My Big Tree

We had a beautiful day for NAP yesterday. The sun was shining on us as we walked to Hubbard Park noticing all the signs of spring that have suddenly appeared.  At Hubbard Park, we spent the morning measuring the circumference of a tree near our sit spots with a piece of string. Back in the classroom that afternoon, we measured how long the string was and made posters of our BIG TREE!  The highlight of our morning was finding 3 snakes (1 dead and 2 alive). We were able to observe them for quite some time.  The children continue to show great cooperation in working with their peers while out in the forest.

3/4 Water and 1/4 Land

We had a brief kindergarten level lesson today on fractions!  This afternoon we discussed how much water compared to land there is on Earth. We then brainstormed different animals that might live on the land versus in the water and created these earths. 3/4 of the Earth illustrates animals that live in the water and 1/4 of the earth illustrates an animal that lives on land. 

Willy Wonka Show

 Bumpy bus ride!

 trying to stay entertained waiting for the show!

waiting for the show so patiently!

WOW! We were so excited to have "Charlie Bucket" come visit our classroom after the show! We had so many questions for him and were thrilled to be able to meet him!  Everybody thoroughly enjoyed the show today!

MESSAGE FROM OWEN BRADLEY, PRINCIPAL!

Dear Kindergarten Families,

       
It’s that time of year again!
We will be inviting our incoming kindergarten students and their families to UES for Kindergarten Screening on May 18 and May 19.Because the current kindergarten classrooms will be used for this event, there will be no school for all kindergarten children on those days. Grades 1-5 will have school.


You are receiving this information now as we know that many of you will need to make special child care arrangements. Please note that the Community Connection staff will be offering childcare during the school day on May 18 and 19. They have a limited number of places. If you are interested in that option, please see the attached form.

      
Our team has found the screening days to be extremely valuable in providing an opportunity for us to get to know the new students and in helping all of them make the best possible transition to UES. We appreciate your understanding.

                                      Sincerely, 

                                      UES Principal Owen Bradley

The 3 R's

Ask your child what the 3 R's are!  Maybe they will give you some examples on how we've been practicing these at school.  We have been really careful about what we throw in the garbage lately, have been conserving paper, and even keeping the lights off all day!  We have been reading a variety of books about recycling and even singing some songs related to the 3 R's. More lyrics to follow....

Writer's Workshop

 "Earth is a magnet. We live on Earth. It's our home. We share it with the animals. We share it with nature."

 "Earth is weird for aliens. Earth is our planet. Earth is my friend. I recycle at school. My school has lots of recycling."

 It was amazing to see the children write so much about Earth today.  Our focus was writing information about what we know but also paying close attention to where sentences end.  We are working hard at noticing when we need to end the sentence so we don't run out of breadth! There were many ideas about earth being written about today:

Earth is a planet, it's our home, it's home to other animals, plants, and wildlife. We have air on our planet, trees, and water. There is more water than land. And a TON of writing about how we can be Earth's friend by recycling!  Great job Kindergarteners!  Check out our writing on the bulletin board at school! 

NAP garage sale!

If you have items to donate to the garage sale to benefit the NAP program please bring them to school after 3 pm Friday. If you'd like to volunteer to set up that afternoon or any time during the sale on Saturday, please let me know!  Also, we will be having a bake sale during garage sale, so if you'd like to donate a baked good, please drop something off.  Thanks!

 

Have your child sing you the recycle song (to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle)

 

We made replicas of the earth using crumbled up tissue paper. Later in the week, we'll do our own writing about what earth is.

What springs in spring?

Reading Strategies

 

What strategies do you notice your child uses as they read? Our class is working on using a variety of strategies when they get tricked up on a word.  They have practiced being the "teacher" as I read big books.  When I stumble upon the text, the children encourage me to use one of the strategies learned, depending on the situation. Your child in turn, has been practicing this in their own reading.  Many students have modeled examples of what happened in their own reading to their peers. Peer teaching is just as important! 

New Friend!

WELCOME!

We are happy to welcome a new friend to our classroom community.  Cale will be joining our class this week. We are excited to get to know him and share our school with him.

Concert Clips

Thanks to Lara for providing us film documentation of our concert! Enjoy watching these with your family.  There are multiple videos so keep scrolling down. You may need to download FlipShare to your computer in order to view. 

Concert Clips - Click to Open

CALLING ALL RECYCLABLES

Please send in any recycled materials you have.  We are looking for medium sized containers, boxes, toilet paper rolls, etc that we could reuse to build sculptures.  We are also looking for 1 liter soda bottles or containers of similar sizes that could be used to do some planting. If you'd like to donate any recyclables or help us fund the costs of a planting project, please send in donations!  If you are sending in recyclables, make sure you take labels off and thoroughly clean them. NO sharp edges please.

How many pounds of trash will we collect?

Over the course of the week, we will be collecting all the trash our class produces and seeing how we can help the earth to limit the amount of waste.  We will be weighing it and learning about how to represent the amount of trash we collect.

Also in math this week, we continue to practice making 'smart' estimates as we take guesses each day for how many objects in the jar. Our estimates are getting closer and closer!  As we count these objects, we practice counting in groups of 5 and 10 and then stopping to think about how to add on the additional ones. 

We are also reviewing teen numbers by playing, Beat you to 20!  We are trying to master recognizing these numbers and understanding that we can quickly count a group of ten and then add on the ones to make a teen number.

Our class is also practicing subitizing, the processes of quickly and accurately recognizing small groups of objects without counting.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

We continue, and hope to finish Charlie and the Chocolate Factory book by the time our Field Trip comes on THURSDAY, APRIL 28!  PLEASE have your child at school by 8:15 so we can promptly load the bus by 8:30.  Here are some questions to engage your child in conversation about the text.

What are the workers like in Willy Wonka's factory?

What kind of bubble gum do they make? What does it taste like?  

What happened to Violet Beuarogarde when she ate the gum?

Where did August Gloop go?

Tell me about Veruca Salt?

New Word Family

In literacy this week, our new word family is the ag family. We brainstormed a variety of words that have the -ag rime with the help of some riddles and completed a word sort comparing the -ag and -ap word families.  Ask your child how to read or spell the words that complete these sentences.

I bring my lunch to school in a paper______. 

Dad uses an old______to wash the car. 

Mom says that it’s not nice to______ . 

A male deer is called a ______or a buck. 

Our______ is red, white, and blue.

Tree branches can_____your sweater. 

We all wore a name______on the first day. 

My dog will_____ his tail when he is happy. 

We played______ toss at school today. 

During the storm we had to fill a______ .

Taking Care of the Earth

Today, our class started learning about how to take care of our home, planet Earth. Over the next few weeks, we will be engaged in activities that will help us learn how to be Earth's friend.  Through integrated literacy, science, and math lessons, our children will learn more about how we can be Earth's friend by recycling, reusing, and reducing.  We will also start learning about the life cycles of plants and how to care for plants and animals.  Today we began talking about what Earth is and looking at a globes and maps of Earth.  We also looked closely at what is happening to Earth in our hometown as we say goodbye to winter and hello to spring! 

Welcome Back!

I hope everybody had a relaxing and fun vacation!  It was great to see every child's smiling face as they arrived back at school this morning, having grown a few inches over break!  They're looking more and more like first graders every day.  We had a busy first day back at school and were even able to enjoy the sun this afternoon before the clouds rolled in....

Art Show Favorites!