On March 23rd, Wildcare came to visit to talk about reptiles, mammals and birds.  The students had a wonderful time learning about specific characteristics of certain animals.  For example, we learned that a California Quail's call sounds like it is saying Chi-ca-go.  Ask your kindergartner to make the sound for you!

The best part of Wildcare's visit was the chance to touch all the animals the presenter had brought to the classroom.  My camera decided to malfunction during Wildcare's visit, so I only have 3 pictures.

Here is our Wildcare instructor with some of the animals she brought.

Cat in the Hat Cafe was a blast.  Thanks to our parent volunteers who helped our centers run smoothly.  Students had face painting, sorted gold fish, made green eggs, and made self portraits with apples on top.  All center activities were connected to the Dr. Seuss books we have read.

Some students came to school dressed up as their favorite character from a book.  Here are Uni the Unicorn, Peter Pan, Yertle the Turtle, Harry Potter and Cat in the Hat.  We have more pictures posted on SeeSaw.

New sightwords: for, was, saw

For Science:  We continue to work on our unit on Matter and changing states of matter.  We used a hair dryer to melt a crayon.  This experiment allowed the students to witness the change from solid to liquid and back to solid.

Congratulations to our Kindergartners (Allie, Sebastian, Cameron, Caspian and Riley) who were participants in our annual Science Fair. These students were excellent and confident presentors.

Learning subtraction is going smoothly.  Students have quickly grasped the concept of "take away" and counting what's left.  Many are comfortable sharing their subtraction stories to the class.  I will soon send their videos through seesaw.  We used "losing teeth" as one of our subtraction stories.  This project is posted on our hallway board.

New sight word: said 

I'm two weeks late in reporting, but I'm sure you've heard that Zero the Hero came to visit Room 3 for our 100th Day of School!

The students were so fascinated by Zero the Hero that they spent a great deal of time interviewing him.  Some questions I recall had something to do with his favorite food and restaurant, and where he lives!

Our classroom was filled with fun 100th day activities.  One of the favorite centers was the 100th day snack - students had to pick 10 from each selection (marshmallows, pretzels, raisins, chocolate, white chocolate, butterscotch chips, cheerios, goldfish, and cheez its) to create 100 things to eat. A snack bag of 100 marshmallows was not allowed - students had to mix it up.

Another popular center was using 100 items to build or create something.

Making hot chocolate was connected to several academic concepts.  This activity is linked to Science - how matter can change states, and it also serves as our introduction to our "How To" writing unit.  Students wrote the 3 steps to making hot chocolate.

On Friday, made apple sauce (also connected to our lessons about matter and "how to" writing).  Students cut the apples and we cooked the apples in a crock pot for hours.  The classroom smelled heavenly.

The rest of the day was spent making Chinese dragon masks and puppets to celebrate the Lunar New Year.

New Sight Words: with, went

Last week, we had the perfect weather for our outdoor Science experiments.  We are learning about air (gas).  Students made a pinwheel to learn that air can move things.  On Friday, we made bubbles by blowing air into soapy water.  

We have started our Lexia CORE5 reading program.  It is a computer based reading program.  Each student gets to work on Lexia for 20-30 minutes each week.  Each student has an assigned username and password.  More information will be sent home in your Wednesday folder.

We have read many non-fiction books about the Bald Eagle.  Students worked very hard in writing one fact they learned about the Bald Eagle.  Factual writing is a big switch from writing about their own expriences.  These two different writing styles are seen on our latest projects.

We are learning about the Statue of Liberty.  Our next factual writing will be based on the Statue of Liberty.

We have moved on to our second author, Jonathan London.  We just LOVE the Froggy books.  Students find it comical.  

Since we have finished reading our collection of books by Mo Willems, we will now work on making connections with the books we have read.  Each student will pick their favorite book and write a sentence about the story, or a character in the book, or an opinion about the book.  Here are two students who have already selected their favorite Mo Willems book.

New sight words: come, have, then, them 

We have read our Mo Willems collection.  The students really enjoy his books.  Our kindergartners will be selecting their favorite Mo Willems book and will either write a sentence about the book or write about their favorite part.  The ornery pigeon is one of their favorite characters.

To celebrate Martin Luther King Day, the class learned a song about Martin.  We read a book about his life and each student made a portrait of Martin.

One Friday, our favorite illustrator and story teller, Ane Rovetta taught the students how to draw a frog using oil pastel.   I have uploaded pictures on SeeSaw.

For Science: We started our unit on Matter.  Students were introduced to three types of matter: solid, liquid and gas.

For Writing: As we learn more about US symbols, students are also introduced to non-fiction text.  We watched a video and read books about the Bald Eagle.  This week, students will write one or two facts they learned about the Bald Eagle.

A humongous appreciation goes to Eliza and Martha (Isaac's mom and grandma) for baking 30 gingerbread man cookies for our students to decorate!  What a feat!  I am also happy to note that there was no breakage nor accidental drops this year, which equates to NO tears.  Hurray!

Each student was able to enjoy their heavily frosted cookie at snack time.

We also want to thank Maren (Emelia's mom) for teaching our students about Hannukah.  She also taught the class the dreidel game.  Each student received a dreidel and 4 Hershey kisses. 

We want to thank our parent volunteers for supervising the puzzle and Rudolph Hat centers.  Fortunately, we had enough time to allow our parents to decorate their own gingerbread man cookie.

As I have mentioned before, December is a busy month for our Kindergartners.  A craft day was the perfect way to end our month and year. I hope you have a wonderful break.  I will see you in 2018!

December is a very busy month for our Kindergartners!  

In case you haven't noticed, we are deep in addition.  Students use a variety of strategies to solve addition problems. Most students prefer counting with manipulatives, some use the counting on strategy.  However, I have a handful of students with impressive math skills, and they like to do "Mental Math," no use of manipulatives, counting on fingers nor relying on pictures, they simply solve the problem in their head. Try it at home and see if your child likes Mental Math.

This week, we also worked on our geometric shapes.  Here is one activity that everyone enjoyed - What shapes can you use to fill a triangle?

 We are also using tally marks to slowly introduce counting by 5's.  Here is a chant we use to help us remember how to make tally marks - one, two three, four, number five shuts the door.

We have started our American Symbols Unit.  Students were introduced to the American Flag.

Reading:  We are reading variations of the Gingerbread Man story.  We compare characters, settings, and endings.

We now have 22 sight words: I, a, see, the, go, to, can, my, am, and, on, look, this, is, he, she, we, me, be, you, your,  play.

On Friday, we had a taste test.  A dab of unsweetened cocoa mix for bitter, a jelly bean for sweet, one potato chip for salty, and a slice of lemon for sour.  Most students preferred the sweet taste, 5 voted for salty as their favorite taste, and unlike my past classes, there were no votes for sour or bitter.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of their "sour faces" as they tasted the lemon.  I think these two students won the best sour face contest.

We are learning to write lowercase letters.  We learned that some letters are small: a, c, e, i, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, z.  Some letters are tall: b, d, f, h, k, l, t. Some letters fall down: g, j, p, q, y.  We are focusing on where to start our letters!  Tall letters start at the top of your writing line, short and falling down letters start at the middle or dotted writing line.  Starting this week, one student at a time will be taking home a name writing activity to practice uppercase and lowercase writing.

We have finished sorting and learning about diphthongs!  For the past 3 weeks, we have been working on sorting and recognizing these sounds: ch, sh, th, and wh.  We will now be working on l blends : bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, and sl.

In  Math, we will continue to work on one more and one less, as not many students have mastered this skill.  The students had a smooth and fantastic introduction to story problems and writing an addition sentence!  I was so proud of them that I gave the class an impromptu popcorn party Friday after lunch.

Please click on the link to watch the story problem video. Story Problem 

New sight word: is, this

I hope everyone had a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving.  I am so grateful for my super students and for all you wonderful parents, for your support and your enthusiasm in working together to help mold successful students.

We have been practicing Mindfulness.

Practicing mindfulness helps students to calm their busy mind, to listen to their body, to be more attuned to their feelings, and learn to be present.  I have led several exercises that we have been practicing in class. Mindful Breathing, Mindful Listening, gratefulness and sending kind thoughts to somebody.  I love how my class has embraced the practice.

Last week, we worked on reviewing patterns.  Students created a color pattern for their native american headdress and also worked on naming their pattern in alphabetic order.  For example, a red,yellow, orange pattern is also named as an ABC pattern.  A red, red, yellow pattern is AAB.

This week our writing activity will be focused on gratefulness.

Last week, we went to visit our Third Grade Buddies to see their Fall Friends creations.  Here are pictures of our Fall Friends.

And here we are with our Third Grade Buddies.

New Sight Word: look

Math - Students have been taught introductory steps to Addition.  The Turkey Roll and Count Game helps students to add two numbers by counting on.

Here is a video of our kindergartners counting on, and having fun with the turkey game!

Turkey Game

Reading - We have had two lessons on Reading With a Partner.  We sit side-by-side, and we put one book in the middle.  This is a great way to add reading minutes in our school day.  

Students had a great time "whiffing" our mystery smells.  They easily recognized banana, cinnamon, and coffee - but were stumped on the dryer sheet and orange.  We graphed our favorite scent and orange had the most votes while coffee and banana had the fewest votes.

New Sight Word - you, am