April 26th ~ 29th

I hope you had a wonderful Easter and enjoyed the long break. We will work with long vowels this week and practice adding a silent "e' to the end of words to change the vowel sound. We will add another phonics decodable to our book boxes and poems to our poetry binders. I am so thrilled with the reading progress in our room. Remember to read with and to your child each day for at least 20 minutes. That is the only "homework" I assign in kindergarten and it is vital for early reading progress.

Math ~ We are continuing with early addition and subtraction concepts. Some of the vocabulary words introduced for these concepts are: joining, more, greater, less than, fewer, addition, subtraction, equation, and sum.

Science ~ We will begin learning about the daytime sky, nighttime sky, our solar system, and stars. We will interactively create a solar system mural that will hang in the hall. The children will continue to observe and document the growth of their flower seeds. A first grade mom, Alex McCready will be presenting four science lessons to our class beginning this week. On Wednesday, the children will learn about germs, how washing our hands with hot soapy water compares to hand sanitizer for germ reduction, and they will use petri dishes to culture bacteria from their hands and mouths. The other lessons presented by Alex will be electricity and circuits, the characteristics and flow of air, and an experiment with a chemical reaction.

We will make May Day baskets with our buddy class on Friday and each child will create 2 to 3 tissue paper flowers to put in their basket.

This is Ms. Baskerville's last week in our class and her final day will be Thursday. She has been an incredible addition to our class and the kids will really miss her . . . I will too! We will have a short farewell celebration at the end of the day on Thursday. We wish her much success in the future ~ and hopefully a full-time teaching position!

Mark your calendars . . . we will be taking a field trip to a farm on Wednesday May 18th. The cost for each child will be $3.00 and more information and a permission slip will follow next week. We will be gone during lunch, so the kids will need sack lunches on that day. You may provide a lunch for your child or one can be purchased through the hot lunch program. I would like to have 2-3 parent volunteers join us and if you are interested, let me know. I will provide more details to the first 2-3 who respond.

Have a great week ~ thanks for letting me spend my days with your child!

April 18th ~ 20th

Our school year continues to fly by and it is hard to believe that we only have a month and a half left. We will be focusing on short vowels this week, as we review all the vowels. We will review action words (verbs) and the children will write poems about all the things that stars can and cannot do. We will interactively write the number words on a chart that depicts the number, number word, and a visual representation for each number on ten-frames. We will add another phonics decodable to our book boxes.

Math ~ We will continue to learn about early addition concepts; specifically the plus sign (+) and how to find the sum of two numbers.

Science ~ The children will continue to observe the germination of seeds and the growth of their plants. Student observations will be recorded in their science journals.

Text Talk ~ Our story this week is Annie and the Wild Animals. The six vocabulary words are: imagined, grumpy, tame, unexpected, growls, and strategy.

Earth Day ~ Tuesday is Earth Day and the kids will create a collage using paper scraps and a template of the Earth.

Remember that Wednesday is an early-out day and we will be dismissed at 12:00. No lunch is served on these days. There is no school this Thursday, Friday, and next Monday. Enjoy the long weekend with friends and family . . . and have a happy Easter!

April 11th ~ 15th

Our letter this week is "Uu" and we will continue to reinforce the recognition and use of our 36 high frequency word wall words. We will interactively create a story web graphic organizer about the book, "Corduroy" and Ms. Baskerville has a fun activity planned after reading stories about a talking dog named Martha. We will create shared writing posters to reinforce the "un", "ug", and "ub" word families. The children will add two poems to their poetry binders and a phonics decodable to their book boxes. The children are meeting with me in small guided reading groups to reinforce the strategies that good readers use. I choose books that are at your child's independent and instructional level to work on fluency, intonation, comprehension, and decoding.

Math ~ We are learning about 1 more, 2 more, 1 fewer, 2 fewer, and joining groups of numbers. We will add another entry to our math journals.

Science ~ We will continue to discuss the parts of a plant and journal the germination and growth of seeds we planted in class. We will discuss the life cycle of a chicken, frog, and butterfly.

Art ~ Our craft project this week will incorporate our study of the butterfly, patterning, and symmetry as we create caterpillars that become butterflies.

Buddies ~ As you know, our class has joined forces with Mrs. Porisch's 4/5 combination class. If you have not asked your child about our buddy activities, I encourage you to do so. It is a fun time to build relationships with older students and engage in activities that we may not be able to do on our own in kindergarten. Our buddy time is on Friday afternoons and it is fun, educational, and "energetic" with 45 students in one room at the same time!

Have a great week ~ and thank you for sharing your most precious treasure with me!

April 4th ~ 8th

I hope you enjoyed your long weekend with family and friends. We had a few glimmers of spring weather.

We will be working with the letters "Xx", "Yy", and "Zz" this week. The children will add a phonics decodable to their book boxes and four poems to the poetry binders this week. During our interactive writing time, we will create classroom charts showing the numbers 1-20, the number words associated with each number, and a pictorial representation using ten frames.

Math ~ We will continue to work with early addition and subtraction concepts, and specifically with the fact families through 10. We are making graphs depicting all possible ways to make the numbers 4-10. For example, you may work with your child by asking all the ways to make the number 4. He or she should indicate the following:
0 and 4 is 4
1 and 3 is 4
2 and 2 is 4
3 and 1 is 4
4 and 4 is 4

Science ~ We will begin studying the parts of a plant, what plants need to live, and we will observe and document the germination and growth of plants. The children will document their observations in their science journals.

Scholastic Book Order ~ You will find 3 order forms in the Wednesday Watch this week. This will be the final book order for the year and I encourage you to think about books your child might enjoy over the summer. As early readers, it is vital to read daily to reinforce and maintain those early reading skills.

Have a terrific week and remember to send those spring sports schedules so I can attend games/events.