Team Aaron!

I sure love this picture of Aaron and his family before his procedure. You all look so brave! We are proud of you. We are sending lots of smiles and happy thoughts your way!

Author/Book Study: Mo Willems

In reading we focused on Mo Willem's Pigeon books. The kids (and I) absolutely love this book! There are so many fun lessons to be incorporated with these. We revisited plot, making inferences and predictions, dialogue, comparing and contrasting and creative writing. These books are a fabulous read for this age to help them with fluency and expression. 

Toothless!

These sweet kinders came back from break with two or more teeth missing on the top/bottom or both! Loving these toothless grins 😊.

Rainbow Connections

This week we are looking at rainbows in science. We learned the color pattern, how a rainbow is formed, and revisited "refraction" and "reflection." 

When talking about light entering a prism, we looked at how the light can hit the stone on my ring and the effects of that. This something they could make a connection to because most of their moms wear a piece of shiny jewelry (necklace/ring, etc).

Wish List:

Triple A Batteries

Double A Batteries 

Both for listening center electronics. Thanks in advance!

Team Aaron!

We're rooting for you, buddy! Be brave, be strong 😊

Happy Easter!

I hope everyone had a fabulous spring break and a great Easter! I'm excited to see you all tomorrow! 

Following Directions...The First Time

When we get back from break, you'll see pages like this coming home. It's a picture and it will say "listening activity." It is a set of skills that teaches direction skills the first time. I will give a specific instruction only one time and not repeat it. It's very frustrating for them at the beginning but they quickly catch on that they have to be focused and listening. Following directions the first time is a big skill in kindergarten. At home I encourage you to give your kinder steps to follow and have them repeat it back to you before doing it. This builds lots of responsibility! It's always quicker to just do things ourselves or find ourselves repeating several times, good way to break the habit. 

Show Your Dragon PRIDE!

We had a great class discussion on what it means to be a leader not a follower. They enjoyed the quotes on the bottom and were actively involved in our if/then statements. They did a short writing piece and we hung our chart on the door to refer back to. 

Paragraph Writing

Word Problem Detectives!

This week we really challenged our brains with writing and solving word problems. By the end of the week the crew seemed a lot more confident! 

Bubble Science!

A HUGE thank you to Mrs. Butler for planning a fun bubble investigation. The crew learned all about water molecules, surface tension and so much more! They made predictions on whether or not they thought the shape of the bubble wand would affect the shape of the bubble. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Plot

The plot of the story is made up of the problem, important events, and the resolution.  (Beginning-Middle-End)

Today we read, "Froggy Gets a Doggy"...

First. Froggy wanted a doggy, but his mom decided on a bunny and some other animals.  Then, when they got to the pet store, he saw several different pets, but he made a special connection with a doggy.  In the end, Froggy and his family took the doggy home and Froggy had to learn all the responsibilities of being a pet owner.  

Coming Soon: Genius Hour!

I am thrilled to say that Genius Hour will be kicking off this week with some introductions to what it is and a brainstorming session.  Tomorrow, Wednesday, students will bring home a parent letter explaining to you what Genius Hour is and a small packet that will need to be returned NO LATER than Tuesday, 3/29.  Due to not having iPads/tablets for students to individually use in the classroom, they will need to gather their research materials at home, library, etc..  The packet that you will complete with them will help guide them to what they really want to dig deep in.  This can be ANYTHING!  They will need to bring back 3 different resources to help guide their research.  We will continue this project over a few weeks (it's one hour per week).  Our Genius Hour will be on Friday afternoons.  As you will see on the packet, they get to choose what they'll create to present what they've learned.  If they need materials to create something, you will need to send those in.  This project is for the kindergartner to complete independently.  Getting the research materials and completing the 4-step project proposal is a joint effort between you and your child, everything else is up to them in the classroom!  This is a time for the teacher (and parents) step back to be the facilitator and let the kiddos take charge.  I'm really looking forward to starting this and thank you in advance for your support at home!  Please contact me with any questions you may have.

VIP: Scarlett

Looks like Scarlett and Truman had a fun weekend at Grandma's! Can't wait to hear about it today for Truman Talk Tuesday. This is a great opportunity for students to practice their presentation/speaking skills in front of a group!

Light Investigations!

Thursday we investigated refraction. The crew was quite amazed!

Light!

This week we continued our light science! We had some fun investigations with shadows and light. Your kinder will knock your socks off with their knowledge on this. We enjoyed testing things with a flashlight to see if they're: opaque, translucent or transparent. 

Apologizing...

At this age its important that we model how to do things so children know what to do in certain situations. I find myself prompting them on apologizing so today we made a chart for them to refer to on how to have this conversation with a pal. Please incorporate this at home also! When someone apologizes we discuss that we don't tell someone "it's okay," but instead, "thanks for the apology," or "apology accepted."

We also revisited the "stop means stop the first time" conversation. We added some visuals to our wall as a reminder. 

Summarizing!

This week we focused on summarizing. We defined this as: retelling the story in a shorter way, including all the important parts. (Ask them to teach this to you with hand motions.) There is a summarizing sheet coming home to use as a resource at home to help prompt book conversations. Ask them about our read alouds this week!

Put Me In, Coach!

Seriously loving this jacket!!! Benji is ahead of the game for football season!

Bedtime Math!

Hi Parents!

I mentioned this app to several of you, but it would be fabulous for the whole crew! It's a new problem each day and one you can discuss without paper/pencil which makes it easy to put into bedtime routine and is fun. You can adjust the difficulty at the bottom. I'd love to hear about it if you start incorporating it at home!

VIP: Cate

What a fun weekend Truman had with Cate!

Summarizing (Done by the whole crew!)

We read the story, The Crocodile Who Didn't Like Water.  The main character was a "crocodile" and his brothers and sisters.  The problem in the story was that the little crocodile didn't like water but his siblings did.  He was tired of feeling lonely so he gave swimming a try.  Then, one day he had a big sneeze, and fire came out!  It turns out that little crocodile was in fact a dragon.  He was born to fly and breath fire. 

Conference Times!

Thank you in advance for being prompt to your conference time!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

All week we've been having so much in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday! Today we were detectives looking for evidence on why the day was a "Wacky Wednesday" in Dr. Seuss' book. We've talked about rhyming words, word patterns, onomatopoeia and laughed...a lot!!! We've looked at Dr. Seuss quotes and talked about the meaning behind them. 

Yesterday, we had the pleasure of a guest reader to read "Oh the Thinks You Can Think!" Allison is a volunteer member of the Young Lawyers Division of BAMSL. The kids really enjoyed her read aloud and talking about their favorite books. Even better, Allison and I went to high school together! It was great to see her and catch up. The kids just thought that had to have been forever ago that we were in high school and couldn't quite believe it :). A big thanks to Allison for taking time out of her day to support reading and hang out in our classroom! 

Math Tools & Tricks!

Today in math we had a good discussion about how takes a lot of brain power! Mathematicians use tricks and tools to solve equations. Today we used a 120 chart to use subtraction to find the missing adden. 

VIP!

Look at all the fun Truman had with Alexandra!

Gardening!

Monday gardening! Learning about plant parts, making connections between us and plants and planting onions...