Week 16 - Day and Night and Cookie Sale

Hi Parents,

What a busy and fun week in Kindergarten!  We learned about Day and Night and made some hands-on crafts to go along with our factual writing!  For Math, we practiced graphing and sorting items like shoes and Fruit Loops!  We measured items with marshmallows, too!  Thursday, we had a blast making cookie dough with the help of Kyle's dad and our teacher and paras!  Our room felt just like a real kitchen!

Friday was our Cookie Sale and what fun we had watching all the delicious donations being purchased by our wonderful Kemp family!  Thank you to all of you for taking the time to bake cookies and wrap them for the sale!  We earned $165.15 to give to the Caring Coins collection!  

Thank you again for doing so much to make learning fun.

Sincerely,

Week 15 - Thanksgiving Centers

Dear Parents,

The kids had a blast today at Thanksgiving Centers!  Wow!  Who knew making butter was so much fun!  

First, I want to thank all our our wonderful parents for donating items for this event!  We had enough muffins, biscuits, and corn bread (thank you Nadiya's mom for going to get extras:), whipping cream, apple juice, containers and paper goods to serve all of the kids (some even twice).  Oh my stars, it was really fun!  

Thank you to Kyle's mom, our Room Mom, for coordinating all the supplies and for coming in and helping!  Thank you to Eli's mom, Haliegh's mom, and Gabriella's mom for volunteering to run the tables today!  They worked tirelessly to make sure no biscuit went unbuttered!  

Sincerely,

Reminders for Nov. 18-22 and Play Practice Pictures

Dear Parents,

We have a busy week ahead of us!  Luckily, we have a week off after that! 

Yay for Thanksgiving! 

Wednesday we have Thanksgiving Centers beginning at 8:15 with a tour of the other Kindergarten classrooms.  Our room will be making butter from cream.  We will try the butter on muffins and biscuits.  We’ll wash it down with apple juice.  Please feel free to stop in and see how it goes! 

Friday we have our Thanksgiving Play.  It starts at 8:30 am sharp so if you want to get a good seat, get here early!  Due to the number of people who rsvpd (400+) we will have to set up the lunch tables and line the sides of the room with chairs.  Mrs. Mascheri will give time at the end to go up and get a close up picture of the kids and we will take pictures back in the room as well.

The children have their play part and we have costumes here at school.  If you want to embellish your child's attire that day you can braid your child's hair if she is an Indian woman for example. If you want to send in your young pilgrim man or minister in a white shirt and pants, that would be okay, too.  I will send home play parts tomorrow in the folders just in case your child is not sure.

Our classes are split up (I have all the pilgrim men come to my room, Mrs. Wade has all the ministers come to hers etc.) so we won't be standing together on the stage.  Please see the pictures below to see where your child will be placed on the stage so you can choose your seat accordingly.

If you have any questions, let me know and I look forward to seeing you all at  the Play!

Sincerely,

Week 14 - What is Thanksgiving?

Dear Parents,

This week we got a visit from Captain Black and his buddy!  They shared what it was like to be a veteran.  We learned some important facts about their jobs and even got to try on a real vest and get in a real Humvee!  How cool!
Monday, the kids shared their patriotism projects.  They were awesome!  We so enjoyed seeing the great things that the kids brought in to share.  

We had a visits from WellStar on Poison Patrol (back in October...think I forgot to post the pics!) and learned what is safe and what is not!  It's always best to check with mom and dad when in doubt!  
Hope you all have a good week!

Week 13 - Bald Eagle, Statue of Liberty, Veterans Day

Dear Parents,

This week we spent time learning about some of our country's symbols.  We read a book called The Impossible Patriotism Project.  It was a really great story and it inspired us to create our own projects.  We shared them Friday and Monday of this week!  The kids did a great job.  Thank you for working with them on this at-home project.  It was a great way to show respect for our country and the men and women who proudly serve!  

Sincerely,

Week 12 - Fall Centers

Dear Parents,

The kids had so much fun visiting the neighboring Kindergarten classrooms to enjoy  Fall Centers.  They got to play pumpkin-themed centers in Ms. Evans' room.  In Mrs. Stanton's room they had fun making spider crafts.  In Mrs. Wade's room, they made all sorts of bat crafts and had fruit kabobs!  Yum!  In our classroom the kids played scarecrow games and won prizes for participating!  Thank you to all parents who were able to come and help out with the activities!  

Sincerely,

Week Eleven - Gravity

r

Dear Parents,

This week we learned about gravity.  What comes up must come down!!!  We watched a BrainPopJr. video and read a book about gravity.  We participated in some hands-on activities such as block tower building and airplane flying contests.  We used straws to blow cotton balls across the finish line and raced our cars down wooden block ramps.  We loved the cup catapults but these will need tweaking next year as they kept falling apart!  
Thank you to all parents for coming in for the Fall Conference.  It was a pleasure to share good news with you regarding your child! Thank you, too, for our delicious lunches all week!  What a wonderful and generous treat!  

Enjoy your week!

Motion - Week Ten

Dear Parents,

Students enjoyed learning about motion and force and push and pull this week.  We also got to visit our in-school field trip with Nana Nature. She taught us about force, of course!  We then got to hear a presentation from WellStar on healthy food choices.  Our instructor gave us a wonderful placemat to help us remember to eat healthy!  Finally, we got to participate in Jump Rope for Heart.  What a busy week we had!

Sincerely,

Christopher Columbus - Weeks Nine and Ten

Dear Parents,

Students had two great short weeks learning about Columbus and his attempt to discover the new world.  We made our own boat mini books about Columbus as well as a necklace to help us retell the story.  We met with our book buddies and they helped us complete a needs and wants page on the things Columbus and his men took on their voyage.  We enjoyed some fun in the sun at recess (our favorite part of the day!!) and we also worked in our book boxes.

Sincerely,

Fall Parent Teacher Conferences

Dear Parents,

It’s that time of year!  Please click on the icon below to sign up for a fall conference to discuss your child’s progress.  

(link removed)

This link will be available until Oct. 8^th.    If you need to make changes after that, please send in a note or email to let me know.

Sincerely,

Animals and their Babies - Week Eight

Dear Parents,

Another busy week in Kindergarten!  We met with our book buddies and they were wonderful to help us cut out our animal sound bubbles.  We glued them to the correct animal! We had fun learning about decomposing by reading Five Little Ducks!  We also got to play a game called Race to 10 using a ten frame, die, and counters!  How neat!  On Thursday, we got to visit some apple centers in the room.   We taste tested apples and chose a favorite!  We made a really cute craft showing the steps in the life cycle of an apple and we also made applesauce!  It was lots of fun!  Our field trip to the dairy farm was a blast!  The kids behaved very well and really enjoyed seeing all the farm animals and hearing about life on a farm from our tour guide.  We also took a ride on a tractor and got to stop in the field and feed the cows!  Boy, were they hungry!!!  We wrapped up the trip with lunch and walk through the corn field!  How fun is that?

Thank you to all parents who attended this trip!

Have a great weekend!

Animals - Week Seven

Dear Parents,

This week we learned about animals and how they move.  We sorted them by their covering and we compared and contrasted them to see how they were the same and different.  The kids had fun working with shapes, sorting manipulatives, and tossing two-sided counters to see which color had more or less.  The excitement is building for our field trip next week!  Hopefully, we will have good weather!

Sincerely,

Jobs - Week Six

Dear Parents,

The students had fun this week learning about different types of community helpers.  We read about fire fighters, doctors, and police officers. 

Our Book Buddies helped us assemble our doctor bags…how nice of them!  

We had fun comparing shapes, stamping and tracing numbers, and recording how our beans fell during math groups.  One of our favorite activities is our morning songs!  We love to sing and dance!  We sure stay busy!!!

Sincerely,

My Global Address - Week Five

Dear Parents,
This week in Kindergarten we learned about our Global Address.  We made posters to help us learn exactly where we are in the world! We also made flip books to help us learn our street address, city, county, state, country, and continent.  We will continue to practice this throughout the year!  The students got to visit the Media Center for story and checkout.  We got to see it transformed for the Book Fair!  It looks really cool!  We also got to use the iPads that the PTA purchased for each grade level!  The kids loved practicing their reading skills during our Guided Reading time.  

Sincerely,

Home and Family - Week Four

Dear Parents,

This week the students enjoyed learning more about what makes a house a home and what makes family so important!  In Reading, we practiced Read to Someone.  We made sure to sit close together and we chose books from our book boxes.  We also began our ABC books with the letter Tt page.  In Writing, we wrote what we love about school for our August writing sample.  In Math, we worked in our Number Journals 1-20.  We loved participating in the dress up days for Friendship Week and getting to See Gutsy the Flying Fox was a real treat…he sure can jump HIGH!

Have a great weekend!

Sincerely,

Pp is for Pajama Day and Pancakes!

Me and My Five Senses - Week Three

This week we learned all about our five senses!  Each day we focused on one sense  by completing an activity in our Five Senses journals.  Monday we observed a sponge with our eyes and a magnifying glass.  We noticed lots of tiny holes inside!  Tuesday we used our fingers to feel objects in our bags and then glued them down in our journals.  Wednesday we used our ears to listen to loud and soft sounds.  Thursday we used our noses to smell six different scents and then we circled whether or not they smelled good or bad...#3 was really bad (vinegar)!  Friday we got to taste different foods to see which were salty, sweet, or sour!  We also got to use all of our sense together to eat popcorn!  It was a very busy week!

Sincerely,

Me and My Feelings - Week Two

This was our first full week in school!  We talked about our feelings and how we are in control of our emotions.  We read the book, A Bad Case of Stripes, by David Shannon.  We learned that it is okay to be unique.  During our math time, we explored some of our manipulative shapes  to see what we could create!  Finally, to reinforce our classroom rules and our knowledge of 2-D shapes, we created shape monsters and chose a rule for each to follow.  

Sincerely,