Week in Review ~ January 25th - January 29th

How can it possibly be the end of January already...I cannot believe that Monday is the first day of February!

This week in ELA our essential question was "What kinds of things grow on a farm?" Our vocabulary words were raise, fresh, beneath, delicious, and special. Ask your K2er if they remember the meanings of any (or all) of them. We read the stories An Orange in January, Farms Around the World, and Farmer's Market. We talked about how food that is grown faraway gets to us at the grocery store. We worked on the letters Ff and Rr and introduced the sight words he, with. At this point of the year most weeks we will have 2 new sight words. It is super important to practice the sight words at home so that it doesn't get too overwhelming for your child. If you need another set of sight word flash cards to practice at home just put a note in your child's message tube and I will be happy to send a set home.

In learning centers we sorted pictures by their first sound, worked on our sight words, practiced writing the letters Ff and Rr and wrote in our journals about things grown on a farm. I also introduced a new game called "Bump It!" that once again, seems like a favorite as in years past.

 

 

In Math we started Topic 7 titled Subtraction. We started talking about taking away objects from a set to tell how many are left as well as separating a number of objects into two groups. Next week we will use the minus sign in an equation and find the difference between two numbers. Here is a song we listened to this week about subtraction. A notice went home on Thursday about a 100th Day of school food drive we are having in kindergarten. Our goal is collect 100 pieces of food to donate to Kylee's Kare Kits for Kidz. On the right side of my blog page you will see a "100th Day of School Food Drive Tracker" that will be updated daily so that you and your K2er can see how close we are to meeting our goal. On my previous post a list of items that can be donated is included.

And speaking of the right side of my blog, you may notice a new Poll feature that I have added. Our first question is "What is your favorite season?" Next week we will be talking about the four seasons in our ELA block so I thought it would be fun to see what our blog readers' favorite season is. Please take a moment to vote. The poll question will close on Thursday night at 11:59 pm so that I can share the results with the K2ers on Friday. Please look for a new question each week that goes along with something we are learning about!

 

 

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Have a great weekend...seems like some spring-like weather is heading our way!

100th Day of School Food Drive

Celebrating the 100th Day of School is always a fun time in kindergarten. We will work on many activities centered around the number 100 on that day. As long as there aren’t any snow days, the 100th Day of School for Kindergarten will be Monday, February 8th. This year, the kindergarten classes would like to try and collect 100 food donations to donate to Kylee’s Kare Kits for Kidz. Kylee is a student at Sky View Middle School who started a program to help feed students in need over the weekend who may not have food otherwise. Each Friday a “Kare Kit” is given to students with a weekend’s supply of food. If you would like to learn more about Kylee’s Kare Kits for Kidz you can visit http://www.kyleeskarekitsforkidz.org/. The following is a listing of items that can be donated for the “kare kits” that will be provided to children: • 100% juice boxes • Macaroni & Cheese (boxes as well as Easy Mac) • Cans of Chicken Noodle Soup • Individual boxes of Cereal • Peanut butter Crackers • Cans of Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli • Cans of Chef Boyardee Spaghetti & Meatballs • Granola Bars • Fruit Cups • Applesauce Cups • Pudding Cups • Yogurt Raisins Each Kindergarten class will be tallying and keeping track of their classroom’s donations each day and then as a grade-level the donations will be added together. Our hope is to collect 100 donations of food to celebrate 100 Days of School. If you are able to send in a donation, please do so before Monday, February 8th. Thank You for your support with this project. As always, please contact your child’s classroom teacher with any questions. The Kindergarten Team

REMINDER: Scholastic Book Orders due Friday, January 15th!

As a reminder, Scholastic book orders are due back on Friday, January 15th. You can fill out the flyer(s) sent home and return to me in your child’s message tube with a check or money order made payable to “Scholastic Reading Club.” (I am not able to submit cash to Scholastic.) You can place your order on-line by visiting www.scholastic.com/readingclub. On your first visit to the site you will set up your own username and password using the class activation code H76CV.

Week in Review ~ January 4th - 8th

Happy New Year! We had a great week back from vacation. It didn't take long for the K2ers to get back into the swing of things. Monday was a pretty quiet day...lots of sleepy people, including ME!

In ELA our essential question was "How can people help to make your community better?" We listened to the stories Roadwork, The Bundle of Sticks and A Community Garden. Our vocabulary words were harvest, quarrel, community, confused and improved. We also reviewed the letters Nn, Ii, Cc, Oo, Dd and the sight words to, and, go, you, do. I took all of the K2ers to see how many of the introduced sight words they fluently knew. I will send home the sheet this coming week. If there is a smiley face next to the word, that means they knew it. If there is a check mark next to the word and then they wrote the word, that means they need to check that word over and practice it at home. At learning centers we did a lot of review activities with the letters and sight words introduced, we wrote in our journals about something we have improved at since the start of kindergarten, and we read stories with words we could "tap the sounds" to blend and read.

 

In Math we continued with Topic 6 which is all about Addition. We talked about the plus sign and the equal sign and started writing equations to match groups of items or to match a word problem. Each day we show different ways we can solve a problem. It is amazing to see the K2ers come to the same answer in different ways! We will finish up our unit on Addition this week.

On Friday we also used the MacBook cart for the first time. Students who finish up their center work as well as their required time for the week on Lexia get to choose from various educational websites. This week some chose to use Lexia while others chose starfall. The kindergarten teachers have signed out the cart each Friday so it is a great incentive for the K2ers to get their work done during the week so they can use a MacBook or an iPad on Friday. With the cart, there is a small number of headphones. Last year I asked parents to send in a pair on headphones for their child to leave at school. Headphones can be inexpensively bought at places such as Dollar Tree or Five Below. It is not required for your child to have their own pair but if you can send a pair in it will help to ensure all kids in each class have a pair of headphones to wear. Your child's headphones will stay in a bucket in their cubby where they hang their coat and their headphones will never be shared with another student. If you are able to send in a pair, please do so by Friday and please label with your child's first name.

 

Thank you to all that sent in tissues. If you would still like to donate a box, we will gladly accept them. It is amazing how quickly we go through them during this time of the year.

Now that the winter is here, as a reminder, gym day is on Thursday and students need to wear sneakers to participate in gym class. If your child wears boots to school please pack a pair of sneakers in your child's back pack for them to change into on Thursdays.

One last reminder...now that the colder weather is here, please send your child in a winter jacket, hats and mittens/gloves as we try to go outside for recess each day if it is not too cold.

Enjoy your Sunday!

 

 

 

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Brrrrr!!

It looks like Winter has definitely arrived! For the second day in a row we had indoor recess due to the cold temperatures so today I pulled out some board games to change things up. The K2ers LOVED all the board games that were put out for indoor recess time. Board games are so important to play for many reasons...they teach important social skills as well as turn taking, logic and reasoning, and critical thinking.

Here are some pictures of the K2ers in the midst of playing the games.

Also, playing board games can be such a fun and inexpensive family activity! At my house, my kids love Family Game Night. (And I don't mean Family Game Night at the ice rink!!) Their favorites at the moment are "Clue" and "Sorry."

It was great listening to the K2ers as they played the games today during indoor recess. I think that even when we have outdoor recess, I am going to make a point to put out board games more often for Free Choice time at the end of the day.

 

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Welcome Back!

I can't believe that the holidays are over and we are back to school! I hope everyone had a wonderful break.

This week in reading we will be reviewing letter names and their sound as well as review the sight words learned so far. And in math, we will continue our unit on addition.

As a reminder, Books & Beyond sheets are due back each Thursday and prizes are given out each Friday. All students that complete all 8 stations will receive a reading medal at the end of the school year.

Last...we are in need of tissues. If you are able to donate a box or two, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank You,

 

 

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