We have a lot coming up in the next couple of weeks, so I wanted to take a minute and go over some important dates.
November 26-28-No School, Happy Thanksgiving!
December 4-No School, Teacher Workshop Day-I sent home a time for you, please email me or call the office if you didn't receive it.
December 4-Book Orders due
December 9-Report Cards go home
December 22-Gingerbread Houses-We will be collecting candies, frosting and graham crackers.
December 24-January 2, No School, Happy Holidays!
Have a great holiday weekend!
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Owls. . .
We had a couple of special visitors this week. Fungo and Buddy from the Fisher Cats came to issue a reading challenge to Grinnell School. Each of the students can earn two free tickets to a select Fisher Cats game in the spring by reading 5 books. These can be books they read or are read to them. Look for the form in your child's folder. Mrs. Herr, the guidance counselor, also came to kindergarten to talk about being brave and helping a friend.
We started one of my favorite units-Owls. We are reading informational texts about owls and recording our learning on a graphic organizer. We are creating our own owl shaped book to remember our ideas. We also read literary texts about owls and talk about what owls can and can't really do.
During Readers Workshop, we have been learning strategies for reading words. This is the chart we are using to remember our learning:
.
In my conferences with students, I have been noticing them applying these strategies. They are finding popcorn words, looking at the first letter and sounding out the word, and checking their reading by looking at the picture. I am proud of the progress they are making.
In Math we started learning about 3 dimensional shapes. This has been a tricky concept. Students see the side of a cube and call the shape a square or try to find a sphere and point to a circle. We will continue to work on identifying these tricky shapes by going on shape hunts, making three dimensional shapes with play-doh, and playing games to learn the names of the shapes.
Our list of popcorn words is growing. They are is, I, a, the, and, to, come, look, can, see, like, and my. We are starting to use the words to write sentences. Christmas is a great time for your child to do some writing at home. Kindergarteners can sign their names to cards, write letters, lists and thank you cards.
There will be one more book order before Christmas. If you would like to order books for your child as a gift, put the order in an envelope with a note. When the books come in, I will schedule a pick up date with you.
Some of the books we have read this week are:
.
We started one of my favorite units-Owls. We are reading informational texts about owls and recording our learning on a graphic organizer. We are creating our own owl shaped book to remember our ideas. We also read literary texts about owls and talk about what owls can and can't really do.
During Readers Workshop, we have been learning strategies for reading words. This is the chart we are using to remember our learning:
.In Math we started learning about 3 dimensional shapes. This has been a tricky concept. Students see the side of a cube and call the shape a square or try to find a sphere and point to a circle. We will continue to work on identifying these tricky shapes by going on shape hunts, making three dimensional shapes with play-doh, and playing games to learn the names of the shapes.
Our list of popcorn words is growing. They are is, I, a, the, and, to, come, look, can, see, like, and my. We are starting to use the words to write sentences. Christmas is a great time for your child to do some writing at home. Kindergarteners can sign their names to cards, write letters, lists and thank you cards.
There will be one more book order before Christmas. If you would like to order books for your child as a gift, put the order in an envelope with a note. When the books come in, I will schedule a pick up date with you.
Some of the books we have read this week are:
.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Happy Veterans Day!
This week we talked about Veterans and how smart, strong, and helpful they are. The students made soldiers and wrote about them. We colored pictures that my mom is going to deliver to the Veterans that she works with. Grinnell School collected 178 pounds of Halloween candy that is going to be shipped to soldiers serving in the military. Amazing!
We also started talking about the settings in a book. We used this anchor chart to help us with our learning.
We also started talking about the settings in a book. We used this anchor chart to help us with our learning.
In Math, we began talking about geometry. The two dimensional shapes we learned about are hexagons, rhombuses, triangles, rectangles, squares, and circles.
Next week I will be sending home a sign up sheet for Parent Teacher Conferences. The conferences will be held on December 4 from 12:00-6:45. There is no school that day.
Have a great weekend!
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Happy Halloween!
Thank you to everyone who sent in donations and came to help with set up and clean up. We had a good time visiting with each other and enjoying yummy snacks.
This week in Readers Workshop we learned about characters. We have used this anchor chart to remember our learning. We worked on describing characters by their physical appearance (short, tall, blond) and by what they are like on the inside (brave, mean, friendly, grumpy). Monday we will be making connections to characters. You can help your child make deeper connections. Often, the students will start with connections like Goldilocks has blond hair and so do I. We want to go deeper. Chicken Little was brave when he stopped to talk to save his friends when the sky was falling. I was brave when I helped my friend make good choices at recess.
This week in Readers Workshop we learned about characters. We have used this anchor chart to remember our learning. We worked on describing characters by their physical appearance (short, tall, blond) and by what they are like on the inside (brave, mean, friendly, grumpy). Monday we will be making connections to characters. You can help your child make deeper connections. Often, the students will start with connections like Goldilocks has blond hair and so do I. We want to go deeper. Chicken Little was brave when he stopped to talk to save his friends when the sky was falling. I was brave when I helped my friend make good choices at recess.
During the reading conferences, Miss Madarese and I have been helping the students to actually read words in the books. We have been making sure our spoken words match the text. If we are unsure of a word we look at the first letter and picture.
In Math we are wrapping up our unit on numbers to ten and sorting. Some of the students are still practicing sorting and explaining why they sorted the way they did. All the students do great if the headings of the sort are already given, but many struggle if they need to come up with a way to sort on their own.
Next we will begin to identify and describe shapes. We will focus on circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, hexagons, cubes, cones, cylinders, spheres, and rectangular prisms. The grocery store is a great place to go on a shape hunt.
This week Miss Kathy from the Derry Public Library visited us. She shared some exciting activities coming up in November. There are stories and crafts. She also reminded us that the library has books, games, movies, and video games. With the cold weather coming, it is the perfect spot to spend some time.
Wednesday night is Literacy Night for grades k-2 and Math Night for grades 3-5. Pizza will be served in the cafeteria from 6:00-6:30. Then from 6:30-7:30, teachers will have tables set up with activities for you and your children to do together. Hope to see you there!
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