Weekly Update for April 25-29

Whew!  After a busy week and many schedule changes last week, we are looking forward to a normal week in Kindergarten!  Of course the thing we are looking forward to even more than that is welcoming Mrs. Hixon back this Friday!  We cannot believe that this is the last week of April...meaning May and the end of the year are right around the corner.  We will start the PALS (Phonological Awareness Literacy Screener) assessment on Friday as well and will finish next week Tuesday.  

Upcoming Dates:
April 29: Mrs. Hixon returns
April 29 and May 3: PALS Testing

May 12: Family Night

May 23: Family Event at the Kaukauna Public Library

May 26: 1/2 Day--Dismissal at 11:30

May 27 and 30: No School

June 1: Field Day--Stay tuned for more info, but if you are thinking about volunteering and will need a background check, please let us know ASAP!  Thanks!

June 2: Last Day of School--1/2 Day for Students

Reading: Our current reading unit focuses on many types of texts.  The last two weeks have focused on fiction texts, the next week or so we will switch back to nonfiction, and then wrap up this unit by falling in love with poetry.  Students have been having a BLAST in their reading playdates, which have taken the place of our partnership time for this units.  A personal favorite is when students choose to "play school" and are reading aloud to each other, pretending to be the teacher and inviting their peers to 'turn and talk' about various things in the text!  We will learn that we can also have reading playdates with nonfiction book and perhaps even decide to become a group of experts on one topic.  

Writing: Students will be learning that authors are always re-reading their writing and asking themselves if it looks right, sounds right and makes sense.  Just like we use strategies in reading for tricky words, we can also use strategies in writing for tricky words. Things like stretching the word's letters, checking our alphabet chart if we need to, making sure every word has at least one vowel, and listening for letters that work together to make their own sound…these are called blends. Finally, we will talk about how writers get ideas for their stories from other writers. We will do this is by studying how an author starts a story and trying that out in our own story.

Math: This week students will practice equalizing groups by adding and finding partners of 7, 8, and 9. Number activities will include showing numbers 1-20 and teen numbers as groups of ten ones and further ones, finding the unknown partner when the total and one partner are known, and finding the total of two partners. We will also be reviewing 2D shapes and comparing story problems with more and less.

Science:  We will continue to compare balls this week and experiment with their bounciness by testing how various balls bounce on different surfaces and how many times they bounce.  We will also use straws to test how easy it is to move different types of balls using our own wind.

Word Work:  We are continuing to focus on these sight words: were, now, saw, our, made.  One of our new favorite word work games is getting a cup with magnetic letters in it that will spell one of the sightwords.  Students must figure out what word it will spell and of course spell it.  You could recreate this at home with magnetic letters or by simply having your child write sightwords on slips of paper and cutting apart the letters.

Weekly Update April 18-22

This week will be a busy week with a few special events and visitors tucked in.  On Wednesday, April 20th we will celebrate Earth Day a bit early by cleaning up the neighborhood around our school.  Our kindergarten classes will be in charge of cleaning up the school grounds.  We plan to head out from 10:30-11:00.  If you would like to join us, just let us know!  We will also be welcoming some teachers visiting from Wausaukee to observe our reader's workshop in action on Wednesday and our staff developer from Columbia University in New York will be here Thursday and Friday!  

Upcoming Dates:
April 18: No School for students
April 20: Community Clean up for Earth Day (a few days early) 
April 21-22: Columbia Staff Developer
April 29: Mrs. Hixon returns
April 29 and May 3: PALs Testing

Reading: This week many of the skills we will work on in reading are helpful in building a lifelong love for reading.  We will making "reading playdates,"  which are the equivalent of a kindergarten book club.  Students will make plans in small groups how to engage with their books by acting them out, playing school, or a variety of other games like hunting for sightwords and guessing feelings.  We will learn that avid readers are always imagining what is happening in their books like a movie playing in their mind.  

Writing: This week we are launching our True Stories Unit. We will remember how important the cover of a book is. It tells a reader what is inside and how a writer can use covers to help them hang on to ideas about true story writing. We will  focus on using time words to help tell parts of the story in order. We will also be using a picture walk to get an idea of how a story will go.

Math:  This week in Math the kindergartners will relate 10-partner drawings to addition equations and find changes in the partners of ten. Students will be making a 10-partner showcase and a teen number book that will illustrate teen numbers showing ten ones and extra ones. They will also be practicing identifying the number before and after on the number parade.

Centers:

· 10 Partner Showcase 

· Teen Number Book 

· Telling a story problem to go with a given equation

· Addition Crossout Game

Science:  Last week students came up with 3 hypotheses about why some balls move and bounce more than others: the size of the ball, the material the ball is made of, and what is in the center of the ball.   This week we will begin testing those hypotheses by examining a variety of balls and their attributes and testing for similarities and differences between them, especially by weighing, rolling, and bouncing them.

Word Work:  New sight words for the next two weeks: were, now, saw, our, made.  Practice writing sight words with chalk, wood chips, in the sand box, or anything else OUTSIDE this week!

Sneak Peek into Kindergarten Reader's Workshop

Today we kicked off our newest reading unit, "Becoming Avid Readers."  Students shared all sorts of anecdotes about the avid readers in their lives and explored some pictures of various readers noting which behaviors were those of an 'avid' reader vs. the behaviors of a 'blah' reader.  Here's a sneak peek our class's avid reading habits!  It is so fun teaching and learning with your children every day!

Weekly News 11-15

We had a blast dressing up, preparing for, and participating in the Knowledge-a-thon last week.  The students were so proud after "rocking" their KAT questions!  Thanks to all the parent volunteers.  If you have pink pledge envelopes around home, you are still welcome turn them in this week!

             

         

Don't forget: For the 4th quarter, we are trying out a new school-wide reading/writing calendar for homework (yellow sheet that came home with your child last week).  Simply write the number of the activity completed on the date completed.  Please send your child's calendar with them to school on Fridays so we can share our adventures in reading/writing together!  

Upcoming Dates:
April 12: Family Night: Social Studies/Science and Subs
April 18: No School for students
April 20: Earth Day Community Clean Up (a few days early)

Reading:  Our newest unit is entitled Becoming Avid Readers and this week will focus on just that.  We will learn about what types of things avid readers do, including reading A LOT, finding places everywhere to read, keeping a stack of books-in-waiting, and really paying attention to books.  We will also learn that avid readers react to books and share those reactions with others by using post-its to mark their thinking.  As we move back into a mix of fiction and non-fiction books students will hold onto all of the things they learned as experts while also revisiting and creating their own super powers and finding specific words to describe character feelings. 

Writing: As we finish our ALL-ABOUT BOOKS Unit this week, we will make a chart of all the ways we know to show and tell information in our books. This chart will be a checklist for a book we feel is finished, but will help us think of a way to add more or different information.We will also be including introduction pages to introduce the topics of our books to our readers.  Finally, we will be acting as editors to reread through a piece over and over, each time carefully checking one thing to fix, making sure it makes sense, checking for word wall words to be spelled correctly, proper use of upper and lower case letters, and that we have periods at the end of our sentences. 

Math:  This week in Kindergarten Math, students will be writing equations to show partners of 10 and identifying an unknown partner of 10. We will be practicing counting to 100 by tens and showing teen numbers as a group of ten ones and extra ones. Students will also tell, retell, and solve addition and subtraction story problems with drawings and equations and visualize teen numbers as 10(two 5-groups) and extra ones.

Social Studies/Science:  We are excited to show off some of our All About Me work at our family night on Tuesday and give families a chance to create some of our own.  We will be starting our final content unit this week in science: Balls and Ramps!  The students are excited to move back into science and some fun hands-on experiments.  This week we will build some background knowledge and vocabulary about how and why balls move and bounce the way they do. 

Word Work:  This is the second week working on the following sight words: of, what, some, how, your  

Weekly News April 4-8

For the 4th quarter, we are trying out a new school-wide reading/writing calendar for homework.  Today your child will be bringing home a yellow sheet that lists a bunch of different options for reading and writing that they can choose from 3-5 times a week.  There is a calendar on the back of the sheet.  Simply write the number of the activity completed on the date completed and send the calendar back to school with your child on Fridays so we can share our reading/writing adventures as a class.  We will still send books home nightly to support the option of students reading from their book bags if they choose.

Additional beginning of the month information:  lunch menu, specialist newsletter, school newsletter.

Upcoming Dates:
April 4: Sports Day--to celebrate opening day for the Brewers
April 5: Pajama Day
April 6: Dress Fancy Day
April 7: Mixed-up/Backwards Day
April 8: Dress like a cat or a KAT question for our Knowledge-a-thon
April 12: Family Night: Social Studies/Science and Subs
April 18: No School for students
April 22: Earth Day

Reading:  We will finish up our non-fiction unit this week after spending a few days noticing various non-fiction text features and how they vary between texts and thinking about everything authors want us to learn from books.  We will push our partner conversations by inventing our own ways to talk about books in small groups including acting out sections, reading a section, and asking questions to keep the conversation going!  Finally we will celebrate all of this work by sharing our new expertise on our selected topics with the class.

Writing: We are continuing with our ALL-ABOUT BOOKS. We have even challenged ourselves to write a whole book in a day! We are working towards writing more about our topics, aiming for 2-3 sentences per page. Writers can also add to their books when they use pictures to teach others about the topic. Sometimes writers need help when trying to add more to their writing. We will learn how it can be helpful to work with and help a partner by asking them more questions about their topic.

Math:     This week we are starting Unit 5, MATH STORIES AND SCENES WITH TEEN NUMBERS. The focus will be on creating addition and subtraction story problems, visualizing and representing teen numbers as ten ones and extra ones, counting the number of objects in a group through 20, and creating and counting stars to make partners of 10 for a classroom display.

CENTERS:

• The partners of ten game, BUSTED
• PARTNERS OF 7,8,9; JENGA
• CONSTRUCTING TEEN NUMBERS 11-20, as a group of 10 with extra ones
• Making up STORY PROBLEMS and determining if it is (+) 0r (-)

Social Studies:  We will wrap up our All About Me unit this week by spending one more day working on our centers of iPads, timelines, collages, and book writing.  Then we will create our own class "yellow pages" of things we can help each other with at school.  Examples may include: shoe tying, animal expert, finding things, problem solving, etc.

Word Work:  New sight words for the next two weeks: of, what, some, how, your.  We have been attempting to shake up our word work practice in the classroom by practicing writing our words in paint and with play dough.