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:

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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:
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