Sunday, October 27, 2013

Busy Week, Busy Brains

This coming week is definitely going to tire our little Kindergarteners out! It'll definitely tire this little teacher out.

On this week's agenda:

Wednesday (10/30/13)
- The Bully Show 8:30am
- Early Dismissal at 12:30
- Parent/Teacher Conferences

Thursday (10/31/13)
- Field Day from 8:30-10:30am (ATHLETIC SHOES/TIE-DYE T-SHIRTS REQUIRED)
- Storytelling with Dan Gordon 1:30pm

Sunday (11/3/13)
- Time Change - Fall back 1 hour

Unit of Inquiry: How We Organize Ourselves

We are beginning our unit "How We Organize Ourselves". This unit is a great opportunity for you to volunteer in our classroom. We  need parents to come in and tell about their professions. The students will be asking questions about when you have to go to work, where you work, what you wear and how much money you make (big, medium, or small). Most importantly, they will ask how your job helps the community. These questions will help the students to decide on a profession they might like to have in the future. Look for more information about this in Tuesday folder.

What Are We Learning This Week?

- Number Stories
- Symmetry
- Different Types of Communities: Rural, Suburban, Urban
- New Sight Words - A new list will be sent home in the Tuesday Folder
- Properties of Matter (Texture, Size, Shape, Weight, Color)
- Rhyming
- Word Families
- Letter/Sound Recognition
- Blending letters to make a word
- Chunking word parts
- Using picture cues during reading

Fun Recap from Last Week:

International Presentation - Chile






I met Prince William and Princess Kate in England at the International Festival! <3


On a side note...

Have you signed up for Remind 101 yet? If not, please refer to my previous post to find out how you can get a classroom reminder through text message! Thanks!





Thursday, October 17, 2013

These past few weeks has been a very busy week for us in Kindergarten!

Five Senses - Hearing

We are finishing up our five senses with touch/taste this week. Be prepared to hear fun stories on what we are tasting in the classroom.

We practiced using our sense of hearing by listening to sounds from an egg. We made predictions on what was inside the egg, we then opened the egg and found out what was inside.


These are the eggs, each egg had a different sound.


This is what was inside the eggs.


We put the pictures of each object inside the picture of the egg.


A few of our students excited to find out what was inside the eggs.


Book Buddies

We finally met our book buddies last week! It was very exciting to have our 3rd graders read to us. We're excited to be able to read chapter books like the older kids. 




















Game board Creations - Learning about Numbers

We created our own game boards with a spinner last week. I hope some of them brought it home to play with the whole family. 

Here are some of our game boards:







International Festival

This coming Friday, we are having an International Festival where we are learning about different cultures. Students will have a "passport" to go to different countries and learn about it. 

We had some parents who came to our classroom to share about their culture this week. The kids were super excited to try their country's food, learn about their folktales/legends, learn about the culture's attire/environment, and hear their culture's music!






Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Picture Retakes and GT Testing

Picture Retakes

We will be having our picture retakes tomorrow! This means that the students who did not have an opportunity to dress up will be able to look beautiful and handsome tomorrow! Our pictures will be at 9:00AM.

GT Testing

All K students are universally screened for GT. Teachers will complete GT recommendations online in December and you will be notified by Spring Break.

November 19 – NNAT

December 6 -13 - Stanford

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Remind 101


This is such a genius idea! Technology these days really opens up a whole new realm of communication for teachers and parents. 

Parents, please sign up for remind101 by texting the number above, with the message above. I will update you via text message whenever there are 1-2 important reminders. 

The number above is NOT my personal cell phone number, it is a number remind101 had provided me. This means that you will not be able to text back. 

If you have any questions, please e-mail me!

Thanks! 

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Exploration Galore and More!

This week seemed ever so busy in our little Kindergarten class!

A quick recap:

Me Dolls: Sharing Time

We've been presenting our me dolls whenever we had the time, here's one of our little cuties presenting his me doll. It looks EXACTLY like him! So creative! 


During our sharing time, I like the students to be able to share their thoughts with the presenter too. So, I taught them the phrase "Questions or comments, please.". I had explained that a question could be something they were curious about, using who, what, when, where and why. I then explained that a comment could be something positive they were thinking about their presentation. An example would be..."I really like the way you decorated the pants." This opened up a floodgate of questions and comments from the kids, it definitely made the presenter feel super special! 

In the Garden: Sight/Sound Walk

We went on an excursion through our International Garden. We were exploring our 5 senses after learning about it the past couple of weeks. We were writing/drawing some things that we saw/heard in the garden. 



















Number Walk

During math time, the kids were SO excited to use our school's iPads. During our number walk, I heard one of the kids say "Wow! Numbers are everywhere!" This was an awesome moment for me as a teacher, that's right kiddos...now you've got it! 




Helpful Online Resources

I've found some really neat online resources for your kids to practice with at home. These resources correlate with what we are learning in the class at this time. Some of the resources are helpful tools to review over letter recognition and sound. Have fun!

Illuminations - Ten Frame Activity

Illuminations - Number/Picture correspondance
Read Write Think - Onset/Rime (Word Families)

Starfall - at word family


Starfall - an word family


ABCya - Patterns Game


PBS - Pattern Matcher


PBS - Letter/Sound correspondance


PBS - Letter Recognition