December 9th-December 13th

Hello!

Another week flew by. I cannot believe that next week we only go two and a half days before break begins! We also have our first field trip. Thanks to everyone who signed up! We will not have another sign up genius sent out as it was already sent out for Friday and the rest of next week. Please remember to come in for the gingerbread house decorating on Tuesday December 17^th from 1:00-2:00. There will be lots of candy!!

Literacy:

Writer’s workshop was all about patterned writing. This is tough right now! We read several patterned books and tried to write our own patterned book. Patterned books are books that repeat themselves or have a patter. One of our favorite patterned books we read was “If You Take a Mouse to the Movies.”

We also continued to perfect our skills with rhyming. We played even more rhyming games and tried to find rhyming words in our books. We also focused on a new site word this week…the word “of”! Several kids noticed that the “f” in “of” sounds like it should be a “v.” Those tricky site words!!

Math:

We continued our unit of measurement. We measured our name and even looked to see how many vowels and consonants we have in our name! We measured big things and small things. We also got to measure around the room using our own traced foot. This related to last week’s lesson about the king’s foot. Ask your child about that!

Centers:

We finished Netherlands on Tuesday, moved to Las Posadas on Wednesday and started Christmas on Thursday. So many holiday traditions to study! We are keeping all of their Christmas crafts here because there are so many. At the end of that unit we will send one big bag home!

I will probably send out a short blog post next week via email since it is a short week. Look for that email on Tuesday or Wednesday.  Remember next Wednesday is a half day and then we are out until January 2^nd. School resumes January 2^nd.

 

Do not forget that Friday is PJ day again!! Yahoo!

 

Hugs,

Mrs. Schultz

Welcome Back!

Hello!

I hope everyone had a safe and relaxing break. I enjoyed my time with my family but missed your little munchkins so much!

We have have kicked off our unit on holiday traditions around the world by studying Hanukkah and Sinterklaas. Each child should come home with Dreidel rules, a Star of David, a Latkes recipie and a Klompen picture (shoes similar to clogs that people of the Netherlands wear). They should also come home with lots of knew knowledge about different traditions!

Sinterklaas is from the Netherlands and is very similar to Santa Clause. He rides a horse and delivers candy to all the shoes of little kids on December 6th. Hopefully he visits us tomorrow! :) Kids leave hay and carrots for his horse with the hopes that Sinterklaas will leave them candy! Don't forget to wear pajamas tomorrow!

The upcoming traditions we are studying are Christmas and Las Posadas.

Math:
We started a new unit this week. We started learning about measurement! We are learning about non standard measurement. This means we are measuring with different objects rather than rulers, yard sticks and tape measurers. We measured with our bodies, with giant feet and tons of other objects around the room! We measured small things like pencils and large things like paper cut the size of a dinosaur! Measuring at home is easy. Pick the item you want to measure with and the item you want to measure and get going! We also compared several different items and compared measuring the same item with a different measuring tool.

Literacy:
We started a new unit in writer's workshop this week. We started our patterned writing unit. Patterned books are very popular in kindergarten so this topic was easier than we thought! We kicked off our unit by making our own class book version of "Mary Wore Her Red Dress." This was a book we read at the beginning of the year! It is a great book that helps us understand patterned writing.

We are adding a new site word to our word ring tomorrow. The word is do! Look for this word this weekend!

We also started our unit on rhyming. It is so much fun! We have played rhyming games, looked for rhymes in our own books and plan to read lots of Dr. Seuss! Rhyming games are super great for the car. You say a word and then your child has to come up with a word that rhymes. Then you switch! They say a word and then you have to come up with something that rhymes.

**We will be reading The Polar Express book next Friday the 13th...so of course we need to be in our jammies again! We will be having another pajama day next Friday. We will also be drinking hot cocoa with marshmallows. I apologize in advance for any craziness you may experience that afternoon! :)

**The sign up genius for next week was already sent out last week. I am sorry for the formatting issues.  It looks like we have a couple people set up to go to the park. Yahoo!

**Latkes were a HUGE hit today! Thanks to everyone who sent items in so we could pull this off. We definitely want to start cooking more. The kids had so much fun!

**December 17th is our first field trip! We will be going to the nursing home. We will definitely need a few parent volunteers. That sign up genius will go out next week. I just wanted you to have a heads up!

Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

Novemeber 18th-November 22nd





It's turkey week here in room 134! We have gobbled till we wobbled and we have truly enjoyed all of the learning. Ask your child to sing  Albuquerque Turkey. It is adorable!

Math:

We expanded on our unit of patterns. We learned last week that there are patterns all around us. We also learned how to start labeling our patterns. This week we discovered that there are more than just AB patterns. There are: ABB, ABC, ABCC, ABCCDD, ABCDEFG etc. There are so many neat patterns! Everyone has different ideas. It was neat to see what everyone came up with. You can continue to work on pattern making skills at home. We made patterns out of unifix cubes, beads and popsicle sticks. We also completed a pattern sheet by filling in the missing piece.

Literacy:

We added two new site words to our word ring. The new site words are: this and is. Please make sure you are sending in your site word rings everyday. You never know when we will add a new word! We received our very own site word book to take home and practiced spelling these words 100 million ways! We used our bodies to spell these words, we traced these words (on several different surfaces) and we wrote these words on our own. We also looked for all of the site words we have learned so far during our quiet reading time. Writer's workshop was super fun this week. We continued learning about labeling things. This week we focused on writing a story about an animal and we had to label the different parts of our animal! In small groups, we practiced labeling a turkey. On our own we wrote a book about a specific animal and practiced labeling it as well. Several kids did not get to finish their books. Finishing books at home is highly encouraged!!

Turkey centers:

We only visited three centers this week as it is a short week next week. We stamped feathers on a turkey using our thumb print, we traced our hand to create a turkey (using feathers and other craft supplies to make it 3D) and we also played a game called "Roll a Turkey." The song Albuquerque Turkey is from Dr. Jean and is a really fun way to sing about Thanksgiving dinner. We also learned a turkey finger play. We are "turkey-ed" out!

**We still need a few more people to send in coffee cans and oatmeal containers for drums next week. If you have any, please send them in! We also still need you to save small milk containers (like you used to get when you were a child in the elementary school cafeteria). We need these next month to build mini gingerbread houses!

**It is a short week for Thanksgiving next week as well. We have a full day on Monday and then a half day on Tuesday. After our half day, we are out of school the rest of the week.

**There will be no sign up genius next week as it is a short week.

** We will have pajama day on Friday December 6th and Friday December 13th. Yay!

**We will not have a newsletter next week either as it is a super short week! Let this weeks newsletter serve as your happy Thanksgiving! I wish everyone safe travels and full bellies. :)

Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

Short Week!

Hello! It was a short but busy week in Mrs. Schultz's class. We finished our bat centers and we are ready to move onto our next unit....Native Americans!

We really want to continue to go to the park! If you are interested in signing up, please do! We really appreciate your help. We need at least two parents (without little ones) to come along with us in order to be safe! If you can come but need to bring a younger sibling that is fine. We just need to make sure we have 4 adults with 20 kindergartners only as well.

Sign up genius link for next week is here: www.SignUpGenius.com/go/10C0C4FA5A82BA4FF2-november2 


Literacy:

On Tuesday we worked hard in writer's workshop. We focussed on labeling our pictures! We continued to make sure we had a beginning, middle and end. We also made sure that we had a title and author on our cover page! Several friends even decided to dedicate their book to someone. We are really growing as authors!

We kicked off our site word study with the word "my"! We made a huge deal about adding it to our word wall and made a deal to look for it while we read this week. We started our word rings which are supposed to come back and forth in the purple folder every day. Each week we will add a new word. It is important that we keep track of this word ring! We also learned how to spell this word by doing a variety of different activities with it. Each activity is done three times as that helps our brain remember it the best! Have your child look for the word my this weekend!

Math:

We expanded on our unit of patterns this week. We began labeling our patterns. Tuesday we started with a basic AB pattern using pattern blocks. Each child got to pick two pattern blocks and make a pattern. They were to trace these shapes and then label their pattern. This went home Tuesday afternoon. We learned that we can also find patterns in nature and that we can make patterns using humans! We made a boy/girl pattern (AB) using the class and also made a sit/stand (AB) pattern using the class as well! We also went on a nature hunt and went outside to look for patterns. We use math everyday and sometimes do not even know it!

**Please remember to send in an extra change of clothes if you have not done so already. We are messy in kindergarten and tend to have to change clothes from time to time. The weather has turned chilly, so we now need long pants and a long sleeve shirt. As soon as you send in a new change of clothes, we will send in the old warmer weather outfit. Thanks so much!!

If you can continue to bring in oatmeal containers and coffee containers to make drums soon, that would be great! We also appreciate ketchup bottles and the Gatorade bottles that have the "sport top" to use to squirt paint.

We have our Veteran's Day celebration tomorrow morning. If you can send your child to school wearing red, white or blue that would be great!

Have a great weekend!
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

November has arrived and so has the colder weather!

Hello!

We finally had a 'normal' week this week and it was great! Please be sure to send in an extra outfit with your child that is more appropriate for the colder moths. As of right now, we only have extra outfits appropriate for summer. If you can send in an extra pair of pants, socks and a long sleeve shirt by next Friday that would be great. Once we receive your new outfit, we will send back your old outfit.

Literacy:

Last week we took a close look at the beginning sounds of words to help us while we read. This week we looked at endings of words. We discovered there are lots of neat sounds at the ends of words. On Wednesday we had writer's workshop where we focused on the end of our story. We put all of our thought and effort into making sure our story had a solid ending that fit with the beginning and middle. We talked about how endings of stories relate to endings of words.

On Wednesday we got to pull out the overhead projector and study several words and their endings. That was a real hit! There were words written on the overhead projector and some of us got to come up and place a circle around endings of words. Then we got to be detectives and go around the room and look for words to write down. The next day we used a highlighter to highlight the ending.

Another great home activity would be to play the word detective game. Label things in your home
(or place words around the room) and have your child go find them and record them. You can talk about the beginning and ending sounds of each word!

Math:

We started out new unit this week on attributes and patterns! We discovered that sorting items by attributes can also help us in everyday life. When we sort things like our toys and clothes, we learn to stay organized. We learned that attributes is just a fancy word for certain characteristics of things. We got to explore with attribute blocks and the different shapes, sizes, thicknesses and colors those come in. We also played a game called "Guess My Rule" where Mrs. Schultz called children to the front based on a rule in her head. The kids had to guess what the rule was based on similar attributes that all the children up front had. We also used the projector for math where we sorted objects based on certain attributes. We then made patterns after we sorted! Playing with the attribute blocks was really neat.

We finished our spider unit on Tuesday and started diving into learning about bats! We learned that some bats like fruits, some are nocturnal and that they really are not as scary as we might think!

Be sure to remember to send your child in with a coat everyday! A hat and gloves might be a good idea in certain days as well. Morning recess can sometimes be a bit chilly.

We are super excited that we get to go watch our book buddies star in their very own class play on Friday. We hope to take lots of pictures!

**If you can start saving the mini milk cartons for a future class project that would be awesome. We will be making mini gingerbread houses out of these mini milk cartons in December. I heard that McAllisters serves their milk in these small cartons. It's the same milk cartons that you got through the lunch line when you were little!

We will also be starting 'word rings' next week. Each child will get their very own word ring to read through each night and then bring back to school each day. If you could send their words back each day that would be great! Just keep them in the purple communication folder. Each week we will add one or two new words. The words will be high frequency site words that they will come across often in their reading. Have your child read through these words each week to become familiar with them!

PLEASE DO NOT FORGET! We do not have school on Monday!

Have a great weekend!
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

October29th-Novemeber 1st

Goodbye October, Hello November!

It was so great to see everyone at conferences! I hope you all enjoyed seeing how much your babies have grown.

We also made it through our first Parade of Fiction together! Everyone looked great.

The Dad Pumpkin carving was a success! We had a blast. I am so thankful everyone could make it. The kids were so excited. I hope everyone stops by to pick up their pumpkin TODAY if you have not done so already.

Although this was a short week, it was full of learning! They started a new unit on Tuesday and will finish that next week. They began the study of creepy crawlies with spiders. They will all go to 4 centers.

Centers are as follows:
1. Spider cookie- (oreo, pretzels and icing). They have to follow a recipe and then they are supposed to teach you the recipe when they get home sometime this week or next!
2. Spider web art- Spaghetti made into a web on black paper with a spider and glitter!
3. Nonfiction spider facts: They are supposed to draw a picture of a real spider and tell what they know about spiders using facts that they have been learning about this week.
4. Spider hat: Sentence strips with black paper to make 8 eyes and 8 legs!

They also made a spider web using yarn and black paper plates. These will go home today! This was great for our fine motor skills!

Literacy:
They added another reading strategy to their reading bank this week! The new reading strategy is getting your mouth ready and looking at the beginning sounds of words. When you are reading, if you get your mouth ready for that first sound it will help you get the words out! Even if you have never seen that word before. The more reading strategies we add to our reading bank, the less we will hear them say "I don't know" when they come to a tricky word when reading.

They played "Eat My Words" this week as well. They were given a site word and they had to read it, build it (out of alphabet cereal) and then write it. At the end they were allowed to eat their words! This is another great game to play at home. You can find the alphabet cereal at Target. Call out sounds or words to your child, have them build it with the cereal and then eat it!

To continue reinforcing our reading strategy we read Brown Bear Brown Bear and practiced getting our mouth ready while we read. We also made our very first big class book and it will get passed around to each child! Practice tracking the words and getting your mouth ready when it's your turn to read.

Math:
The kids learned two new math games this week. the first game was Apples to Apples. Ask your child the chant to this game. They play this game in partners. One partner picks a handful of cubes and drops them slowly one by one in the bucket. As they drop them in the bucket, the other person has their eyes closed and they have to use only their ears to count how many cubes are being dropped. At the end, the two players check their math and switch roles.

They also learned Handy Dandy. Ask your child this math chant as well! One player gets two handfuls of counters and places them behind her back (I used mini erasers shaped like pumpkins). The other player (without the counters) picks a hand and has to count that hand. The other player then shows the other hand and they count together to figure out which hand has more and which hand has less. They can practice "counting on" as well as counting starting from one for each hand.

Announcements:
We have children frequently forgetting their water bottles! We usually just fill a cup from the water fountain. We do not have any more cups! If someone would not mind bringing in a stack of small Dixie cups that would be great! These are perfect for kids who accidently forget their water bottle.

We will also be needing oatmeal containers and coffee containers (to make drums in a few weeks). If you can start gathering these and sending them in that would be great! No rush, it will be a few weeks.

If you can start saving ketchup bottles (the kind you squeeze) that would be great as well! We like to use these to fill paint. It is super easy to fill old ketchup bottles with paint and then squeeze the right amount of paint out when we paint. Start saving them and sending them in!

We have also started to label things around the room such as: door, bathroom, chair, dramatic play etc. You can do this at home as well! You can label toys in the playroom or drawers in their bedroom for clothes. This develops fluency and helps them learn to be organized! The more children see words the better they become at reading and recognizing those words in the world and in their books.

have a safe night trick or treating! Don't forget to brush your teeth! :)

Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

Short Week!

Hello! Please remember:

1. Half day tomorrow (dismiss at 11:30) and no school Friday and Monday.
2. Conferences are tomorrow and Friday! See you there.
3. "Dad Pumpkin Carving" October 29th 12:00-1:00. If dad cannot come, one other adult may come! We just ask that only one adult come per family due to limited space. Be on the lookout for a note coming home about what to bring to this event. The note went home today.
4. Parade of fiction is October 31st 9:00-9:45. Dress up as your favorite fictional character from a book! Hope everyone's costumes are coming along.

We will be starting a new unit next week....creepy crawlies! We will begin with spiders!

This week we continued to review and wrap up our math and literacy studies. We also got to learn about the parts of a leaf and do a leaf rubbing. We searched for different leaves on the playground and field and brought them inside. We became investigators, using magnifying glasses and looked at the veins and stems of the leaves. We used oil pastels and rubbed a leaf (or two). We also compared our rubbings to the actual leaves. It was neat!

Literacy:

Please correct the ch blend and the th blend to ch digraph and th digraph. The kids and I were mixing those up! That is totally my fault. We had a big class meeting on this and everyone has started using the term "digraph" but I wanted to add it in my newsletter as well! :) Two other digraphs that we will visit some day are the sh digraph and the wh digraph. But right now were are focusing on the ch and th digraphs around the room and while we read.

We started using the Handwriting Without Tears books to begin learning how to make our letters the correct way. We also revisited our literacy games such as: Roll, Say Keep, Letter/Sound Bingo and Letter/Sound Matching. 

Math:
We worked with ten frames this week, finished up our troll graphs and played more of our old but favorite games. We will be moving right along with patterns next week! We also played Say it Fast with new dot cards and higher numbers. We continue to work on writing our numbers with the correct formation. We are getting better everyday at writing our numbers 1-20!

Please remember to bring in battery powered tea lights (found at the dollar store) for our pumpkins after they are carved! We only have a few so far!

We will be needing:
Spaghetti Noodles (one whole box, cooked)
Oreos (1 package)
White icing (Dunkin Hines-please make sure there is no dairy...if you want to check with Maxwell's mom, please do!!)

Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

We Survived!

This blog post will be short and sweet because we have something to celebrate....we survived our first play together! I think it went great! Everyone remembered their lines and songs. There were some "sillies" for sure. :) But we had fun, and gained a great experience!

Literacy:

This week we had a lot of review of the recent reading strategies we have been learning. We practiced tracking, return sweep and taking a picture walk. We also added another blend to our 'reading bank'. Charlie was our marvelous me yesterday and we noticed a new blend in his name. The Ch blend is in Charlie's name! Ch makes the same sound as a "choo choo train". So as we read this week we were looking for the ch blend and the th blend (that we learned last week). We also discovered something neat while reading the months of the year during calendar time. We learned that several months end in -er. So we also looked for other words that ended in -er. We were searching all around the room for ch and th blends and words that ended in er! This is another neat activity you can do at home. While you are reading, have your child look for words that contain these blends and have an -er ending. They get so excited! Our word sorts next week will definitely contain some of these blends because they love them so much.  Tomorrow we will be making letters and words out of play dough! This is a great opportunity to talk about where letters start (at the top). We will also talk about the different characteristics that letters have such as: big lines, short lines, half circles, full circles etc. I will call out a sound or word and the kids will build it out of play dough. Another great hands on activity that is easy to do at home!

Writer's workshop was really neat this week. We focussed on stories containing beginnings, middles and ends. We broke apart the Three Little Pigs story into beginning, middle and end. We also discussed why it is so important to have a beginning, middle and end when we write. We then took our own books and made sure to include a beginning, middle and end to our story this week. I kept all of these books to share at conferences! We also remembered to include a title and author (both are concepts we have learned previously).

Math:

We have been playing all of our review games this week and wrapping up our unit on counting and sorting as we move onto patterns next. We have really been enjoying all of our counting games and plan to still play these frequently. The kids were allowed to choose their math games this week. They chose from: Chickity Chop, Let's Go Fishing, Roll a Tower and Say it Fast. We also learned about graphing this week. Each child was given a bag of bridges, goats and tolls to sort and then graph. They had to count how many they had of each and then graph it. This was still hard, as graphing is still somewhat new....but very cool!

We finished our unit on fairytales this week by completing a hero vs. villain sort. This was displayed right outside of our classroom. We have been studying the different elements of a fairytale and this was a great way to show off some of that new knowledge! Today we had another fairytale sort. There were pictures of all of the fairytales mixed up on a sheet of paper. They had to cut out each picture and sort them according to the right fairytale and glue them in the correct column. It was hard work!

We will not be going to the park next week as our park day is a half day (the 24th) and we are already super crunched for time!

Don't forget that the Dad Pumpkin Carving is coming up (October 29th at 12:00) as well as conferences (24th and 25th of October)!

We will be needing:
1. 2 small bags of plastic spiders (not the spider rings just the small plastic spiders) to go in our sensory table
2. toilet paper rolls (no limit on these)
3. 10 one pund bags of rice (for our sensory table)
4. 2 pack of clothes pins (dollar store)

**Remember next week we have a half day on October 24th and no school on October 25th or October 28th.


Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

Preparing for the Play

October 7th-October 11th 

I think I am saying the play lines in my sleep! We have been practicing the play twice a day everyday this week. We added "costumes" and props today. They had a blast! We have worked really hard to make this play great! We are all so excited to share it with you.

**Important note about siblings coming to the play. Younger siblings are more than welcome to come to watch the play! Space will be limited, but we would love to have them join us. We are asking that you keep your older children in class so that they can continue learning! Do not forget that the play is October 15th at 11:00 am.

We finished our unit on The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Everyone should have come home with a marshmallow/toothpick bridge, and a torn troll (this was fabulous for our fine motor skills)! One other center was acting and retelling, where each child got to act out the story. The other center was a troll grass head. We planted grass seeds in a cup that we decorated to look like the troll. We already have grass growing! I think Mrs. Schultz is secretly more excited than the kids! They loved planting and have been enjoying watching them grow.

Math:

We played a new math game this week called "Let's Go Fishing." The chant goes like this...."Down by the river, down by the sea, Johnny and Sally went fishing with me. How many fish did they get?" Johnny would pull out a handful of "fish" from the "sea" (paperclips from a bowl) and then we would count them. Then Sally would pull out a handful of "fish" from the "sea" and we would count them. We would then look at who caught the most amount of "fish" and who caught the least amount of "fish." This is a great way to reinforce more/less/equal to. You can play this at home as well! We also revisited monster squeeze and a few other favorites.

Literacy:

We discussed a new reading strategy this week! Last week we talked about taking a picture walk before we read. This week we talked about "tracking" our words and remembering to "return sweep" at the end of a sentence to move to the next sentence when reading. We got to use witch fingers to help us track our words this week. How fun! We practiced tracking our words with the Five Little Pumpkins poem. One of our favorites!

We practiced more of our sight words and sounds with pretzels and marshmallows. What could be more fun? I am not sure if we did more eating or spelling, but we had a blast! This is another fun way to get practice with sight words and sounds. For sight words, you can call out a word and then have your child make that word out of pretzels and marshmallows. If your child needs more practice with certain sounds, you can call out a sound and have your child build that letter with pretzels and marshmallows. At the end, you must eat them! :) At least, we did!

We also did a very similar activity with yarn, glue and paper. I would call out a word and the kids had to spell that word with yarn and then glue it down. The same goes for sounds and letters. I called out a sound and the kids had to glue that letter down. We kept these at school, so that we could add to them next week!

We will be needing lysol wipes in the near future! We wipe down tables after snack and lunch to keep the germs away. We also wipe down at the end of the day. Lysol wipes are quick and easy! If you find them on sale or have an extra tube of lysol wipes at your house, send them in! As winter approaches, these are a must to help protect us from the germs!

We also need a few more people to send in battery powered tea lights. We will be using these to place in our pumpkins after we carve them! You can find them at the dollar store.

We are going through stickers like crazy! We love to add stickers to our books and pictures. If you ever find cute, cheap stickers...send them in as well!

Our park adventure was a success! Thanks to all the volunteers! We will go again next week.

Conferences are coming up! Please make sure you check the sign up genius and be sure you have signed up for a convenient time.

Dad Pumpkin Carving: October 29th. Don't forget!


One other reminder.....Don't forget to check out the Shutterfy website that our room parents created. There are some cute pictures up! We have been trying to remember to take more pictures during the day to post to this website! We have some very photogenic students. ;)
https://mrsschultzkand1stgradeclass.shutterfly.com

Enjoy this beautiful weather! Get outside and play this weekend!

Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

Fall Craziness

Fall Craziness

I am just going to go ahead and warn you all now. The upcoming month is going to be crazy! But crazy fun! This newsletter will be long. But please read it. It is all important information!

1. Please bring in a pumpkin by October 11th. We will be turning our dramatic play area into a pumpkin patch! We will then be using these pumpkins to carve during our dad pumpkin carving event on October 29th at 12:00. If you cannot get a pumpkin by October 11th, just bring one in as soon as you can. I understand that it is short notice! The "Dad Pumpkin Carving" that will be held on October 29th at 12:00 is a great way to get dad's involved! If dad cannot make it, an uncle, grandparent, cousin or older brother may come. If that is not possible, any adult from your family may come! We just ask that you only send one adult per child so we have a seat for everyone. It will be a blast!

2. The play is still on for October 15th at 11:00. Please make sure your are practicing your play lines every night! We will only practice as a class a few times. Make sure you are reminding your child who is speaking before them and who is speaking after them. Thank you!!

3. Conferences are coming up! This is a great time to catch up on how your child is doing and all of the wonderful things they have been creating! I will be sending out a sign up genius next week for you to sign up for a day/time to come in. The conference week will be the week of October 21st. I will send out specific details soon. Be on the lookout.

4. The Parade of Fiction will be October 31st. Our school celebrates the end of October with this parade. This is a school wide event where every child dresses up as their favorite fictional character from children's literature! It is so much fun! We highly discourage dressing up as super heroes, comic book characters and cartoon characters. Some past favorites are Clifford, Skippy John Jones, Madeline, Cat in the Hat etc. Please let me know if you need help brainstorming character ideas/costume ideas!

5. One of our room mom's Stephanie Mack has created a sign up genius for snacks for our play in two weeks. Thank you Stephanie! Please look at this sign up genius and see if you are able to bring anything to the play.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0F49AFA92EA02-October

 

6. I will be sending out another sign up genius for volunteers for next week. I know there is a lot going on and it can be overwhelming. I am so sorry for all of the dates, events and sign up genius' but I promise that the kids love it!

 

7. PARK PARK PARK!! We are finally going to the park! Yippee!! Our first park experience will be next Thursday at 9:45. We will need at least 3 adults to go with us. If we do not have at least 3 extra adults, we will not be able to go due to safety. The volunteer sign up will be sent out soon! The kids are so excited!

 

**Now for the good stuff! The learning!

 

Literacy:

 

We bean discussing beginning, middle and end. We also experimented with our first activity using a word bank. It was hard, but we will get better and better each time we practice! We discovered a new reading strategy this week. That strategy is called: a picture walk. A picture walk is where you take the book that you are reading and before you start reading the words, you look at all of the pictures. Looking at the pictures first, helps us get our brain ready for what the book will be about! That helps us with words that we might come to that we do not know. Pictures help us tremendously with words! Next time your child stumbles across a word they do not know, ask them to check the pictures and try again.

 

We also played a game called Swat. We play this game two at a time. We lay sight words on the floor and two people stand in front of the words with a fly swatter. Mrs. Schultz calls out a word and the first person to see it and swat at the word, gets to keep the word. This is a great game to play at home! You can use chalk and write words on the sidewalk. Call out the words and have your child jump to the word you called. Fun! This helps us with our reading!

 

Math:

 

We learned about a number line this week! We also increased our speed for identifying dots on dot cards by playing "say it fast" and by playing chickity chop. Both of these games are reinforcing that numbers can be represented in different ways. We added more dots as a challenge this week. Instead of dot cards 1-6, we played our games with dots 1-10. We still have to count certain patterns of cards, but most of the time we can say the number as soon as the dot card is flashed. We also made our own dot card/domino book to take home! Making dot cards at home is easy. Take a white sheet of paper and a black marker and go to town! It is really fun to let the kids make their own dot cards and play say it fast with their cards. You can make dot cards with any pattern and any quantity. I like to stick with dots 1-10 because the goal is not to count, but to be able to see the dots and quickly say the number.

Please email me with any questions! We have a lot coming up, so make sure emails and newsletters are being checked!

Enjoy the weekend!
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

Week of September 23rd

Can you believe it's almost October? I officially pulled out the pumpkin books. So exciting! This is my favorite season!

We finished Goldilocks and the Three Bears on Tuesday and started The Three Little Pigs! We have also started learning the songs for our play (date still TBA). We are visiting several stations this week and next. One station is called "muddy pigs." We get to finger paint little piggies! The interesting thing is, we learned that pigs actually prefer to be clean not dirty! The other station is acting and retelling. We get to wear a "costume" and act out the Three Little Pigs. The next station we visit is a place where we get to make a house out of straw, sticks and bricks. The last station is a pig fact book. We are learning the difference between a fact and an opinion. That's a difficult concept but they are doing really well!

Monday: Our school guidance counselor came to teach us about being kind to each other. She said that each of us has an imaginary bucket over our head. When we say something kind to someone, we fill their bucket. When we say something mean, we dip their bucket and their bucket spills. If you hear your child talking about bucket filing and bucket dipping, this is what they mean! We all strive to be bucket fillers :)

Math:
We continued to revisit our old math games this week but also learned about other math activities we can do at school and at home! On Tuesday we made a counting book. The kids were able to pick their own numbers from 1-20. They were to write that number on a page in their book and then place the appropriate amount of stickers underneath that book. They were also encouraged to write the word of the number on their page as well. We are still reinforcing the concept that numbers can be represented in different ways but they all mean the same thing. This is a neat activity that you can do at home! Make your own number book and try gluing down different objects or drawing pictures to represent that number.

Today we pretended that we were all employees at Target and we needed to take inventory. It was so neat! Each child was given a bag of items that they were to count and record. The recording part was the hardest! We were reinforcing counting using our one to one correspondence skill as well as counting in a slow, steady sequenced pace. The kids ended up counting 5 inventory bags. They loved it! It was a neat way to squeeze in math and writing while simoultaneously working on our kindergarten skills.

Literacy:

We continued to work on word sorts! We are getting into the habit of quietly reading for a long period of time while Mrs. Schultz and Mrs. Skaggs call small groups to focus on more individualized instructional needs. We worked on the "short a" sound this week. We worked on words that ended in   -at and -an. The first day we cut our word endings, pictures and words and talked about the short a sound. The next day we sorted our words and glued them into our notebooks! The next day we came up with our own words and pictures that have the short a sound. We also discovered that if we can spell the word "at" then we can also spell the words "bat, cat, mat, hat and pat." All we do is change the beginning sound and keep the same ending. Another neat discovery!

We have a lot coming up in the next month or so make sure you are checking the blog!

Important!! We need the following items for next week:

1. 4 fly swatters (can be found at most dollar stores)
2. 20 SMALL styrofoam cups
3. One bag of dirt
4. One bag of sand
5. One bag of grass seed
6. One box of toothpicks

**If you would like to purchase any of these items for next week, please hit "reply all" to the blog email I just sent and let us know you will be buying that item so that we do not get duplicates of things that are not necessary. Thank you SO much!

I also wanted to say thank you again, to everyone who continues to volunteer! It makes our classroom run smoother. The kids also enjoy showing off their mommies and daddies :) Just make sure you have turned in all of your paperwork and watched the volunteer video before volunteering in order to keep everyone safe!

**Below is a music video of the finger play we have been learning this week. We sing it a little bit differently but I also enjoy this version. Check it out!

Hugs,
Emily Schultz

Week of September 16th

We are moovin' and groovin' again this week! Lot's of new stuff happening in Mrs. Schultz's classroom.

Volunteers!

First things first. Thank you to everyone who volunteered this week! It was so great having a few extra hands in and out of the classroom. I sent another sign up genius for next week. Incase you did not get the email, here is the link to the sign up genius for next week: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0C4FA5A82BA4FF2-week

Let them play!

Leslie Tomko found this phenomenal article and passed it along. I thought it was too great not to share! It is about the importance of "play." Please take a moment to read this and truly soak it in. It literally brought tears to my eyes! It's why we do what we do in kindergarten. I am truly working on building more time into our day where kids get to be kids and do what they do best...which is play! 
**The link is: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/12/29/christakis.play.children.learning/index.html

Literacy

We jumped into a new genre this week...fairy tales! Although we were sad to leave nursery rhymes, we were excited to begin studying fairytales. We studied the different characteristics of fairytales and elements of this genre. So far the elements we have discussed are as follows: villain vs. good guy, happily ever after, once upon a time, animals talking and conflicts that end up being resolved. We focused on Goldilocks and the Three Bears this week and really enjoyed it! We visited four different stations where we really got to know the story. We also read several different versions of Goldilocks and voted on our favorite. The stations we visited were: Book making, "Wanted" poster, acting and retelling and sequencing. Each station was purposeful and meaningful to us. We began acting out Goldilocks to prepare for our upcoming play that will be coming up in the next couple of months (date TBA). It was by far my Mrs. Schultz's favorite station! We really enjoyed acting out our part of the "play" that day.

We also played several new literacy games and began our daily habit of quietly reading alone. We played roll and keep with letters and sight words. We also began discussing sounds of letters and how those sounds get "smooshed" together to make words! Such a neat discovery. We even got to play alphabet/site word bingo! What fun! This week we started to use word study notebooks and began with a sorting activity. The more we play with words, the better we become at reading!

Math

This week we jumped into a few new math games but also got to continue our oldies but goodies. We learned about estimation. To estimate means to make a guess! We got to make estimations and then check our answers. We also learned about one more strategy for accurate counting. We used ten frames to count our items this week. We learned that each ten frame has ten squares. We are counting quicker and a lot more accurately with all of our strategies now! We also started to write the number on a slip of paper after counting. Just one extra step to really connect the amount of items with that concrete number. (Devleoping number sense is key at this stage!) All of these math games are helping us discover how numbers work.

Bus Safety 

I am sure you have already heard from your little one, but we also got to go on a real bus on Tuesday! The bus was never turned on and we did not take a ride, but sitting on the bus was still way cool. We learned about bus safety and what to do if we ever needed to evacuate the bus. We learned about bus safety because at some point this year we will go on a field trip and it's important to know how to be safe. 

Rest Mats

We will do our best to send home rest blankets and towels each Friday. If you ever want me to send home the actual rest mat, just send a note and I will. The vinyl ones can probably be sprayed and I am thinking the cloth rest mats (with the attached blanket) can be machine washed. As we approach the season of lots of yucky germs and sickness, it's important to make sure we are staying as clean as possible! Just remember to send the blanket, towel or rest mat back. :)

Porridge Taste Testing

Tomorrow we will be tasting "porridge" like the 3 bears from our story! We will vote and make a graph about who likes it and who does not like it. We will then analyze our data and discuss how graphs can be used in the real world. We cannot wait to see the results and taste something new!

Have a great weekend!
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

Learning Machines!

Wow, what a busy week!

We have started to dive into a more structured routine this week. We are still learning names and making new friends, but we are definitely starting to become a true family!

Literacy

We learned the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme and finger play this week. We read the poem on our pocket chart and had several really great conversations about rhyming words, word endings and syllables in words. On Tuesday we had a really neat conversation about how syllables are related to words and in particular rhyming words such as Jill and Hill. We made another mini book and also added this poem into our poetry book. We learned the Old Mother Hubbard rhyme and learned about unusual vocabulary we might see in literature. We discussed the word cupboard and bare. We also compared the two poems and looked at similarites and differences in rhymes and vocabulary. Today we are molding playdough letters. This is a great activity to do at home if you have playdough. We get to feel the different curves and lines in letters and explore the different shapes in upper case letters and lower case letters.

Math

We continued playing our tower game but added an extra step this week. After each player rolls the die, they build their tower and they are to discuss who has more and who has less. This week after their tower was built, they were to make one large tower, count it and then decide who had more and who had less. We learned another new game called “roll and cover.” Students would roll the die and then cover up that number on their game board. We played with “dot cards” where we learned that 4 dots is the same thing as the number 4. We talked about all the different ways we can represent out numbers!

We started handwriting without tears. This program is fabulous for new readers and writers! We started practicing how to write a 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. We also learned a neat number poem to help us remember where to start our numbers and how to properly form them. For 15 minutes each day, we have been working out of our handwriting books.

We also started writer’s workshop this week! I was so proud! We learned that we are all authors. We also learned that books have a beginning, middle and end. On Wednesday we discussed details and why they are important in our writing. We found out that we can write a book with only pictures! That was such a special discovery. You will see several books come home in their purple folders. Have your child talk to you about what their books are about. You can also put these books in the book boxes we sent home last week.

It was so great to see most of you at curriculum night. Have a great weekend!

 

Hugs,

Mrs. Schultz

Short but Busy Week!

My, my my! What a busy week we have had. It may have been short, but we have been making the most of it.

This week we have started to explore with numbers, letters and words! We are almost established with classroom procedures and everyone has started learning names. My heart nearly melted today when I saw (for the first time) friends from our class shouting to say hi to other friends from our class out of car windows and across other carpool stations. We are finally becoming a family! We have been working really hard to learn names! The Higgity Biggity book that was sent home last week will hopefully be a great reference the next couple weeks while we are still learning.

Hot lunch started this week and was a bit confusing at first but we are now pros! You may want to send an extra "side item" on the days hot lunch is provided just incase the main course is not enough. And of course, don't forget to always pack a snack! Learning makes us very hungry!

Math:

We officially started "real" math stations this week and the kids were awesome! We continued counting collections and also added playdough numbers, stamping numbers and played a few math games. Some groups even started making up their own addition and subtraction problems for their friends to solve. Today we learned about "more", "less" and "equal to." We played a really neat game with unifix cubes and our game board. I told each child to go home and make up some "more, less and equal to" math problems for you guys. We will see how many remembered! ;) We also began discussing how math can be used out of the classroom and also in literacy. I saw several light bulbs going off as they began to tell me how they use math outside of school.

Literacy:

We officially started "real" literacy stations this week as well. We practiced letters and words on white boards today. That was a hit! We also used stamps, foam letters, magnetic letters and playdough letters to practice sounds and words. We read Mary Wore Her Red Dress and then sang the song plugging in our classmates and their outfits. Next week we will make our own class book. Too fun! We also focussed on Baa Baa Black Sheep this week as our main literature source. We "remixed" the original nursery rhyme and started plugging in new colors. Example: "Baa baa orange sheep have you any wool?...." I have never heard so many giggles! They loved it. We made another mini book today with Baa Baa Black Sheep as well. They love that they can "read it." Add this mini book to their collection! We should make our book boxes tomorrow so that you guys will have a place to store all of these! If we don't get to it tomorrow, we will decorate their boxes on Monday.

Standing O: We started Standing O this week. This is a school wide tradition at CSD. I had tears in my eyes as I listened to the compliments being given. Each day a name is pulled out of the hat. That person gets to come to the front of the class and every student gives that person a compliment. Even this early on in the school year, these compliments are deep and meaningful. It has been a great tool for growing our class together! Mrs. Skaggs and I also get to give compliments. It is slowly becoming my favorite part in our day.

Don't forget, you have my email and phone number! Let me know if you need anything! Enjoy your weekend!

Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

Hello!

Can you believe your kindergartner is about to finish his or her second week? Way to go!

This week has been very busy.

Math:

We have been exploring several new math manipulatives. We have learned about unifix cubes, pattern blocks, c-rods, teddy bear counters and ten frame trains. We have been coutning A LOT and we have also been making patterns. We have been sorting and categorizing different math materials and materials from around the room. We have been working on our one to one correspondence when counting to make sure we are accurately coutning each piece!

Literacy:

We have been making books! We have also been learning how to read the Itsy Bitsy Spider poem. We all received a copy of the Itsy Bitsy Spider poem and we glued it in our songs, poems and ryhmes book. We talked about the difference between books and poems and what type of literature we might want to read next. We also made our very own Itsy Bitsy Spider book today and we got to bring it home! Tomorrow we will be making a book with all of our classmates' names and pictures. Yippee!

We went to specials this week for the very first time. On Monday we went to music and art. Tomorrow (Friday) we will visit Spanish and P.E. We are all super excited to visit other parts of our school!

IMPORTANT! We need each student to bring in one shoe box. We will be decorating these shoe boxes next week. After the shoe boxes are decorated we will send the shoe boxes back home with your child. This shoe box will stay at home and this will be a place where your child can collect all of the books that we will be making this year! They can start their very own library of books that they have made.

Start saving bread tags and buttons! We use bread tags and buttons to sort, count and add/subtract. As you collect these two items, send them in with your child.

**Don't forget! We will not be in school on Monday. We are off for Labor Day! Enjoy the long weekend.

Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

P.S. Thank you to everyone who brought in supplies off of our wish list!! You guys are so great!

Hello!

Welcome to Mrs. Schultz's Kindergarten Class :)

This will be our class blog this year. This website will be updated each week with the events happening in our class and around the school. It will serve as our weekly class newsletter! The link will be sent to your email address. Normally our class newsletter will be sent out on Thursday but I wanted everyone to have this information early this first week. 

We are going to be reviewing class procedures this week. We also get to tour our school! We will be playing several name games and learning about our new friends. We will learn about the playground, and see where we will go for specials each week. We will be learning about our math manipulatives and also about the different areas that are set up around the room. 

Several reminders:

I had several parents ask if we were allowed to microwave/refrigerate lunch and snack. Unfortunately due to allergies and the possibility of getting burned from the microwave we are not allowed to microwave or refridgerate items. Ice packs work great for keeping items cold until lunch. Thermoses work really well for keeping items hot. I have seen both ice packs and lunch box thermoses at Target and the grocery store!

I am in the process of making a document that contains class emails and phone numbers. Hopefully I will have the updated information plugged into an organized document within the next week. Once this is completed, I will send this out via email. 

I am still tweaking the class schedule. As soon as I figure out what works best for everyone, I will also post a class schedule so that you know what your child is doing at different times throughout the day!

This week is staggered entry on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday and Friday are our first full days all together!

**Don't forget to pack a water bottle, a snack and a lunch! Please remember that everyday we wear tennis shoes. This is so important for safety, especially outside on the playground. 

Please don't forget to contact me at anytime via email or phone if needed! I am looking forward to a great week!

Hugs, 
Mrs. Schultz