Week Twenty One: January 8th-12th

Hello kindergarten families! Our week in the classroom was wonderful and full of many great learning experiences! We began our "Artist in Me" unit and the first artist we studied was Wassily Kandinsky.  Kandinsky's art mainly consists of shapes including circles, squares, triangles, and lines.  This tied in perfectly with our geometry unit we began this week.  We studied 2-D and 3-D shapes and learned all about sides, vertices, faces, and edges.

Announcements:

January 15th: No school: Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!
January 26th: No school: Teacher Workday
January 29th: No school: Teacher Workday
February 6th 10:00 AM: Artist in Me Gallery Crawl...come and see your child's artwork displayed around our classroom!  They will also sing a song about all 5 artists that we learned about.  We will also have refreshments.
February 13th: Field Trip to the Laurel's Nursing Home (10:30-11:30)
February 14th 1:00 PM: Valentine's Reading Party...come read your child's Valentine's poems with them that they received from other classmates! 

Math:

We began our geometry unit this week in math!  We are studying both 2-D and 3-D shapes.  The 2-D shapes we learned are circle, rectangle, square, triangle, oval, trapezoid, diamond/rhombus, and hexagon.  The 3-D shapes we learned are cone, cube, cylinder, sphere, pyramid, and rectangular prism.  We are working on the students being able to identify, describe, and draw/build these shapes.  We played a game called "What's My Shape?" The students played the game in pairs and one student had a whiteboard and marker and the other student was the guesser.  The student drew a shape on their board without the other student seeing it.  The other student asked questions such as "Does the shape have 4 sides? Does the shape have 6 vertices? Does the shape have 3 vertices?" until they were able to guess the shape.  They LOVED this game!

Literacy:

In literacy this week, we began two new activities including sight word mini-books and word sorts.  As mentioned in the email I sent out on Tuesday, students will learn one sight word per week and that will be our "word of the week".  Each student will then get a sight word book and will go through and highlight that word wherever they see it in the book. We read this book as a class and in small groups multiple times so they should be able to read the book to you when they bring it home.  These books have basic pattern sentences in them where only one or two words change on each page.  This helps the students with being able to read the books and also use the picture to determine the unknown word.  We also started word sorts this week.  This came home on a sheet of computer paper where they sorted pictures into four different letter categories.  We started with this one as a whole class but as we continue each week with these, I will differentiate and students will be doing different ones based on their needs.  This week, students sorted the pictures based off of the initial consonant that the picture started with.  They did great with this activity! 

Thematic:

We began our Artist in Me unit this week with Kandinsky.  Students learned that his artwork included many different shapes.  Students got to recreate three of his pieces of artwork that will be displayed at our gallery crawl.  Students used different art mediums (crayons, colored pencils, paint, etc.) to create their pieces of artwork.  Many of these activities also practice their cutting which is always a great fine motor skill activity.  

Science:

Students got to continue exploring with the classroom science materials (pipettes, test tubes, eye droppers, beakers, and measuring tubes) during morning activities and during free choice centers.  This center is a hit!  Thanks to Sue Sink who came and did our Sci-Fri this past Friday!  We would love for more parents to come and do a science experiment with the class. It does not have to be anything complicated at all. :) Simple is best!

Have a great Sunday!
Love,
Mrs. James 

Week Twenty: January 1st-5th

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a wonderful winter break and had fun spending time with family and friends!  I had a great break but I was excited to get back and see all of our sweet kiddos.  We had a great week back in kindergarten!  We have slowly eased back into things and the kids are doing awesome.  Next week we will begin to kick things into high gear as we begin a new thematic unit (Artist in Me), focus heavily on sight words and reading, and begin new math concepts (place value, addition,  subtraction).  After winter break, we take things up a notch in all academic areas but specifically in reading and writing.  By this point, the students have all of the other things in kindergarten down smoothly (unpacking, packing up, organizing their cubbies, and all other daily routines) so we focus heavily on academics.  We continue looking at where they need to be going into first grade and keep that in the front of our mind as our goal.  Be on the lookout next week for emails regarding new things we are implementing in the classroom such as guided reading books and sight word books.  I am excited to begin the new year and see the students continue to succeed! 😊

January 15th: Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day...no school!
January 26th: No school: We host a conference at CSD for other schools/teachers to attend.
January 29th: No school: Teacher Workday
February 13th: Field Trip to the Laurel's Nursing Home (10:30-11:30)

***In a few weeks, we will study Mary Cassatt (a famous artist) and we will need a baby picture of your child and mom.  Cassatt did many different paintings of moms and their babies and your child will get to paint a picture of you and them!  It would be great if the mom is holding the baby in the picture.  Please send this in by January 16th. :) Your original picture will be returned exactly the way it was sent to us!

***We also are in need of some common household items for our artist unit next week...we are studying Kandinksy and he did a lot of work with circles.  We need anything that is circle shaped to make a collage.  Things that do not need to be returned to you.  I mainly was thinking of lids (plastic water bottle lids, jar lids, container lids, etc.) Below is a picture to help you brainstorm.  Please send these in by Monday or Tuesday if you have them. Thanks so much!

                                                     

Math:

In math this week, we began a new game that has been added to our Morning Meeting called "Magic Number."  Each morning, one student gets to pick a number between 1-100.  That number becomes our magic number for the day.  We determine what is one more (before), one less (after), we spell the word, we build the word using C-rods and cubes, and talk about the place value of the number.  Below is an example for a visual.

Literacy:

In literacy this week, I introduced a new activity called "read the room, write the room."  This would be very easy to replicate at home and VERY helpful in your child learning how to read and write sight words. We have 40 sight words written on index cards and hung around the room.  Each student gets a clipboard, piece of blank paper, and a pencil and they walk around the room and read a sight word and then write it. They continue to do this until they have all 40 written on their sheet (secretly working on counting at the same time 😉).  In order to differentiate and make it more challenging, I had some students write the sight words in different "boxes" based on how many letters were in the word.  Here is the link to the Dolch Sight Words (kindergarten list) that you can write on index cards and hang around your child's room or house.  Exposure to these words is so critical in them being able to read! http://www.sightwords.com/pdfs/word_lists/dolch_kindergarten.pdf Once they have mastered this list (being able to read them all and write them without seeing the spelling) you can move onto the first grade list.

Thematic:

Next week we will begin in our Artist in Me unit!  We will study five famous artists including Michelangelo, Claude Monet, Mary Cassatt, Juan Miro, and Wassily Kandinsky.  We will start off with Kandinksy!

Science:

Today in Sci-Fri, students got to rotate through four science activity tables.  They got to explore many different science tools including beakers, test tubes, and eye droppers.  These items will be available to them at free choice centers so they can continue investigating with them!

Have a great weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James