Week of April 25th-29th

Well…some of the things we worked on this week were suprises for later, so if your child told you that they can’t tell you, they’re right!

The things you can know about:  We did reader’s theatre plays this week.  Each child had a speaking part, they made headbands to match their characters, they practiced, and then the first graders came down and we got to present them to 1st grade.  They all did a great job and seemed to really enjoy it.

We started our Kids Teach lessons and they’ve done such a good job!  They are loving this activity!  Thanks so much for helping them at home so they can be successful!

In math, we’re working on position words, 3D shapes and doing a lot of review from this year.

We are starting our unit on ocean animals.  Yesterday we learned about seahorses and today we learned all about whales.  They will be making a fact book about ocean animals to bring home to share with you.

We are planting right after specials today.  Thanks for remembering to send in a plant.

Library is Monday and it will be their last check out day.  All books will need to be returned by Monday May 9th.

The last book order went home and is due May 6th.  This will be our last order for this year.  Books are a great summer reward!  Let me know if you order if you want me to hang on to them for you to pick up!

I will let parents know soon who was chosen to go on the field trip.  I had more want to go then we can take, so I’ll give you that info. next week.  They have also changed the field trip, so until I find out their plans, I may not know for sure how many I need to go.  It will depend on what we do at the arboretum and how they split us into groups.

EOY calendar info:

Monday May 2nd  Party in a box info. will come home.  Basically we have a little party on the last day of school (the 18th) and each child brings a small “party in a box” to share with another friend.  I will pair them up and let you know what to bring.  The note will explain it all, but please ask if you have questions and please don’t send in the boxes/bags until the last day.

Friday May 6th  Leah and Elizabeth will enjoy their pizza lunch that they won from the Fine Arts fair night

Wednesday May 11th will be our Kindergarten Celebration and we will start as close to 8:30 as possible.  Please send your child to our room like you normally would and then you can have a seat in the gym.  We will have muffins and lemonade in the cafeteria afterwards.  We will send the kids to find you after the program where you are seated in the gym.  And we’ll give some time to take pictures of the group when we’re done.  I will try and video it, but no guarantees.  If someone can do that easily and then share it that would be great.  If you can NOT be here, I need to know asap, so I can find an adult to have a muffin/lemonade with them afterwards.  If there’s ANY way you or a grandparent or some special adult could come for your child, that would be great.

Thursday May 12th is the field trip to the Arboretum.  We will leave around 8:30 and return around 12:15.  They need to bring a sack lunch with their name on it and a disposable water bottle with their name on it.  Please wear tennis shoes and be dressed to be outside all morning.  Permission slips will come home next week.

Friday May 13th is Field Day.  Another day to wear tennis shoes, sunscreen, and definitely bring a water bottle with their name on it.  Hopefully it will be a beautiful day and we’ll be outside most of the day.

Monday May 16th is our field trip rainout date.  We will spring forward to first grade and do some fun activities with the first grade teachers.

Wed., May 18th is our last day.  We do not have an awards assembly.  I do give all the kids a little something, but we just do that in our classroom and celebrate each other and all we’ve learned this year.

Thanks to all who came to the STEM spectacular.  If you get a minute, would you please email me your thoughts on the night and the more specific info., the better.  I’d love to know which activities the kids liked the best, did you think timing was okay, were things spaced out enough, enough variety etc.  Your feedback helps us continue to plan events and make sure they’re worth everyone’s time.  Just fyi, last night was sponsored by a grant that Mrs. Smith wrote and she did 99% of the work.  If you get a chance to thank her, that’d be great.  I will be compiling feedback and getting that to her as well. I thought it was a ton of fun and you know when my 16 year old son is wondering around begging a few kindergarteners to play the block game with him, that it’s a good evening! 🙂

Hope you have a great weekend!  Mine will be full of errands!

Week of April 18th-22nd

We learned to be entomologists this week.  We learned all about insects, their characteristics, and wrote about them this week.  We read lots of non-fiction and fiction books about insects.  We also finished our insect math which came home today.  We created insects out of playdough and made sure they had all the correct parts.

Today we celebrated Earth Day and Lily’s birthday with dirt cups snacks!  We learned about recycling and ways we can help protect the Earth.

In math, we are talking about position words and playing some games with shapes.

We will do reading folders one more time next Wed., then the following Wed. the 4th, I will collect them again and take the books out and papers out.

Kids Teach notes have gone home.  Please make sure your child sends in their lesson at least 3 days before they teach so that I can approve it and make sure there are no duplicates.  Please help your child find something they know a lot about to share about and/or something they can make with it.  I have had several how to draw ones, so I’d like to see some different things.  They also need to be able to talk for a few minutes instead of showing one thing and then being done.  They need to bring in a poster as well to help them while teaching.  It can have their information on it or steps to their activity.  Please make sure that they are the ones making the poster.  We are short on days, so please make sure they’re ready to go with all supplies on their day.

Midterms came home today.  A LOT of kids got ^ on handwriting.  We will test again before the end of the year.  Many of them are very close, but the options were that they have it, or need to work on it, so most got the ^ which means to work on it.  Reversals are still common at this age, but I still correct it each time I see it.  I am starting to retest kids on reading levels.  Wow, they’ve made such great progress!  It will be SUPER important that they continue over the summer so that their reading levels don’t slip.

The speaking parts went home for the program as well.  Some kids are on their own and some have a partner.  Your child should know if they’re by themselves or not.  Please work with them to memorize their lines and we’ll be practicing in class as well.  Make sure you’ve blocked off the morning of May 11th at 8:30 for our program.  Please send your child to school that day at the regular time for them.  They still have to be here at 8:20 when the bell rings.  This is also a day that they’ll want to dress up.  It is not a PE day so that won’t be an issue.  It will be a fun morning!

Thanks to all who made it to the Bentwood 20th Celebration!  I hope you enjoyed all the artwork and wonderful writing in the hallway!  Blue bag winners were announced today.  On Friday May 6th, I will treat Elizabeth and Leah to lunch as the pizza lunch winners.  We will eat here at school with the other K-1 classes and we will provide everything for  them that day.  On Sun. May 15th at 11:00, I’ll be treating Bryce and Lily to pizza and fun at Chuck E Cheese as the blue bag winners!

Flower day is next Friday.  It’s a fun day to make the outside of our school look bright and flowery!  Please send a small annual flower to school with their name on the outside on Wed. or Thurs. of next week.  On Friday at 2, we will meet our 5th grade buddies outside and plant our flowers.

Mrs. Smith is putting out one more plea for clean recyclables to use at Science Night next Thursday.  Don’t forget: 6:30-8!

Hope you have a great weekend!  I’ll be helping my nephew move, finishing the bathroom remodel, and heading up to KU on Sunday with Grandma Sandy.  Our sorority is celebrating 104 years at KU and 165 years nationally.  Grandma Sandy was an ADPi at KU too, so she and I are going up to the open house and to start bringing Hannah’s stuff home.  Wow!  This year has FLOWN by!  Seems like yesterday when I was getting choked up at parent night telling you she was going to college!  Enjoy your little ones, it goes fast! Have a great weekend!

Week of April 11th-14th

This week we learned about community helpers.  Hopefully you can come for fine arts fair night and see them in the hallway.  Our paintings and description of what they want to be and why are pretty fun to look at.  We also focused on fire safety for a day.

The last two days, we’ve spent time learning about plants, plant parts, seeds, and how they travel.  We are doing a lima bean experiment and have planted some to watch the roots grow.  We also planted morning glory flowers and hope they flower before the year is out.  Today we learned about food that grows on vines, food that grows on the ground, and food that grows underground.

We added the sight words by and as and…we’re done!  We’ve covered all 55 kindergarten words.  We will continue to practice and I will be testing them soon for midterms.

In math, we finished up 2-D shapes and their shape books came home.  This week we will talk about 3-D shapes and position words, above, below, etc.  We have been reviewing addition and subtraction as well and you’ll see some homework practice coming home too.

Next week, we will learn about insects and celebrate Earth Day.  We will also have the fine arts fair/color run on Thursday.  I’ve been asked to remind everyone that you can NOT re-enter the building after the color run.  It has been suggested that the kids wear protective eyewear, sunglasses or swim goggles work well too.  I’d also throw some towels in your car for the ride home, or walk if you’re close enough.

If you haven’t turned in your Science Night RSVP, please let me know by Monday.  I still have 3 people that haven’t.  We need to know, even if it’s a no.

I still have several people who haven’t returned or paid for Spring pictures as well.  Please take care of that this week as well.

Book orders are due tomorrow.  I will probably place the order tomorrow afternoon, so please have it in by noon.  Thanks!  I will send one more order home at the end of April, due early May in case you want to order for summer rewards.

The Goldiblox are a big hit from what I’ve heard.  They’ve been home with almost everyone who returned the form.  Thanks for returning them within a few days and for keeping them in such great condition.  I will continue to send different sets home if the kids are interested in taking them.  I have 3 different kinds.

Thank you all SO much for the wonderful birthday day!  I got all kinds of fun cards, flowers, a Target gift card, brownies, and more.  I think the kids really enjoyed the pizza lunch.  We had a fun lunch together.  Thank you for making my day a special one!  (I told them I must be 8 because there were 8 candles on the brownies and one of the girls said, “no, she’s 35 because all moms are 35.  I decided to take that one! 🙂

No school tomorrow for the kids.  I’ll be in meetings.  Hope you enjoy the long weekend!

Week of April 4-8th

This week we did an investigative report and learned how to write in 3rd person.  We pretended we’d gone hiding and wrote clues about ourselves so that you could figure out who we were and where we liked to hang out.  Our writing will be up for Art Fair night.

We learned all about frogs this week and learned some great new vocabulary words.  We made a book about frogs and those will be out for open house night too!

In math, we learned about 2-dimensional shapes.  We will learn about 3-dimensional shapes and look at how they roll or slide.  See if your child can pick out shapes in their everyday life at home.

In class, we have watched the decorah eagles and learned about them.  If you go to the internet and google decorah eagles and choose the ustream link, then you can watch the live eagle cam.  Be forewarned that they do bring animals up into the nest to eat. (No McDonalds for the eagles! 🙂 We learned all about eagles and it’s really neat to watch.  A few years we’ve gotten lucky and actually got to watch the egg hatch.  There are two eaglets and one egg left.  If it doesn’t hatch in the next few days, it probably won’t.  The kids asked me to share the link with you.

The Goldiblox bags will start going home tonight.  Please return in them in a few days so that other kids can enjoy the fun.

Please return the Science night notes that came home yesterday even if you cannot attend so that we can plan for numbers.

Monday is the LAST day to register for the Color Run for the Bentwood 20th celebration/Art Fair night.  You have to register if you plan to run.  Please remember that you will NOT be allowed in the building after the run! 🙂

Flower day has been changed to April 29th.  If you would be willing to send an annual to school on the 27th or 28th, we will be planting them with our buddy class on the 29th.  You can just put your child’s name and my name on it and put it in the front hallway.

Reminder that book orders are due on the 15th.

The 14th is my birthday and every year I host a pizza party for the class.  I will purchase pizza and we’ll eat together in the room.  I believe the room Moms are bringing some apples and carrots and I have enough Capri Suns left from the teddy bear picnic.  I will have the kids graph their favorite kind early next week.  If they don’t like pizza, they can bring a cold lunch from home and still eat with us in the room.

We have a professional day on Friday April 15th, so there will be no school that day.

Have a great weekend!  We’re in the middle of the master bathroom remodel so my house is a mess, but for once we hired a contractor!  Now I get to just watch and enjoy while usually I’m in the middle of the work.  I figured plumbing and drywall are out of my expertise and I’ve already had a leaky shower, so don’t need another one!

Week of March 28th-April 1st

This week we started our last PLTW (project lead the way) module.  We learned all about force, push, pull, patterns of movement, speed,  friction, and collision.  We did a lot of fun experiments to learn about the terms in a hands on way.  We also read a lot of good books this week.  We finished on Friday using an engineering tool called Goldibox.  They had to follow directions to make the wheels and axles turn on a plastic board.  It was not easy and took a lot of paying attention to the details.  We had to do some experimenting and redoing our thinking along the way.  Once we had mastered that task, they were able to have some time exploring and were able to use the Goldiblox tools to build some other things.  I let them know that I had purchased several of the same kits and several different ones and that I will make them available for them to check out to take home.  My plan is that I will send a note home saying what’s available and you can let me know when it would work best for your family.  I will ask that you be very careful with the items as if some are lost, then we can’t build with the kits.  I know that you’d need a few days to work with them to really get the most out of them.  I’ll get that letter done early this week so you can start checking them out.

We learned about who, what, where, when, and why questions this week and are practicing writing letters to our friends using those question words.

In math, we’re starting on 2D shapes and will work our way up to 3D shapes.  We are still practicing problem solving, graphing, addition and subtraction.

Next week, we will work on a big writing project and then start learning about living/nonliving things and do a mini unit on frogs using some great non-fiction books.

That’s it for now.  Sorry for the late update.  I had to take Jack to a Dr. appt. on Friday afternoon and then went to Lawrence for Mom’s Day at ADPi with Hannah.  Hope you enjoy the weather this weekend!