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