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