January 30-February 3

February 10—Smokey Bear visits

February 14—Valentine’s Party

February 17 & 20 NO SCHOOL

February 22—progress reports go home

February 23  -–Conferences (4-7 is scheduled—mine will be from 12-430 or call and we will set up a different time.  That evening is when I have the dinner to receive the award from the Conservation group!)

February 23—possible sledding party?????

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:  Levi

Levi likes to ride his new bike.  He likes to go to the farm. He likes to play tractors.

Levi’s favorite movie is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  His favorite book is Batman and Avengers.  Levi wants to be a farmer and also wants to play basketball.

READING: 

This week we are reading An Orange in January.  It’s about how an orange grows in the south and how we get it to the store for us to buy even in January.

The pace in kindergarten is growing, starting this week—we now have 2 letters and 2 sight words and are doing more writing. 

LETTERS:  Ff & Rr

SIGHTWORDS:  he & with

VOCABULARY:  Fresh, delicious

CATEGORY WORDS:  fruits and vegetable words

WRITING: 

We have finished pattern books.  I am holding on to them for now as we are using the children’s writing in our staff development meetings.  Once they determine which we need to keep for their academic folders that stay at school, I will be putting the remainder in their scrapbooks that will go home at the end of the school year! 

This week we are moving on to small moments.  We will read books to show examples of a small moment, then writing a class book (ours will be about our Thanksgiving experiences we had in the classroom)

MATH:

We are soaring through counting by 1’s to 75, 2’s to 10, 5’s to 15 and 10’s to 100!  We are using Jack Hartman’s youtube videos to help us and we are having a ball doing it as Jack gets us up and moving!  I am working to try to get all the links and I will share them with you once I do—but if you Google JACK HARTMAN counting—they should pop up and I bet your child can recognize them!  We love him!!!  He’s been a part of my teaching for years—love even his rhyming videos!!

We are also learning about the equal and addition sign for solving simple  math problems.  And we are continuing our journey through the teen numbers—counting, reading and writing them!

SCIENCE & SOCIAL STUDIES:

We are still learning about winter and winter animals.  This week we are also learning about Punxsutawney Phil for Thursday!  We have read about Groundhog day and will be watching a few videos before Thursday!  We will also vote on Wednesday to see who thinks he will see his shadow and who thinks he will not!

I learned about an avocado boat this last week so I ordered one!  (Love Amazon sometimes!)  We now have an avocado seed floating in a dish and are patiently waiting for the roots to start growing!  I was also given an amaryllis bulb as a gift after Christmas so we are watching it start to take off!  Seems to grow a bit every day!  The leader of the day gets to give it a drink of water

I’m hoping we can find a day in the next week or 2 to get back down to the Butterfly garden and check out what is happening now that it’s winter!  We then come back and write/draw what we find and are adding it to our seasonal time line!

Which reminds me—we also do a child time line!  Please find a baby picture of your child and send it to me either in their folder (I will make a copy and return it) –or email it to me and I will print it off mthompson@mcbain.org.

We then have the children write what they can do when they were a baby, what they look like now and can do as a kindergartener and what they will be when they grow up—we learn about past, present and future by doing this.

If you want to subscribe to my blog go to it on www.mcbain.org, to to the teacher pages and on the right side --click follow by email and submit.  I try to get it done between Sunday and Monday—sometimes it’s Tuesday!  But then you get it when it’s done!

Please return all gym January calendars and all Book-it calendars.

Library books should all be back as we go to the library tomorrow.

VALENTINE”S DAY PARTY:

Our party will be on February 14.  We will begin at 12:45 with passing out our Valentines, reading some books and watching a Valentine movie.  Then we have recess from 1:35-2 –at that time the 2 parent volunteers will help dish up treats and we will eat our treats after we return from recess.

The following is what some signed up to bring.  If you cannot donate to the party please let me know soon so I can make arrangements to have the items ready for the party.

24 plates—Emelia

24 small cups Nathan

Apple juice—Natalia

Apple Juice—Payton

Veggies & Dip—Bailee

Crackers & Cheese—Sophie

Finger Jello—Kaitlyn

1 bag of conversation hearts—Natalia

Parent Volunteers—Jessica O & Katiane Myers

Here is the list of children’s names for Valentine’s-try to have them write their own name and if possible their friends names!

Easton                  Abby            Brian           Payton                  Ayden

         Case            Chloe           Marie          Caleb           Taylor        

Sophie         Lyndon         Nathan        Kaitlyn                 Levi           

Tanner         Natalia                 Miguel                  RaeLynn               

Dianna         Emelia                  Bailee          Ms. Thompson

Mrs. Goodrich        Mrs. Bronkema

January 23-27

Glad to have a week with no snow days!!!!

Friday is homecoming!  Wear green and gold!! 

Book orders due Friday!

Tuesday, Feb 14—Valentine’s Day party

Friday February 17 and Monday Feb 20--No school.

Parent/Teacher conferences are February 23.  I will be receiving an award from the Missaukee Conservation group that night for the nature things I do in the classroom!  I will hold conferences earlier that afternoon or at other times.  Some may be made via phone!  Contact me if you want one and I don’t get a hold of you!  (mthompson@mcbain.org)

We have had the DIBELS and AIMS assessment—when the scores come back I will share them!  NWEA (the computer assessment) is next week Wednesday and Friday.

READING:

We are reading a book about living things.  Our big book is about trees and we are learning about their characteristics.   

LETTER:  Ee

SIGHT WORDS:  are & had

VOCABULARY:  develop, amazing

CATEGORY WORDS:  tree parts

WRITING:  We are finishing up our pattern books.

SCIENCE and SOCIAL STUDIES:

We are finishing up our look at winter with winter animals and also what do different animals do in the winter.

MATH:  This week we continue looking at teen numbers.  We will be reading, writing teen numbers and looking at ten frames and using the base ten blocks to make teen numbers.

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:   Kaitlyn:

Kaitlyn loves dancing,   She has pierced ears and wears glasses.  Kaitlyn likes pizza and ice cream!  Her favorite movie is Frozen and favorite book is the Children’s Bible.  Her goals are to have perfect attendance in kindergarten (which she has so far) and to learn to read. 

Headstart and GSRP are beginning enrollment for the fall preschool programs—call 1-800-443-2297 for 3&4 year olds.

If you have a child that is ready for Kindergarten, we are beginning the enrollment process as well—call Mrs. Hill at 825-2021.

Week of January 9-13             

January 16—Delayed Start
January 19 & 20— ½ day--early dismissal 11:55
January 20—Possible Kindergarten sledding party
January 27—Report cards home/Homecoming basket ball game

STUDENT OF THE WEEK:  Caleb
Caleb loves his mommy, likes to kayak and swing.  He likes to eat chicken, corndogs, pizza and shakes.
His favorite movie is The Avengers and Spider Man.
Caleb wants to be a super hero, firefighter and a cop.  His favorite book is Green Eggs and Ham.

READING:
We are reading My Garden by Kevin Henkes.  This week we will be talking about what living things need.

Vocabulary:  require, plant

Category words:  Size words (when talking use size words like big, little, small, large, etc.)

Comprehension:  While reading to your child, talk about the characters, setting, what event happens in the story, talk about the beginning, middle and end of the story.

Phonics:  Letter Hh

Sight words:  my, at
Beanie Baby strategy; Repair bear reminds us to stop once in a while reading and check to make sure we are understanding the story.  If not, we need to go back and re-read.

Writing:
We are working on pattern books.  We will finish editing and share with a friend and then the group.  Then we will do a draw the snowman rhyme picture.  I will read the rhyme and they will draw.  We are also working on punctuation, capital at the beginning of our sentences and spaces between our words.

Social Studies/Science:  Reading winter and hibernation stories and also reading some Martin Luther King books.

MATH:
This week we are reviewing shapes (2d shapes) and then introducing 3d shapes (or solid shapes)—cube, sphere, hemisphere, cone, rectangular prism and triangular prism.  We are working on teen numbers, writing them and reading them using ten frames and base 10 blocks

Weather permitting we are hoping to have a Kindergarten sledding party on Friday January 20 at about 10:45.  We will be out about ½ hour and come in to have hot chocolate while we watch a short movie before heading home at 11:55.  Anyone willing to come about 10:30 to help assist pushing kiddos down the hill?
(We will have a normal academic day until 10:30 when we will prepare to go outside)

End of December 2016 first week back in 2017

Dec 21—1/2 day/Sing-a-long at 8:30

Christmas party, PJ day, gift exchange.

January 3—school resumes

Book order should arrive any day!

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.

Christmas party sign up

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

We will be working on the following some this week and the first week back in January.

Reading:

Book:  Roadwork

Letter: Review Ii, Nn, Oo, Cc, Dd

Sight Words:  First 15 sight words

Vocabulary:  improve, community

Category Words: position 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 a period, exclamation or question mark.

Writing:  We write every day in our journals—December journals go home on Wednesday.  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: Finishing our exploration of our 5 senses as well as reading about Christmas and holiday things families do.
When we return in January we will begin investigating winter.

Student of the Week: Sophie

Sophie likes to color.  She likes the color blue and zebras.  Her favorite foods are spaghetti, fries and cupcakes.  Her favorite movie is Tangled and favorite book is The Lion King.  She wants to be a doctor and get a cat.