Touch Tank Fun!

This week, the kindergarten classes were visited by marine biologist, Ellen Goethel. Ellen brought lots of interesting items with her including whale bones, teeth and baleen, shark teeth, shells and, of course, the touch tank animals!

Ellen taught the children the different names of the animals they were observing and being able to touch including crustations, bivalves, and echinoderms (starfish). The children were able to pick up various types of animals including a lobster, spiny crab, snow crab, red mud crab, many types of starfish, and a horseshoe crab which we learned is a living fossil.

Ellen also operates Explore the Ocean World, LLC in Hampton Beach, NH. There is a 150 gallon touch tank which houses many different animals found in the Gulf of Maine. Ellen's information is:
Explore the Ocean World, LLC
367 Ocean Boulevard, #3
Hampton Beach, NH
Open daily 10-5 from July - Labor Day
exploretheoceanworld@hotmail.com

Weekly Update - 4/29-5/2

Language Arts

This week, we learned a new sight word, "from." We have only three more to learn!

Some students are missing their reading bags (plastic gallon ziploc bags). Please remember these books need to be returned to school each Tuesday and will be sent home the day your student has their reading group. If you think you may have misplaced this bag, please just let me know.

We continue work in unit 4 of Fundations. We are practicing digraphs (ch, sh, wh, th, ck) and have learned the rule that "ck" appears at the end of words with short vowel sounds. The students are really enjoying trying to figure out how to spell "trick" words like chick, sock, and back. They're doing great work with this skill! We will complete Unit 4 this week and begin our fifth and final unit next Tuesday.

As we move into the last two months of school, the students will begin to focus on informational writing during 6+1 Traits of Writing. We have also begun to look at non-fiction texts and learn the various traits that make them non-fiction - the book teaches you something, the information is all true, some books have table of contents, most of the illustrations are real photographs, etc. We will begin learning more about these types of texts and exploring our own informational writing in the coming weeks.

Math

We have begun Chapter 14 and are again working on the skills of counting on to the number 20. Please continue to work with your student at home both during homework and down time to work on this very important skill. Over the past few days we have begun to look at the different ways we can make the same number (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10). Next week, we will be moving into the teen numbers.

Important Reminders

*Early release Friday, May 9th at 1:15 pm. Lunch will be served this day.
*Mrs. O'Brien spent the week with us getting to know the students and how our classroom routines work. Please continue to discuss this transition with your student at home as I will be talking with them next week as well. I will now begin to prepare the students for my final day, May 16th, and will also talk about the possibility of Mrs. O'Brien coming early if I need to leave earlier than expected.
*The Kindergarten Portfolio Breakfast is scheduled for Tuesday, June 10th. More detailed information will be coming to you shortly about this very exciting day for families and students in the coming weeks.

What have we been up to this month?

Language Arts

Over the past few weeks we've been doing a lot of fun activities during our literacy times. We've been able to be a bit more creative with writing about what we like to do when it rains, creating our spring forsythia vases and flowers to decorate our classroom.

We've learned a lot of new trick words over the past few weeks including as, has and this. Please watch your student's folder tomorrow for the newest trick word card for their ring - this.

We have also continued to read in our groups and are making wonderful progress with these books. If your student hasn't brought home a plastic reading bag with a new book for a few weeks, please let me know. Sometimes, the students leave their plastic bags in their larger yellow browsing bags and forget to take the books home to practice with you!

**Please note that we will NOT bring books home this week as it's right before April vacation. We will resume our book bags the week of April 28th.**

Today we completed our opinion writing unit by writing about which season is our favorite and why. We will continue to write nonfiction throughout the remainder of the year.

In Fundations, we've completed unit 3 and have just begun unit 4! This unit is very exciting as it begins to introduce digraphs to the students to help them begin tapping out ch, ck, sh, th, and wh. The students are really excited about tapping out new words like shop, chip and sock and applying it to their writing. I cannot wait to see what we do with these new sounds as we become more comfortable with the digraphs after vacation.

Math

We have completed chapter 12! We have been learning more about counting on and have added in counting back. Please make sure your student is using their fingers and counting on by putting the number in their head to find out the bigger number. These skills are very important to our math learning and helps students to become more flexible in their thinking as they work in addition and subtraction.

Science

We've finished our unit on Transportation! I'm so glad that each of you were able to join us last week during open house to see all of the wonderful things we've been learning in our science curriculum. It's difficult to send home activities during sink and float or when we learn about the three states of matter - solid, liquid and gas. The students so enjoyed their time making their transportation vehicles out of recycled materials, so a big THANK YOU to all of you for sending in those materials!

Important Notes

*No school 4/18 - Good Friday

*April Vacation 4/21-4/25

*Early Release on 5/9 at 1:15 - lunch will be served

*Please continue to send in boots with your student, especially if it's been raining, as the playground can become very muddy at times.

*Book bags will NOT be sent home this week 4/15-4/16 as we are getting ready for April Vacation!

*Enjoy your time off next week!

Making Transportation!

Here are a few photos from our transportation making activity. Don't forget that you can bring theses home tonight at open house!

Weekly Update - 3/18-3/28

Language Arts

Over the past two weeks, we've been learning some true trick words during our Literacy Center time. We've now added "as" and "has" to our sight word (or trick words as we've begun to call these words) to our rings at home. Please continue to practice these words at home as your student will need to know all of these words at the end of kindergarten.

In our 6+1 Traits of Writing, we've been focusing on organization and ideas to help support our writing. This past week we read the story The Best Pet To Get by Emma Dodd. We discussed which pet would be the best pet to get and needed to give two reasons to support our answer. The students were introduced to a helpful organization tool which asked them to give their opinion and two reasons why they thought this. They then took that information and wrote a full story about which pet is the best to get, in our opinion of course!

A reminder about reading bags (the plastic Ziploc bags). These are to be kept at home until the following Tuesday when they're returned to school. Some students will bring these home for longer periods of time pending their reading group time during the week. All books that come home in the bag must be returned the following week in order for your student to bring home a new book.

Math

Our new unit is off to a great start! We're focusing on the terms most, fewer and same in our math discussions. Students are beginning to look at how they know quickly that one number is more than another by just looking at dot cards or with other manipulatives. We've also begun to look at how we know things are matched up using one-to-one correspondence. Homework this week may have been a bit confusing - our math books certainly were! But, we're continuing to work hard on understanding these new, and sometimes confusing, concepts.

Science

We have begun our unit on Transportation. The students have been discussing the three types of transportation we use including air, land and water. The students then created a replica drawing of a type of transportation they liked in the books we had been exploring. These will be added to our transportation poster this week.

Important Reminders

*Please remember to save your recyclable materials to send into the classroom. We will be using them to create our own transportation vehicles in the next week.

*Early Release on Friday, April 4th at 1:15 pm. Lunch will be served on this day.

*Ice Cream Social and open house is scheduled for Thursday, April 10th from 6:00-7:00 pm.

*The snow is almost gone here at Steward School, but with that comes lots and lots of mud! Please remember to continue sending boots with your student to school so that they can play on the playground during recess.

Weekly Update - 3/11-3/14

Language Arts

Our new sight word for the week is "be." There was a bit of trouble with the computer and printer Friday morning, so please look for the sight word in your student's folder on Tuesday afternoon.

In Fundations, students have begun to use their knowledge of letter sounds to continue to develop their reading skills. We have been tapping out trickier words this week like yes, wet, quiz and wig. We've also been listening to beginning, middle and ending sounds and spelling the words together as a class. We continue to work on our lowercase letter formations. When working with your student at home, it's helpful to remind them to use their best Fundations handwriting and to focus on using lowercase letters when writing words, unless it's the word I, the first word in a sentence or their name.

In writing, we'll begin to turn our focus to opinion writing. We have completed a pre-assessment and will begin building on what we already know of giving our opinion in writing.

Math

We continue to work on understanding groups of 10 and ones left over. Our focus this week were on the numbers 70-100. We've made progress in understanding this very difficult concept and even if it's still feeling difficult for your student, they're working really hard! Next week, we'll be finishing up chapter 8 and completing the chapter assessment!

Science

In science this week, we discussed our last type of matter - air or gasses. We observed how air moves water, how paper moves through air (balled up or flat), and how blowing through straws helps to move water around different types of materials.

Important Reminders

*Sight word books will be coming home this week. We have been keeping them in our reading bags to be sure we had enough to read during our read to someone activities. We have plenty to go around now, so many will be coming home for your student to keep and work on reading to family and friends!

Weekly Update - 3/4-3/7

Language Arts

Our new sight word this week is "one." This word is one that they must memorize and cannot tap or sound out. For the first few times they practice this word with you, it's OK for you to tell them what it says as it's a true trick word.

We're really getting the hang of guided reading! I'm so impressed with the growth that each of your students have shown since January - you should all be so proud of them! Remember when reading at home to have your student look at the pictures to help solve tricky words and use the first sound they see in a tricky word to be sure that solve the word using the skills they know. For example, if the word is "hen" and the picture is of a chicken, make sure they look at the "h" at the beginning to decode the word and to tap out smaller words using their Fundations skills. If you have any questions about strategies to try with your student, we can talk more at conferences on Friday.

In writer's workshop, we're beginning to work towards using only capital letters at the start of a new sentence or the word I, using punctuation, and writing our sight words with the proper spelling. We have also moved from only having a sentence about what they did and how they felt about it to having a beginning, middle and end to a story. As we move into the spring, it's important that students begin to practice writing like first graders and using all of the skills they've learned this year each time they write.

Math

We continue to work on place value to the tens place and have practice with numbers up to 79. We have been practicing sequencing numbers and filling in the missing numbers. For example, yesterday we put four random numbers in order, 54, 63, 67 and 73 and then we counted by ones from 54 to 73. This helps us get used to beginning to count at any given number between 1 and 100 and automatically know what the next number will be.

Important Reminders

*Early release on Friday, March 14 at noon - no lunch will be served.

Please check the classroom calendar for the share schedule.