Have a great vacation!

 Stuffy day was much fun today!  All stuffies showed exemplary listening skills and all animals worked hard to show self-control as they helped their Kinder friends complete their reading, writing, and art projects throughout the day.  All children enjoyed a special snack this afternoon.

Enjoy the next week and a half with your family.  Don't forget to laugh, have fun, get outside, and read every day!

Guest Readers

Grammie Anne-Marie came all the way from the Boston area to read to our class this week.  She brought with her a favorite of mine, Brave Irene.  Anne-Marie is a second grade teacher and was impressed with our listening skills! Thanks for visiting!

Dr. Seuss Celebration and Donations

READ ACROSS AMERICA

"You're never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child." What better way to celebrate Dr. Seuss's birthday than reading to a child? On the evening of March 2nd (Dr. Seuss's birthday), Random House and the National Education Association (NEA) urge you to participate in the second annual Read Across America and read to a child. WHY CELEBRATE DR. SEUSS? Dr. Seuss epitomizes a love of children and learning. Also, his use of rhyme makes his books an effective tool for teaching young children the basic skills they need to be successful. When we celebrate Dr. Seuss and reading, we send a clear message to America's children that reading is fun and important. http://www.seussville.com/special/read.html Because this date lands on vacation this year, we will be celebrating the birthday of Dr. Seuss and Read Across America the weeks we return from vacation.  We will be reading many of his books, so if you could help out our classroom library, we'd appreciate it. If you have any Dr. Seuss' books, and wouldn't mind sharing them with us for 2-3 weeks, I'd appreciate it. Be sure to write your name clearly on the book to ensure a safe return!

Skulls

Snow, cold, ice, and hurricanes have put a bit of a damper on this year's scheduling of 4 winds.  Kudos to our parents volunteers for being so flexible and patient!  Melissa and Royce joined us this morning to teach us about animals' skull and teeth.  We looked closely at animal skulls and learned about the function of different types of teeth.  Students learned how incisors, canines, and molars grasp, hold, or chew different kinds of food and how this helps them to survive.  After a puppet show, the class explored a variety of animal's skulls and predicted what kinds of food particular animals may eat, based on the type of teeth it had.  After creating our own skulls, the children nibbled on a variety of snacks and determined which of their teeth helped them chew that particular food. INQUIRE with your child what kind of teeth they have and how they are useful to them.

Celebration

The class set a goal on Tuesday to earn 100 hoots over the course of three days. If they reach their goal by the end of the day on Thursday (shhh, they definitely will), we will have stuffy/movie/popcorn day on FRIDAY. Children are allowed to bring in a stuffed animal of their choice (it must fit in a plastic bag or their backpacks) to have for company during different parts of the day.  In the afternoon, we will enjoy a movie (either Reading Rainbow's 'Tar Beach' or a science video of magnets - both are connected to what we are learning).  During this time, we will enjoy a special popcorn snack!  I'm looking for parents to donate popcorn (and as a surprise to the children - hot cocoa! shh-don't tell!)  If you can help out with either of these two items, let me know. 

Tar Beach

Over the last two weeks, students began learning about two new artists.  In Art, Mrs. Kane is teaching the children about Pablo Picasso and they are completing unique masks in his style.  In our classroom, we are learning about Faith Ringgold as an artist and an author. Focusing on her life and the artistic techniques she uses, we have been quite keen observers while looking closely at her work.  Faith Ringgold is best known for her painted story quilts - art that combines painting, quilted fabric, and storytelling.  We are learning to look closely and replicate intricate artistic details through a study of her work, Tar Beach.  This artist and her rendition of Tar Beach is reminding us of the setting used in Ezra Jack Keats' stories.  We've been looking closely at what life is like for his characters (Archie, Louie, Jennie, Peter, etc) living in a city and noticed similarities when looking at the buildings and life in NYC, where Tar Beach takes place.  You may get a sneak peak of the art we are creating below, but we will be saving them for your viewing pleasure at the Art Show. The tentative scheduled date for this evening show is Tuesday, April 16th.  More details and confirmation to come!

Here are some questions to inquire about with your child!
        What is a tar beach?
        Why is the George Washington Bridge important to Cassie?
        Why does Cassie fly in the story?
        What do her parents do for a living?
        What time of day and what time of year does the picture/story take place?
        What is the purpose of the quilt patterns and the quilt border around the art?

After break, we will be doing some response and opinion writing directly connected to Cassie's dreams in Tar Beach.

Magazine

This year, we have been receiving free issues of Parent and Child Scholastic magazine every few months and sending them home with your child. As a subscriber to Scholastic's newsletters for kids that we read in the classroom, they offer us these free magazines for families. If you would prefer not to have a copy of this magazine, please let us know.  

 

Indoor Recess

Thanks for the impromptu visit, 'Uncle Paul.'  An uncle of a student stopped by for recess today and little did he know, we were stuck inside!  As we went about our routine indoor recess workouts, we learned that Paul had been a physical education teacher for 15 years!  He was able to teach us some new workouts, a few yoga poses, and a little bit about our heartbeat. Thanks for helping to get some wiggles out of our Kinders, Paul!

Magnetism and Scientific Method

On Friday, our class spent some time exploring with magnets in three different science centers.  The goal for the day was to focus on inquiry - to observe, make hypotheses, and to record data.  During the centers, students learned about different types of magnets - their names and characteristics of how they look and compare and contrast to each other, what kind of objects magnets are attracted to and not attracted to, and also created art with magnets.  Students recorded their results with pictures and words, taking time to observe closely before gathering their data.

Snowshoeing during P.E.

I was excited to join my class for a bit for P.E. Mr. Williams and MJ have been leading a winter outdoor unit and this week, students are learning the fundamentals of snowshoeing!  Students fast-walked to Harrison Field, strapped their snowshoes on and went for a hike through Harrison Forest.  After returning to the field, children participated in relay races, working together to complete a variety of courses.  I hope to bring the children out for a morning of snowshoeing fun in March, pending another snowfall. If you would like to help us out, and have a particular day you'd prefer, email me and let me know! I promise you, it'll be a ton of fun!

Friendship Day

Love, kindness, laughter, and joy spread across our classroom today. We began our day with a special heart greeting and then got together with Mrs. Wrigley's class to sing two songs about love - Love Grows and Magic Penny.  During literacy, students focused on a book about hearts - that was left by word bird in attempts that students would find all his words!  During math, we headed downtown to count all the hearts left by the Valentine Bandit.  Unfortunately, our plan and attempts at tallying failed and we decided to make estimates or count and not worry about keeping track. Students counted by 1's, 5's and 10's for each store/restaurant and decided that Skinny Pancake had the most - with about 65 hearts just on the front!  This afternoon we decorated and filled an envelope with "friendship day" words and exchanged cards for one another. The appreciation that filled the room was abundant as each child thanked one another.  Thanks to families who donated a special classroom snack for all to enjoy.  We even got a special visit by our buddies who delivered each of us a card!  

Valentines for the maintenance/custodial staff!

Science Outdoors

Perhaps the perfect morning for outdoor science learning. Warm temps, light (ok, a few flakes) snow, great friends, and a snow covered ground were the perfect ingredients for learning at Harrison Field/Forest.  Morning meeting exploration, discussion, and activity gave students an opportunity to learn about animal gaits - the patterned movement generally seen in animals.  We learned animals move in four ways - hop, waddle, walk, or bound. The lesson focused on looking at tracks to see how animals move, and how we can look closely at their tracks to identify the type of animal and how it moves.  INQUIRE with your child about which way their own Vermont animal moves.  Perhaps they can share a few examples of other animals that move in different ways. Can they model the movement for you? Most children will be be able to teach you all about how animals move - after spending the day acting like different animals. As we became nature detectives, we not only looked for tracks but became the animal - moving around the forest in particular ways. Animal tracks led us in and out and around the forest, discussing where they might be going and why - many thoughts were around finding water, shelter, and staying safe to survive the cold.   Students also played "Animal, Animal, Show me Your Moves," a similar game to fishy fishy, but with animal movement the focus.  Back in the classroom, students reflected on their observations and questions they had, and recorded their thinking in their science journal.  At choice time, students even used stamps to make animal tracks and recreated pictures of Harrison Forest.

Walk to School Wednesdays

Community Connections and Union Elementary School have teamed up to keep kids moving this winter.  Every Wednesday, teachers count the number of students who have walked to school. The class with the highest percentage of walkers wins the Golden Sneaker Trophy for the week, a very unique and prestigious award!

It is well documented that children and adults in this country should get more exercise.  The CDC recommends that adults get 2.5 hours of aerobic exercise per week; their guidelines for school-aged children recommend 1 hour per day.  Yet in our schools PE class is held on average twice per week for 40 minutes.  An effective way for children and adults to increase their physical activity is through active transportation, simply walking or bicycling to school or work.  this daily exercise before school helps most kids feel better and more relaxed, and studies show it actually helps them be better learners.

Day 100 - FUn Filled Learning

We did it! We made it to Day 100! To start the day, we had a conversation about what happens after Day 100 - due to the misconceptions of some of our friends that today was the last day of kindergarten. Some actually thought that they were on their way to 1st grade tomorrow!  Disappointed or delighted were feelings shared after this conversation.  Lucky for them, they get another year and a half of  learning and fun with Miss Closter! 



After reading our morning message during morning meeting, a note magically appeared. After reading the letter, we took a magical and exciting adventure through our school tracking the numbered steps Herman 100, a dragon very fond of the number 100, took around UES to get to Mr. Bradley's office. It was thrilling - and again we counted and read numbers all the way to 100! Herman 100 is a very special dragon who happens to be very fond of the number 100 and loves to get involved in celebrating Kindergartners special 100th day of school. Herman Hundred graciously left us a prize for tracking him down - a goodie bag with a 100 day pencil and $100 for each of our friends who counted all the way to 100!  




Upon returning to the classroom, students returned to the classroom for a fully integrated "100 day" learning across the curriculum.  During literacy we read 100 day stories and say a 100 day song.  We read 100 books collectively and even read a story about groups of animals at a zoo that totaled 100!  

During math we wrote and counted forwards and backwards to 100 and made a cereal necklace - completed with 100 cheerios! 

During writing, students imagined what they would do with $100, wrote 100 words, and wrote about 100 different things they could do. Some even attempted to fill a gum ball machine with 100 gumballs!  

To end our day at choice time, students enjoyed counting by 100's to create a class fruit bowl - 1,400 pieces of fruit total. YUMMY!  Thanks for your support in helping to prepare this snack to share!