January 30

Hi Fish Families!

I have more highlights for you this week:

• Cans due- ASAP
• Early Release-Wednesday, 2/4/15
• RECALCULATED 100th day of school- Friday, 2/6/15
• Please sign and return Progress Report envelopes. The actual reports are for your record
• We predicted the outcome of Sunday's game. 16 of us think the Patriots will win and 2 think the Seahawks will be champs
• We are in need of small drinking cups (bathroom size) for our snack cart
• February vacation- 2/23-2/27
• Valentines due- Tuesday, 2/3
• 100 Day projects can be sent in when you are done

Enjoy all this snow!

Kristen

January 23

Hi Fish Families!

I sent home our weekly math homework today instead of Monday to give you some extra time since it is more of a project than traditional homework.  I will be sending our Valentine list on Monday as well for homework. 

I just want to highlight some information for all of you in place of my usual weekly review.

• Progress reports will be sent home Friday, 1/30
• 100 Day cans and projects are due by Monday, 2/2
• Valentines are due Tuesday, 2/3
• There is an early release day scheduled for Wednesday, 2/4
• The 100th day of school is projected for Wednesday, 2/4 (as long as we don't have any snow days)
• February vacation week is 2/23-2/27
• Handwriting letters- d and g
• Sight word- like
• Lively Letters- x and y

Think snow! (Our playground could certainly use some!)

:) Kristen

January 19

Dear Fish Families:

The 100th day of school is fast approaching! In celebration of this big day, all of the kindergarten classes will be participating in a service project. We are hoping each child will bring in 1 can of food. Mr. Fosher will be helping us to count the 100 cans in different ways and we will then donate them to a food bank. We would like to have the cans sent in by 2/2/15. Thanks for your support with this!

Here are some highlights from the past week:

Writers' Workshop:  The children have been writing list books. We began writing "The" books (The pencil. The paper. The markers.) and moved on to "I see..." books. We started reading list books that have a twist (an ending that changes). The children can identify the twists in books and some of them are beginning to apply this technique to their writing.

Readers' Workshop:  The children continue to read independently and in partners. They are making connections, thinking and talking about books. We are revisiting what Readers' Workshop looks and sounds like since the children seemed to need reminders this week. 

Literacy: We worked on lowercase v and w this week during handwriting. Our Words Their Way sorts are continuing. Some children revisited rhyming, some worked on long and short vowels, and others continued with initial consonant sorts. I was able to visit a first grade classroom during their WTW time. The class I saw glued their spelling sort into a booklet to keep as a reference when reading/writing. I loved this idea and plan to use it with the fish! Mrs. Quinn assessed the children on how many sight words they can read. They continue to make progress. Please keep reviewing these important high frequency words at home.
 
Math:  The children have been working on the different ways to show the numbers 5 and 6 using 2 different colored unifix cubes. Building these different combinations will lead to an understanding of addition problems as the year progresses.  
   
Visual Arts:  We made melting snow people this week. 

Book of the Week:  The Mitten Tree by Candace Christiansen

Donation requests:

• sandwich bags (Ziploc type)
• snack bags (Ziploc type)

Up Coming Events:

• Word of Week- can
• Handwriting-t & a
• Phonics- superstar i
• Progress Reports sent home-1/30/15
• 1 can of food- 2/2/15
• Early release- 2/4/15

Fondly,

Kristen

January 9, 2015

My apologies Fish Families! I just found this blog entry today. I never took it live last week. I will be sending my new post some time this weekend! Kristen


Dear Fish Families:

Here is a glimpse of our week:

Writers' Workshop:  We have begun our "List Book" unit. We have been reading lots of list books and talking about characteristics. The children are great at finding the patterns that list books have. We are also working on identifying the 1 idea or topic. We will begin writing our own list books next week after we learn a few more characteristics. 

Readers' Workshop:  We have been using the pattern to help us read our "just right" books. The children chose new reading spots this week and were assigned new partners. They seemed excited about the changes. I have been working on mid-year assessments for our progress reports. The growth these children are making is AMAZING to see!

Literacy: The children learned about lowercase letters. We began with c, o, and s which aren't formed differently, just smaller. It helps the difficult transition to the use of lowercase letters. I read a few versions of The Mitten during shared reading. We compared the stories, focusing on similarities and differences. We also are working on retelling stories.  Before break, the children were working on concept sorts in preparation for their spelling sorts. This week, the children began their individualized sorts depending on where they are as writers. Most of them are at the stage where they are sorting by initial consonant sounds, some are sorting by long and short vowel sounds.
 
Math:  We have LOTS of mid-year assessment going on this month! The results will be reflected on our progress reports.  Meanwhile, we have found time to introduce the pan balance as a tool to help measure light and heavy. The children worked in small groups to explore with the balances. Next, they were asked to measure from lightest to heaviest. This was done without adult assistance. All of the groups ended sorting the objects into two piles (light and heavy).

Here is a picture one of the groups took to record their work.

Individual center sort

The following day, as a class, we arranged them from lightest to heaviest.

Whole class sort

   
Visual Arts:  Snow people are everywhere in the fish class! The children painted sparkly snowpeople and used cray pas to add details. They then created 3D sculpture versions using model magic. They painted background using water paints to make another creation on Monday. We also made symmetry mittens.

Book of the Week:  The Mitten by Jan Brett

Song of the Week: "The Numeral Song" by Dr. Jean (We used a video version focusing on number formation)


Up Coming Events:

• Word of Week- to
• Handwriting- v and w
• Phonics- j (ch was our focus this week)
• No school- Monday, 1/19/15

Stay warm,

Kristen