We totally forgot to share the pictures we took during Mrs.Thomas' Library Visit! The students got to sing and dance while shaking their bells. Next she read the students two great books: Jingle Bells and The Perfect Christmas. She talked up our Holiday's Around the World and helped us get the students excited for "traveling." Then the students were able to pick from three different crafts and complete their favorite one! The choices for the crafts were: a pinata, a star ornament of a Christmas bag. Everyone had a hard time choosing because all were super cute!!
Then as if the lesson couldn't get any better... Mrs. Thomas gifted our two top readers with a present!! Congrats Zacari and Zoey. Keep on READING!!
We have three BUSY days planned and all three are full of... F-U-N!!!
We are going to do our best to complete a Math lesson on Measuring weight and a Saxon lesson on finding blends & coding double consonants. But if we don't get to it... "Oh well!" We've got lots of other stuff to complete.
Our Itinerary for the week~ Volunteers.. we hope you're ready. It's going to be BUSY!!
On Monday, we will have a Child Safety Matters Lesson with our Guidance Counselor Mrs.Sweeney. Then we will "board a plane and fly" to Mexico and after that Germany. The students are so happy to learn about these countries and complete fun crafts!
On Tuesday, we will hear CLE's 4th and 5th grade Chorus perform the Holiday Concert. Then we will "drive" around the USA and "fly" to France. We're going to make reindeer food and discuss Pere Noel.
On Wednesday, we will "take an early morning flight to India and then to China." After that we will RUSH back to our classroom for our afternoon Christmas Party!! **Be sure to wear your Christmas Shirts/ Sweaters again so we get lots of great pictures during our Party!!
As if we weren't busy enough we have Resources every day!! Sadly I did not bring my school laptop home and I do not know what the Resources are. SO be sure to check your December Calendar and your child's weekly Conduct Sheet. :)
We have had a great first half of the school year! We hope everyone has a great Winter Break and we'll see everyone back at school on January 9, 2018!!
Today Coach Reed sent teachers an email informing us of our Play Day date. We wanted to make you all aware of the date, because Coach Reed will be looking for Volunteers. Play Day this year will be on March 15, 2018.
For those of you that aren't familiar with Play Day, it's our version of Field Day. :) More information about the events will go home after Winter Break.
Coach Reed will be selling shirts to support the Physical Education Program at CLE. Here is the design. Every grade level will be assigned a shirt color. We will update this post as soon as the Kindergarten t-shirt color is known.
So... some of you may have thought that we completely forgot about the pictures from our first Field Trip and honestly, you were kind of right! :( We get so caught up in everything going on, we forget to post some things. But today was a busy day and all the photos and the video from the Jump Pad were loaded.
Also, we took pictures on Friday for Hat Day. The students that didn't participate were just so envious that we took pictures of ALL THE STUDENTS! We took one of our selves too!! Enjoy watching the beautiful slideshows!
On Monday, the Wonderland Gift Shoppe opens and Mrs. Noah Thomas stops by for a Library Visit at 1:00. :) On Wednesday, we have an Early Release Day. On Thursday, we have our Child Safety Matters presentation with Mrs. Sweeney (one of our school Guidance Counselors.) It starts at 8:45 so don't be tardy or you'll miss it!! And on to our favorite day of the week... FRIDAY!! We are having Holiday T-shirts or Sweaters (some of the students said they ONLY had sweaters haha) and Mikenzie is bringing in Fun Friday Snacks for the class!
Resources: MON. #1-18 Music (Biernacki) & Music (Broach) #19-39 , TUES #1-18 Art (Phillips) & #19-39 Art (Schmidt), THURS both groups have Media! and FRI #1-18 Art (Schmidt) & #19-39 Art (Phillips).
**DISCLAIMER FOR WONDERLAND GIFT SHOPPE!! We will do our best to send your child to the Wonderland Gift Shoppe the day they bring their money to school. So make sure to check their backpacks for the items. If by chance we aren't able to send them shopping, we will write a note in their Daily Communication Folder. **
MATH
We are continuing Measurement. Most of the students are doing great using our vocabulary~ longer than, shorter than, taller than, etc. The one problem that we're noticing is that the students aren't matching up the items with the same starting point... So continue to practice that with your child.
Here is a fun youtube video that lets you see the common mistakes we notice when measuring objects...
READING
We are continuing discussions on vocabulary and retelling stories with Character names and the events in order from the beginning, to the middle, through the end. The students are quickly figuring out some words have multiple meanings and that they need to know what words mean so that they can better understand the story. This week we will be reading the books The Mitten by Jan Brett and If You Take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numeroff. The students will complete a sequencing paper for The Mitten and it will be taken for a grade.
SAXON/ SIGHT WORDS/ SKILLS
Has anyone noticed that Saxon is really making us code?? They are still introducing letters us the alphabet, but they are allowing the students to code parts of given words and practice using their sounds to read them. (WOOHOO!!)
These are the items we are currently coding and the rules you may hear your child recite:
BREVE~ a vowel followed by a consonant gets a breve and the vowel makes the short sound. The breve looks like a smiley face and it's written above the vowel.
BLENDS~ two letters that come together to make 1 sound. We color over the blends with a crayon/ highlighter and then produce the sound.
DOUBLE CONSONANT~ if there are two consonants together that are the same, the second one gets a slash. Then we only make the letter sound one time.
We are testing CVC words this week so make sure to be practicing!! Remember CVC words are words written with a consonant, vowel and another consonant. Examples include map, dog, fat, hug, etc.
WRITING
We are continuing to practice writing sentences and completing all the items from our Writing Rubric. If you didn't get a chance to see the rubric when it went home with your child... do not worry! You can see it on last weeks weekly post. :)
**Make sure your child only writes the sounds that they hear!! We are currently fostering independence. The correct spellings of every word will come with time.
Here are two Math slideshows we looked at last week in class... The first one is for practicing number recognition with teen numbers. (Practice because we are going to open up a new Club for Tricky Teen Numbers. Your child will need to be able to recognize all of them and count that amount of objects in a group.) The second slideshow is for counting on from 10. ~This is a difficult concept for Kindergartners because they always want to start counting at 1. So make sure you practice at home!
Our school is participating in Forgotten Angels. This program is in connection with the Salvation Army's Angel Tree. Any child who's name is not pulled from the tree still deserves gifts!!
So with your support we hope to give them gifts. Our school is collecting toys for boys and girls. If your child brings in toys, we will have them walk down to the office and put them into the bins. If you would like to drop the gifts off with your child, the bins are in the office right next to the Christmas Tree. You can't miss them!
Tomorrow your child will bring home a flyer about this event. We hope that you discuss it with them and think about giving. Our school will be collecting items until December 12th.
If anyone is looking for something fun to do this week... listen up! :) Our very own Mrs.Noah Thomas is taking part in The Church at Argyle's ~ Singing Christmas Tree.
I have been multiple times throughout the years and it's the BEST!! Mrs.Thomas is usually at the top of the tree. So make sure your child points her out to you.
The event takes place at 8:00p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. (Dec 6-9)
We have a lot planned this week and we can't wait to share it with all of you!! Let me begin by informing you that Mrs.Croft will be out of the classroom two days this week to assist the Upper Grades with Scrimmage Testing.
This week we have Polar Express Family Literacy Night on Tuesday, December 5 at 5:30. I'll be there selling Chimney Lakes School Magnets, so spread the word to your friends!! We also have Eithan joining the Six-Year-Old Club!! And on Friday we have HAT DAY! We can't wait to see all the different hats... we're expecting a lot of santa hats to be worn. haha (We bought our's so we'll be ready to join the masses.)
We have a Resource everyday. MONDAY: #1-18 Media & #19-39 Art (Phillips), TUESDAY: P.E. for both groups! , WEDNESDAY: #1-18 Art (Schmidt) & #19-39 Art (Phillips), THURSDAY: #1-18 Music (Broach) & #19-39 Music (Biernacki) and FRIDAY: #1-18 P.E. & #19-39 Computer Lab.
And don't forget... we are still collecting items and donation for Holidays Around the World. Thanks goes out to the students that sent in items and donations!!!
MATH
We are immersed in measuring with Non-Standard Measurement!! The students remind us every day that the items we compare both need to be at the same "starting point." This means that if they were measuring how tall two items were using the table. One item could not be raised up in the air to compare. :)
Please make sure when measuring your child uses the vocabulary~ taller than, shorter than, longer than... we have quite a few students that want to use the words BIG and LITTLE and we do not use those words.
Here is a video we watched in class. Enjoy!
READING
We are taking a break from Duval Reads and focusing on Retelling Stories using Winter Holiday Books. When possible we will work on comparing two texts. (We are so happy!! We have decided to do this the rest of the month for reading comprehension.)
We are beginning with the book There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow! by Lucille Colandro. Then we will follow that up with Frosty the Snowman by Steve Nelson & Jack Rollins.
Check out the youtube videos to see both books. I should warn you... the readers for both books sing. haha
SAXON/SIGHT WORDS/ SKILLS
Saxon is moving on to letter f and the final blend sound -ft as in soft and lift. Plus we are discussing the fl- and pl- They are still reviewing the blends made with letter s. So be sure to ask your child about them. We are also learning a NEW CODING RULE!! The students will learn to slash through the second letter in a double consonant. For example: the word WILL. The second L will be slashed. This allows the students to chop us the word without making the consonant sound two times.
Our Sight Words for the week are in the slideshow below. Also, check to see if your child made it into the new 2nd Quarter Sight Word Club.
We are reviewing rhyming, syllables and CVC words. If your child is not chopping up CVC words PRACTICE!! We work everyday on chopping in Reading and Writing. This is the skill that will help them read independently.
WRITING
Thanks to Saxon we have noticed an increase of participation in "Class Sentence Writing!" The students are noticing the blend sounds and we are writing them down. :) The one area of concern is spacing in between words. We notice a lot of "car crashes" (This is when the words touch each other.)
Below you will find the rubric we are using to grade your child's writing.
We decorated our class to look like a Winter Wonderland! We don't know if many of you will be able to stop by and see it, so we wanted to share it with you on the blog. :) So check out the slideshow of the students in front of the classroom door. (Many of them are wearing their scarves for Scarf Day!) At the end of the slideshow, you'll see a few pictures of the classroom.
Last week the morning announcements announced the winners of the Run-A-Thon. These winners were the classes and people that raised the most pledges. There were about 6 classes that raised enough pledges to earn a Pizza Party and WE WERE ONE OF THEM!! Then they announced the top boy and girl. The top boy is in Mrs.Newton's Kindergarten Class~ Rain. Then the top girl is in our class... Catalia!!
ADORABLE SIDE NOTE: When her name was announced on the morning announcements the pronunciation was a little off. SO Mrs. Croft and I corrected it for the class and they just cheered!! They were so happy and excited that their friend was a BIG WINNER!
Check out the collage below and see all of Catalia's prizes!! She won a tablet for supporting our school!!
