Week of Nov. 14th-18th

It’s been turkey time around here this week!  We’ve read turkey books, written about them, and made them!  We have also heard some great books about why we celebrate Thanksgiving and the pilgrims journey to America.  Today we learned about the differences between “now” and “then” and talked about things we are thankful for.  We will continue that next week as well.  Next week they will also make a Thanksgiving retelling bracelet.  Part of their homework over break is to retell the story to several different people.  They’ll have the bracelet and a book to help them!  I will also send home a writing sheet for them to draw a picture and write about something they did over Thanksgiving break.  We worked REALLY hard this week on writing.  We especially work on capital letters at the beginning of sentences, spaces between words, and a period at the end.  Have your child show you the poem actions!  We added the sight words with and you and the letter Ee.  We are also working on listening for the first sound in words and being able to take them apart and put them back together.  In math, we’ve played some fun games to practice addition and subtraction and have worked with numbers 0-10 in number order and matching ten frames.

Midterms come home today.  We did not want to take time away from guided reading to test everyone again so we sent a note home saying what we are working on and what we’ll test on again at the end of Dec.  On some of them I wrote notes if there was something your child was struggling with.  I am finding that kids are forgetting sight words so keep practicing!  I didn’t retest, but we’ve been playing some games in class and in reading group I hear them missing ones we’ve already done.  Each time we introduce a new sight word, they make a book and bring it home to practice.  Look to see if they have nice coloring as well!

We finished up our Science Engineering unit this week.  Their job was to build one paintbrush that could paint fat lines, skinny lines, and dots.  Today the kids practiced their speaking and listening skills and we shared them in class.  The kids had to explain how they made each kind of line/dot and then tell what they would change and do differently next time.  Their launch logs are in there as well.  Have them share them with you!

Next week, please send reading folders to school on Tuesday and you’ll get new books for break.  After break, I’m changing how I’m doing folders. I will send an email explaining the change after break.

Nov. 29th is the all school picture.  Please send your child in an all blue or white shirt and if they don’t have that gray or black.

On Monday, we will have an anti-bullying assembly.  The kids have been learning about bullying from Ms. Kennicott, the counselor.  We know that bullying is a repeated behavior and they’re learning how to report it if they see it or experience it.  This is hard in kindergarten as we don’t want them to report as bullying is someone is mean to them one day.  We are working hard to tell which is bullying and which isn’t and have spent a lot of time this week talking about differences as well.  We have a few situations where kids have laughed at other kids, so we are working hard on kind words and understanding that everyone makes mistakes.

On Dec. 1st, we will have a classroom visitor for the month of Dec.  I’ve heard rumors that Buddy the Elf will be hanging out with our class.  Please do not share this super secret information.  While I don’t push the “Santa is watching” aspect, I do secretly hope it helps with behavior.  I mostly use it as a fun writing time for the month of Dec.  Everyday when they come in, he will be somewhere doing something and they will write about it in their Elf journal which he will bring them.  He is magic and they will be told that if he’s touched, he will go away.  It’s happened before and he did go away.  I’m hoping that won’t happen and I do try to put him out of touching way, but can’t always.  After he comes, you might remind your child that you know the rules and that they need to keep hands off and make sure they’re watching their behavior.  Buddy does NOT do anything naughty as I know some home elves do.

I will not be blogging next week, so let me take the time to say Happy Thanksgiving!  I am so grateful we live in a place where we can send our kids to school and have all the choices we do.  I’m thankful that you help your child with reading at home and I’m thankful that you support good behavior in the classroom.  I appreciate all of you working with me!  I’m headed to my brother’s house in Lee’s Summit and am thankful I don’t have to make the turkey!  Have a great break!

Week of Nov. 7th-11th

Wow!  What a way to end our week.  We had an awesome veteran’s assembly today.  It was pretty long for a kindergartener to sit, but they did a great job!

This week we worked on learning about Fall, doing Fall writing, and reading Fall books.  We added the letters Xx and Jj and the sight word my.  Keep practicing those sight words at home! In math, we are working on more/less and still doing addition and subtraction, but now we’re working on numbers to 10.

We started our PLTW (Project Lead the Way) module this week.  We read Jack and the Beanstalk and then they were engineers and designed their own beanstalk with the structure needing to be tall, stand up on its own, and hold the golden egg.  We learned that a base has to be sturdy in order to do all of the above.  Today we read The Three Little Pigs and designed a house on paper that will have 4 walls and a roof and be able to not be blown over by the big bad wolf.  Next week, they will design them using only the given materials: straw (large toothpicks), sticks (popsicle sticks), or bricks (styrofoam bricks).  They can only use glue, clay, or tape to hold them together.  Then we will test them using 3 different “wolves”–a hairdryer, a fan, and a leaf blower.  We’ll see which engineers and architects had the best design and plan!

Next week is the school book fair and several fliers have gone home.  This is the only bookfair fundraiser that the library does to buy new books for the library.  I will not send home a book order until the end of the month.  I will send Nov. and Dec. home at the end of the month if you’d like to order books for gifts.

A huge THANK YOU to anyone who donated money towards the TWO grants I got funded this week!  Unfortunately, I can’t know who donated, so I want to say thank you to anyone who did.  The first grant will buy lots of cool STEM kits and several different games with manipulatives.  The second grant will purchase 8 wobble stools for us to use in the classroom.  I’ve never had that happen and to have two funded in a week was AMAZING!  Thank you all for your generosity!

A few things to think about:  please help your child learn to zip their own coat.  As we head into cooler weather, they need to be able to do this on their own.  Does your child have a job or two at home?  Children this age can and need to be responsible for some jobs at home.  It gives them a sense of accomplishment, helps them see that they need to be responsible and that others can depend on them.  Please consider finding some “kid friendly” jobs that they can help with at home.  They have jobs that they have to do at school and they CAN do it!  Their favorite is cleaning the tables, just fyi! 🙂

Next week, we will be collecting new hats, gloves, mittens, and socks to share with our sister school in Olathe, Ridgeview Elementary.  If you can help them out with a donation, that’d be great.  When you donate, your family will be given a leaf to decorate and those leaves will decorate the tree in the dining room.  We will collect those starting next week and through Thanksgiving.

Next week we will work on thankfulness and learn all about the Pilgrims journey from England to America.

I am thankful for all of your support and for the great kids in this classroom!  Have a great weekend!  I’m headed to Lawrence Saturday for the KU game and Sunday to decorate the ADPi house!  Will be a busy, but fun weekend!

Week of Oct. 31-Nov. 4

Can we just mandate that from now on Halloween falls on a Friday, no matter the date?  I don’t think you’ll find a teacher that would disagree! 🙂  We started the week with Halloween and our parade and party.  Thank you to all the parents that donated food, supplies, and time to the party.  The kids had a lot of fun, it was well organized, and all cleaned up by 3:40!  Thank you for your help!

The rest of the week, we dove into the chunk “ar” and learned that when we see ar together, we don’t stretch it as two sounds, it only makes one sound!  We read lots of pirate books, did a lot of graphing activities, math activities with more/less, learned the letter Rr and its sound and action, made a class book, and a pirate glyph.  Our pirate glyphs were a BIG project, but turned out great and will be in the hall next week.  Be sure to check them out!  A huge THANK YOU to Soon Shin (Beckett’s Dad) who signed up to be a watch dog and I snagged him for the day!  Thank you!  It was a huge help to have you here!  Thank you too to Ricky Ogden, Tori’s dad, for coming in to help and then being the royal reader.  We crammed a lot in today!

Next week won’t have any dress up days (whew!), but will be loaded with fun and learning of course!  We will start our PLTW (Project Lead the Way) module on engineering next week.  The lessons will be based on Jack and the Beanstalk and The Three Little Pigs and will culminate with the kids having the task of building a paintbrush that has several functions.  We will learn engineering terms such as design, function, and structure.  The kids will LOVE the science time and you’ll be amazed at what they come up with.  It’s sure different than even when my kids were in kindergarten.

I sent home info. today about the poster contest for Bentwood.  If your child wants to participate, all the info. is on the sheet and it’s due next week.

If you have extra candy you want to donate, they will collect that until Nov. 11th.  I just MIGHT have taken a Mounds out of the box…. 🙂

Well matey, that was short and sweet and I am headed home!  This might have been the longest week ever, but it was sure a fun one!  Next week, my husband and I will celebrate 25 years of being married (yes, I got married when I was 10).  The trip we’d planned to take went toward the dog’s surgery, but oh well, we have more years to come!  Don’t forget to set your clocks back this weekend!  Fall Back day is one of my most favorite!  Have a great weekend!