Class Picture
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Having trouble commenting....
We'd love to borrow any Dr. Seuss books that you listed in the previous post, if you are willing to part with them for the month. Don't forget to label each book you send in. Thanks so much for your help!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
America Reads Day Preparation
On Wednesday, March 2nd, the day we return from vacation, our school will celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss. The nation has coined the day America Reads and we will celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday by reading many of his books. Unfortunately, our classroom library is currently lacking in books by this great author. If you have any of his books, please let me know which ones we could borrow! Thanks for your help!
Friday, February 18, 2011
Please send in a complete extra set of clothes for your child to keep at school. The playground can get wet and it's difficult for the children to resist stomping around in puddles! Today, almost all the children came back after recess with COMPLETELY soaked socks and pants. Unfortunately, the nurse cannot supply us all with extra clothes. Thanks for understanding.
Meet Frank, the Sea Otter
Even though the outside portion of NAP was cancelled today due to the wet, slippery, icy ground, Mallory provided us with an indoor lesson. Mallory brought in her friend Frank, who is a real stuffed sea otter. We used our eagle eyes to observe the sea otter closely while learning about various characteristics of their lives. We were amazed at the size of the otter! It was much bigger than we had imagined. Did you know the sea otter can hold its breath anywhere from 4-8 minutes? The children also learned who its predator was and how they hide from them, what and how they eat, how they swim, and many more facts that help it survive. The lesson focused on the sea otters tracks and we were able to make a plaster cast of its foot and draw a sea otter print in our journals. We also sketched detailed pictures of the otter and wrote facts that we learned in our journals. Thanks Mallory and Kellie, too!
This week we took a break from writing stories about ourselves and practiced writing informational text. Check out a few of them below. It is amazing how far each and every child has come in their writing abilities. They are all working at their own pace and on different skills, but have all shown tremendous improvement.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Looking to do a good deed and keep busy over break??
The Spruce Up Committee would like to help with some projects at the school during this vacation.
One of the projects involves cleaning each and every classroom. During the break , you can come to the school and assist with cleaning the classroom. How about your child's/grandchild's classroom? We need help getting all those winter germs out of our room!
NAP tomorrow!
NAP is weather dependent tomorrow. The forecast is calling for rain tonight and tomorrow. If we decide to go out please be prepared and have your child bring in an extra pair of clothes in case the ones they wear to school get wet.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Penguins Galore!
My class has been studying penguins and learning how to identify important information when reading informational text. We also have been talking about the difference between a fiction and non fiction book and trying to use the text and pictures in the book to distinguish one from the other. The class also explored with the globe and found the place in the world where penguins live. We were amazed that there were 17 different kinds of penguins and that even though they do not fly, they are still considered birds. Check out the penguins we created above!
Monday, February 14, 2011
Food Drive Update!
Thank you for all of your food donations so far. We will be collecting nonperishable food items all next week. Our food drive will continue until February18th. When we return from winter break, we will deliver the items to the food shelf here in Montpelier. We are not at the halfway point yet, so please send in those items this week. Thank you!!
NAP discussion
The North Branch Nature Center Staff would like to invite you to join us on February 15th, from 6 to 8pm, at Union Elementary school for an evening discussion about The Nature Adventure Program. Your child has been spending every other Friday in the forest of Hubbard Park or just a few blocks from school at Harrison Field. Teachers, parents, and North Branch Nature Center staff have been working together to create outdoor learning experiences that connect children in a unique way to the landscape.
Please come next Tuesday to learn more about The Nature Adventure Program and how you can participate. Childcare will be provided by a North Branch staff!
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
We did It...we made it to Day 100 of Kindergarten!
We had a fabulous day doing a variety of 100 day activities. Not only did we endlessly count to 100, but we wrote numbers to 100, read poems and books, imagined what we would eat 100 of and what we would want and not want 100 of, we made necklaces after counting out 100 pieces of cereal to strand, and of course danced and grooved the day away wearing our special crowns and glasses while enjoying a special snack. What a fun day! |
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| Free slideshow design generated with Smilebox |
Monday, February 7, 2011
They're beginning to look like.......first graders!
We've been reviewing a variety of reading strategies learned this year that help us when reading our just right readers. Last week, the kids received book totes that are similar to what first graders use. Inside a first grader's book tote includes ONLY just right readers and not any high preference books. We talked about how the more practice we get with just right readers, the better readers we'll become. So long high preference books! (Don't worry, we get plenty of opportunities to peruse our library!) We have started building our stamina when reading from these new book boxes and can now read for an extensive block of time. The students are using pictures to help them read, using their finger and tapping out words, getting their mouth ready, looking for chunks, and thinking about what sounds right. These strategies help emergent readers become fluent readers over time!
100 Day Celebration Begins!
We started to prepare for our 100 day celebration today. We read the 100 Day Worries while practicing and learning that one hundred is the same as 10 groups of 10. We also created crowns to wear for tomorrow (wow, were our hands tired!) and imagined ourselves in 100 years! We drew portraits of how we look today and then drew ourselves in 100 years! Many of our friends visioned they would have wrinkles and gray or white hair! During writer's workshop, we wrote a reminder to ourselves to bring in 100 pieces of food for tomorrow's celebration.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Book Bags
If you have any questions about how to best support your child's reading at home, please contact me. The purpose of our at home reading program is to read for pleasure and to share the excitement of reading together. It should also give you an idea of what your child is reading at school. These books have been practiced many times before being sent home, so they might appear to be too easy. If the book is too easy for him/her it shows you how much your child has practiced it. As a child rereads a text, their fluency increases. These books can be sent back as frequently as you'd like. I will try my best to refill them each day. If you prefer not to have books sent home, please let me know.
word families
On Monday and Tuesday, my class started looking at the word family, at. This happened to be our sight word of the week and we had a lot of fun using it to build other words. We are learning how letters can work together to make word chunks. This week, we used the word chunk and substituted various letters at the beginning of the word at to create different words. Recognizing word chunks helps beginning readers read and spell new words rapidly. This week we have read a variety of books that include many -at family words and created a list of these words. We have created sentences and illustrated them (I sat on the fat rat.), we made word sliders with paper plates (have your child show you how this works when they bring it home), filled a house with -at words, played at family bingo, and memory.
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