April 6, 2018

Hi Fish Families!

It has been another great week in the fish class. We made spring sun catchers for our windows, finished editing and "fancying up" our narrative writing pieces, and learned about avid reading! Today we were able to tour the second grade Wax Museums. They worked hard on their fairy tale character study and it was great to see their learning on display.

Spring has (hopefully) arrived and with it comes the date of our last day of kindergarten. Our last day together will be Tuesday, June 12. This date is earlier than the rest of SMS to allow us time to screen the in-coming kindergarten students. There will be a small celebration for families that morning at 9:30. The children will be dismissed by 11:00. If this early dismissal time on the last day of school poses a problem to your family, please let me know as soon as possible. 

App of the Week: Find Sums

Up-Coming Events:

• Early Release- Wednesday, 4/11
• Jump Rope for Heart- Friday, 4/20
• School Vacation Week- 4/23-4/27
• See Science Center Field Trip- 5/24
• EHS Childrens' Theater Field Trip- 5/30

Have a nice night.

Kristen

March 30, 2018

Hello Fish Families!  

The 3rd marking period ended today. Progress reports will be sent home on Friday, April 13 for the purpose of reporting attendance. Conferences replace traditional grading this quarter.

Here is a glimpse into our week in the fish class:


Readers' Workshop: The children have been working on their book talking skills in partnerships this week. We have been discussing characters and how they are feeling. Some children are making connections to a time they have felt the same way their characters were feeling. Our readers are also recommending books to their peers. It is wonderful to see the children reading books that can help develop comprehension skills!

Writers' Workshop: Our authors are wrapping up our Narrative unit. They chose the piece they would like to edit/fancy up next week. Our next unit of study will be informational writing. We will focus on "How To" books. The children will get the opportunity to write books that teach others how to do something they are good at. 

Math Workshop: We are have been playing lots of addition dice game this week focusing on taking the larger number and counting on. 

Handwriting: The children did a rabbit draw along and made collage kites to get us ready for spring. 

Up-coming events:

• Word of the week- on
• Handwriting letters- f and q
• Early release- 4/4 & 4/11
• April vacation- 4/23- 4/27

Enjoy your weekend!

Kristen

March 16. 2018

Hi Fish Families.

Just a quick post tonight...

Thank you to everyone who came out to support the school budget last Friday night!

Your readers are working on retelling their just right books. They are making sure to include who the story is about, where the story takes place and what happens (in order.) This retelling aligns perfectly with writing because our true stories need to include all of that information, as well.

We finished up Unit 3 in math and are moving on to Unit 4 Operations and Algebraic Thinking. This unit focuses on addition and subtraction. 

We have been reading some leprechaun tales this week and many of the children are blaming little noises and things dropped on the ground on these little people, so they built traps today. I'm sure they will let you know on Monday if they caught anything. 😉

Fingers crossed that the next snow storm TRULY goes out to sea!
Kristen     

Up-coming Events:

Music Hall Field Trip- 3/20
Parent/Teacher Conferences- 4/4 and 4/11
Handwriting letters- m and h
Word of the Week-go
April Vacation-4/23-4/27

Game Day

Game day was a huge success! Thank you for sending in games to share. I have some new favorites to purchase for my family. 😊

Here are some pictures from today:

Have a great "Spring Forward" weekend!
Kristen

February 16, 2018

Hello Fish Families!

I hope this post finds you all relatively healthy. We have 5 more fun days until everyone can rest up and recharge (and we can get SMS germ free!) Monday is crazy sock day. Tuesday is wear your favorite hat day. Wednesday is mismatch clothes day. Thursday is dress up as your favorite book character day. Friday is cozy/pj/stuff animal day!

Valentine's Day was fun this week. The children had a chance to open all their special mail and we made edible love bug cookies. The pictures should be on Seesaw. Be sure to check them out!

Readers' Workshop: Our readers are practicing using their extra-strength picture power. We can't just quick look anymore. We have to use the whole picture and think about what we see. Snap/high frequency words help us when patterns are gone in our more challenging books. The children are practicing looking at more complex text, finding familiar words, then reading the page. This will help boost confidence before tackling a tricky page of text.

Writers' Workshop: Our writers are working on including vowels/superstars in the middle of the words they are writing. They are also using our word wall to use and correctly spell our kindergarten "snap" words. The children are writing great true stories about all the rich experiences they are having with their families!

Math Workshop: We are continuing our work with teen numbers by playing games and using tallies and 2 ten frames to build and represent the "tricky teens."

Handwriting: We are working hard on learning how to write lowercase letters. We are about half way through the alphabet. I am encouraging the children to begin to use the letters we have practiced when writing their names. Conventional name writing is a goal by the end of kindergarten. 

Up-coming events:

• Word of the week- we
• Handwriting letters- k and y
• Lively Letter- superstar e
• February vacation- 2/26-3/2
• Field Trip permission slips due-2/23

Enjoy your weekend!

Kristen

February 9, 2018

Hi!

We celebrated the 100th day of school (quickly) on Wednesday. It is a huge milestone to reach day 100 of kindergarten! The children wrote a class book and did special activities involving the numeral 100. 

SMS kicked off the Winter Olympics with a whole school morning meeting today. Mr. Flaim (a SMS father and Stratham resident) spoke to the school about his experience speed skating in the Olympics. Each class has adopted a country for the winter games. The fish have Madagascar.  Did you know Madagascar is competing this year for the first time since 2006? We made a flag for our country and decorated it with lemurs. 

The children are enjoying their time in the Fish Post Office and are getting their valentines mailed. 

Have a nice weekend.
Kristen

Up-coming events:

• Word of the week- up
• Handwriting letters- e and l
• Lively Letters- x and y
• February vacation- 2/26-3/2
• Field Trip permission slips due-2/23

2/2/18

Happy Super Bowl Weekend!

Progress reports were sent home today. Please sign and return the envelopes to school. The progress reports are for your records. You might see a "WA" on Encore grades. That means "With Assistance."

Here is what we have been working on in the fish class:

Readers' Workshop: Your readers have been tackling more challenging books! They are finding the more complex pattern and using it to read their books. They are learning to monitor their reading, too. Readers always ask; Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense? If no, they go back and fix it. We have been working on consonant clusters/blends at the beginning of words. Our readers are also beginning to read all the way through a word they are figuring out. Beginning and ending sounds help us read words. 

Writers' Workshop: Our kindergarten authors are amazing me with their writing! They are writing true stories about their lives. This week we tried to add speaking bubbles to bring our stories to life. The children are writing sentences, trying to remember spaces between their words. 

Math Workshop: We continue to work on teen numbers during math time. The children are building numbers using ten frames and cuisenaire rods. They are beginning to understand that teen numbers are "ten plus some ones." The QuickImages app has an option for teen ten frames and the children are enjoying using it. 

Visual Arts: We have been busy making mittens for our bulletin board and heart sun catchers for our windows. The children have been "baking" up a storm with some chocolate playdough, too.  

Science: We began having science talks this week. The children are amazing me with their 'wonderings' about ramps and balls. Be sure to ask your child about their thinking about the various balls we used this week. (Koosh, tennis, wooden, ping pong, golf) They are recording their experiments and are labeling like scientists. They are using their "data" to defend their findings when we have our science talks. 

Books We Read: Groundhog's Day Off, Groundhog Gets a Say, Annie and the Wild Animals, The Mitten, Without You, A Silly Snowy Day, The Biggest Snowball Ever, 50 Below Zero

Donation Request: Valentine stickers, wax paper, ziplock sandwich bags

Up-Coming Events:

• Early Release- Wednesday, 2/7
• Valentines due- Monday, 2/5
• Word of the week- do
• Handwriting- u & i
• Phonics- w and h

Fondly,

Kristen