Week of April 22-26th

From snow to rain…agh!

The rain messed up our lapathon day so they had to run in the gym.  You are getting a piece of paper with their actual laps on it.  Their punch card has a lot more punches.  Since the gym is so much smaller than the laps walked outside, they averaged about 4 laps in the gym to one outside.  If someone is paying by the lap, go by the number on the white sheet, not the number of punches.  Please get those donations in next week.

Bookworms are due on Wed. May 1st.  We have to have them in to tally up who should be getting a pin for their lanyard, so please send them in on Wed.

This week we celebrated all things to do with Earth Day.  We talked about, wrote about, and did an art project all about saving the Earth.

In math, we are starting position words.  Please work on left and right at home.  I still have kiddos that are confusing them.

We had a fun assembly to celebrate everyone’s success these past few weeks and had a special guest…Sluggerrr!  The kids thought that was great!

Next week we will start our Kids as Teachers days.  It’s always so much fun to see what they have to teach us.  Please be sure they are prepared on their day and that they practice at home.  It should last about 8-10 minutes if possible.  Thanks for helping them be successful with this project!

I hope you got to check out our animal reports at Open House.  We will be doing a similar research project next week on ocean animals, but this time, they will be with partners instead of in groups.

Please be sure May 9th is on your calendar for our Mother’s Day tea.

Just an fyi, I will be gone on Tuesday all day.  I will be going to a Science training.  Please remind the kids that day to be on their extra best behavior for our guest teacher.

I think that’s it for this week.  It’s another basketball weekend at my house and helping prepare Hannah for her Scout gold award presentation which is next week.  Wish us luck!  Have a great weekend!

Week of April 8th-12th

It’s finally a sunny Friday!  We had a good day today although eating in the room wound everyone up quite a bit.  Luckily they were able to pull it together for specials.  Thank you all for the wonderful gift basket full of my favorite things and the gift card!  I appreciate your generosity so much!  I especially loved the kids’ cards and the “gifts” they found at home! 🙂  Don’t worry, no one wrapped up any of Mom’s good jewelry for me!

We learned about plants this week and are currently trying to grow grass (finally some sun on it!), sprout lima beans, and we’re even growing some lettuce and plan to have a salad on Monday.  Well…we’ll each get to at least try a leaf.  A salad is a little generous at this point.  We’re keeping a plant journal and a lima bean observation log.  We also did some how to writing with our grass planting.  We’ve learned all the parts of plants and read lots of books on how different fruits and vegetables grow.  We also learned about what a life cycle is.

We took what we learned about a life cycle and are now learning about life cycles and characteristics of insects.  Insects are lots of fun to learn about and next week, you’ll see an insect facts book come home so you can learn too!  We’ve also taken insects and turned them into math problems.

Happy Bear came today and taught the kids about their personal space and what an unwelcome touch and a welcome touch is.

We started on shapes and are learning the characteristics of the different shapes and looking around us to see what we can find in our everyday lives that are different shapes.  You’ll see a shape class book coming home soon.

Our moon watching continues.  I’m sorry for the kids that had cloudy days this week.  Keep encouraging them to look, even if it’s not their day.  Sadly, we weren’t able to see what the new moon looks like.

We have LOTS coming up.  Next week, on Monday will be class picture day and Spring pictures.  $8.00 for class pictures is due on Monday if you’d like to order one.  It’s a great keepsake for years to come.  I still have my K class pic and that was MANY years ago 🙂  You won’t be able to order them after the fact, so if you want one, it’s due Monday.

Our field trip is on Thursday.  They need to just come to school like the normally would.  Be sure to send a jacket if it’s cold as we’ll be on the bus awhile.  We will eat at school like normal, just possibly a little later than our normal time.

We don’t have school on Friday as it’s a professional day.  I will be at training all day learning all kinds of new things!

Please make sure May 9th is on your calendar for the Mother’s Day Tea.  It will be important for each student to have someone here for them, so if Mom or a Grandma or neighbor can’t come, please let me know asap, so I can try and find someone here in the building for them.

We are still in need for lapathon volunteers on Friday April 26th.  Our time is from 12:35-1:05.  I know lots of the grades are needing help, so please contact Mrs. Brock if you can help at any grade level.  jtbrock@everestkc.net

I’m sure I’m forgetting something, but just trying to take it a week at a time.  The end of the school year is crazy busy with activities and lots of learning still taking place.  Please continue to have those conversations at home about above the line behavior and how important it is to continue to be good respectful listeners.  We still have lots to learn before Kindergarten is over!

I hope you all have a great weekend.  At our house, we have a trumpet solo competition for Hannah, and a basketball tournament for Jack.  I enjoyed a weekend off last weekend and was able to get to see lots of kids play sports.  Please send me schedules if you haven’t already.  I love to watch them out of the classroom!

Take care and enjoy the sunshine!

Week of April 1-5th

Nice weather, finally!  Please remember even though it’s getting warmer that we go out to first recess at 11 and it’s not always warmed up yet by then.  A light jacket or hoodie would be a good thing to have in their backpacks.

Thanks for sending the sports schedules.  If you haven’t done so, or haven’t gotten them yet, please send when you can.

I have retested everyone on sight words.  If there was no yellow sticky note in their folder, then they knew all of them.  If they missed any, I wrote them on a note and put it in their folder.  We will continue to practice at school as well.

We are still in need of volunteers for the lapathon on the 26th.  Our time is from 12:35-1:05 and we could still use some help.  Please email Mrs. Brock at jtbrock@everestkc.net if you can help.

Our Mother’s Day Tea will be on May 9th at 2:30.  We have already started working on the program.  It’s really important that everyone have someone here for them.  If there is absolutely no way that you can get here, please let me know so that I can line up someone to come for that child.    If Mom or a Grandma can’t come, Dad could come or even a neighbor.  I just want everyone to have someone here.  Thanks for trying to make that work and letting me know if it just can’t.

Next Friday, April 12th is close to my birthday and as I did last year, I’d like to provide pizza lunch for our class.  I will get it from Little Caesars and give them a choice of cheese or pepperoni.  If your child does NOT like pizza, they can bring their own lunch or if necessary, go to the lunch room and get a lunch.  We will then eat in our room.  If possible, I am asking for some volunteers to provide some cut up apples and carrot slices to have with lunch.  If anyone would like to send in a peanut free dessert, that would be great.  Please just email me or reply all if you can help.  If your child does not want pizza, please let me know that by Wed.  Thanks!

We finished our reports and got to present them to the other K class and to two of the first grade classes.  They did such a great job, I’m thinking we may do it again for ocean animals.  It was great to see the kids work together and they thought the presenting was pretty neat.

In math, we’ve been working on sorting  and looking at different attributes.  We have also worked on graphing.  Next week we will be working on shapes.  We have also been and will continue to work on problem solving.  Don’t forget that they can turn in their last month’s math journals finished for gotchas!

Next week, we’ll learn about plants and then move on to insects.

Don’t forget to refer to the last post for all the calendar dates and upcoming activities!

I hope you have a great weekend and enjoy this beautiful weather!