We have been so busy!
We just finished our unit on Fairy Tales.   We learned the characteristics of fairy tales (magic, castle/royalty, a good character, an evil character, special beginning and ending words).  I think our class favorite was Puss In Boots.  We also responded to "What would you do if you had a fairy godmother?"  Surprisingly, most of us would scream :)

 

We practiced retelling the stories using beginning, middle, and end.  We have also been learning the story arc, where we identify beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and ending.

 

We had fun writing a letter to Rudolph. There were so many great questions for him...How do you fly?  What do you eat?  What makes your nose glow? 

 







In math, we focused on describing shapes using appropriate math vocabulary.  We also practiced counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's.

We also made an elf glyph (glyphs are a pictorial form of data collections):

 

The students each wrote a  "To Do" list for their elf.  Elves sure stay busy!

 

In science, we finished our unit on magnets.  We learned that magnets attract at opposite poles and repel at like poles.  We also learned that magnets are attracted to things that contain iron.

 

Reminders:

Please label all coats/hats/gloves with your child's name.



Thankful for a great class :)

What a fun week!  We are really getting into the Thanksgiving spirit!

This week we read The Ugly Pumpkin.  The pumpkin felt bad about himself until he discovered he wasn't a pumpkin at all.....he was a squash!! 
We then thought of new words to describe the squash.  We learned the term "adjective". 

We then tasted squash.  I was so surprised that everyone was willing to give it a taste!!!  Also surprising was the results, which we graphed and did tally marks for:

Can you believe 11 kids liked squash and 8 did not??  Who knew squash would be such a hit :)




We are also comparing the features of fiction and nonfiction. We read The Legend of the Bluebonnet, and discussed that even though a story may sound real, it could still be a fiction book.
We then worked on making text to self connections using the book.  Text to self connections help a reader understand how a character feels.

In the book, She-Who-Is-Alone, sacrifices her most valued possession (her warrior doll) for the good of the tribe.  We decided a "valued possession" is something that holds a special place in your heart.
The kids did a great job of writing about their valued possession and telling how they would feel if they had to give it away.

In math, we worked on making design patterns.  We started our pattern in the middle, and went out.   Here are our great patterns on our Native American:

In social studies, we started our unit on Pilgrims and Native Americans.  We are completing a topic writing about what we learn.  So far, we have read about how rough the trip for the Pilgrims was, and how not many survived the first winter.

 On election day, we cast our ballots for our favorite cookie.  The two great candidates were Chips Ahoy, and Oreo.  We discussed how our ballots were a private matter, and quietly placed on ballots in the box to be counted.   It was a close race, but Oreo came out ahead.  We all ate the Oreo as our elected cookie.

Reminders for this week:
**Our awesome Thanksgiving Play is on Friday at 8:30.  The kids have been singing the songs while they work in class....SO CUTE!!!!
**Thank you so much for reading each night with your child.  It really does help!!

Literary Pumpkins!

The literary pumpkins were SO CUTE!!  They were all so creative.  Thank you for helping your child with this fun project.
They are now on display in the library for the whole school to enjoy!

In language arts this week, we continued topic writing about spiders.  We worked on many of the non fiction print concepts such as labelling and diagrams for our book.
We also worked on creating mental images (what do you picture in your head while a story is being read).  We created mental images to the poem "My Neighbor's Dog is Purple".  We discussed how your mental image can chage as the story changes.

In math, we worked on graphing.  We constructed a type of graph called a glyph.  A glyph is a pictoral form of data collections. 
In our glyph, we constructed our cat to reflect what type of candy we prefer, if we have a pet cat, and which book we enjoyed most:

We also made a pie graph to show to answer the question "Are you afraid of spiders?"
Our pie was pretty evenly divided:

 





Next week:
*Literary pumpkins will go home on Wednesday.  If you would prefer to come pick up your child's pumpkin, you may do so.  You may go to the library to get it.
*As the weather gets a little cooler, please remember to put your child's name inside their jacket.

A busy week!

Wow!  We stayed so busy last week!  We had a great time reading some Halloween type of books.
We read When Itchy Witchy Sneezes and wrote about something the witch could blow away with her huge sneeze:

We also read Are You my Mummy?  We then wrote our text to self connections about what we do when we are scared:

During writing, we are composing our own non fiction spider books.  We are using features of non fiction in our independent writing...up close pictures, labelling, important facts.  We have learned a lot of interesting things about spiders!

During math, we are constructing and interpreting graphs.  We read Miss Spider's Tea Party.  We then tasted three types of tea...red, blue, and green.  The students then figured out a way to organize our information and constructed a graph. 

During social studies, we learned about important American Symbols.  We learned neat facts about the American flag, The White House, the Liberty Bell, and the bald eagle.

Reminders for the week:
*Thursday and Friday are early dismissal days.  The students get out of school at 12:00.  We will be eating lunch on these days.  I strongly encourage you to send a lunch from home.  We will also be going to specials on the half days.
*October 26 is the deadline to order a yearbook.  Please see the online Tuesday Folder for more information.
*This week is Red Ribbon Week.  Lots of fun activities are in store!

Wild Things!

This week, we read Where the Wild Things Are.  We made text to self connections by writing about what we do when we feel wild.

 

We also made a graphic organizer of words to describe the main character Max.   We decided he was "naughty, wild, creative, sneaky".  We then used our imagination and drew our own wild thing and wrote describing words about it. 

 

In math, we created wild creatures.  Everyone spun a spinner to see how they would decorate their creature.  We learned that the bigger the space on the spinner, the higher the probability that you would land there.  Therefore, most of us landed on "stripes and spots" and fewer landed on just "spots" or just "stripes".  We then analyzed our data:

 



In social studies, we learned about Christopher Columbus.  We created a map to show his journey to the new land.


To further celebrate Columbus's successful voyage, we conducted a science experiment. We made predictions about if an object would sink or float. We then tested our predictions by placing objects in water and observing the results. We recorded our findings on paper.

Reminders:
*Wednesday is library and home reader day.  Please return your books in order to receive new ones. 

Elmer week

This week, we enjoyed reading many Elmer the Elephant books.  Elmer was one of a kind because he was patchwork and because he liked to play jokes on the other elephants.  A lesson we learned from the book is that it okay to be different.  We made a text to self connection and wrote about what makes each of us unique and special:

 

 

In math, we taste tested apples and made a pictograph of our favorite type of apple:

 

We were all surprised at how great yellow apples taste!  The most people in the class liked yellow.

 

In social studies, we finished our unit on maps.  We learned the name of the city, state, country, conitinent, and planet that we live on.  We located these places on a map and then created a book of maps.

 

In science, we learned how to use a balance and compare the mass of an apple to other objects.  We also worked with a partner to record observations about our apple.

 

This week:

*On Thursday, we will be going on our field trip!!  Your child will need to bring a lunch from home on this day because we will arrive back at school later than our usual lunch time.  It does not need to be in a sack....you can put it in their regular lunchbox.  If your child has a Wilchester shirt, please have them wear it on Thursday.  I am looking forward to a really fun field trip!!!

*Please contact me if you are not sure when your Fall conference time is. 

Please let me know if you are not able to attend your conference.

 





Applicious Week!

This week, we began our unit on apples.

In language arts, we read fiction and non-fiction books about apples.  Your child should be able to tell you the characters and setting of a fiction book (and use the terms "characters" and "setting" correctly!)  They should also be able to tell you how a fiction book differs from a non-fiction one.

We learned one of the characteristics of a non-ficiton book is labeling.  Labeling helps a reader understand more about a picture.  We labeled our apples:

During writing time, we created a list of foods we like.  I was so surprised that foods like "broccoli, asparagus, and green beans" made our list!  We then used the list to write independently about what foods we like. 

In math, we worked on the concept of counting on.  This is counting starting at a number other than one.  For example, we made a pile of 15 blocks.  Instead of starting at one and counting all the blocks again, we started at 15 and counted on as we added more blocks.
We also worked on counting to 20 by 2's.  We love playing a game where we stand in a circle and count :)

In social studies, we learned about Johnny Appleseed.  We created a web organizer with all the neat things we learned about him.  We then made our own Johnnys and wrote a fact about him.

During Science, we finished our unit on the five senses.  This week we learned about the sense of touch.  Did you know that your foot has the most nerve endings and the middle of your back has the least? 
We then explored the sense of taste by tasting lots of great apple treats.  We ranked them on the happy apple/rotten apple scale to show if we liked them or not.  I was so impressed with the kids willingness to try new foods.  Most of us really love the taste of apples! 
Here's a sample of some of the great things we tasted:

Reminders:
*Thursday, October 11 is our field trip to the Main Street Theater to see Duck for President.  It should be so much fun!  Please send a sack lunch on this day.  We will be eating at the school, but we return after our usual lunch period.
*Dads and Donuts is on Friday October 5 on the hardtop area.  It starts at 7:10.  Yum!
*Monday, October 8 is a school holiday (Columbus Day).
*Please remember to come to your scheduled Fall Conference.  I look forward to sharing your child's progress and what we will be working on this year.

A Beary Fun Week!!

We have had so much fun learning about bears!
The kids said they had a great time bringing a bear to school last Friday.  I was sad to miss it, but enjoyed looking at the drawings they did of their bear.

It was a beary busy week...

Writing:
We continued to create lists.  This week, we used our list of things that are red to write individual pattern books.  Everyone did a fantastic job!
We also worked on labeling.  We learned that you can often find labeling in non-fiction books and that labeling helps the reader understand.  The kids did a really great labeling of a panda bear:

Reading:
We read non-fiction books about bears.  We discussed the characteristics of non-fiction (close up pictures, labeling, table of contents).  We learned that a fact is something that is true. We then created a web graphic organizer and used the organizer to help us write two facts about bears:

Math:
It was a busy week in math.  We worked on our patterning using colored bears.  We also made patterned Wilchester necklaces. 
We continued to work on tally marks.  We reread one of our favorite books, Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes.  In this book, Pete has a great time through various events in his school day.  We then made a tally mark graph of our favorite part of the Kindergarten day.  The results were a little surprising...our graph shows that most people like morning language arts centers and the fewest people like lunch!! 

Science:
We continued our study of the five senses.  We listened carefully and tried to identify different sounds.  We also learned that the smallest bones in the body are in your ear!
We used our sense of sight to view the results of a color mixing experiment.  We added food coloring to water. We observed and recorded the results of combining different primary colors.

Reminders:
*Fall picture day is Tuesday.  Our picture time is approximately 9:50. 
*Please return your red conference sign up form as soon as possible.  I plan on making the schedule early next week.  I will send you a confirmation of your conference time.
*If you have not done so already, please return your field trip permission slip.  I will be drawing names of the two chaperones this week. 
 

A busy week...

Wow!  The four day week went by so quickly!

During writing this week, we worked on creating lists.  Next week, we are going to use these lists to create patterned books. 

We have also been practicing reading and writing our sight words the, me, and look.  We have been singing our Color Farm song to help us learn to spell the color words.

In language arts, we discussed characters and setting.  We also worked on making text to self connections using the book Yoko.   We  had fun reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and looking at all of the capital and lower case letters.  Your child should know and correctly use the terms "capital" and "lower case" when referring to letters.

During math, we have been creating and interpreting graphs.
We created some great pictographs:

After reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, we tasted coconut and made a graph of whether we liked it or not.

With much difficulty,  I finally managed to crack open a coconut so we could take a loser look (I would not make a good contestant on Survivor!) :

This is our cute Eye Color Graph.  After we construct graphs, we interpret them. (Ex. "how many more people in the class have brown eyes than blue?"  "how many people have either blue or green eyes?")  They are doing really great at this!!

As you can see from the graphs, we have also been working on tally marks....so busy!!


We made a Venn Diagram to represent if you have a brother/sister/neither.  We had a lot of fun getting to know more about our classmates families.

In social studies, we learned that we need to follow rules to stay safe.  We really enjoyed Officer Buckle and Gloria.  The police dog in the book was so silly!

In science, we made a scientist person.  On the inside, we wrote about some of the neat things scientists study:

Reminders:
*Register to become a SBISD volunteer.  You must do this each year to volunteer in the school or go on our field trips.
*Library is on Wednesday.  Please return last weeks book by this Wednesday in order to check out a new book.
*Please do not let your child wear any watches, bracelets, or other jewelry.  These items usually become a distraction during instructional time.

Wonderful First Week!!

We are off to a fantastic start to Kindergarten!  I have been so impressed with how well all the students have learned our class routines and rules.  They are AWESOME!   I have been having such a great time getting to know each of them. The kids are all so sweet and so much fun! I am lucky to have such a great group.

Last week, we did a lot of community building and getting to know our new Kindergarten friends.  We talked about things we like to do, our favorite colors, what we did over the summer break, and many, MANY other fun things!

In language arts, we discussed characteristics of fiction and non-fiction.  We also learned what the author of a book does and what the job of an illustrator is.   We read lots of fun beginning of the year books such as The Kissing Hand, Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten, and Timothy Goes to School.

We also learned some valuable lessons from books. We read The Little Engine that Could. From this book, we learned that you need to try and have a positive attitude. We also loved reading Pete the Cat books. From Pete, we learned that if something doesn't go your way, you shouldn't get sad or upset....you should just "keep on going".   We discussed how we can apply these two valuable lessons to our Kindergarten year.  Our Pete the cats:

Our little engines.  We wrote "I can...."

In math, we reviewed sorting, patterning and counting to 40. We had fun constructing class graphs.  

In science, we read books about all of the wonderful things scientist study. We are looking forward to studying many of the fun science topics this year!

 Notes:
*Our library time is Wednesday from 12:30-1:00. The kids will be allowed to check out one book from the picture book section of the library. In order to check out a new book, you must return your library book by each Wednesday. There will be a container in the classroom, so you may return your library book as soon as you are finished with it.
*Lunch time has been running so smoothly. If your child wishes to buy their lunch, they do not need to have their six digit number memorized. I have cards with their number on it, and a teacher will help them type it into the keypad.
*The best way to send me a note is pinned to your child's shirt or stapled/taped to the front of their green folder. 
*Remember to check the Tuesday folder on line:
http://wce.springbranchisd.com/