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