the recess people put orange cones out to remind the children to stay out of the water/puddles. 

OTHER NEWS:

Friday I will not be at school.  I have family coming to town to help get my parents home opened up so we can move them back to Michigan for good!

FOLDERS:  Thank you for sending in a folder every day!  It helps the children keep papers organized and together so they don’t get lost in the transition from school to home or home to school. 

I am using folders for that purpose in the classroom for our writing and have been very pleased how it is working!  They take pride in keeping their work together! 

Keep on reading!!!  RAZ kids information comes home soon!!  We’ve almost learned all we can about it so they should be able to do it at home if you have Internet!

Melissa

Week of March 7-11

Thank you for sending in stuffed animals and flashlights!  The children have had a great time reading to their animals and using their flashlights!  We are taking turns reading in the tent!  It’s been a fun Reading Month so far!

Please return the Parent Survey (GOLD colored sheet) Every child that returns it will get a new book from me.  If you have lost it –call, text or send a note and I will get another!  I have all but 6 out of 24!  If we get the most returned, we get a special surprise from the office!!

Remember Donuts with Dad reservations need to be turned in as well!!

DATES TO REMEMBER:

March 17—wear green & we see the Irish Dancers in the afternoon.

March 18—Donuts with Dad (please send in your reservation form)

READING:

We are reading baby animal stories.  We will be discussing and describing various animals (do they have fur, wings, do they walk, hop, fly, swim, what are the same or different about some animals)

VOCABULARY:  appearance, behavior

CATEGORY WORDS:  Animal parts (fur, tail, wings, how it moves)

SIGHT WORDS:  for, have

LETTER:  Uu

MATH:

We are practicing counting by 1’s, 2’s, 5’s and 10’s.  Looking at 3d shapes.  Learning about measurement and length.

WRITING:

Our March journal has us writing about St. Patrick’s Day and different things involving books.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:

We will be finishing up on patriotic symbols.  We read about camping.

WEATHER:  This weather has been crazy!  Cold then warm!  We no longer have snow on the playground but it is muddy in spots.  The children don’t have to have snow pants for snow—but if you want them to wear snow pants to be warm, please continue to send them.  I have suggested to the children to continue to wear boots until it dries up out there to help save their shoes from becoming a muddy mess!

                          

                                    Week of February 29- March 4, 2016

Welcome to Kinder Camp Read S’More!

We had a very exciting start to our reading month today!  We ate some s’mores while listening to stories, watched a Casper ghost story, went on a bear hunt, learned how a tent is put up, learned how to tie a knot, and sang some camp songs! 

We have a tent and lawn chairs in our classroom for quiet reading time.  Each child is encouraged to bring a small stuffed animal and a small flashlight for special reading times.  I was in Walmart and back in the sporting good section they have small flashlights for $1.00!

This Friday, March 4 is dress up like a camper.

                   March 4, Library day!

Friday, March 11 is Favorite character dress up day.

THURSDAY, March 17 we will all wear green for camping and St. Patrick’s

         day—in the afternoon the Irish dancers will perform for us at 2:00.

Friday, March 18 is dress miss-matched day

             March 18              LIBRARY DAY!

Friday, March 25—there is NO school due to Good Friday

Friday, April 1 is our final Reading Month day and it is PJ day with a movie at the end of the day.

Please send children to school in their snow pants as they are supposed to be going outside as soon as they get to school for morning recess.  Once recess is over they have breakfast before we begin our day.  Once the snow is gone, I will let you know when snow pants are no longer needed.  Boots for sure until the mud is gone!!!

I am working on getting RAZ kids set up for the children.  It’s an awesome reading ap!  I will have a note for you to see how to set it up if you have Internet access. 

I have changed out library day to Fridays for now.  We go Friday March 4 and 18.

March is the last month for Book-it from Pizza Hut!  Keep on reading!! J

READING:  This week we will learn how to stay safe in different kinds of weather.

VOCABULARY:  safe, prepare

CATEGORY WORDS:  question words

SIGHT WORDS:  REVIEW:  my, are, have, with, is, little, she was

LETTERS:  REVIEW:  Hh, Ee, Ff, Rr, Bb, Ll, Kk, and ck (ending /k/ for short vowel words such as sock, lack, tick, luck)

WRITING:  We are starting a new March journal.  The format starting this month allows for more writing.  February journals will go home Friday with progress information.

MATH:  Math this week is concentrating on measuring and comparing measurement.  We will also be reviewing 3D shapes and skip counting by 2,5,and 10.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:  We have finished up dental health and are about done with patriotic symbols.  The children heard the Star Spangled Banner this week.  We will continue to talk about weather/seasons that we are reading about with our reading series.

Student of the week:

Grayson:  He likes pizza and spaghetti.  He likes to learn, play video games, play outside and go fishing.  His favorite movie is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  His favorite book is Dinosaur Data.

Week of February 22-26, 2016

Dates:

Tuesday March 1 --we kick off our “Camp Read S’more” reading month

Wednesday March 2—We can read with a SMALL stuffed animal

Friday March 4—We come to school dressed like a camper

Friday March 5—Progress Reports home

Reminder:  Please send your child to school with their snow gear on.  A lot of time is wasted getting dressed instead of getting outside for morning exercise and fresh air. 

Reading Month:

The whole month of March is reading month.  Our theme this year is camping.  We are “Kinder Camp Read S’more”!  Each of the children have made a tent with their picture inside to decorate out above their lockers.  I have a ‘S’more’ that we will put their favorite book on for another bulletin board.  I hope to get a ‘campsite’ set up in the classroom for special reading time.  Each child may bring in a SMALL stuffed animal and a SMALL flashlight for special reading times.  We will be cleaning out their book boxes and sending home their books they brought in at the beginning of the year so we can store our stuffed animals and flashlights there!  Please write their name on both—or I can when they arrive to school! 

There are fun days and dress up days planned throughout the month.  I will send home a calendar with these events on it!

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:

AVA:  Ava can ride a bike with no training wheels.  She loves her pink blanket and her bed.  She has a birthday in September.  Her favorite movie is Frozen.  She likes to eat pink fluff, noodles and fruit.  Her goals are to build stuff and work, Ava’s favorite book is Look out Kindergarten here I come.

Tuesday was our 100^th day of school.  We had a great time making our hats out of ten strips of paper with ten things on each strip!  We sang “Happy 100’s day” (to the Happy Birthday tune) and counted by 1’s, 5’s and 10’s to 100!

READING:

This week we are working on the letter Kk and final –ck .  Our new sight words are she & was.  The book we are reading is Rain.  We will be studying various types of weather.

Vocabulary:  predict & temperature

Category words—weather words

Comprehension—We are learning about sequence in stories.  What happen first, next, last.  When you read a story to your child you could ask them to retell you the story by telling what happened first, next and last.

Writing:

I started the children on writing folders.  They each have a ‘word wall’ book in their folder that they will write sight words, color words and friends names in.  I also gave them each a popsicle stick with and eye on it—it’s their ‘space man’.  The ‘spaceman’ is to remind them to leave a space after each word when they are writing a sentence.  We also are keeping their journals and any books they are writing in the folder. 

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:

We finished up on presidents and have moved in to dental health.  We have a dental assistant coming to see us on Thursday.  We have read informational texts to show teeth, how to care for teeth and what happens when teeth start to wiggle and fall out!

 MATH:

We have done a lot of counting around 100!  We also started to talk about the = and + signs and have practiced some simple adding problems. 

I will be sending home a list of sight words next week for the children to practice as we are nearing another report card period in March. 

Week of January 25-29

Please return all library books.  Our next visit to the library is Monday February 1.  I will not be here on Monday, but Mrs. Sikkema will be and she will get them to the library at their normal time.  They will again be bringing new library books home to read with you.

READING:   Our book this week is A Grand Old Tree.  We will learn names of tree parts and what living things need.

Letter this week is Ee

Sight Words:  are, had

Vocabulary words:  amazing, develop

Category words:  tree parts (trunk, bark, roots, branches)

Writing:  Friday January journals will be coming home with our report cards.

Math:  We are graphing, ten frames, working with shapes—learning 3-d shapes (cube, sphere, triangular and rectangular prism, cone)

Science/Social Studies:  Continuing looking at winter activities and animals.

Student of the week:  Jane

Jane is 6.  She is the youngest of 2, has brown hair and loves water.  She likes to eat spaghetti and tacos.  Her favorite book is a bog book of Frozen and she likes the movies Frozen and also Soul Surfer.