Good morning!
I am so glad that everyone could come to the Author's Tea yesterday! It was a blast. Each child truly did their best and worked very hard on each page. Creating bare books is an ongoing annual tradition that you will see each year at CSD. By the time they end their journey at CSD they will have 6 books and they will get to see how they have grown as a writer. Each year bare books look slightly different. This year we decided as a team that bare books should be child centered and child selected therefore they will not look "perfect" as some bare books in the past (which were more teacher driven). The children took great pride in selecting their top 5 writer's workshop books to feature in their bare book and we hope you enjoy this memory book of kindergarten!
Water Day:
Please remember to send your child to school with sunscreen already applied. They should be wearing shoes that can get wet, a bathing suit with an outfit over it and they also need a beach towel. They also need a change of clothes to change into after water day is over (do not forget socks, underwear and tennis shoes)! Please do not forget to send snack and lunch as well. We will be out from 9-11. Thanks to everyone who has signed up to help so far!
This week we have been working on math stations and reading lots of stories! We have also been enjoying lots of free time playing in our centers. Because dramatic play and sensory table go away next year we are also spending lots of time in those specific two centers!
Have a great weekend!
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz
Friday, May 30, 2014
Thursday, May 22, 2014
May 19th-23rd
Hello!
Our play was a success! Thank you for practicing with your child and encouraging them throughout the whole process. They were so proud of themselves. :)
This week we are now focusing on bare books. We have picked out our top 5 books to include in our bare books and we are working on putting the finishing touches on them. We cannot wait to reveal them at the Author's Tea next week (May 29th at 1:30 in our room).
Math:
We have been working on skip counting. We have been skip counting by several numbers to prepare for first grade (gasp!). You may have seen an under the sea skip counting by 5 sheet come home. This was hard but we are still learning! We are doing many exercises to help us learn how to skip count by 10's, 5's, 2's etc. We are jumping, hoping, clapping and dancing as we count. Any time we can move our bodies it helps us learn the information! We also worked on range cards, skip counting by 10's and several addition/subtraction equations. The past 2 days we have been rotating through math stations to get all of our work done and it has worked out well!
Reading/Writing:
This week we talked about writing in something other than our writer's workshop books. Each morning we are writing in our day books. Some mornings we had a prompt but most mornings we got to write/draw whatever we wanted. Writing each day is important next year so we are introducing that now! We also read a lot. We read books, words around the room and reviewed old site words. We are also learning a new stanza each day to an end of the year poem that we read in the pocket chart during reader's workshop.
Even though we are not sending home the little readers anymore (as we are trying to collect them all) we are still reading here at school. We are focusing on the reading strategies we have learned, practicing fluency and checking for comprehension. Please read every day this summer! Read to your child and have your child read to you. This will help us so much next year!
We are allowing the kids to enjoy all their favorite centers the next couple of weeks as we call small groups for bare books. It is so fun to see what the "favorites" are!
The sign up genius that went out last week is for the rest of the year. Feel free to revisit that and sign up where there are empty spots. I will also let everyone know what is needed for the water day event. I have not received that information yet but when I do I will send an email or sign up genius for what we need.
Two reminders for the next couple weeks:
Aquarium Field Trip: May 27th 10:30-2:00 (Please let other parents have a chance to sign up first if you have already been on a field trip with us.)
June 3rd: Water Day/End of Year Party
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz
Our play was a success! Thank you for practicing with your child and encouraging them throughout the whole process. They were so proud of themselves. :)
This week we are now focusing on bare books. We have picked out our top 5 books to include in our bare books and we are working on putting the finishing touches on them. We cannot wait to reveal them at the Author's Tea next week (May 29th at 1:30 in our room).
Math:
We have been working on skip counting. We have been skip counting by several numbers to prepare for first grade (gasp!). You may have seen an under the sea skip counting by 5 sheet come home. This was hard but we are still learning! We are doing many exercises to help us learn how to skip count by 10's, 5's, 2's etc. We are jumping, hoping, clapping and dancing as we count. Any time we can move our bodies it helps us learn the information! We also worked on range cards, skip counting by 10's and several addition/subtraction equations. The past 2 days we have been rotating through math stations to get all of our work done and it has worked out well!
Reading/Writing:
This week we talked about writing in something other than our writer's workshop books. Each morning we are writing in our day books. Some mornings we had a prompt but most mornings we got to write/draw whatever we wanted. Writing each day is important next year so we are introducing that now! We also read a lot. We read books, words around the room and reviewed old site words. We are also learning a new stanza each day to an end of the year poem that we read in the pocket chart during reader's workshop.
Even though we are not sending home the little readers anymore (as we are trying to collect them all) we are still reading here at school. We are focusing on the reading strategies we have learned, practicing fluency and checking for comprehension. Please read every day this summer! Read to your child and have your child read to you. This will help us so much next year!
We are allowing the kids to enjoy all their favorite centers the next couple of weeks as we call small groups for bare books. It is so fun to see what the "favorites" are!
The sign up genius that went out last week is for the rest of the year. Feel free to revisit that and sign up where there are empty spots. I will also let everyone know what is needed for the water day event. I have not received that information yet but when I do I will send an email or sign up genius for what we need.
Two reminders for the next couple weeks:
Aquarium Field Trip: May 27th 10:30-2:00 (Please let other parents have a chance to sign up first if you have already been on a field trip with us.)
June 3rd: Water Day/End of Year Party
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
My 5th-May 9th
Lots of announcements....so grab your calendar and pay close attention!
The Laurel's Field Trip: May 13th 9:30-12:00 (Sign up to come with us if you can.)
Commotion in the Ocean Play: May 20th @ 11:00 (elementary gym)
Aquarium Field Trip: May 27th 10:30-2:00 (Please let other parents have a chance to sign up first if you have already been on a field trip with us.)
Author's Tea: May 29th @ 1:30 (in our classroom)
June 3rd: Water Day/End of Year Party
Please sign up for a conference! I would really like to meet with everyone this time! :)
Conference Sign Ups:
www.SignUpGenius.com/go/10C0C4FA5A82BA4FF2-conferences
Half Day May 9th
Half Day May 15thNo School May 16th
No school May 26th
Last Day of School June 4th
Thematic Centers:
We are still studying oceans and learning a TON. We have labeled parts of a fish, studied a whale's habitat and started on our play costumes. Each child received a poster board cut out of their animal that they have started decorating on their own (in class). We have started on these this week! Each child will wear kakis (skirt, pants or shorts) and a bright colored shirt to wear under their animal that they wear around their neck. Super simple...so no worries!
Literacy:
Writer's workshop this week was choosing one of the styles that we have written in the past. We are focussing on finishing our books from throughout the year and enjoying the last few writer's workshops that we will have for the rest of the year! We are going back to working on CVC words using Legos and playing many games. We have also been practicing for the play!
Math:
We are still working on range cards and lots of addition! We are using many strategies, playing lots of games and doing many activities throughout the day to help us attach equations with quantities and adding numbers together. We are working with many different numbers, equations and strategies. This week we discovered that 8+1=9 is the same thing as 9=8+1. The equation is just flip flopped! Cool!
Take care and hold on for a crazy schedule until school gets out! :)
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz
Thursday, May 1, 2014
April 28th-May 2nd
We are still studying oceans this week and we have learned a lot. On Tuesday we made a fish out of an old CD and studied the many different fish that live in the sea. Some of the fish we studied were: angel fish, clown fish, puffer fish, beta fish (actually do not live in the sea but many children have them for pets) and more! On Wednesday we made a Jello Ocean! We took blue Jello, placed it in a cup and added Swedish fish. We studied the different layers of light through the ocean. We made the top layer of ocean where we often swim when we visit the beach and we are able to see many fish because the ocean is closest to the sun. That zone is called the euphotic zone. The bottom layer of the ocean has no light and we may often find fish who do not even have eyes! Today we are making an ocean using a water bottle. We will study the different layers of the ocean as we add sand, blue water, oil and confetti fish. Fun, fun! We have also started learning our ocean play songs and practicing our lines.
Literacy:
We had our last writer's workshop pertaining to our unit on author's as mentors. It was great to study the different writing styles of other author's but we are excited to move on! We are also still studying story elements. Yesterday we did a character sort between the Commotion in the Ocean book and Goldiclocks and the Three Bears book. Today we will do a sort of characters VS setting.
Math:
We are really working hard on addition. We are using many different strategies to solve addition problems. On Tuesday we partnered up and completed several math problems. Wednesday we worked for almost an hour on range cards (record set there!). Today is the park day so we will solve addition problems as a whole group and have a mini math talk before we head to the park.
ANNOUNCMENTS:
**Do not forget to order Scholastic books if you wish! This will probably be our last order for the year and you will want to stock up on lots of books for the summer! :)
**Please return all "little readers" that your children bring home to read to you. We have a lot of books still missing and we will need those back before we are out on summer break. Thank you for your help with this!
**Please do not forget to practice the play lines with your child each night. We are all super busy right now, but this is important! The correct lines were sent home yesterday and highlighted for your child with their lines. If you had the incorrect copy, I took it out and gave your child the correct one. If they already had the correct copy, I just left it! Sorry for the original confusion.
*We will head to the Laurel's on May 13th. If you can help with this, sign up when the sign up genius goes out for that week. Please also look for conference signs up soon. I would really like to meet with all of you this time! :) Conferences will most likely be the week of May 12th-23rd. I will do my best to get that out soon and offer a variety of times for your convenience!
*May 9th is a half day. May 15th is a half day and May 16th we have no school. May 26th will not have school as well.
*The Author's Tea will be held in our classroom on May 29th at 1:30. This will be a blast! Each child will be able to reveal their bare book to you and show you all their hard work!
Sign up genius: www.SignUpGenius.com/go/10C0C4FA5A82BA4FF2-my5thmay
Commotion in the Ocean Play: May 20th at 11:00 (just another reminder to put it on the calendar)
Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz
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