**We have had a busy and productive week in Kindergarten! Route to Reading Rotation 2 has concluded. You should have received notification of skill status. Please email me if you have not. Route to Reading Rotation 3 will begin on Monday, October 31st. At that time, you will receive notification of what skill group your child is now working in.
**Reminder information on our Halloween Events is enclosed in the homework packet. Please join us for the parade, party and performance. Siblings are also welcome!
**This is a shout out for COOKIE DOUGH orders coordinated by our own Jen Andersson. Please place the order as soon as you can. I believe 1 week is left.
**We planted our tulip bulbs under the direction of Mr. Packer. The students learned about why we are planting them now, how to plant them and how to humanely ward off animals who love to dig them up. (1. squirrels 2. cayenne pepper)
**Please see the flyer on the Young Artists Workshop to be held on February 4, 2012. Great and fun opportunity!
**SEASONAL BABIES PROJECT--Please send a baby picture of your child to school for our seasonal babies project. We will do the project on Monday, November 7th. Yes, I will have mine too and some surprise photos.
**NO SCHOOL on Friday, November 11th in observance of Veteran's Day.
**Our leaf sort went well. Each student added their leaves to the sort. We then labeled each pile. There was much discussion on color, size, shape and texture. We took a photo of the results.
**Ms. Bell Bey and Ms. Kwiatt talked to the students about Red Ribbon Week, the theme being staying healthy and safe. They provided the students with examples of a healthy life style and things to avoid.
**Ms. Allen, from the Multicultural Center, will come to talk to the students on el dia de los muertos on Tuesday, November 1st at 8:45 am. Come join us if you can.
**We will begin our new theme-BEARS/CHANGING SEASONS on Tuesday, November 1st.
**Future field trip to Brookfield Zoo on Monday, November 21st. More info will follow.
**Kindergarten Winter Concert time has been changed--Date is the same-Friday, December 22nd--but time is now 9:30 am instead of 1:30 pm. Please make a note of it.
This week:
It was all about skeletons, bats and spiders!! Oh my! We took the fright out of these incredibly amazing specimens. The students listened to information from books as well as looked up information on the internet. They took a look at a model of a human skeleton and got to touch and feel a human REAL leg bone (courtesy of my brother, Dr. Gullo.) The students took a look under the microscope at a leg bone of a mouse and spongy bone particles from a human leg bone. Cool! Under our magnifier, we took a look an intact mouse skull (thanks to Justin's mom.) We could even see his teeth! They looked pretty sharp! The students looked at a model of a bat. It was really cool to see his thumbs. We also looked at a model of a spider. The students observed 8 legs and 2 body parts. They noted that this was different from an insect. The students worked with the terms--mammal and arachnid. Ask your child to tell you a fun fact about our specimens. (compact bone, spongy bone, nocturnal, pink pups, 8 eyes, silk, web) The students reflected and labeled in their journals. We will make an origami bat on Monday!
Reading/Social Studies: The students continued on in Unit 2 Friends in our Treasures series. They built background knowledge about how friends in different parts of the world share activities. The student listened to the Big Book story,"Friends Around the World." They made connections looking and listening to the activities and places in the world where the friends lived. We located the countries on the map so students could get an idea of where they live in relation to the friends in the story. The sight word a was added to our sight word list. We reviewed our other sight vocabulary and played ,"Hands Up, Hands Down." Our letter in isolation this week was Pp. The students made the sound and brainstormed words with that beginning sound. Our Robust Vocabulary words this week were WORLD, GAMES, PLEASANT, ASSIST and HONEST.
The students worked on listening comprehension skills using our big book story. We also used the photos on our retelling cards to tell the order of events. Our puppet friend, Mr. Happy assisted us in practice blending of letter sounds to make 3 letter words. The students used their sound boxes to isolate where they heard the Pp sound--at the beginning or ending of a word. We read our pre-decodable book, "I am a Doctor." The students are really improving in tracking every word and picture from left to right as they read. The students listened to the story, "Brer Turtle Helps Out." They made predictions on what they thought might happen in the story. The animals in the story have an argument and then make up. The students also compared and contrasted 2 poems dealing with friends. The students used their sight word vocabulary and pictures to create sentences. They practiced reading them to a partner. We read the fable, "The Lion and the Mouse." The students retold what happened in the fable. The students had several partner reading opportunities in order to practice their fluency skills. They worked in their activity books and read the pre-decodable story, "I Am." Work stations this week included
creating word puzzles and recording the words created, read it and add to it where the student reads a story and then draws and writes a new page, friend puppet where you make a puppet and then draw and write about how to be a good friend and creating letter Pp with clay and drawing pictures and writing words that begin with the letter.
Math: This week our focus was on continued work with 2 and 3 dimensional structures. Come and check out some of our projects! We also worked on Drip Paint Symmetry. The students came up with some pretty unique ideas on what their paintings looked like. They are on display in the hallway. Our leaf collection project was enjoyable. Each student decided what group their leaves belonged in. The class examined the groups and made changes as needed. Students labeled the categories. It looks pretty cool. Our problems of the day involved sequencing steps in making a sandwich, how leaves were alike and different and beginning computation stories. We continue work on recognizing numbers 0-30 and counting quantities. We continue to do activities focusing on the concepts greater than and less than.
Writing: The students worked on the Starting Corner Capital letters U and V. They used their mini boards to practice and used their wet sponges in our wet, dry, try practice. They used the wooden pieces to create a tactile model of the letter and worked in their orange practice books. We used the writing prompts from our Treasures series to illustrate and write in our journal. The students also found our word webs and sentence starters useful. We continue to work on becoming more confident writers.
Literature: "Amazing Bats," "Skeleton Science," "Bones," "Bats: Creatures of the Night," "Fantastic Bats," "Bats Ball Game," "What Does the X-Ray Say?" "What is Inside My Body?" "Skeleton Meets the Mummy," "Spiders," "Three Hungry Spiders," "The Very Busy Spider," "Spiders Spin Webs," "Super Spiders," "Scaredy Cat, Splat."
