Winter Break Challenge

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Here is the link for the Winter Break Challenge I sent home before vacation in case, with the craziness of the holidays, your K2ers paper was misplaced.

https://drive.google.com/a/leominsterschools.org/file/d/0B3UH19NLPcOwbGxvUmV0RXA0NVU/view?usp=sharing

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you peace, love and joy this holiday season from my family to yours!

Toy Land

Today the K2ers and their Book Buddies from 3E got together to see all the toys that we were able to purchase with the generous donations of everyone at Johnny Appleseed.  We then sorted them by age level, boxed them up and gave them to Mrs. Molinari to be delivered to the UMass pediatric floor tomorrow. Here they are pictured with the toys.

There were so many toys we couldn't get them all in the picture!

Festive Clothing Day ~ Wednesday, December 21st!

Sadly, a JA staff member lost their home and belongings to a house fire last week.  Wednesday, December 21st, your child is invited to come to school wearing Winter Festive Clothing and bring in  a $1.00 donation.  Winter Festive Clothing may include holiday sweaters, headbands, hats, etc.


Some families have asked me if there is anything else they can do to help. To make any other donations the following funds have been set up:

Philip & Nancy Young and Family

 c/o DCU,

1123 Central St

Leominster, MA 01453

Or go to

https://www.gofundme.com/philip-nancy-young-and-family

Thank you in advance for your support.

Week in Review ~ December 12th - 16th

With a snow day, the Elf Shoppe, collecting money for our toy drive, and the general excitement radiating off of five and six year olds due to the upcoming holidays it was one CRAZY week in K2!

In ELA we started Unit 4 which is titled Around the Neighborgood. Our essential question was what do people use to do their job? Our vocabulary words were equipment, uniform, utensils,expect, remained. We read the stories "Whose Shoes?", "Little Juan and the Cooking Pot," and "Workers and Their Tools." We focused in on the letter Oo and the short and long vowel sound it makes and the sight word you was also introduced. In learning centers we practiced sight words learned so far, wrote about tools that different jobs need to do their job and sorted pictures by their medial sound.

In Math we finished Topic 5 and will be taking the assessment on Monday. The remainder of the week we will be reviewing what has been taught so far. We will start fresh with Topic 6 in the new year.

At the end of this coming week each K2er will be coming home with a Winter Break Challenge sheet that has some different activities to do to keep their brain strong over vacation. Anyone that completes the challenge and returns the sheet to me on Tuesday, January 3rd will receive something special.

As a reminder we have extra gym on Monday so please send your K2er with sneakers and Pajama day is Friday.

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We Did It!

I am so proud of my K2ers and our Book Buddies in 3E! They took an idea to help children in the hospital during the holidays, made notices, delivered them to classrooms, talked to classrooms about why we were collecting money, went to classrooms each morning to get any money donated, and then counted the money. It was such a great learning experience from start to finish. I am so excited to say that not only did we meet the $500.00 goal but exceeded the $1000.00 goal! We will be able to spread cheer to so many children in the hospital this holiday season. Thank you SO much for your help with this service project!

Great Job K2 and 3E!

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Don't forget...

Friday is the last day to send in donations for our toy drive to help brighten the spirits of children in the hospital for the holidays. As of Thursday afternoon we raised $713.00 to use to purchase toys. Students at JA have met the $500.00 goal to earn pajama day on December 23rd.  We only need a little less than $300.00 for teachers to earn pajama day that day as well.  Please send in any spare change or dollar bills...every little bit helps!

Week in Review ~ December 5th - 9th

Happy Snow Day! I had a crazy {hockey-filled} weekend so a snow day is the perfect way to catch up on our class blog.

Last week in ELA our essential questions was "What places do you go during the week?" We discussed how some K2ers go to the grocery store, the barber shop, gymnastics, the doctors, and the mall during the week.  Our vocabulary words were local, routine, neighborhood, volunteer, and intelligent. We listened to the stories Please Take Me For a Walk, Field Trips, and A Neighborhood. We focused in on the letter Cc and the two sounds it makes; /k/ and /s/. The sight word go was also introduced. The K2ers are doing a great job knowing the sight words at home fluently so keep practicing. In learning centers we practiced writing the letter Cc, sorted pictures by if they started with the hard sound of Cc (/k/) or the soft sound of Cc (/s/), wrote in our journals about something we do during the week, and practiced out sight words.  We are also busy, busy, busy reading stories!

In Math we started Topic 5 where are are Classifying and Counting Data. We are classifying all types of groups such as animals that fly and animals that do NOT fly.  We will finish up this topic this week or early next week due to today's snow day.

This past week we also started meeting with Mrs. Weldon's 3E friends for Book Buddies. We will meet with them from now until the end of the school year periodically. This week our 3E friends read some poetry to their Book Buddy.

Our 3E friends are also helping us with the collection of money to help the children in the hospital during the holiday season. This is the 2nd year that Thiago and his parents are doing this. Here is a picture of Thiago from last year delivering the toys to UMass Hospital.  

As a reminder, all donations can be brought in this week and are due by Friday, December 16th. We are asking for $1.00 from each child at JA and toys will be bought with the money collected.  If we raise $500.00 then the students at JA can have pajama day on December 23rd. If we raise $1000.00 then the teachers can wear pajamas, too!  

With winter weather now here, please remember to dress your child in appropriate clothes for outdoor recess. We try to go out as much as possible if it is not too cold. Be sure to send them with a coat, hat, gloves/mittens, and boots. 

Enjoy the rest of this snow day...I am off to get my wrapping started! 

Counting, Sorting and Comparing with Fuzz Bugs

Today in Math we worked on classifying different things. We discussed how classifying something means putting it into groups because of something they have in common. We classified animals by wings and NOT wings, green and NOT green, 4 legs and NOT 4 legs, !and fur and NOT fur. After the lesson I showed them a fun game on abcya.com called Fuzz Bugs. They LOVED the game so I told them I would put the link onto the blog. Counting, Sorting and Comparing with Fuzz Bugs

  ** You may want to have your K2er wear headphones to play because those Fuzz Bugs can start to drive you crazy! **

Week in Review ~ November 28th - December 2nd

How is it possibly December, already? The busier we are in the K2, the faster the weeks keep going! This week in ELA we talked about different sounds we hear.  We listed sounds we hear outside, at school and at home.  We also talked about how sounds you hear in one place are sounds you may not hear in another place.  Our vocabulary words were listen, volume, exclaimed, chat and familiar. We read the stories Clang! Clang! Beep! Beep! Listen to the City, The Turtle and the Flute and Sounds Are Everywhere. Nn was the letter we focused in on this week and we decided if we heard the /n/ sound at the beginning or the end of a word.  We also introduced the sight word and. Here is the song that we learned to remember the word.

In learning centers we practiced writing the letter Nn, listened to where we heard the /n/ sound in a word, wrote about our favorite sound, sorted sight words, and searched the room for words with the letter Nn. We were busy, busy, busy!

In Math we finished up Topic 4 where we compared groups to 10 and numbers to 10. We also worked on naming the number that comes right before a number and right after a number. This is something you can easily practice at home with your K2er. Just say a number from 1-9 and ask them what numbes comes before it and what number comes after it. We also played the card game "compare" which is just like the card game "war." The K2ers LOVED this game and I told them how it is an easy game to play at home. If you aren't familiar with the game just split a deck of cards in half. Each player flips over their top card and compare the number. Whoever has the greater number keeps both cards. Play continues until one player has all the cards from the deck.

Next week we will be starting "Book Buddies" with a 3rd Grade class. They will be coming to our room Tuesday morning to read some poetry with us. Each child in their class will be paired up with a child from our class. We have a lot of fun things planned with our Book Buddies so I can't wait to get started. I hope everyone has a good weekend!

iPads for K2!

Dear K2 Families, I want to make sure my students in K2 have the materials they need to succeed, so I created a request for our classroom at DonorsChoose.org: iPads for K2! My project only has 30 days to go to raise the needed funds to provide the K2ers with two iPads for classroom use to assist them with various ELA and Math skills.   I truly appreciate all that you contribute already to our classroom but I thought I would share my Donors Choose request in case you may work for businesses that would possibly like to contribute. Also, if you know anyone who may want to help our classroom, please pass this along! Thank You, Mrs. Joslyn