December 17, 2010

Special Thanks!

Thank you so much to Mrs. Ceru and Mrs. Evans for a fantastic Holiday Party!  Also, thank you to everyone who helped at the party and/or donated items!  The kids LOVED the party and it is such a great experience for them!

Needed

boxes (any size)
empty gallon milk jugs (We need a lot!  Ask relatives and neighbors, too!)


A Wild Week of Learning in Kindergarten


-Heart word of the week: are

-This week, we worked on the skill of summarizing with a book called, Apple Farmer Annie.  We aslo practiced recalling the sequence of events in the story.

-In math, we played a game called, Which shape am I hiding?  We had to ask yes/no questions about the attributes (number of corners, number of sides, etc.) in order to figure out which one it is.

-We had a fun week full of traveling to other countries and learning about other holidays.  For each country, we learned their holiday colors, a symbol, and a traditional food.  We even had the opportunity to try that countries traditional food!  While we traveled, we received plane tickets and a passport.  We filled out our passport for each country we visited.  Check out our passports to see what we learned!

December 10th, 2010

Holidays Around the World Week!

We will be having a very full week next week!  We will be traveling all around the world to learn a little about other Holidays.  We will learn some of their traditional holiday colors, some of their symbols, and some of their traditional holiday foods.  Below is a list of when we will be learning each.  If possible, try to have your child dress in the traditional colors of that holiday!

Monday- Hanukkah (Have your child wear: blue, white, silver)
Tuesday- Kwanzaa (Have your child wear: red, black, green)
Wednesday- Las Posada (Have your child wear: red, green)
Thursday- Christmas (Have your child wear: red, green)
Friday- North Pole (Have your child wear: PAJAMAS!) 

Let me know if you have any special knowledge about any of these holidays!

Wild Learning in Kindergarten   

*Heart word of the week: play

*This week we continued to practice using adjectives in our writing.  We also refer to them as pink words.  We also wrote about where the gingerbread man hid.


*In math, we were introduced to pennies.  We now have a math center involving counting and comparing pennies.  We also learned about growing patterns.  With our growing pattern, we were also introduced to counting by 2's.

*We read a book this week called, Duck on a Bike.  With this book, we practiced figuring out the story structure, characters, and plot.

*We continued with gingerbread this week.  We made gingerbread glyphs.  Glyphs represent information in a special way.  For example, girls colored their gingerbread man's eyes pink and the boys colored the eyes blue.  Also, buttons were colored red if we were 5 and green if we are 6.  Once we finished with our glyphs, we sorted our glyphs as many ways as we could think.

December 3rd, 2010

Wild Learning in Kindergarten 

-Heart word of the week: is

-During writing this week, we were introduced to using adjectives.  We also called them pink words.  In addition, we started using a "Space Man" to help us remember to leave spaces between our words.

-In math, we practiced comparing sizes of objects.  We discovered that we had to match up the ends of objects in order to accurately compare the objects.  We practiced with the terms longer and shorter.

-Our focus book for the week was called On the Go.  This book looked at different ways to travel.  It looked at different cultures and how they might travel around.  We practiced the strategy of recognizing the story structure.  Also, we were introduced to classifying and categorizing with this book.  We practiced grouping things together that we saw in the book.

-We started our gingerbread theme this week.  We have been reading many different versions of the story and have been comparing the characters and the endings.  Our community centers are full of gingerbread activities.  We are retelling the gingerbread story in our dramatic play.  At our art center, we are decorating a gingerbread man.  We are measuring using a gingerbread rulers at our math center.  We also have gingerbread puzzles, patterning, rhyming, and a dice recognition game.

-We had some special gingerbread dough dropped off in our classroom.  We decided to make a gingerbread cookie out of it.  When we went back to the kitchen, the gingerbread cookie was gone!  The gingerbread man left clues all around the school of where he was going next.  We really enjoyed trying to track him down.

Gingerbread Time!

Please let me know if you are able to provide one of these items:

*Gingerbread cookies

*Gingerbread smelling play-doh

November 19th, 2010

Conferences

I absolutely loved meeting with you all this week!  It's was so nice to be able to touch base and share with each other!  If there is something you forgot to ask or if you have come up with something since conferences, feel free to call, email, or send a note!

Wild Learning in Kindergarten

*Heart word of the week: have

*The reading strategies we focused on this week were recognizing story structure and making/confirming predictions.  We practiced these with a book called, The Bus For Us.  We practiced making and confirming questions while we were reading.  We also concluded that the structure of this story was a pattern.

*During our writing time, we practiced writing onomatopoeias (sound words) in our writing.


*In math, we practiced patterns while putting together a pattern quilt.  We also practiced recognizing numerals and quantities with a matching game.  We received a new math center this week called, Count and compare butterflies.  This center practices counting and comparing quantities.

*We continued learning about Thanksgiving this week.  We reviewed again the first Thanksgiving.  We acted it out and have now added pilgrims to our dramatic play area so we can act out the first Thanksgiving during our center time.

*We had a special Thanksgiving lunch on Wednesday.  We made place mats and native American headbands.  Our class was the native Americans and Mrs. Oney's class was the pilgrims.  We pretended like the pilgrims just came over on the Mayflower.  We had to teach them how to fish and plant crops.  We then celebrated and ate the thanksgiving feast together.

November 12, 2010

Needed

-Aluminum foil

We will be putting the foil in our science center.  We will be making boats to sail across the "ocean" carrying "pilgrims".


Wild Learning in Kindergarten

-Heart word of the week: to

-With writing this week, we focused on using our heart word go.  We also worked on writing stories with spaces in between our words.

-Our focus book for the week was called, Peter and Molly, Plus Hester.  The reading strategies we practiced with this book were asking questions and identifying characters.

-In math, we learned a new center called, Hungry Caterpillar.  With this center, we spin a spinner and add shapes to a game board.  We are practicing recognizing shapes and discovering what shapes can go together to form another shape.  

-We are doing some social studies this week with our Thanksgiving theme.  We are learning some of the various symbols of Thanksgiving.  We are also gaining some background knowledge about the first Thanksgiving.  In addition, through play we are learning some of what Native Americans did many years ago.

-We had many new community centers this week.  Our science center now has water inside of a table.  Within the table, we are exploring various water materials.  Our construction zone had colored building blocks.  We built many things from rocket ships to a massive skate board park.  At our math center, we practiced ordering numerals by matching the numerals on a Native American picture to a number strip.

-We started Freaky Friday this week!  On Freaky Friday, each kindergarten class will rotate through all three kindergarten classrooms.  In my classroom, the students will practice Spanish.  In Mrs. Ashley's class, they will do technology with her Smart board.  In Mrs. Emery's class, she will be doing Brain Gym.  Brain gym is various activities that strengthen your brain.

Mrs. Matulis' Ironman on Saturday

After seven and a half months of training, it's hard to believe that my Ironman is already here!  The big questions is: Am I ready? Absolutely! Whenever I go into a race, I always wish I could have done more.  This year I feel the same way, but am extremely happy with where I am.  I have never felt so good and so ready.  I am in the best shape of my life!  I have never felt so confident with swimming.  I have never biked so many miles.  I have never run so fast during my training runs.  You never know what will happen during the race because there are so many factors.  However, I am hopeful.  I put my whole heart into my training and am ready to put my whole heart into my race.  Ironman Florida...here I come!

My husband, Chris Matulis, is doing the race as well!  If you would like to track us, here is the information!

We will both have GPS devices on and you can track us through these links.

Cindy:

from computeres, iPhone & Droid:

www.TrackMyAthlete.com/vemap.aspx?name=209135

from PDA's-Blackberry, Palm, etc:

www.TrackMyAthlete.com/pda.aspx?name=209135

Chris:

from computeres, iPhone & Droid:

www.TrackMyAthlete.com/vemap.aspx?name=210182

from PDA's-Blackberry, Palm, etc:

www.TrackMyAthlete.com/pda.aspx?name=210182

Ironman also provides you with another way to track us.  Below is the web address.  On race day, there should be a link that you can click on to look us up.  Type in our names and you should be able to see how we are doing!

http://ironman.com

November 5, 2010

Mrs. Matulis' Ironman

*On Saturday, I will be competing in Ironman Florida.  If you are interested, I will be posting on the blog how to track me throughout the day!

Wild Learning in Kindergarten

*Heart word for the week: go

*Our focus book for the week was called, Friends Around the World.  We practiced asking questions while we read the book.  We were also introduced to comparing and contrasting.

*We wrote stories this week using our heart word like.  We also continued to work on stretching out words and leaving spaces in between our words. 

*During math, we were introduced to two new math centers.  One is called, Beat you to 10.  With this center, we practice recognizing numerals, counting, and comparing quantities.  Our other new center is called, Pattern Block designs.  We now have designs that we have to recreate with pattern blocks.

*Our theme for the week was Fall and leaves.  We did many activities to learn about some of the different signs of fall.

*We want on a nature walk around the school.  We talked about some of the signs of fall we were noticing.  We also collected leaves to explore at our science center.

October 29, 2010

Thank you!

Thank you Mrs. Ceru and Mrs. Evans for planning such a fantastic party!  Also, thank you to everyone who donated items or helped at the party!

Tuesday's Tornado Warnings

Everyone did a phenomenal job on Tuesday when we had to go to our safe location due to the weather.  We spent quite a while in our safe positions and I was SO impressed with your children!  Feel free to take this opprotunity to talk about/practice what your family does at home in case of a tornado.


Wild Learning in Kindergarten

*Heart word for the week: see

*Our focus book for the week was called, What I Like.  With this book, we worked on asking questions while we are reading.  We were also introduced to identifying the characters.

*Almost every morning, we come in and write in our journals.  We spent this week working on posters to show our knowledge about pumpkins.

*During our formal writing time, we wrote stories about spiders and bones.  We practiced stretching out words and using our heart word like.

*We had a busy week in math.  We were introduced to a tens frame (10 boxes- 5 on top, 5 on bottom).  We explored them and used it to match quantities to numerals.  We also were introduced to creating specific shapes on geoboards and then recording these designs on a piece of paper.  We were also introduced to tallying with popsicle sticks this week.  We used our knowledge of tens frames, numerals, and tallies to play a game of bingo.

*Our theme for the week was bats, skeletons, and spiders.  We learned a bit about each and did some activities surrounding those themes.  At our community centers, our dramatic play was turned into a bat cave.  We also made some spiders out of our hand prints and skeletons out of macaroni.

*Our science center had some slime in it.  We discovered that it was hard when we would squeeze it and then it would melt through our fingers when we stopped squeezing it.

*We acted out the nursery rhyme, Little Miss Muffet, throughout the week.  We also practiced finding spaces and words within the nursery rhyme.

 *We had a fantastic Halloween Party!!

 

October 22, 2010

 Wild Learning in the Kindergarten Jungle!


*Heart word of the week: a

*Our focus book of the week was called, Peter's Chair.  With this book, we practiced recognizing the story structure (beginning, middle, end) and we practiced making predictions.

*We wrote a nonfiction story during our formal writing time.  We wrote about the life cycle of a pumpkin.  I have sent many papers home involving our writing.  You may notice that you can read parts of it and not others.  That is completely normal and part of the developmental process of learning how to write.  We are currently working on writing the sounds that we hear in words.

*In math, we practiced a lot with patterns.  We were each assigned one out of two or three animals.  Each animal had a sound and motion.  We then put ourselves into a pattern and went through the line making the animal noise.  With this, we practiced creating, extending, and naming the patterns (AB pattern, ABC pattern, AAB pattern, etc.).  We also practiced the same skills with cubes.

*During Daily 5, we learned a new activity called Word Work.  With this new activity, we will be working with words and experimenting with them.  With our current specific word work, we are matching letters and/or writing words (names, heart words, etc.)

*In science, we continued to practice with the life cycle of a pumpkin and we practiced recognizing some of the various parts of a pumpkin.

*We explored many of the same community centers this week.  One of our new centers was our marble run.  With this activity, we practiced our construction and problem solving skills.  At our fine motor center, we worked on our gluing and folding with a pumpkin life cycle project.

*Scrubby Bear from the Red Cross came and taught us about hand washing.

*We enjoyed our field trip to the pumpkin patch!

*Last Friday, we met our 4th grade buddy class.  They read some stories to us, asked us questions, and helped us look for heart words in the books.

Pumpkin Shakes!

Here is our pumpkin shake recipe if anyone is interested!

Ingredients:
1 can solid pack pumpkin
Skim milk
Vanilla frozen yogurt

Directions:
1. Allow frozen yogurt to soften slightly
2. Scoop out 1/2 cup of frozen yogurt
3. Pour in 1 tablespoon of milk
4. Scoop in 1 teaspoon of pumpkin
5. Stir

Enjoy!!

October 15, 2010

Wild Learning in the Kindergarten Jungle

*Heart word of the week: like

*We continued with our pumpkin theme this week.  We focused on the life cycle of a pumpkin and also learned some of the different parts of a pumpkin.  We learned that the stem is also called a peduncle.  The outside skin is called the rind.  The lines down the sides are called the ribs.  We also learned that the circle on the bottom of the pumpkin is where the flower used to be and is called blossom end.

*We did some pumpkin measuring this week.  We measured the circumference and we measured how many cubes tall our pumpkin is.

*Our Farmer's Market opened this week during our community centers.  We practiced sorting, counting, being farmers, being buyers, etc. with this center.

*At our fine motor center (building hand and finger muscles) we had a sunflower and used tweezers to pick the seeds out.

*Some of our other centers included: pumpkin smelling play-doh, bricks, Mr. Pumpkin Head (like Mr. Potato Head), art, and corn in our science table.  

*Our focus book for the week was called, Picnic at Apple Park.  With this book, we practiced recognizing the story structure (beginning. middle, and end).  We also worked on identifying the setting.

*In writing, we wrote stories about pumpkins using our heart word, the.

*We learned a new center this week called, Which Bug Will Win?  With this center, we are practicing counting, comparing, and graphing.  We also practiced sorting bugs this week by some of their different qualities.

October 8, 2010

*Next week, our farm/farmer's market will be opening for "business"!  We would love some small pumpkins and squash to compete our special area.

*On Friday, we are going to explore our sense of taste with a yummy pumpkin recipe!  We would love 1 can of solid-pack pumpkin, 1 pint of skim milk, large cups, straws.  If you are able to donate an item, click on "0 comments" at the bottom of this post and indicate the item you are sending in.  If you do not have internet access, send a note in and I will post.  Hopefully this will prevent duplicates from being sent in!



Wild Learning in the Kindergarten Jungle! 

-Our Heart word for the week was: the

-Our new theme is pumpkins!  We will be exploring pumpkins and doing pumpkin activities for the next few weeks.  We will become pumpkin experts by the end of our unit!  We had many fun activities during our community centers.  At our science center, we were able to dig inside pumpkins and discover what the insides look like, smell like, and feel like! We practiced our fine motor skills (hand/finger muscles) by using tweezers and picking up pumpkin seeds.  The seeds were put inside little pumpkins.  Each little pumpkin had a number on it and that was the number of seeds that needed to be put in.  This week we also practiced measuring how tall we are by using pumpkin cutouts!

-Our focus book for the week was called, Whose Baby Am I?  With this story, we practiced recognizing the pattern.  We noticed the same words were repeated on each page.  We learned that this helps us figure out the words so we can read them!

-In writing, we continued to practice writing stories using our heart words.  We also continued practicing stretching out sounds and listening for the letters that we know.

-We made October calendar markers this week during math.  We also made a paper quilt and explored the patterns in the quilt.