Last week of kindergarten...

I hope you all have had a wonderful long weekend.  Our staff just returned from our annual CSD staff retreat in Asheville. It was lots of fun to be able to connect with all of our K-12 staff, as well as do some professional development and set some school and personal goals for the coming school year.  What an exciting weekend!

This past week we were busy with our QU wedding, working on our bare books, we played lots of math games and did some writing!  It was a fun filled week!  Stuffed animal day was a huge hit.  During reader's workshop time each student cozied up with their animal and read a favorite book to their furry friend.  Next, they decided how many stars to give the book they read.  We talked about what this meant.  If they colored in four stars it meant they thought the book was really great, three stars meant very good, two stars was pretty good, and one star was not my favorite.  They wrote the title of the book down as well, and the name of the stuffed animal they read to.  We shared these with the class so that we could get some ideas of good books we may want to add to our own summer reading lists.  :)  We found that the Piggie and Elephant books were definite four star books for sure!  Next, we did some center rotations with our pets.  Each student got to bead a collar for their pet.  We found that many students created a pattern when they beaded...way to go!  We created adoption certificates for our pets, and we worked on signing our names writing both our first and last names.  Writing our last name was a bit of a challenge for some of us, so we are going to practice this in the coming days.  Because this is a skill they don't often practice this is something you can easily have your child practice writing and working on over the summer.  We created a vet center, and each child got to give their pet a check up.  This was a huge hit as well.

In math this week we played lots of addition math games.  We are really working hard on our fact fluency through the use of games.  We are also working a lot with dice.  We want to be able to quickly see a die and know how many dots are on it without having to count each one.  If we are using two dice we want to be able to know how many dots are on one and then add on to it with the other die instead of having to individually count all the dots on both dice.  We have also been working on telling both addition and subtraction number stories and being able to draw these as we tell them.  One final skill that we have been working on in math is I have been giving the students a number, such as 8.  I ask them all the ways they can show me how to represent or make eight.  They may draw a picture of eight things, represent it with eight tally marks, write 4+4=8, 6+2=8, 2+6=8, 10-2=8, etc...  They have really enjoyed trying to come up with all the different ways they can represent a number.

This week we will have our bare book sharing at 1:00 in our classroom.  The students have worked very hard on these and we can't wait for you to see them.  Parking is going to be a little crazier than normal that day, as the 2nd graders are having their special art gallery that day and will be finishing up a little before we get started.  Please be patient and know that we will have a lot of parents in the building that day who are all excited to see their child's special work.  We have some 2nd grade parents in our class...myself included...so know that we will make sure these parents have the opportunity to see both of their children's special creations, so no worries!

Our class will attend the book fair this week on May 22, from 9:30-10:30.  The book fair will be in the elementary gym.  This book fair is a special BOGO book fair.  If you would like to come and help your child buy a book we would love to have you.  If you would like to send in money we will gladly help your child.  Please make sure you send the money in a baggie or an envelope that is labeled with your child's name on it and write book fair money so that we will know what the money is for. No school on Friday of this week, as we are doing kindergarten screening, and no school on the following Monday, May 28th (Memorial Day).  May 29th will be Water Day!  Just a heads up, I will have to leave water day for a bit, as my 4th grade son has his economics fair at 10:45 that day, so I will need to go to that for awhile, but Ms. Diane and Mrs. Hazlett will be with the class, so no worries!  Last week of kindergarten....can you believe it????  I can't!!!!  Cue the tears and bring on the kleenex!!!

Upcoming Events

May 22 - Scholastic Book Fair BOGO 9:30-10:00 Elem Gym

May 24 - Bare Book sharing, 1:00 in the classroom (parent event)

May 25 - No school 

May 28 - No school Memorial Day

May 29 - Kindergarten Water Day! 8:30 am- 12:00 pm 

State of the School Address/Volunteer Appreciation 9:30 am and 7:00 pm HS Black Box

May 30 - Last Day of School

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all of our wonderful mother's and wonderful grandmother's!  I hope you all are enjoying a very special day and being treated like queens! :)  This week we worked hard on our Mother's Day gifts.  We hope that you enjoy them.  The students had fun writing about their wonderful mom's.  We enjoyed hearing about all the wonderful things you do with your children!  We also brainstormed a list of ways we can help our mom's and came up with a list of responsibilities  we can do to help our mom's since they do so much for us.  The students decided on the ones that would work best for them and we added them to their clips.  They are going to put them on their "to do" list each day and then once they are complete they will move them to the "done" side.  This is a gift that can be used not only on Mother's Day but all year long.  We hope you enjoy! :)    We can't thank you all enough for all that you do to help our class each day.  We couldn't do it without you!  You all are the BEST!!!

We also continued working on our bare books this week.  You all are in for a treat at our upcoming bare book sharing.  The students are hard at work doing lots of writing and illustrating in their books. Prepare to be amazed!  We have also been continuing with our assessments and they have been going very well.  It is so wonderful to see all the growth each student is making.

Can you believe we are down to the last ten days of kindergarten?  On Friday we began our traditional balloon pop count down.  Each day we will pop a balloon as we count down the days of school.  Inside is a special "something" that we will do the next day.  We popped the first balloon on Friday and found out we will get to play with shaving cream on the tables on Monday.  Hooray!  Some other examples of things we will be doing are bring a stuffed animal to school, dance party, show and tell, etc.  We will let you know ahead of time if your child needs to bring a stuffed animal or a show and tell item to school so don't worry! :)  The students are very excited about this!

Tuesday is our kindergarten QU wedding.  We will do a special lesson on QU on Monday and then celebrate with a special wedding ceremony (students only) on Tuesday.  Your child may wear fancy clothes to school on Tuesday to celebrate.  Please send extra clothes for them to change into if they would like for after the ceremony.  We will be going outside to play later and doing regular art activities and we would not want to mess up any special clothes.  :)  Huge thanks to Cynthia Patterson for making our QU wedding cake!  We can't wait!

Scholastic is holding a BOGO Book Fair in our Elementary Gym.  Our class will attend on May 22 from 9:30-10:00.  If you would like for your child to purchase any books please send money with your child on this day.  This is a great way to stock up on summer books!

Upcoming Events

May 15 - QU Wedding

May 18 - No School 

May 22 - Scholastic Book Fair BOGO 9:30-10:00 Elem Gym

May 24 - Bare Book sharing, 1:00 in the classroom (parent event)

May 25 - No school 

May 29 - Kindergarten Water Day! 8:30 am- 12:00 pm 

State of the School Address/Volunteer Appreciation 9:30 am and 7:00 pm HS Black Box

May 30 - Last Day of School

Bravo!

Bravo to all of our actors and actress on a job well done in their performance on Thursday!  I am so very proud of all their hard work.  Each of them did such a great job learning their lines and all of the songs, and to top it all off saying them on stage in front of a large audience.  A huge thanks to all of you who helped with the costumes, practicing lines and the celebration after the play.  It was a fun filled day for sure!

This week has been a little unconventional, as we have been working on our play, assessing and working on our bare books.  So, as you can see we have been busy, busy, busy!  We did not do our normal centers this past week, and will not be doing them again this week, as we begin to put the finishing touches on our bare books and of course work on some fabulous Mother's Day surprises. :)  We will however, keep reading books and learning about life in the ocean.

This week in writer's workshop we talked about how when we entered kindergarten many of us could only write our names and how when we drew a picture of ourselves we drew stick figures.  We talked about all we had learned this year and decided that we were going to look at the difference between the beginning and what we can do now.  We had each student draw a picture of him/herself and then write a sentence or more about themselves.  We are going to show students their beginning of kindergarten pictures and their end of kindergarten pictures so that they may see all the growth they have made.  Hooray!

We have been studying lots of letter sounds, blends and digraphs in words and in each child's name when we did Marvelous Me this year.  We have talked a lot about the -sh, -th, -ch, -ou, and -ow sounds, and also what strong man e does to vowels (makes them say their long vowel name). On May 15th we are going to have a special celebration of two very special letters (Q and U).  In kindergarten tradition we are going to have a QU wedding to celebrate the sound /qu/.  Typically in most English words you don't have the letter q unless it is followed by the letter u.  So we "marry" them. :)  This will be a fun celebration in the classroom (children only).  Please have your child wear "dressier" clothes that day to school for our wedding celebration.  They may bring play clothes to change into later if they would like.  We will have a cute little ceremony and celebrate with some cake!  Huge thanks to Cynthia Patterson for volunteering to make our wedding cake! :)   We will be doing some lessons on this in class, but wanted to give you all a heads up on this so you would know what to expect.

Upcoming Events

May 15 - QU Wedding

May 18 - No School 

May 24 - Bare Book sharing, 1:00 in the classroom (parent event)

May 25 - No school 

May 29 - Kindergarten Water Day! 8:30 am- 12:00 pm (volunteers needed...sign up coming soon)

May 30 - Last Day of School

Under the Sea

Can you believe it?  It's almost May...ahhh!!  Where has this year gone???  How do we only have twenty days of kindergarten left???  They promise to be fun filled and jam packed for sure, so hold onto your hats and savor every second of the magic!  This week was no exception, as we studied the difference between whales/dolfins and fish.  We learned that whales and dolphins are mammals, just like us!  Mammals have hair on their bodies, are born alive from their mothers (not from an egg), breath air, are warm blooded and get milk from their mommies.  Fish breath air as well.  However, the air they breath comes from the water and they use their gills to breath.  Fish are cold blooded, and are born from eggs.  Fish have fins that move back and forth that help them balance and move through the water.  Their eyes never close, even when they sleep.  Whales tails are called a fluke.  They have prints on them just like we have finger prints.  Their flukes move up and down to help them move through the water.

In centers this week we created a Venn Diagram comparing whales and fish.  We then used a check off sheet to see if we could remember what we learned from our Venn Diagram.  We created whale flukes and added our fingerprints to help us remember that whales have prints on their flukes just like we have fingerprints.  We made a book about whales in our book making center as well.  Our favorite center this week was the cooking center.  Students used graham crackers, yogurt, blue food coloring and fish gummies to make a tasty underwater treat.  Each student had to read the recipe to made the treat.  You can try this at home if you would like.

This week we practiced, practiced, practiced for our upcoming play on Thursday!  We are so proud of how well the students know their lines.  Have your child continue to practice his/her lines at home this week.  Don't forget each child will need a costume. If you need help with this please let me know as soon as possible.  We have our dress rehearsal on Tuesday.  If you would like to send in your child's costume for the dress rehearsal we would love to practice with it on.  If the costume is not ready that is totally okay so no worries.  Remember, our play will be on Thursday, at 11:00 in the middle school black box. We will have a celebration in the classroom afterwards.  Because our celebration is around lunch time we are celebrating with a class lunch of Chick-fil-a nuggets.  Please make sure you send in money to Kim Gozycki for this as soon as possible.  Also, we would love to borrow a few underwater stuffed animals as props for the play if anyone has any.  We promise to take extra good care of these and will return them as soon as the play is over.  If you and your child don't mind us using an underwater stuffed animal please send it in for us to use.  Thank you so much!

In science this week we had a visit from the middle school science teacher, Mrs. Kim Aichle.  She came to talk to us about all the wonderful spring birds we have been seeing around our school.  She showed us pictures of birds that we may see in the area that we live in and around our school.  She also let us listen to some bird sounds of birds that live in our area.  We recognized many of them right away!  Next, we went on a nature walk with her to see if we could spot any of these birds.  We found the robin, Carolina wren, mockingbird and bluejay.  She also showed us some baby bird eggs in one of the birdhouses in our bird garden at school, as well as some baby birds that have just hatched on the playground.  We were very excited to see the mommy and daddy birds feed their babies!  We know to never touch the nests, eggs or babies if we see them in nature.  We look with our eyes and listen with our ears to observe.  We also had some more science fun on Tuesday when we celebrated Earth Day.  Our class got to rotate to each kindergarten classroom to learn about different types of pollution and about how to reduce, reuse and recycle.  A huge thanks to Ms. Betsy, the 4th and 5th grade science enrichment teacher, who helped set up these rotations.

We had so much fun sharing our poems for Poem in Your Pocket Day!  Thank you all for helping your child send in a poem for this.  The children LOVED listening to one another's poems, and of course keeping them in their pockets!  I loved the variety of poems they found!

Assessments...Ms Diane and I will begin assessing your child this week.  Many of these assessments are done one on one, and take a great deal of time.  If your child normally brings a book home to read to you or something special to work on we will not be sending these home until we are able to complete assessments.  Please keep reading with your child at home.  Visit your local library and allow your child to get their own library card!  The library summer reading program will start soon, and it is an excellent program and a great way to keep your child reading this summer.  I will also be sending out some ideas of things to do with your child over the summer later in May, so be on the look out!

Due to our upcoming Kindergarten Screening (screening of new incoming kindergarten students) there are not specific dates for us to conference on the calendar.  However, Ms. Diane and I are more than happy to conference with you if you would like.  We just need to know how many of you would like a conference so that we can request a sub and set up a conference day if needed.  End of year conferences are optional, but if you would like one we are happy to meet with you.  Please email me and let me know so that we can set up a day for this later in May.

Upcoming Events

May 3 - Commotion in the Ocean Play 11:00, MS Black Box (parent event)

May 18 - No School 

May 24 - Bare Book sharing, 1:00 in the classroom (parent event)

May 25 - No school 

May 29 - Kindergarten Water Day! 8:30 am- 12:00 pm (volunteers needed...sign up coming soon)

May 30 - Last Day of School

Under Water Fun

Happy weekend!  We have had a busy week in kindergarten!  We continued our unit on the ocean this week by moving from the sand into the sea.  In  our centers this week we read a book about Sammy Sand Dollar.  We learned that sand dollars can be purple, blue, green, brown or black colored.  Usually when we find them on the shore they are white.  This is the skeleton of the sand dollar and has been bleached by the sun.  Sand dollars have flower shape design on the outside of their exoskeletons.  They usually hide in the sandy seafloor of the ocean.  We created our own sand dollars using paper plates and beans.  Students made the flower patter on the outside, or exoskeleton, of the sand dollar.  We also looked at some real sand dollars from the ocean.  We created an Under Water book in our next center.  Don't forget to have your child read the books he/she creates when he/she brings them home.  Next, we looked at the different layers of the ocean and what animals live in each of these layers.  There are five different layers of the ocean.  They are the sunlight, twilight, midnight, abyss and trench layers.  The sunlight layer is the closest layer to the top and 90% of ocean animals live here.  Our final center was our science center for the week.  We did a salt water density experiment.  We used plain tap water (or fresh water) as our controlled variable.  It did not change.  We found that the jewels we put in it sank to the bottom.  In our next container we added salt.  When you add salt to water it makes the water more dense.  This means it gets heavier.  Many objects that sink in fresh water will float in salt water.  Next, we added some baking soda to the third container of water.  When the baking soda dissolves in the water some of it reacts to form carbon dioxide gas.  We could see tiny bubbles rising from the bottom of the container.  The tiny carbon dioxide bubbles attached to the plastic jewels and acted like tiny life preservers, carrying the jewels to the top  of the container.  Exciting stuff!

If you haven't heard we have become poets in our kindergarten class!  We have been reading lots of poetry, and this week we learned how to write some poems.  We learned how to write our ver own color poems during writer's workshop this week.  I placed several different shades of green paper on the board and then as a group we brainstormed a big list of all the things each shade reminded us of when we looked at it.  I was so impressed with all the ideas they came up with!  After we generated our brainstorming list, I explained that a color poem is fun to write because each line starts out with the name of the color (we were writing about green) and then the word is.  We did a shared writing lesson how to write a Green poem, and I must say it turned out fantastic!  Next, we decided that each student could choose to either add to our class "Green" poem or they could choose a different color and write a poem about that color.  I was so excited to see all the writing these little poets did!  We created a large "Green" class poem that is hanging in our classroom, and then we will type up the other color poems to share on Poem in Your Pocket Day.  Speaking of Poem in Your Pocket Day, we will be celebrating on Thursday.  Below is a link that will give you some more information on this special day.  Each child should bring a copy of a favorite poem to share.  It can be a poem that they write or a poem from a favorite book.  Here is a link that will tell you all about Poem In Your Pocket Day...

https://www.poets.org/national-poetry-month/poem-your-pocket-day

In math this week we continued to work on addition and subtraction.  We played lots of games to help us with these skills.  One idea for home is to play games that have two or more dice and have your child begin to count on when adding up the dots on the dice.  For example, if you roll a two and a three, have the child say three and then count four, five instead of counting all five dots individually.  We want to help children learn to count on, and games with dice provide a great way to do this.  Conversely, have your child practice counting backward from a random number.  If he/she has a hard time with this you say the numbers with him/her, or give him/her a hundreds board or number line to look at when they count back.

We have a busy week coming up...Earth Day, our Community Walking Tour, and Poem In Your Pocket Day.  Lots of things to celebrate.  We are in GREAT need of volunteers to walk with us on the walking tour.  If you are available we would love to have you join us.  We will leave school and begin walking towards Davidson at 8:30 and get back to school around 12:00.  We will visit the post office, library, fire station and police station.  We will also stop for a snack at the park.  Please consider joining us for this walk, we would love to have you!

April 24 - Kindergarten Earth Day 9:00 am

April 25 - Kindergarten Walking Tour of Davidson

April 26 - Poem in Your Pocket Day

May 3 - Commotion in the Ocean Play 11:00, MS Black Box (parent event)

May 18 - No School 

May 24 - Bare Book sharing, 1:00 in the classroom (parent event)

May 25 - No school 

May 29 - Kindergarten Water Day! 8:30 am- 12:00 pm (volunteers needed...sign up coming soon)

May 30 - Last Day of School

Commotion in the Ocean

Happy Sunday!  I hope you all have had a fun filled weekend, and enjoyed the beautiful weather we are having.  I think spring may finally be here!  We jumped right back into things this week after what sounds like some exciting spring breaks.  The students were very excited to share about all the adventures they had over break.  We loved hearing about all the fun things you all did together.

This we week dove head first into our unit on the ocean.  We talked about the fact that there are five oceans in the world.  Our world is mostly made up of water.  We looked at this on the globe and on the map.  We found the Atlantic Ocean, which we determined is the ocean that is closest to us and the one that if we went to a nearby beach or on the east coast would be the ocean that we would play in for some fun.  Next, we located the Pacific Ocean, which is on the opposite side of the United States, or the west coast.  A few of us have seen or been swimming in this ocean.  We determined it was probably the second closest ocean to us.  We then located the Indian Ocean, the Arctic Ocean and the Southern Antarctic Ocean.  We decided if we would defiantly not swim in the Arctic or Southern Antarctic Ocean, as they would be very cold.  If we ever go to India or Europe we might be able to visit the Indian Ocean.  It was very exciting to see our students make all kinds of connections to the oceans that they had visited.  Many wanted to share that they had been to a certain beach, such a s Myrtle Beach, the Outer Banks, etc.  We explained that these were beaches all located on the Atlantic Ocean.

In our centers this week we created a rhyming book called, Sand, Sand, Sand.  Students worked to read and then create their own rhymes in this book.  Please have your child read this book to you at home.  We read A House for Hermit Crab, and created our own hermit crabs.  We learned that hermit crabs carry their house along with them where've they go.  We also read the book Tammy the Turtle.  This book describes the hatching of sea turtles and how they grow and return to lay their eggs around the same place they were hatched.  It also talks about how sea turtles can mistake trash left by humans in the ocean and eat it, and get very sick.  We want to make sure we take care of our oceans by never throwing trash into them, and picking it up and putting it in the trash can when we see it so that we can keep the animals that live in the ocean safe.  We buried pretend sea turtle eggs in the sand and then dug them up to find out what happened to the sea turtle inside the egg. We learned that the majority of baby sea turtles to not make it to be full grown sea turtles due to a variety of reasons.  We had to determine if the reason listed inside our egg was a reason caused by nature or caused by humans.  If we ever see a sea turtle nest at the beach we know not to touch it or dig up the eggs, as this is a safe place that the mommy turtle has left her babies to hatch.  We often see helpful humans rope off areas for the baby sea turtles to hatch so that they are not harmed by humans or predators.  Finally we used puffy sand paint to create and paint our own sandcastles.  We had fun placing real shells from the Atlantic Ocean in our sand castles.

This week we also introduced our play, Commotion in the Ocean, to the students.  We sent home play lines and we can tell that many of you have already started learning these as we practice.  We started singing the songs for the play, and we will have lots of fun learning some fun movements to go along with these.  I sent home an email earlier in the week asking that parents be responsible for creating a costume for your child for the play.  Remember these can be as simple or creative as you like.  You know the comfort level of your child and we want you to be able to decide what they will be most comfortable in since it is many of their first times on a bigger stage.  If you need help don't hesitate to let us know.

In reading this week we introduced our Chicken Soup With Rice April poem.  Did you know that April is National Poetry Month.  We will be reading lots of poems this month.  On April 26th our whole school will celebrate with Poem In Your Pocket Day.  This is where each child chooses a favorite poem and has it typed up and places it in his/her pocket.  We will share these with our friends and anyone that we see on Poem In Your Pocket Day.  More information will be coming about this soon.

In writing we worked in our journals.  Many students were excited to write about their adventures over spring break, or about something they knew about the ocean.  During journal time students choose the topic he/she would like to write about.  This group of students loves to write, write, write! Hooray!

In science we did an experiment where we placed a shell in vinegar and another in water to see what would happen.  We were amazed to discover that the shell that was placed the vinegar completely dissolved!  The one in the water stayed exactly the same.  We found out that shells are considered a base and vinegar is considered an acid.  The acid breaks down the base until it dissolves.  What a discovery!  :)

In math we continued to work on the concepts of addition through the use of our range charts.  We have added in several more materials for the students to work with these on during math workshop time.  We also leaned a game called, Fix It Strips.  In this game a pair of students has a strip with numbers on it.  One partner is the reader and the other is the fixer.  The reader calls out the numbers that go down the strip.  The fixer has to verbally say what he/she is doing to the counters on the table to fix them to make the number the reader calls out.  For example if there are four counters on the table and the reader calls out two the fixer has to say take away two.  If the reader next says five the fixer has to say add three.  They progress through the game until the reader has called all the numbers on his/her strip.  Then the partners trade places.


Upcoming Events

April 17 - Field Trip to the Laurels Nursing Home

April 20 - Jill and Dickie Clark CSD Golf Tournament

April 24 - Kindergarten Earth Day 9:00 am

April 25 - Kindergarten Walking Tour of Davidson

April 26 - Poem in Your Pocket Day

May 3 - Commotion in the Ocean Play 11:00, MS Black Box (parent event)

May 18 - No School 

May 25 - No school 

May 29 - Kindergarten Water Day! 8:30 am- 12:00 pm (volunteers needed...sign up coming soon)

May 30 - Last Day of School

Leo Lionni

Spring has sprung, but the weather sure does not feel that way.  I am hoping that warmer days are ahead for all of us. I can't believe spring break is just one week away!  This year is flying by!  This week we studied author, Leo Lionni.  He was born in the Netherlands, and later moved to Italy and then the US.  He was the first author/illustrator to use the collage technique, and is often compared to Eric Carle.  He has written more than 40 children's books.  His first book was, Little Blue and Little Yellow.  He uses lots of earth tones in the illustrations of his books, and often writes about animals and things in nature.  Most of his books have a mouse as one of the characters.  His book, Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse, won a Caldecott Honor award.

In our centers this week we did some color mixing, just like in the story Little Blue and Little Yellow.  We used blue and yellow play dough to mix together and found that it made the color green, just like in the story.  Have your child retell you this story at home.  Each student painted a kindness rock that they either hid on our trip to the park for someone to find, or some decided to keep theirs to bring home to share.  This activity was a follow up to Leo Lionni's book, Frederick.  Our next center activity involved lots of nonstandard measurement.  Students used inch worms they created (like in the book Inch by Inch) to measure lots of items around the classrooms.  Students first made an estimate about how long they thought an item might be, and then he/she measured it to find out the actual length.  We are working with students to make them understand it is absolutely okay if your estimate is not the actual answer.  We are trying to help them understand they do not have to be right with an estimate, it is like a guess.  Our final center revolved around the book, Pezzettino, by Leo Lionni.  Students used colored packing peanuts to create a sculpture and then wrote about what they made.  They were very excited to see that with just a tiny dab of water the packing peanuts will stick together....just like magic! :)

In math this week we continued with our range charts.  We added in cubes to create fact families, along with our beans.  We also worked on telling more number stories as well with fact families.  We also continued our work with nonstandard measurement.  Nonstandard measurement is measuring items using something other than a standard unit, such as inches, feet, centimeters, meters, etc.  The students are getting very good at measuring.  

During our literacy time this week we introduced Stretchy Snake.  He helps us remember that when we are solving unknown words we need to stretch the sounds out and then blend them together to help us solve the word.  This is a great strategy to use in both reading and writing.  We also worked in our journals this week.  I am so impressed with all the writing our students like to do.  They are really taking off in this area!  

This week we were fortunate to be able to attend The Little Mermaid performance by the middle school students.  It was FANTASTIC, and our class was very excited to see our Friday intern, Grace Ann, as one of the cast members.  This week we are excited to be able to attend one of the fifth grade operas.  We are very lucky to be able to see such phenomenal shows!  

Please remember that we have our school wide parent safety meeting this Tuesday.  It will be in the high school black box, and we are running two sessions.  One session will be at 3:30 and the other will be at 6:30.  Please, please, please make it a priority to try to attend one of these sessions.  

Upcoming Events
                

March 27 - Love and Logic class 8:30 am

Parent Safety Meeting 3:30 pm and 6:30 pm HS Blackbox

March 30 - Spring Break begins (no school on Friday)

April 9 - Classes resume from spring break

April 10 - Love and Logic class 8:30 am

April 17 - Field Trip to the Laurels Nursing Home

April 18 - Poem in Your Pocket Day

April 20 - Jill and Dickie Clark CSD Golf Tournament

April 24 - Kindergarten Earth Day 9:00 am

April 25 - Kindergarten Walking Tour of Davidson

Mem Fox

Happy Sunday!  I hope you all have had a chance to enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend.  We have had a busy and exciting week in kindergarten!  This week we studied the author, Mem Fox.  Mem Fox was born in Melbourne, Australia.  She has written twenty-five children's books, and the first one she wrote was Possum Magic.  Most of the stories that she writes have Australian animals in them.  We loved reading lots of Mem Fox's stories this week!

In centers we made our own parrots, just like in the story Tough Boris.  We learned from this book that even pirates cry sometimes, and talked about the lifecycle, in that sometimes our beloved pets die and how it is okay to be sad and cry about this.  The students had lots of personal experience stories to share with us on this topic.  We made books about koala bears.  We learned that koala's are not really bears, they are actually marsupials.   This was a new vocabulary word for many of the children.    We learned that a marsupial is an animal that can carry their babies in their pouch.  We found out that a marsupial that lives in the United States is a possum.  In our next center, students worked on their fine motor skills by tearing tissue paper into small pieces and glueing them on a cut out of the world.  We put a peace symbol on top.  This went along with the story Whoever You Are.  These can be used as sun catchers if you hang them up in a window at home.  Finally, we did some invisible writing, just like the character Hush was in the story Possum Magic.  Students painted over an "invisible name" (written in white crayon) to reveal which classmate's name they had.  Next, they drew a picture of that classmate and wrote a sentence about him/her.  They had lots of fun making the names go from invisible to visible!

In math this week we worked on range cards using jewels and beans.  We also introduced a new way to do range cards, by telling number stories.  Students are given a baggie with all the facts for a certain number in it.  They have to pull the facts from the bag and using whatever manipulative they choose (i.e.: plastic animals, emoji erasers, coins, etc) they tell a number story to match that fact.  After they tell their story they record the fact on their recording sheet.  We are having lots of fun building our math fact fluency.  We also played a leprechaun counting game using ten frames.  Students had lots of fun listening to a story and matching the correct number of coins on the ten frame.  This week we will work on non-standard measurement along with range cards.

In science we did an experiment using Skittles to create a rainbow.  We placed a variety of different colored Skittles around the edge of a paper plate and then added warm water.  Students first made a prediction about what they thought would happen to the Skittles and then noted what they observed on their recording sheet.  They were very excited to watch the Skittles colors wash off and form a rainbow in the water.  It was very beautiful indeed!  They were excited to see that when the color came off of the Skittle they were white underneath.  One student posed the question that he wondered what might happen if we tried this same experiment with M&M's?  We all wondered together if you would get the same result or different result, as we noted that M&M's are made from chocolate and Skittles are not.  We told students if they try this with M&M's at home to let us know their results! :)  We have some budding scientist on our hands for sure!

In literacy this week we played a writing game.  We read the book, Guess What?, by Mem Fox.  It is a book in which the students have to make a prediction about what is going to happen next in the story.  The outcome is different than one might expect.  We then decided to play our own writing guessing game.  I modeled for students three sentences about myself.  Two of the sentences were true statements and one was false.  They had to use the clues they know about me to figure out which one was false.  They thought this was great fun! :)  Then each student tried his/her hand at this.  They really enjoyed writing these and then sharing with the class to see if we could determine their false statement.  There was lots of laughter involved! :)  We also did some more writing in our journals this week.  This is a time where students are able to choose the topic he/she wants to write about.  In readers workshop we talked about word families, and the patterns we notice in these families.   We made a chart with several different word families and the students looked through the books in their book boxes to see if they could find any words in their books that would match the pattern of the word families on our chart.  We were excited to see the students come up and list many different words on our word family chart.  We also worked on word sorts this week.  Students sorted for short vowel sounds, and then they either worked on a making words activity or sorted for beginning consonant sounds.  We were all very impressed with the progress each child is making!

Writing and Reading Together at Home

As you read to your child you will be helping him/her become familiar with the sounds of the English language.  As you read together look for words with similar letter patterns (flow-er, pow-er).  Have your child think of additional words with the same sound patterns.  Dramatize your voice as you read.  Your child will delight in hearing words "come to life."  Take turns reading different parts, or invite your child to act out each role as you share stories aloud.

Upcoming Events
                 

March 19 - ASE session 4 begins

March 20 - Love and Logic class 8:30 am

March 21 - Schoolwide Wacky Sock Day...wear your wackiest socks to school

March 21-24 - The Little Mermaid performance by the Middle School students

March 27 - Love and Logic class 8:30 am

Parent Safety Meeting 3:30 pm and 6:30 pm HS Blackbox

March 30 - Spring Break begins

All about Dr. Seuss

Happy Sunday!  I hope you all are enjoying the extra hour of daylight.  We had lots of fun learning about Dr. Seuss this week.  We learned that his real name was Theodore Seuss Geisel.  He was born on March 2, 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts.  He was not a real doctor, but added Dr. to his name to give his books more credibility.  He wrote and illustrated 44 children's books in his lifetime.  His first book was, And to Think I Saw it on Mulberry Street.  His books are loved by millions of children and adults all over the world!

In our centers this week we graphed orange, yellow, red, green and purple goldfish just like in the book One Fish, Two Fish,  Red Fish, Blue Fish.  We had lots of fun sorting the fish, counting and graphing them, and then we enjoyed our fish as a yummy snack!  We created our own "Things," right out of the book The Cat in the Hat.  Each child decided if he/she wanted to create Thing 1 or Thing 2.  Then students got to blow paint the Thing's hair.  This was lots of fun, and really worked on our mouth muscles!  (Did you know that a great exercise to work on strengthening mouth muscles is sucking thick liquids through a straw?  Milkshakes, pudding, yogurt and any other thick liquid is great to build these muscles.  This is an activity that our speech teachers will recommend for students to practice to make those mouth muscles stronger!) Our next center involved stamping apples on top of our heads (in a picture) like in the book Ten Apples Up on Top.  Each student stamped the number of apples he/she wanted on top of his/her head and then wrote about how many were "up on top."  They also got to sample different varieties of apples and got to graph which apple they enjoyed the most.  Finally, each student created a rhyming book in the style of Dr. Seuss.

During our literacy workshop time this week we introduced the strategy of "Lips the Goldfish."  He helps us remember to get our mouths ready when we are trying to solve a new word.  We have to get our mouths ready for the first sound in the word.  We practiced this along with our eagle eye strategy during reader's workshop.  We also worked on lots of rhyming and word families this week.  Students completed a word sort with several different word families.  Have your child practice reading these words to you and noticing the patterns.

In math this week we introduced range cards.  After assessing each student individually, they were given a range of three numbers to work with on their range cards.  For example, they may have had the range of 3, 4, 5.  Students could choose a number they wanted to work on for example, 4, and using manipulatives they created as many different fact families (or combinations) for this number as possible.  (i.e: 1+4, 4+1, 0+4, 4+0, 2+2, 3+1, 1+3)  Some of their combinations may have repeated, but the goal is to try to find a variety of combinations.  After they complete this number they may work on the next number (3 or 5).  Students used red and blue colored beans to help them make these combinations on a work mat.  This process helps students work towards fact fluency and number sense.  We will continue to work with range cards throughout the year, and introduce a variety of manipulatives that these can be used to complete these.  We will of course work on these as we continue to teach a variety of other math concepts as well.

In science we made oobleck, just like in the Dr. Seuss book Bartholomew and the Oobleck.  After we created the oobleck, we put a variety of objects in it to see if they would sink or float.  It was interesting to see the students predictions compared to what actually happened in the experiment.  It was also interesting to see which items floated and sank in the different batches of oobleck that we made.  We had great fun touching and feeling the oobleck for some ooey, gooey, science fun!

Tomorrow our wood working center will open up, and the students have been very excited for this!  Students will be allowed to tinker with scraps of wood, popsicle sticks, twine, markers, duct tape, wood glue and a variety of other materials to create their own wooden masterpieces.  If you see a piece of wood art come home in your child's book bag I wanted you to know where it came from! :)

Please remember that we would like for each child to bring in a leprechaun trap on Friday.  We will "set" the traps before we leave in hopes of catching a leprechaun over the weekend.  Please let your child be creative and take ownership in this process, it is for fun and creativity, and should be kid centered! :)

This week we will study the author Mem Fox.  She is one of my personal favorite authors.  She has written lots of children's books, but she has also written books for adults as well.  One of my favorites is Reading Magic.  I highly recommend this book to all kindergarten mommies and daddies and have several copies you are welcome to borrow if you would like to read this book.  Listed below is a link to Fox's website that has wonderful ideas from her book about reading aloud with your child.  Enjoy!

http://memfox.com/for-parents/for-parents-ten-read-aloud-commandments/

Upcoming Events
                 

March 13 - Love and Logic 8:30 am

March 14 - ASE session 3 ends (there are no Thursday or Friday ASE classes this week due to original snow days.)

March 15 - School in Session (Snow Make up Day)

                

March 16 - School in Session (Snow Make up Day)

March 19 - ASE session 4 begins

March 20 - Love and Logic class 8:30 am

March 21-24 - The Little Mermaid performance by the Middle School students

March 27 - Love and Logic class 8:30 am

Parent Safety Meeting 3:30 pm and 6:30 pm HS Blackbox

March 30 - Spring Break begins

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Happy birthday to Dr. Seuss this past Friday!  We kicked off our week long study of Dr. Seuss with some of our own Cat in the Hat hats and we checked out some of his books.  We are excited for a week of all things Seuss!  This week in honor of our special author we will have a Dr. Seuss Spirit Week.  Please see the list of events below as we learn more about this great author.  It should be lots of fun!

 Monday: Fox in Socks Day...wear silly or mismatched socks
            Tuesday: Green Eggs and Ham Day...wear the color green
           Wednesday: Wacky Wednesday...wear your wackiest hairdo and/or outfit to school
            Thursday: The Cat in the Hat Day...wear your favorite hat to school
            Friday: Read My Shirt Day...wear a shirt that others can read

Don't forget to check out our high school theater department's production of Seussical this week if you have a chance.  It ties in perfectly with our author, and is sure to be a fantastic show!  I will include the ticket link for you below.  

This past week we studied the author Eric Carle.  We learned that he was born in 1929.  He is the author and illustrator of most of his books.  Most of the characters in his books are animals, and he often writes about things in nature.  He paints tissue paper to make collages for lots of his illustrations, and likes to use many colors.  In our centers this week we painted tissue paper with glue to create a chameleon and wrote about what makes us unique.  We made our grouchiest faces, just like the Grouchy Ladybug, and wrote about what makes us grouchy.  We created a book about The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and worked on writing the days of the week.  Finally, we explored the seeds of many different fruits and vegetables .  We looked at the seeds of kiwi, bananas, strawberries, cucumbers, tomatoes, apples, snap peas, blueberries, grapes and blackberries.  We determined which seeds were the smallest and biggest.  We also determined which food had the most seeds.  Students were also invited to taste these foods if they would like.  We were so excited to see so many of them try some new foods.  A HUGE thank you to all of you who sent food in for this center.  It was a huge hit!  We also did a science experiment with our book buddies using Carle's book, The Little Cloud.  We used shaving cream, water and food coloring to make rain in a cup.  We learned that when clouds get heavy/full this is when the rain comes out.  We had so much fun exploring this concept with our book buddies!  

It was so good to see so many of you at math night on Wednesday.  Thank you to everyone who was able to join us to learn more about how we run our math workshop.  It was so much fun watching the students teach all of you how to play our math games.  This week we also began exploring the concept of addition.  We used jewels as counters and had the students create different combinations of ways to make five.  This coming week we will begin range cards, where students will work on fact families and building their fact fluency with addition.  We will use a variety of manipulatives to work on this concept.  

In literacy we introduced the strategy of using our "eagle eyes" when reading.  The eagle helps us remember that good readers use the pictures to help him/her figure out tricky or unknown words.  The pictures and words should match, just like when we write!  We practiced this during reader's workshop, and students were able to identify places in books where the picture helped them solve a word.  During our writer's workshop this week we introduced journal writing.  We revisited the book My Map Book.  We talked about how writers often get their ideas from other books.  These are called mentor texts.  Students could use My Map Book as a mentor text and create a map on the first page of their journal, or they could choose to write about any topic they wanted.  Journals are for us to write our thoughts and interests in, and so students were/are allowed to choose the their topics when they write in their journals.  I was so impressed with how well they did with their writing.  We will continue to write in these each week.  

CSD ArtSpace Theater  March 7-11 Tickets now on sale through this link

Upcoming Events

March 6 - Love and Logic Class 8:30 am

March 7-11 - Seussical

                 

March 13 - Love and Logic 8:30 am

March 14 - ASE session 3 ends

March 15 - School in Session (Snow Make up Day)

                

March 16 - School in Session (Snow Make up Day)

March 19 - ASE session 4 begins

March 20 - Love and Logic class 8:30 am

March 21-24 - The Little Mermaid performance by the Middle School students

March 27 - Love and Logic class 8:30 am

Parent Safety Meeting 3:30 pm and 6:30 pm HS Blackbox

March 30 - Spring Break begins

Our middle school students will be performing The Little Mermaid Jr.  They always do a fantastic job with their shows, and they are very kid friendly.  Please see below if you would like to buy tickets to the show.  

Little Mermaid, Jr

Come join us under the sea with Ariel and her sea creature friends in Disney’s The Little Mermaid, Jr. Performances are March 21st through 24th in the High School ArtSpace Theater. Tickets are $10 for adults and $7 for students.

March 21st @ 7pm, March 22nd @ 7pm, March 23rd @ pm & 7:30pm, March 24th @ 4pm & 7:30pm

Get your tickets here