Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!  I hope you all enjoyed a wonderful winter break with family and friends.  Even though it was a short week this week, we have had so much fun getting back into the swing of things.  We have been busy, busy, busy in kindergarten.  We kicked off the new year by talking about our new calendar.  We looked at the numbers in the new year and we discussed how many days are in the month of January.  We talked about special holidays that happen in the month of January, and then each student completed their own January calendar.  We glued these into our math daybooks.  It is wonderful to see the progress the students are making in the their writing of numbers.  We read lots of stories and poems about the new year.  One of our favorites is Chicken Soup With Rice.  We will be adding the January poem from this collection to our book boxes as a familiar reread this month.  In our centers this week we made our own books about snowmen.  The students are doing a wonderful job of doing their best work.  They are also doing a great job of pointing to the words as they read and many are able to identify new words or letters that they recognize.  We painted some beautiful snow scenes with puffy snow paint.  Check these out in the hall if you are in the building.  They look like a winter wonderland for sure!  We worked on sequencing a recipe and then made our very own marshmallow snowflakes to eat.  Finally, we began working on our time capsules.  These are a keepsake for sure!  Remember, if you have any extra empty paper towel rolls to send them in, as we will be turning these into the capsules for our treasured writing.

In math this week we focused on geometry.  We read several stories about shapes.  We played "I Spy," where students had to spy a shape in the class and we had to figure out what the shape could be.  We talked about several new shapes, such as the hexagon.  We found that if you put two trapezoids together you can make a hexagon.  A hexagon is a six sided shape.  It can be a little confusing because it looks very similar to an octagon, which has eight sides.  Students seemed to be more familiar with the octagon because they see it in the shape of a stop sign.  We compared the two and how they were similar and different.  We also looked at squares, rectangles, circles ovals and diamonds and compared and contrasted these as well.  Finally, we looked at triangles and noticed that triangles have three sides and three points.  However, students were excited to see that these three sides did not always have to be equal lengths.  We used play doh to make geometric shapes independently.  The students did a great job with this activity!

In reading this week we had our first real "reader's workshop" time.  We learned the I PICK strategy.  The "I" stands for I look at books, "P"- stands for  Purpose,...Why do I want to read this book?, "I" stands for Interest (we drew a heart beside of this to help us remember that it is something that we love and are really interested in), "C" stands for Comprehension - we talked about this word and drew a person thinking beside of the word to help us remember that it means we think about the book as we read, "K" stands for Know- what do I know about this book or these types of books, or what do I want to know more about this topic?  The students went "book shopping" and added three new titles to their book tubs.  We also talked about how we are all readers whether we read the words or the pictures, we all can read!  We then found reading spots in the classroom and worked on reading our books using our I PICK strategy.  Ms. Diane, Mrs. Hazlett and I moved around the room and conferenced with the children.  They did an AMAZING job!  I loved hearing each student talk about what they were reading and why they choose the books they shopped for to go in their book tubs.  We are a room of readers for sure!

This week I sent an email to you about our kindergarten Valentine project.  Please make sure you start working on that soon, trying to do at least one a day.  This way the project won't seem overwhelming or become frustrating.  We will be practicing lots of rhyming and couplets in class so that students begin to get the hang of how to write these (or at least verbally help dictate them to you. :)  I made a HUGE mistake in the spelling of Liliah's name on the class list I sent out.  Please, please, please make sure you correct the spelling of her name so that it is spelled correctly on her Valentine's.  Her name is spelled LILIAH.  I am so sorry for this error!

Our upcoming unit of study will be The Artist in Me...an all time favorite of mine! :)  In a few weeks, we will study Mary Cassatt (one of our famous artists).  We will need a baby picture of your child and mom.  Cassatt did many different paintings of moms and their babies and your child will get to paint a picture of you with your child.  Please send in the picture by January 16th if possible.  Your original picture will be returned exactly the way it is sent to us.  

We also are in need of some common household items for our artist unit next week...we are studying Kandinksy and he did a lot of work with circles.  We need anything that is circle shaped to make a collage.  Things that do not need to be returned to you.   Some ideas are: lids (plastic water bottle lids, jar lids, container lids, etc.)  Please send these in as soon as possible. 

Finally, on Monday (tomorrow) we are going to be doing some fun things with mittens and gloves.  Please make sure your child brings either a pair of mittens or gloves to school. Thank you in advance for your help!

Upcoming Events:

January 9 - Parent Advisory, 7:30

January 11 - Lottery Open House, 9:15 and 6:30

January 12 - CSD vs PLP home basketball game

January 15 - No School MLK Day

January 26 - No School, Teacher Workday

January 29 - No School, Teacher Workday

January 30 - 100th day of school, Lottery Open House, 9:15