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

Week Eighteen: December 11th-15th

Happy Holidays! ⛄ I hope that you all have a great winter break and holiday season! This will be my last blog of 2017 and I look forward to all that is to come in 2018!   I will not be here next Monday and Tuesday and will miss seeing all of you at the Gingerbread House party!  My family has always dreamed of going to New York City at Christmas time (I have never been to NYC at all) and my parents surprised me, my husband, and my sisters and they are taking us on Saturday!  I will miss you all but I know you will have fun on Tuesday in our classroom.

December 19th at 1:00 PM Gingerbread Houses in our classroom: Parents are invited to come and make a gingerbread house with your child.  Siblings are fine to come but we will not have enough supplies for them to make a gingerbread house.  This would be a great time for you to have special one-on-one time with your kindergartener but we understand getting babysitters can be hard at times.
January 3rd: School resumes after winter break

Over the past three weeks, we studied Sinterklaas, Las Posadas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas.  We have had so much fun learning about each country and the holiday that they celebrate.  We compared and contrasted to see what was similar and different about each holiday.  Today we had our Polar Express day to celebrate Christmas!  We drank hot chocolate and read The Polar Express, we colored and read a mini-book, we talked about the steps to make homemade crockpot hot chocolate, we made reindeer food, and we did a science experiment that involved ice and trains! Ask your child about it to find out more. :)

Have a wonderful winter break! I am so thankful for all of you and your sweet children!
Love,
Mrs. James

Week Sixteen: November 27th-December 1st

Happy December!  We had a fun week in the classroom starting our "Holidays Around the World" unit!  This week we studied Christmas in the Netherlands (Sinterklaas).  We compared and contrasted their Christmas traditions to our Christmas in the United States.

We also had our first trip to the Laurel's Nursing Home and both the residents and students loved it!  Our students were amazing with the residents and definitely brightened up their day!  We started off by singing Christmas/Holiday songs and the residents joined in with us.  Students then rotated through different stations where they interacted with the residents.  The stations were holiday painting, Christmas card making, holiday pattern block puzzles, holiday coloring pages, and holiday poke art.  It was so much fun watching the students interact with the residents and they are excited and ready to go back!  We will go back February 13th and April 10th.

***Please send in a baby picture of your child by next Tuesday (Dec 5th).  We are going to use it for our holiday door decoration.  We will not cut it and will return it safely when we are done.
***Please save and send in your quart sized half & half cartons or any other cartons similar to this size for our gingerbread houses.  We need 21 by December 19th! 😁 See picture below.

December 5th: PAJAMA DAY! We have been learning about Sinterklaas and Christmas in the Netherlands this week and Sinterklaas visits children on December 5th.  We are going to put our shoes in the hallway with carrots and hay in them (what the children in The Netherlands do) and hope that Sinterklaas leaves us a treat! 😉 We thought it would be fun to have a pajama day paired with this.  Your child may wear their pajamas to school but please have them still wear their tennis shoes. No stuffed animals (I have already had kids ask so I am sure they will ask you too haha)
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.

Math:

The main math concepts we worked on this week are "one more, one less", basic addition, and counting on. We added a few new centers to our math workshop this week with two being "Race to 20" and "Race to 50."  These games have started circulating home this week in our "take home math game bags."  These games work on counting on and addition.  Your child should be able to explain to you how to play. :)  We are also really working on number writing!  Reversals are still very common developmentally at this point but we are working as hard as we can in the classroom on this.  Whenever you see reversals at home, just ask them to flip it around and fix it.  I have also been completing the state based mid-year math assessments to see where we students are and what we need to focus on for the second half of the year.

Literacy:

We have seen so much progress with the students and their knowledge of their letters, sounds, sight words, and phonetic spelling!  They are continuing to rotate through their reader's workshop centers that practice all of these things.  After the holiday break, we will start focusing heavily on sight words.  We will learn a few sight words a week and they will start receiving mini-books for each sight word to bring home to practice reading.  These books really help students who haven't begun reading yet and help build confidence for those who are already reading. Look for these in the weeks to come!  ***Please have your child make a book box to keep all of these in if they haven't already.  This is a great box to pull from when they need to read a book on their own!

Thematic:

This week during thematic centers we learned about Christmas in the Netherlands!  We learned all about Sinterklaas and talked about the differences between Christmas in the Netherlands and Christmas in the USA.  The students rotated through three different stations to learn more about Sinterklaas and The Netherlands.  They made a headband and had to match up Christmas pictures to the correct word, they illustrated a book with facts, and they used their creative side to make their own "klompen."  You can see these hung in the hallway. :) 

Science:

During our science time, we are focusing on the scientific method and introducing all of the steps to the students.  Today, our Sci-Fri experiment was making snowflake crystals using Borax!  Each table got to make one snowflake as a team out of pipe cleaners and then we put the snowflake in a mixture of boiling water and Borax.  We will observe them today and when we come back to school on Monday to see if the crystal has formed on the pipe cleaners!

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Mrs. James

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

Week Eleven: October 23rd-27th

Hello kindergarten families! I am excited that it is finally feeling like fall! We had a fun week that included Pumpkin Carving with Dad/Mom/Grandpa!  Thank you to all who took the time to come and have fun with your child.  We have two more field trips coming up (Charlotte Children's Theatre and the Raptor Center) that will be a lot of fun!

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS:

October 31st Parade of Fiction 8:45 AM: Please have your child come dressed in their costume to school.  Their costume should be a fictional book character and they need to have the book (his/her character is from) with them to carry in the parade.  No scary costumes and no weapons of any kind (guns, swords, knives, bow and arrow, etc.)  They can bring a change of clothes for after the parade. Kindergarten parents have been asked to stand in the elementary gym to watch us parade through.  Please stay for the entire duration of the parade to see all grades come through. 
November 7th 9:30 AM Children's Theatre Field Trip: We will be seeing the play "Snowy Day."  A sign up genius was sent out this morning for chaperones.  We only have 8 tickets and I will pull names from a hat if we have more than 8 parents interested.  Parents will need to drive themselves and their child to meet us at the theatre uptown Charlotte at 9:30 AM.  You can take your child home with you after the play.  Chaperones tickets cost $8 and money will need to be turned into me ahead of the field trip. No siblings please.  We are excited to have you! :) 
November 10th: No school...Happy Veteran's Day!
November 15th Raptor Center Field Trip 8:45 AM: We *think* we can have as many chaperones attend as wanted.  I will let you know ASAP as we get more information.  Once again, if you chaperone you will need to drive yourself and your child to meet us there.  Mark this on your calendar if you will want to go! It will be a full day field trip.

Math

This week in math we learned a new game called Ten Frame War!  Two students play together and divide a stack of ten frame cards.  Some students played with ten frames up to 10 and some played with two ten frames with numbers up to 20.  The students would say "1, 2, 3, WAR!" and they would each flip over one card.  They had count how many dots were on the card (we want them moving away from counting dots 1 by 1 and move to counting in groups and counting on) and then whoever had more dots got to take both cards.  Students had to say their number out loud so we knew they had correctly counted the dots.  This is a fun game that you can easily make and play at home! A few of the concept that this game works on is quickly being able to count the number of dots in a ten frame, counting on, and addition.

 

Literacy

In literacy this week we rotated through centers that practiced letters, sounds, sight words, and reading.  Some centers remain the same every week and we change out the letters/words and then we also add in some new centers each week.  Most all are games and activities that are practicing skills that are the foundation for reading.  I also pulled my first guided reading group for students that are already reading.  This allows me to begin teaching reading strategies to help with decoding.   Continue practicing the sound song at home with your child so that they become 100% confident with all of their sounds! 

Thematic

In thematic centers this week, we finished studying spiders and moved onto bats!  We have learned many neat facts about bats!  Students have rotated through two bat centers so far and our Sci-Fri today also involves bats!
1. Students created their own bat out of paper that they can fly through the air!  Students had to cut, glue, and follow specific directions to make the bat correctly.  These were really fun!
2. Students created a torn paper bat! They first had to trace a bat and then tear black paper into little pieces to glue on.  Tearing paper into small pieces is really good for their fine motor skills!  We love to do "torn paper" activities in kindergarten.

Science

We learned that in a dark cave, bats cannot see to find their babies.  They use their sense of smell to locate their babies.  We will place 5 paper bats around the room with a cotton ball attached to it.  Each cotton ball has a different scent to it (peppermint, vanilla, lavender, lemon, and tea tree oil).  Each student has a cotton ball of their own that has a scent in it.  They will walk around the room and smell each bat cotton ball to determine which matches their own.  Once they find it, they will stay there because that is their "bat family" they belong to.   

Love,
Mrs. James 💗