Week Thirteen and Fourteen: November 6th-17th

Happy Friday! It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is next week. 🦃 We began our Thanksgiving activities today and will continue them next week leading up to our feast!  We are having many conversations about all of the things that we are thankful for.  Below are upcoming dates and then a review of our week.

November 21st Thanksgiving Feast for the kids.  No need to pack them a lunch! Send a snack as usual.  If you have signed up to send in food, please bring it Tuesday morning (in a crockpot would be best so we can plug it in and keep it warm)
November 22nd-24th: No school...Happy Thanksgiving!
December 19th 1:00 PM Gingerbread Houses: Come and decorate a gingerbread house with your child! We will ask for supplies as we get closer to the date.

Self Portraits: Last Thursday, we began working on self-portraits that will be hung around the classroom for the duration of kindergarten and first grade.  We read an amazing book called The Colors of Us and in this book it allows the children to explore all the different skin colors and tones of other people.  We learned that instead of calling people "white", "black", "brown", "tan", etc. we can name our skin tones beautiful names.  Some of the names that we came up with (and some are from the book) are vanilla, caramel, mocha, cinnamon, chocolate, honey, coffee toffee, vanilla icing, and white chocolate.  We then talked about how all of our skin tones and colors are made up of the same mixture of colors (yellow, red, brown, white, and black).  Each student then got to choose a paint color (that Mrs. Rumburg mixed) that matched their skin tone.  They then painted their faces and their ears for their self portraits. This was such a beautiful activity to watch the students do and they were each so excited to pick a beautiful name for their skin tone.  :)

Math: The main concepts that we are focusing on in math right now are counting on, subitizing (recognizing an arrangement of dots immediately like on a dice or domino), basic addition, ten frames, and one more.  We are playing math games during math workshop that focus on all of these skills.  Some of the games played are Ten Frame War, One More, and Domino Parking Lot.

Literacy: It is so exciting seeing the students progress with their letters and sounds and move to the beginning stages of reading!  Reader's workshop looks different for each student because everyone is usually doing different things to fit their needs.  Students are being called for Handwriting Without Tears, some students are being pulled for guided reading groups, some students are writing at the writing table, and some students are rotating through games to practice letters/sounds/sight words/handwriting.  This allows us to pull students to work on their individual needs based on their reading and writing.  Come and volunteer one day if you would like to see what this looks like for us!

Thematic: We finished our unit on Creepy Crawlies this week!  It was fun going on the field trip to the Raptor Center so that we could see some of what we learned about in real life.  We studied bats, spiders, snakes, ants, owls, and more!  We began learning about Thanksgiving this week and are doing lots of different Thanksgiving activities.  When we get back from Thanksgiving break, we will begin our Holidays Around the World unit!  We will study Christmas, Hanukkah, Las Posadas, Kwanzaa, and Sinterklaas.

Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James 💕

Week Twelve: October 30th-November 3rd

Happy November!  I cannot believe that October is already over!  We had so many fun events and activities in October but also have so many upcoming ones in November.  It will be a great month together!  Make sure all of the dates below are on your calendar. :)

November 7th Children's Theatre Field Trip: We will be seeing the play "Snowy Day."  We will plan to leave school at 8:30 AM so please make sure your child is at school on time. :) Send a snack and lunch like normal for your child.
November 10th: No school...Happy Veteran's Day!
November 15th Raptor Center Field Trip (all day): I will send out a Sign Up Genius for this field trip most likely next Monday or Tuesday.  We can have as many chaperones as we want so mark this on your calendar if you would like to come!  Chaperones and their child will meet us at the Raptor Center.  No siblings please.  Excited to have you! 
November 21st Thanksgiving Feast: We will have our own Thanksgiving Feast in our classroom to celebrate all that we are thankful for!  This is for students only...sorry parents. :) But we will need your help with sending in dishes for the students to eat at lunch.  I will send out a Sign Up Genius that you can sign up on for things such as macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, rolls, etc.  You can think of things that your child and other children might like to eat! 

Math

We learned a new game this week called "One More."  This is a great game for the students to play because it practices many different skills at the same time including counting on, addition, number recognition, and strategy to win.  Two students play together on a game board (each having their own section like a BINGO card).  One student rolls the die and whatever number it lands on, they add "one more" onto it.  They cover that number on their portion of the board.  The other student takes a turn and does the same exact thing. The first player to get 4 in a row wins the game.  This game will start circulating home beginning next week for you to play with your child! 

Literacy

In literacy this week we did many different activities and centers that helped students with their letters, sounds, sight words, and decoding ability.  We have a bunch of "box games" that students rotate through where they practice alphabet order, sound matching, and sorting pictures/words based off of their initial consonant.  We also practiced letter writing between literacy stations and Handwriting Without Tears.  All students have learned all of their "Frog Jump Capitals" and we are now moving onto "Corner Starting Capitals."  They are doing very well with their handwriting! 

Thematic

We continued learning about bats this week and finished our bat centers!  Students rotated through two centers including a bat book where students worked on the "-at" word family and a bat puzzle where students had to cut, put together, and glue the puzzle.  They also read all of the fun bat facts as a group!  Next week we will move onto snakes! 

Science

For Sci-Fri this week, students will make leaf rubbings!  Students will collect 3-4 leaves each and will take them inside to create leaf rubbings.  We will demonstrate how to do a leaf rubbing using crayons and how they can easily do this activity at home!  We have been talking about the many changes that come with fall and winter including the leaves.

Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James