The Author in Me....

This week we have been busy working on our bare books, completing our heart maps and doing lots of reading!  Our bare books are a student written culmination of all the many wonderful things we have done in kindergarten throughout the year.  The students worked on their illustrations and decided what they wanted to say about each picture in their books.  These will be shared at a special event at the end of the year in May.
   
Last week we read a book called My Map Book.  It shows many different kinds of maps that the child in the book creates.  He creates a map of his family, his bedroom, his dog, the park and his heart.  We decided to create our own heart maps.  We talked about what important things would fill up spaces in our heart.  Some of the things we brainstormed were our families, our pets, a favorite sport, a favorite team, a favorite toy, a favorite food, etc.  We gave each student a heart and they divided it up and started filling it with the things that were most important to them.  After they filled up their heart maps they used watercolor paints to paint their heart maps.  These are hanging in the hall for you to check out!

This week we will kick off our unit The Author in Me.  The first author we will study is Eric Carle.  We began reading lots of Eric Carle's books this week.  The students are already enjoying lots of his books.  The following week we will study Dr. Seuss.  Our high school drama department is putting on the musical Seussical.  This will be a great tie in to our author study, on top of a FANTASTIC show!  If you have not had the opportunity to watch our high school drama department in action you are in for a treat!  If you would like to purchase tickets to this show I will include the link below.  It will not show a link, just click on the words "this link."  You will not be disappointed, and you will be supporting our high school students as well!

In math this week we finished up our unit on sorting and patterning.  This is a skill we will continue to practice throughout the year.  You can have your child practice this skill at home as well.  Have your child help you sort the laundry, sort food as you put it away from the grocery story, sort change.  Let your child sort these items or any other items you may have and you try to guess "what their rule" is or how they sorted.  You can also do the same with patterning.  On Wednesday night, at 6:30, we will host our elementary math night.  Please bring your child and join us in our classroom to play some math games.  It should be lots of fun!  You may come and stay as long as you like.  If you have multiple children and are visiting other classrooms feel free to come and go as you need so that you have time to visit everyone's classroom.  We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!

CSD high School Theatre Department proudly presents...

Coming to ARTSPACE  March 7-11 Tickets now on sale through this link

Upcoming Events

February 27 - Love and Logic Class with Marianne 8:30 amFebruary 28 - Family Math Night - 6:30 pm

March 1 - Love and Logic Class with Marianne 7:00pm

March 6 - Love and Logic Class 8:30 am

                 Parent Advisory 7:30 pm @ the HS

March 13 - Love and Logic 8:30 am

March 14 - ASE session 3 ends

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

                   Love and Logic Class 7:00

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 22 - Love and Logic class 7:00

March 27 - Love and Logic class 8:30 am

March 29 - Love and Logic class 7:00 pm

March 30 - Spring Break begins

If you are interested in the Love and Logic classes hosted by Marianne Coale, please check out the description below and how to sign up! :)

Love and Logic Parenting Classes: 
Morning: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0f49a4ac2a1-parenting6
Evening: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0f49a4ac2a1-parenting5

The Love and Logic approach is fun!  This parenting curriculum will provide you with skills so you can feel more relaxed, hopeful and positive about raising your children. We will discover that parenting really can be enjoyable while also teaching personal responsibility and respect.

Parents will learn how to:

• Avoid un-winnable power-struggles and arguments

• Stay calm when their kids do incredibly upsetting things

• Set enforceable limits

• Avoid enabling and begin empowering

• Help their kids learn from mistakes rather than repeating them

• Raise kids who are family members rather than dictators

• And much more!

There are a total of 6 sessions.  Please only sign-up if you can attend all 6 session dates. There is a $10 workbook that we will use during these sessions.  We will have them available at our first class.

Mary Cassatt

What a busy week we have had in kindergarten!  This week we focused on the artist Mary Cassatt.  Cassatt was born in Pennsylvania, but later moved to France to study art.  While in France she became close friends with the artist Edgar Degas, and joined him in a group of other artists who called themselves Impressionist painters.  Impressionism was a new style of painting and went against what many at the time considered to be great art.  Cassatt loved to paint things in everyday life.  Some of her favorite things to paint were pictures of mothers and their children.  She also became very adept at using pastels to paint with as well.  Mary Cassatt lived during a time when women were not encouraged to pursue careers in art.  Being an artist was thought to be a man's job.  Luckily, Mary Cassatt did not give up and believed in her talents.  She  was determined to follow her dream to become a great artist!

In our centers this week we used watercolors to paint our own Mom and baby pictures using the beautiful pictures you all sent in of you and your sweet babies.  We read the book Suzette and the Puppy, a story about Mary Cassatt, and each child used oil pastels to draw a picture of his/her favorite pet, or pet he/she would like to have.  We created a book about Mary Cassatt that goes along with the song we have been learning about each artist.  Finally, Mary Cassatt was an accomplished print maker.  We each created our own monoprint painting in the style of Mary Cassatt.  We can't wait to show you all our beautiful art work at our upcoming gallery crawl this week!

In literacy this week we focused on the words for, is, this, the and my.  We created a book with these words in it and highlighted the word "for" throughout the book.  We stamped our words and practiced writing them as well.  We also had lots of fun creating scratch off word cards with our new words on the cards.  This was a huge hit!  We added these words to our word wall as well.  I have been so impressed that the students are noticing these words in their everyday lives as well.  One student was very excited to show me the word "for" that he found in a new book!  See if your child can go on a word hunt with you at home and find these words in books or in places as you are out and about.

In math this week we worked to finish up our unit on geometry.  Students used geoboards to create 2D shapes.  We also introduced dot paper as well to the students to help them as they draw shapes.  They really enjoyed using the dot paper.  We will begin working with Range Cards in the few weeks, which will help with our number sense, fact fluency and ability to add and subtract numbers.  These will be lots of fun!

A HUGE thank you to all of you who came to help out at the book fair.  I was sad I had to miss this fun event, as I had to be out that day for a family matter.  However, Ms. Diane and Mrs. Hazlett were so appreciative to all of you for your help, as well as all the wonderful books that you donated to our classroom.  Thank you, thank you!  We will be reading up a storm!  You all are the BEST!

This is going to be an even busier week than normal.  Please don't forget that our Valentine celebration will be on Wednesday.   Students will need to bring their Valentine couplets to school with them by Wednesday.  Everyone is getting very excited about sharing their special Valentines.  Anyone is welcome to join us to help us read our special poems.  The celebration will begin at 1:00.

On Thursday we have our gallery crawl.  We can not wait to share all our fantastic art work with you as well as all we have learned about these amazing artist.  We will have a bag with your child's name on it that day for you to collect your child's artwork once the gallery crawl is over.  Lots of this art work you may want to display in a special place in your home, so we know that it can get crumpled in books bags and want you to be able to transport it home safely.  Once everyone is finished at the gallery crawl please feel free to take all of your child's artwork home with you.

There is no school for students on Friday.  This is our conference day to share all the wonderful ways your child is growing and learning.  I know that all conference slots have been filled.  If you were unable to sign up for a conference and would like one please let me know and we are happy to conference with you on a different day.  Friday will be a jam packed day of conferences, so please know that we want to give each family their allotted time to hear about their child's progress.  We are going to do our very best to stay on schedule and keep things moving along.  However, if you feel that you have more to share or want to know more and your time runs out please know that we are always happy to set up an additional time to talk and meet.  We just don't want to keep others waiting.    We appreciate you all taking time out of your day to come and talk with us.

Upcoming Events:
                  
February 14 - Valentine's Day...don't forget your special Valentine's

February 15 - Kindergarten Art Gallery....MARK YOUR CALENDARS (all parents are invited to attend)

February 16 - No School...Optional Parent Conferences

February 19 - No School....President's Day Holiday

February 20 - Field Trip to the Laurels Nursing Home

February 28 - Family Math Night - 6:30 pm

100 Days of Kindergarten Fun

Can you believe we have been in school just over one hundred days now?  We celebrated the hundredth day this week in a big way!  We started our day by parading through the school for the other classrooms so they could see what many of us would look like when we are one hundred years old.  Next, we placed our collections of one hundred items on a mat at our seats.  Students then became "reviewers" of the collections.  They walked around the room noticing things about each collection.  Students had to determine which collection they thought was the lightest, heaviest, longest, shortest, smallest, took up the most space, most colorful, least colorful, and which they thought was the most interesting to them.  They had so much fun looking at all of the items each of their friends brought and reviewing these.  They all had such wonderful collections!  During snack each student was given a cup with one hundred snack items in it (10 Fruit Loops, 10 Cheerios, 10 chocolate chips, 10 raisins, 10 Smarties, 10 M&M's, etc.) They placed each of these items on a hundreds board.  Many noticed that each set of food filled up a row on the hundreds board.  When they were finished they practiced counting to 100 for a teacher and then they got to eat their snack!  During our center tie we made hundreds day hats, filled in hundreds charts, transformed the number 100 into something else and made a gumball machine with one hundred gumballs in it.  We also took a picture of each child, and using a special app it made them look like they were one hundred years old.  We printed these pictures out and students wrote about what they will do when they are one hundred years old.  We are making these into a class book and will be sending this home with each child to read.

The artist we studied this week was Michelangelo.  We learned that he was from Italy.  We found Italy on the map, and discovered it looks like it is the shape of a boot!  Michelangelo was a very famous painter, but sculpting was his favorite.  Students got to practice their sculpting skills this week by carving a bar of soap with some special carving tools.  They made some wonderful creations!  We also learned that Michelangelo painted the celling of the Sistine Chapel.  He had to lie on his back and to paint.  It took him four years to do this.  We laid on our backs and used markers to draw pictures in the style of Michelangelo.  We taped paper under the tables and students got to experience a taste of what it may have felt like to be Michelangelo working on the Sistine Chapel.  We also learned that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is a giant fresco.  This means that Michelangelo painted his mural on freshly laid or wet plaster.  We created our own frescos by painting a scene on plaster of paris.  These turned our so beautiful!  Next week we will learn about the artist Mary Cassatt.  If you have not sent in your mommy and me picture please do so as soon as possible.

In math this week we continued our study of geometry.  We used geoblocks to look at and explore 3D shapes.  We have been making lots of discoveries of 3D shapes in our classroom and in our everyday world.  See if you child can find some 3D shapes at home or when you are out and about.  Some of the 3D shapes we have discuss are: cones (ice cream cone, party hat), cube (dice), rectangular prism (building), cylinder (soup can, can of soda).  We also created some 2D shapes using toothpicks and marshmallows.  Students had to determine how many sides and vertices each shape had.  They did an excellent job with this activity!

In science we found that our pennies oxidized, or turned green, just like the Statue of Liberty!  We drew a picture of the green pennies and completed our observation sheets.  We washed off our pennies to see what would happen as well.  Ask your child what their observations were about this experiment.

Our Marvelous Me person this week was Gray.  We talked about the special -ay phonogram that Gray has in his name.  We interviewed Gray and found out lots of interesting things about him, and wrote sentences about him for his special book.  We also practiced our shape drawings as we took our time and drew Gray.  We added details to our pictures and really noticed what color hair and eyes he has and what he was wearing.  The students are showing lots of improvement in their writing.  We are really stressing to make sure to use lower case letters when they write with the exception of names and the beginning of sentences.  We have also been working on assessments in literacy.  I am so proud of all the progress each child is making.  I can't wait to share your child's growth with you at conferences.

Upcoming Events:

February 6 -  Parent Advisory 9:00 am at the HS

February 7 -  Book Fair 11:30 (located in the MS Media Center)
                  
February 14 - Valentine's Day...don't forget your special Valentine's

February 15 - Kindergarten Art Gallery....MARK YOUR CALENDARS (all parents are invited to attend)

February 16 - No School...Optional Parent Conferences

February 19 - No School....President's Day Holiday

February 20 - Field Trip to the Laurels Nursing Home

February 28 - Family Math Night - 6:30 pm