January 27, 2011

The Mitten

-Our play, The Mitten will be taking place Friday, February 4th at 2:30 in the Library.

-Please have your child where his/her costume to school on Friday.

-I will set up 2 chairs for each family.  Please let me know if you need additional chairs.

-On Thursday at 3:40, I will be setting up the library for the play.  I would love some help.

-If you would like to donate any of these items for our play, please let me know.
        *Cheese (Gordons has bags of cheese already cut into cubes)
        *Crackers
        *Juice boxes
        *Small plates
        *Napkins

A Wild Week of Learning in Kindergarten

-Heart word of the week: do

-We read an ABC book this week about baby animals.  With this book, we worked on recognizing the story structure.  We discovered that it was an ABC book.  We also practiced classifying and categorizing.  We learned that this means to put things into groups.

-In math, we were introduced to two new math centers.  Both involve pennies and nickles.  Beat you to 20 cents gives us practice recognizing the coins and their values.  We can also practice comparing quantities with this center.  Our other center is called Race you to 15 cents.  With this center we are practicing exchanging five pennies for a nickle.

-In science, we learned about animals.  We talked about where they live, what they do, and their body coverings.

-We kept many of the same centers this week as last week.  We continued building hibernation homes and building with our ice bergs.  One of our new centers was acting out our play, The Mitten.  Our science center was also new this week.  We had the opportunity to experiment with ice.  We also had a "blubber glove" so they could see what it was like to have blubber and touch ice.

January 21, 2011

Needed

-Milk jugs
-3 oz paper cups 

Wild Learning in the Kindergarten Jungle

-Heart word of the week: this

-The reading strategies we practiced this week were making predictions and recognizing the story structure.  In the book we read, we realized the story structure was like a pattern.  Almost the same thing happened on each page of the story.

-In math, we practiced counting strategies for amount 10-20.  We also practiced recognizing numerals and matching them to the quantity.

-During our science time, we started learning about animals in the winter.  We learned that animals hibernate, stay active, or fly south for the winter.

-Our community centers consistence of many of the things animals do in the winter.  We built hibernation homes for animals.  We pretended like we had to stay active and dig in "snow" to find food.  We also had a center where we had a map and created routes for the birds who were flying south.  We then used cubes to measure how many cubes long the journey was.

January 14th, 2011

Needed

-Please keep sending gallon milk jugs


Wild Learning in the Kindergarten Jungle

-Heart word of the week: you

-This week, we practiced using the reading strategy of making inferences.  We used our brain and clues from the book to come up with an idea.  We also practiced summarizing some of the books we read this week.

-In writing, we were introduced to using the words around the room to help us spell some of our words correctly.  We also wrote a winter story this week where we practice again using adjectives.

-During our math time, we were introduced to some new centers.  One center helps us practice counting and comparing quantities and is called Beat You to 20.  Another is called: Which is heavier?  With this center, we are using a balance to compare weights of various objects.  The last new center of the week is sea creatures.  With our sea creatures, we practice counting, sorting, patterning, and much more!

-We had many winter related centers during our community centers this week.  We had snow in our science center and we made many discoveries on how to make ice, how to melt it, etc.  We also practiced our building skills with our boxes that we turned into ice bergs.

-We did a science experiment to figure out the fastest way to melt ice.  We used a hammer, a hair dryer, a lamp, our hands, hot water, our breath, and salt.  We discovered that the hammer was the fastest because it broke the ice into small piece, which melted faster.  Salt was the slowest.  We then discussed why they use salt out on the roads instead of one of the faster methods.

 

January 7th, 2011

 

Needed

Empty gallon milk jugs

Wild Learning in Kindergarten

-Heart word of the week: for 

-Our focus book for the week was called, Our Special Sweet Potato Pie.  With this book, we practiced summarizing and only telling the important events in the book.  We also practiced making inferences.  We used our brains and clues from the book to make a conclusion.

-In writing, we practiced sequencing and put together a bulletin board about how to make a snowman.

-We have had some fantastic learning in math!  We have new calendar markers that are amazing and we are learning so much from them!  They are various shapes and each day it grows.  There are many different patterns and relationships that we get to discover each day!

-Many of our community centers were snow related this week.  We had white play-doh, buttons, and toothpicks to make snowmen with.  In our art center, we painted boxes white so we can pretend they are ice and build with them next week.  We also measured how many snowballs tall we are. 

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.