What a Whirlwind Week! - October 22

This week just FLEW by! I hope that it was a bit more relaxed in your home!

Language Arts

Go Away Big Green Monster!, by Ed Emberley was our source of inspiration this week during Writer's Workshop. We talked about the author's carefully picked describing words, or his word choice, that help us not only see with our eyes, but imagine in our minds, what the Big Green Monster looks like even if we didn't have the pictures in the book. Each student made their own Big Green Monster using brightly colored paper and a green paper plate. The students then used their own word choice to describe one part of their monster - nose, teeth, hair, ears, mouth - and spent a lot of time writing down as many sounds as they heard using their inventive spelling.

This week we learned two new letters, Aa and Gg. The students are really settling into the routines of Fundations and have learned 11 letters - a, b, c, f, g, i, m, n, o, t and u!

One of our goals for kindergarteners this year will be for them to retell familiar stories with little prompting from an adult. This means that students can tell you about a story's setting, characters, problem(s), events (beginning, middle and end), and the ending. To begin our learning together, we read the book The Legend of Spookly the Square Pumpkin, by Joe Troiano and worked together in groups to retell the story. The students did an amazing job for their first time working in groups cooperatively together and making sure they added the right details to each poster for the setting, characters, problems and the ending. We'll begin working on retelling events in the coming weeks.

Math

We're almost to 10! During our Math In Focus this week we looked at the numbers 8 and 9. The students are also learning and using a lot of different math skills in our Daily Calendar Math. We've been learning to count on, predicting and place value.

Science

We've begun learning about our Five Senses! This week we used our eyes to explore colors, mixing colors and talking about all of the things we use our eyes to do.

Important Reminders

• As we look forward to our Halloween Parade on Wednesday, October 30th at 2:00 pm, please remember to send your student's costume to school in a bag with their name on it. Also, there are no weapons allowed in the school. I hope you can join us for the parade and party!
• Please remember to check the share calendar on the website for your student's new share date. We've gone through one cycle already and are ready for new shares from friends!
• Our Kindergarten Winter Concert is scheduled for Wed. December 18th at 9:15 am.

The Tale Is True!

If you heard a tall tale this weekend from your student about a "lizard" being found in our room - they  weren't fibbing, telling a fish story, stretching the truth or lying! It was all true!

After we returned from our field trip, we gathered on the rug for our two shares. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a student holding something black - which I thought was plastic. I asked where they had gotten it, and all of a sudden, it started moving around!

Our custodian, Kory, informed us that it was an endangered yellow spotted salamander! They live in the Audubon next door and he must found his way inside through a door or window that was left open. He's safe back in the wild now, but it was a pretty great finish to our fun day!

 

Community Field Trip

Our community field trip around Topsfield was very exciting! The students had a wonderful time visiting each of our community helpers, learning more about what they do here in Topsfield and how they help our community.

Below are pictures of the day beginning at the library, moving to the fire department, then to the police station and finishing up at the post office.

A Short Teaching Week - October 18

Week Overview

This week was an extremely short week for us here in 309. We only had Wednesday to learn together, so we reviewed a lot of what we'd learned the week before.

In Fundations, we continued to focus on the letters Cc and Oo and were able to take more time to practice reading with Echo The Owl and making learning our letters fun. 

We also worked on our journal writing and are making great progress with our inventive spelling and adding details to our pictures. The students are getting more comfortable with putting down letters they're hearing when they stretch out their words. We're really becoming a room full of writers!

Math In Focus this week worked on the number 8. We practiced counting and writing the number in our workbooks. We're also beginning to look more and one-to-one correspondence when counting to these higher numbers, like 8. 

 

October 7th Classroom Headlines

Language Arts

This week, we focused on our favorite thing to do at the fair in our Writer's Workshop Journal time. We read the book, Time for the Fair, by Mary Train. We had a chance to share what our favorite part of visiting the Topsfield Fair and then we wrote about what we shared in our journals. Some of our ideas were going down the big slide, going on elephant rides, playing carnival games and visiting the bee hive building.

Our new sight word, "in," was introduced on Tuesday and we practiced throughout the week. Please make sure to add the new card to your student's sight word ring and practice the new word at home.

Fundations will be stretched over two weeks as next week is a very short week. We're learning Cc and Oo this week. We've already learned how to write these letters using our Fundations writing grid, did a two-way sort using pictures that begin with these letters and are getting used to the sounds these letters make. Next week, we'll make these letters fun by doing lots of different types of learning with the letters to continue our practice.

Math

Our math learning has moved on to the numbers 7 and 8 this week! We're learning rhymes to help with our counting and are looking at different arrangements of the numbers 7 and 8 to learn that no matter how many different ways we see our numbers arranged, they'll always end up being 7 and 8. We do this by counting the same number of objects in a circle or looking at different arrangements of objects with groups of smaller numbers in lines that we count all together.

In our Everyday Calendar math, we've been looking at arrangements of numbers to 9 using dominos. The students are learning to look at the arrangement of dots and quickly saying the number of dots they're seeing. This is called subitizing and we'll be working with different arrangements of dots on 10-frames throughout the year helping students to see numbers to 10 in various forms as part of our Common Core Standards.

Health

This week we were visited by Jump Roper, Mark Rothstein. The students had a wonderful time learning different ways of jumping rope and exciting new things to try while staying active. The students were excited and engaged, having a wonderful time on Friday afternoon.

Looking Ahead

Volunteers will begin next week, Wednesday, October 16. Please let me know if you signed up to volunteer, but did not receive your schedule Friday afternoon.

Our Community Field Trip is scheduled for Friday, October 18 with a rain date of Wednesday, October 23. We will be doing a lot of walking that day between the Topsfield Fire Department, Police Department, Post Office and Library. Please be sure to dress your student in sneakers/comfortable walking shoes and appropriate clothing for the weather. Please also send in a paper bag lunch with your student's name on it and be sure to keep in mind our Tree Nut/Peanut Free classroom. 

Our Halloween Parade and Classroom Celebration is scheduled for Wednesday, October 30th beginning at 2:00 pm. I know that our Room Parents have been in touch with everyone with details for the day, but if you have misplaced any information, please let us know. Also, please keep in mind that costumes should be age appropriate and safe for all students. I hope you can join us for the parade!

What did we do this week?

Language Arts

We had a very busy week in our Language Arts learning.

During Writer's Workshop we read the book Apples and Pumpkins, by Anne Rockwell. We discussed what some of our favorite things to do during the fall are, just like the little girl in our book. We came up with lots of great ideas including apple picking, pumpkin carving, raking leaves and jumping in leaf piles, and going to the Topsfield Fair. We also are continuing to discuss our inventive spelling and are getting the hang of putting down the letters that match the sounds we hear when pulling our words slowly out of our mouths. 

It was a busy week in our sight word learning, too, by learning two new words, is and it. We did a lot of practice reading the words with our new book What is it?, writing and identifying both words and will continue to practice with these, and our other words, during morning meeting and other parts of our day. 

During our Fundations time, we introduced the letters Ii and Uu - two very tricky vowels for new readers. We practiced with Baby Echo by stretching our the short Ii and Uu sounds so that we can begin to hear the difference between our vowels which will help in our writing now and later on.

Math

We completed our first chapter in Math In Focus! The students completed their first assessment as well which will come home to parents on Tuesday. We then began reading, writing and working with the numeral 6. We'll now be working with numbers from 1-6.

The students also practiced writing our numbers by completing our October calendar.

Science & Health

We were able to get outside again this week during science. We were scientists again this week by using magnifying glasses to see objects we found outside in more detail. We drew our objects in detail on our observation sheets using correct colors, size and details like scientists in the real world.

We continued our discussion about being safe and making sure we're with a buddy when we're in a public space. We also discussed that if we want to do something that might mean we're by ourselves for a few minutes, we check with an adult before going to do our activity. 

Other News

*During art class, Ms. Lang had our class create an art piece for the Topsfield Fair! Our artwork will be hung in the Public Safety Building at the fair - make sure to stop by with your students while visiting the fair this week!

*Our share calendar has been going wonderfully this week! The shares we've had so far have been perfect and we've had great conversations around each of them - thank you!

*I have been working on a volunteer schedule for our parents for the last week, and it's been tough making sure we're fitting everyone in. I am hoping to have it solidified by Monday and will be sending individual emails to parents with their scheduled days to visit the classroom. Please remember that you MUST have a CORI on file with Mrs. B in the office in order to volunteer in the classroom.

*More information about our upcoming Community field trip will be coming home this week - watch your student's folder for the permission form.