Classroom Newsletter March 28, 2014

Language Arts

Journal Writing – The children are writing at least three sentences in their journals now.  One of these sentences is a reaction to their topic, how they felt or an action taken.  The children enjoy sharing their writing each week and notice the progress everyone is making.  In addition to the narrative writing which we do weekly in our journals, the children have also been working on opinion writing during Writers’ Workshop.  I have been reading books and presenting the children with a question which requires that they give their opinion.  They must also give a reason why they feel the way they do.  Sometimes we just have a class discussion about our opinions, and sometimes we write about our opinions.  The children have shown growth in their understanding of this type of writing.

Fundations – We are now working on Unit 4 of this program.  We continue to drill vowel sounds and challenging letter sounds on a daily basis.  We are working on the proper formation of upper and lower-case letters as well as punctuation and spelling during our dictation lessons.  The children have become very proficient at being able to systematically tap out and blend words with three sounds and are applying this skill to their reading and writing.  The children are very excited about being “digraph detectives” and enjoy pointing out digraphs they see around the classroom.  The digraphs introduced are “sh, ch, th, wh, and ck”.

Reading - We continue to review the Kindergarten sight words and read books focusing on repeated exposure to these words.  The children work on one-to-one correspondence, using word wall words as an anchor, and using the picture and the beginning letter sound to help them figure out unknown words.  The children use the decoding strategies which have been introduced during our Fundations lessons.

The children continue to enjoy the Daily Five reading time when they “Read to Self” and “Read to Someone” and “Listen to Reading”.  They are independent during this part of our reading time, and I have the opportunity to work with small groups or individuals on other aspects of reading development.  I keep stressing to the children that in order to become better, more fluent readers it is important for them to practice reading in different ways.  They should read to themselves, to others, and they should listen to peers and grown-ups read aloud as well.

W.I.N. time – Each day we have a block of time which we now call W.I.N. (What I Need) time.  During this time, the Daily Five is used as the organizational structure, and children practice reading in the different ways described above.  I meet with individuals and small groups to work on different aspects of reading, writing, math, handwriting or any other aspect of the curriculum which needs to be reinforced, retaught, or extended.  There are other adults working with small groups and/or individuals at this time as well.

Literacy Centers – We talked about Spring and have been working on many activities based on this theme.  We wrote acrostic poems about Spring, read books about Spring and built a list of words in the –ing word family.

Math 

We completed Chapter 9 where our focus was on comparing sets of up to 20 objects.  The children continue to develop a more solid understanding of the concepts of more, fewer, less, most, and fewest.  They count the difference through comparing sets in one-to-one correspondence and answer questions, “How many more?  How many fewer?”  The children have also been counting on and adding using number trains/number lines.

We continue to practice skip counting by 2’s, by 5’s, and by 10’s each day during our calendar time.  We also practice counting on to 100 from any given number.  We keep count of the days we have been in school by using tallies.

We worked on ordinal numbers and are currently completing a unit which reinforces calendar concepts including days of the week, months of the year, as well as the concepts of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Science and Health 

We completed our unit on Properties of Materials and are now working on a unit on Transportation.  We have been reading books and talking about different ways to travel by land, air, and water.  The children worked on a mural depicting these many different ways to travel.  We will be inventing our own forms of transportation with the recyclable materials you have been sending to school.  Look for some interesting vehicles during our upcoming Open House on Thursday, April 10th!

Important Dates 

Friday, April 4th – Early Release 1:15 Dismissal
Thursday, April 10th – Open House – 6:00 - 6:45

Thank You

Many thanks to Mrs. Hodges for reading us a Dr. Seuss book during Read Across America Day.  We enjoyed having her in our classroom.

Welcome

We would like to congratulate Mason and his family on the arrival of Fiona.  We are excited that Mason has a new baby sister.

We would like to welcome Miss P., our new student intern, to our classroom.  We are happy to have her with us.

Supplies Needed

If you are able to donate anti-bacterial hand wipes to our classroom it would be greatly appreciated.  Also, we are in need of pencils for our classroom.  The children are comfortable writing with the fatter pencils for first writers as well as the skinnier #2 pencils used by the older children.  Thank you very much.

Winter Video

I hope you are all enjoying your vacation.  Here is the link to the video that we worked on with Mrs. Klipfel when we wrote about all the things we do to survive a long cold winter.  I hope our ideas are helpful! 

Animoto video

Here is the link to Mrs. Klipfel's blog post.

Mrs. Klipfel's Blog

Sink and Float

Making Patterns

Classroom Newsletter February 3, 2014

Language Arts

Journal Writing – The words “was” and “with” have been introduced.  We now know I, a, the, is, it, in, to, at, and, are, for, on, of, me, my, he, this, that, his, was, and with.  The children continue to work on writing at least two sentences in their weekly journal entry.  They are able to stretch out a word and hear the beginning and ending sounds as well as strong consonant sounds in the middle of the word.  They are developing an awareness of vowels and often include these in their writing as well.

Genre Study – We have been exploring folktales and learning about the common characteristics of this genre.  Folktales are passed on orally, and there is often more than one version of a folktale.  Folktales are fiction stories, and they often include animals that can talk.  Children like to join in on the repetitive phrases included in many of these folktales.

We have read and compared two different versions of The Mitten  and have done the same with The Gingerbread Man.  We have read The Little Red Hen and practiced retelling the story in order focusing on the major story events.  Retelling is an important skill which is included as one of the Common Core Standards for Language Arts.  As children develop strong comprehension skills it is important for them to remember what has been read, to be able to identify the characters and setting, and to retell the major story events in order.

Guided Reading - At this stage of your child’s reading development, many of the books they bring home to share with you are predictable and easily memorized.  This is to be expected.  Encourage your child to point to each word and look at the words as they read.  When the book is finished, ask your child if they can point out certain words in the story.  Ask them to tell you about their favorite part or what they like about the story.  Please make sure that classroom library books are returned to school as soon as possible.  Paper copies may be kept at home.

Math 

We finished Chapter 7 and have an understanding of solid (3-dimensional) and flat (2-dimensional) shapes.  Solid shapes have faces and edges.  Flat shapes have sides and corners.  We enjoyed making patterns with the pattern block shapes.

Chapter 8 is a lengthy chapter which involves lessons and activities which support the development of a solid understanding of place value and numbers to 100.  We have been practicing skip counting by twos and fives.

Science 

We enjoyed exploring magnets and learning about the magnetic properties of some solids.  We also explored the concept of Sink and Float as we continue to learn more about the properties of materials.  The children enjoy these hands-on activities and have made many interesting predictions and observations.

Valentine Celebration – Friday, February 14th

I have sent home a class list so that your child may work on addressing his/her valentines.  As a reminder, because of the school’s health and wellness policy, candy can not be part of our card exchange and celebration.  Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

Bubbles Workshop

Classroom Newsletter January 20, 2014

Language Arts

Journal Writing – The words “this” and “that” have been introduced.  We now know I, a, the, is, it, in, to, at, are, for, on, of, my, and, he, this, that, and his.  I have also added the words “her” and “she” to the word ring.  They are not “official” kindergarten words but they are words which the children are seeing and using frequently in their reading and writing.  The children are working on writing at least two sentences in their weekly journal entry.  We have been working on adding a reaction sentence to what we are writing about, for example how we felt when we did something and why we felt that way.  The children’s writing is becoming more detailed and interesting.

Guided Reading – We reviewed the sight words listed above.  We read books focusing on the words “this” / “that”.  The children are able to sustain “Read to Self” time for 15 minutes.   They are also doing “Read to Someone” time for 15 minutes.  Many of the expectations for “Read to Someone” time are the same as those for “Read to Self” time.   The children work quietly.  They get started right away.  They stay in one spot and read the whole time.  The children sit side by side and both of them have their eyes on the book.  They may choose to take turns reading the same book or they may choose to each read a different book to their partner.  The children also have the opportunity to “Listen to Reading” on the iPads.  We have downloaded a selection of books onto Storia from Scholastic.  Having the children reading independently allows me to meet with small groups and individuals to read books at students’ individual reading levels or to provide additional support as needed on other skills.
 
Fundations – We continue to review the letter formation for upper and lower case letters.  We have done activities distinguishing between when to use a period and when to use a question mark.  As always, we review the proper use of capitals for the beginning letter in a sentence as well as in people’s names.  The children are becoming skilled at tapping out, reading, and spelling CVC (consonant vowel consonant) words.  We remind the children to use this skill in their reading as well as in their writing and that it is not just a skill to be used in isolation.

Literacy Centers – We continue with our theme of snow and winter.
We read two different versions of The Mitten and talked about how the stories were alike and how they were different.  We practiced retelling the story by putting the animals in order on a piece of yarn and using sequencing words such as first, then, next, after that, last or finally  when retelling.

Math

We continue to focus on reading and writing numerals 0 – 20.  We are comparing and ordering groups of up to 20 objects.  The children are using ten frame boards to help them in their work.  They are learning that when a ten frame board is full there are always ten.  When there are two ten frame boards side by side and the first ten frame is full, they can count on from ten to get to the higher number shown.  The children are developing a solid understanding of the terms more, fewer, greater than, and less than.

In Chapter 7 we will work on recognizing and describing the characteristics of basic solid (three-dimensional) shapes and flat (two-dimensional) shapes.

Science and Health

In Science we continue with our unit on Properties of Materials.  We learned about the properties of solids – they can be touched and they keep their shape.  We explored buttons, rocks, shells, and pom poms.  We shared many different descriptive words during our exploration.
Next week we will be attending an enrichment program that will provide us with the opportunity to explore and discuss the properties of bubbles.