Saying Goodbye

Thanks to Sigrid yesterday for noticing that one of our chicks seems to be a little sick.  The poor guy was limping around last night.  We gave him a little vitamin C today and a lot of LOVE, but I feel as though he is not benefiting by being in a home with the rest of the chicks in our classroom.  We are thankful to have Brock, who lives in Northfield, to give him the attention he needs.  Brock has set an alarm every 20 min or so to remind him to check on our friend and make sure he receives his treatment.    Here is Doctor Brock (a.k.a. Charlie Bucket) tending to our chick and making him his very own healing contraption. 

Assessments

Even though I didn't see the sunshine and was stuck in a small closet space today, I was SOOO impressed with each child's progress they've made in reading.  I spent the day doing 1:1 reading assessments with almost all the children (the rest I will finish next week). It amazes me how far they have come since January.  Amazing work Kindergartners!

What time is it?

We've been having a lot of discussion in the past week or so about what time it is at various points of the day.  What time do we wake up? What time do we have snack or daily 5 or go to recess? How about what time we have math or eat dinner or go to bed?  Your child is learning to tell time and is attempting to connect these times with what they do at that time of the day. A seemingly easy task, but quite confusing for kindergartners!  A whole hour is much longer to our students than you can imagine.  Stop your child at various times during the day and inquire with them what time they think it might be. We've been learning how to read analog and digital clocks when it's at "o'clock." Have your child tell you where the short and long hand should be situated when it's 1:00 and time for math!

Holding Chicks

Thanks to Mrs. Wrigley's friends, Max, Anja, and Jasiah, we learned the proper ways of holding our chicks carefully.  They modeled and explained how to go about this difficult task and taught us what the chick might be telling you when it starts to peep.  Ask your child to show you how we hold the chicks and what their chick might have been telling them today.

Crayfish and Millipedes

Our 3rd grade buddies shared their new class friends with us today.  We learned all about crayfish and millipedes and even got to hold these interesting creatures.  Can your child tell you the difference between a crayfish and a millipede's habitat? How about comparing that to a chicken's?  Many of our kids were brave enough to hold them while others used their owl eyes to observe the creatures and their habitats.  (BEWARE: there are many crayfish missing around the school. If you come upon one, dead or alive, please return it to one of the third grades!)  And if you want to know how it feels when they pinch you, BO will gladly share his past experience!

Movement break

Throughout the year, our class has benefited from short movement breaks throughout the day.  We often need to get up, stretch, and get our body moving.  I'm sure you've heard about Bop Till You Drop, Razzmatazz, Down in the Valley, ChiChiCha, My Mother is a Baker, Hop and Stop, and many more.  Lately, our friends have been wanting to, just dance!  They were a little camera shy today so I'll try to get the usual moves another day. Who taught your child to dance?  We sure do have some skill in Room 12!

Goodbye DeJaun

We had a farewell party for our good friend, DeJaun today.  We sent him off to his new school with a book created by our classmates and gave him good advise on what makes a good friend so he can continue to create friendships at his new school.  Our friends were sad to see him go and we hope he comes back to visit soon! 

Our New Chickmates!

Gobo, Toby, Pablo, Boots, Kale, Martha, Sawdust, and Commander Cody were so happy to meet their Kindergarten friends today.  Our class brainstormed a huge list of possible names for the chicks and then chose 8 names randomly from a box.  As we continue to closely observe them we will begin assigning names to each chick.  Right now, they are very similar looking and too difficult to tell apart!

Today, the students learned and observed me holding the chicks.  Tomorrow, they will get to use their gentle hands to pick up and hold a chick themselves.  We spent a lot of time observing what the chicks look like and how they are responding to their new environment.

The entire chick family thoroughly enjoyed being read to during Daily 5.  Some chicks even listened to stories children were writing.  What great listeners they were!

Cookout

I have reserved the Hubbard Park Shelter above the pond for Thursday, June 9th at 5:00 to celebrate the end of the year with a family/teacher led cookout.  Please check your child's folder for more information!  I look forward to celebrating the end of your child's Kindergarten year with you and your families. 

Sarah's Grandma Visits!

Sandy, Sarah's grandma came in on Friday to read us a story and create a beach scene.  She even brought sand and seashells up from Florida to share with us and created blue water to look like the ocean.  We had a great conversation about the differences between lakes and oceans and brainstormed many different kinds of species living in oceans and residing on beaches.  Thanks so much for coming to visit Sandy!

Cheep Cheep Cheep Cheep

As of 7pm when I left school, 8 out of 10 chicks have hatched. These black orpington chicks are thriving and loving life in their home in room 12. There's one thing missing...14 of their 5 and 6 year old friends! They can't wait to meet you tomorrow!

3 chicks have hatched as of 9 am Sunday!

It's looking like successs....

If you read this before Monday, please share with your child that it looks as though we'll have some chicks when they get back after the weekend. Our chicks were busy today using their egg tooth to start pecking away at the shell. There are holes in 4 of the eggs. I'll hopefully meet some of them tomorrow and after they dry off I'll transfer them to an extra large tank that will be there home for the next week.

Please let me know which evening works better for you to attend the family cookout at Hubbard Park. See poll on side bar

NAP Pond Photos

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HUGE Plant Sale - NAP Fundraiser

Have extra perennials in your garden? Please consider donating them to the plant sale to benefit UES Nature Adventure Program. Please label the plants (include name, height, sun requirements and color on popsicle sticks) and store them in containers until dropping them off at North Branch Nature Center or Union School between June 1-3. Plant sale is Friday, June 3 at the NBNC at 5:30 p.m.

Last NAP trip!

I believe we had the BEST NAP day yet. The sun was shining, the air was warm, and smiles filled each child's face as we explored the woods for 3.5 hours!  Even better, our children exhibited such outstanding behavior.  They worked as a team, helped one another, taught each other, and had a great time!  We broke the morning into two parts. One group explored the pond catching frogs and fish while the other group pretended to be detectives on a hunt for bugs! Finding salamanders under large rocks and logs became the highlight of their detective work.  Back in the classroom, we used all the recycled materials we've been collecting during our last unit to create a variety of sculptures and contraptions. Not only did we have puppets and telescopes but many houses, water parks, and catching devises for the vast array of creatures found during our explorations in Hubbard Park.

This was our last NAP trip with the Northbranch Nature Center.  My class and I greatly appreciate all Mallory and Amy have done for us. Their expertise when it comes to nature and their skillful interactions with the children should be applauded. Thanks for all you have done to make our Friday mornings a fun engaging learning experience!  THANK YOU MALLORY AND AMY!!  See you next year in FIRST GRADE!

I am thinking about (lunch or dinner - June 9th, 10th, 13th) a celebration of the end of NAP and of the year. If you are interested in helping us plan for a cookout in Hubbard Park for ALL families, please let me know.  I'm looking for parent input on dates that would work best for you. Please fill out the poll on the side column of the blog.

(I was in the bug exploring group, so hopefully I'll be able to add someone else's photos from the pond later in the week!) Stay tuned...

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Community Learning

Your children have been going above and beyond lately to help and celebrate each others successes.  Through group problem solving, discussion, positive speaking, praise, and celebrations, each child is taking an active role in helping create a stronger community.  My students have been helping each other not only socially but making an effort to use the 'helping three' rule as well during academic learning times.  What a great group of role models and hard workers I have!!

In Math today, our focus was on sequencing numbers.  We are learning to visualize where numbers fall in relation to each other using 10 frames as a guide. 

hen, Ben, wren, ten, Jen, chicken, men, den, then, when

In literacy this week we are reviewing each letter sound, vowels in particular. We are concentrating on the vowels and trying to hear the differences between the trickier vowel substitutions (/e/, /a/, /i/).  In addition to singing a variety of letter sound songs, we are writing sentences on dry erase strips, making sure we begin our sentences with upper case letters, putting a 3 finger space between our words, and ending with a period.  We are also looking closely at the word family -en in honor of our soon to be chickens/hens!  We've read a variety of books and came up with a huge list of words where the -en chunk is found. We are also spending some time cleaning out our book boxes and going 'shopping' for new just right readers! 

Playground

The lower playground is back open. We will continue having recess on the upper playground but will go back to meeting on the lower playground upon arrival in the morning. Please remind your child this tomorrow morning!

Bugs, Amphibians, Critters....

On Friday, our class will be exploring the pond in Hubbard Park. Please prepare your child with the appropriate clothing. Rain boots are key as we'll be getting wet and muddy!  Don't forget to wear layers, pack a water bottle, and apply sunscreen on your child before arriving at school!  Is anybody interested in helping prepare snack with the Muller-Moore's?  We are looking for fruits or vegetables to accompany some cheese and crackers!  Let me know if you can help.

Help?

Do you want to help our classroom out? We are running low on a few materials. Please check out the side bar to see what your child's classroom could use to make it through till the end of the year!

Math this week

This week we continue to focus on writing numbers 10-100.  We are also beginning to use base 10 blocks to show larger numbers. Ex. 37 can be constructed with 3 rods and 7 units. 

Where we live cont..

Today we continued to look at where we live on Earth and to also begin describing where we live specifically. The focus was on knowing what street we live on, the number of the house, what city the street is in and then what state our city is in. We then looked at maps of Vermont and found where Vermont was in the USA. Does your child know where they live and their telephone number? 

We LOVE sunny days!

Lettuce planting

What a beautiful day to get outside! Mrs. Slesar's class joined us on a walk to the high school to plant lettuce for their gardens, taste different kinds, and to check out their greenhouse and hard work. Every student gets to help do some planting to grow vegetables for the MPS cafeterias.  They even use all the compost we've been saving! 

Where do we live?

In continuing to learn about our planet, Earth, we have had some great conversations about where we live on planet earth. We are starting to learn the differences between cities, states, country, continent, and world.  In addition we have been looking at maps of our town, country, and world.  Today, we drew maps of our bedrooms and wrote about where we live in Montpelier. 

In Math this week, we continued practicing counting larger numbers by looking for groups of ten, counting these and then adding on the single units. Along with counting these groups, we've been practicing writing numbers with two digits up to 100 and continuing to practice adding small groups of numbers together. 

"I Promise"

During writer's workshop this week we finished up our animal reports.  We also made "I promise" posters to the earth.  We have learned so many different ways we can be a friend to the earth.  Some of these posters included ideas about recycling, riding a bike instead of driving, turning off the lights, using less water, picking up garbage, not littering, and planting trees!  Check out our posters in the hallway outside our classroom!

Tell your teacher a joke day..

We had an impromptu joke telling session today in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week!  I caught some on camera!

4 Winds

On Tuesday Shannon and Sigrid enlightened us with lessons all morning about protective coloration.  The students learned that many different organisms escape predators by their shape or coloration.  They do this by blending into their environment.  We began the morning with an entertaining puppet show, blended in with our friends, created camouflage pictures, and found a variety of animals in both a poster and a sideshow.  Many friends were able to observe how their NAP animal goes about doing this. 

Enjoy this clip of our FABULOUS volunteer parents putting on the puppet show!

We NEED Cans TOMORROW!

Eating soup today for lunch? Want to clean out your recycling bin? If so, send in your empty, cleaned can tomorrow. We need about 10 cans for a project! Thanks!

New Friends

To continue our study of life cycles (we learned about butterflies in the fall) we are raising chicks in our classroom.  We set up the incubator today and will meet our 10 new friends tomorrow morning!