Kindergarten Celebration

Our Kindergarten kids have grown up and are very excited to be first graders!  I am so proud of the work we have done this year.  It is amazing to think back to the first day of Kindergarten and think about how our children have grown, matured, and learned!  We have developed into authors, readers, and mathematicians!  Continue to help your children grow this summer.  Encourage your child to read and write every day! 

We celebrated our accomplishments today with our final Kindergarten ribbon ceremony!  Each Kindergarten student was also given a special reward unique to that child to celebrate his/her accomplishments this year!  We are so proud of our Kindergarten kids!

Oviparous Animals

We've had another exciting week! This week we have been learning all about animals that hatch from eggs!

We also studied the life cycle of a frog and a butterfly! We have learned that these animals change during each stage of their life! We made a paper plate with the life cycle of a frog and we used different types of noodles and a popcorn seed to display the life cycle of a butterfly!

We have been playing our favorite math games from this year!  We have played Race to 100, Tug-of-War, and many more.  It has been a fun way to review our math skills!  We have learned so much!

Today your child is bringing home his/her Data Notebook.  We have been tracking our learning progress through this notebook all year!  Inside the front pocket you will find a paper titled "Summer Goal".  Please work with your child to write a learning goal for this summer!  If your child has not yet earned all the Kindergarten ribbons, you will find these ribbons stapled to the goal paper.  Please continue to work on these goals this summer!  When your child masters the goal, please have your own special ribbon ceremony to honor his/her work!  The best part of our data notebook is our Weekend Stories.  You can find these at the end of the 4th quarter work!  Almost every week we have written a story summarizing our weekend.  ENJOY reading your child's stories!  It provides a great memory for your child's Kindergarten year!

Here is next week's schedule:
Monday-NO SCHOOL
Tuesday-B-day
Wednesday-C-day
Thursday-D-day
Friday-11:45 dismissal NO SPECIALS

Maps and Globes

We finished another great week in kindergarten! We've been learning about maps and globes! Our goal is to identify bodies of water and land on maps/globes! We've even learned about different types of landforms. We are working on knowing where we live...Kansas City, Missouri and in a neighborhood!

We continue on with our study of measurement! We are learning what tools we would use when comparing objects...(balance scale, ruler or non-standard units, measuring cups)!

We had an AWESOME morning at field day! A huge thank you to, Mrs. Lindsay for coordinating it all, and a BIG thank you to all of the volunteers! The students had a great time!

Enjoy the pictures below! We had a lot of fun reading and eating popcorn outside with our third grade buddies.

Next week's schedule:
Monday-A-day
Tuesday-B-day
Wednesday-C-day
Thursday-D-day
Friday-A-day

Paradise Park and Measurement

It was another great week in kindergarten! We enjoyed our new schedule to accommodate MAP testing. We are excited to get back to our normal routine.

We started our week with a great field trip to Paradise Park. We explored all about seeds/plants! We even planted a seed in the dirt and ate it (chocolate pudding, graham crackers, gummy worm and M&M)! We played in the water station, outside, the ball pit and the imagination station! Thank you to all the chaperones that joined us on the trip! We couldn't have done it without your help! We enjoyed a picnic lunch in the cafeteria when we returned!

This week we have been learning about measurement! We are discussing measuring length, weight and volume. Our goal is to know what measurement "tool" we use to measure different objects. We are working with the new math series that our school district will be implementing next year.

Next week's schedule:
Monday-C-day
Tuesday-D-day (kindergarten teachers at district office in the afternoon for meeting-substitute teachers in the classroom)
Wednesday-A-day-kindergarten field day 9:00-11:00 am...bring a water bottle and wear sunscreen
Thursday-B-day
Friday-A-day

Solar System and Fractions

We have had a great week of learning this week! Our topic has been the Solar System and our students have LOVED every minute of learning about the planets. We learned that the sun is a star and it is the most important part of our solar system. We learned about our moon and the kids learned why it appears to change shape! We have learned a lot of facts about each planet. We will continue our solar system learning next week!

Our class has also been studying fractions. We have learned that a fraction is when something is divided into equal parts. We learned that the "numerator" or the "top number" tells us how many parts and the "denominator" or the "bottom number" tells us how many pieces there are all together. We have been drawing shapes and creating our own fractions. We have also been identifying fractions and problem solving with fractions. Fractions are a a challenging topic but we are really beginning to understand!

We have been having a lot of fun imagining in writer's workshop. We have written about what it would be like to be an astronaut exploring space. We pretended that we discovered a brand new planet and wrote about what it would be like on this planet! It is fun to see the excitement for writing when we are being creative.

I have included a picture that I received from our "Piggy Opera" musical! It is an oldie, but a goodie!

Our schedule continues to be a little different due to MAP testing in the older grades. Our specials are from 10:30-11:20 in the morning. Our afternoon recess is from 2:40-3:00. Our specials schedule for next week is as follows:

Monday-PARADISE PARK FIELD TRIP
Tuesday-Art
Wednesday-PE and Music
Thursday-Library
Friday-Music and PE (back to normal specials and recess times)

Earth Day and Time

We have had an awesome week in Room 222! We've continued our work with time to the hour and time to the half hour! We are getting "tricked" on time to the half hour...it's difficult to figure out where the "hour hand" is pointing too! We will continue to practice this skill the remainder of the year! The kids are really enjoying learning how to "read" the clock!

We spent a lot of time learning about "how to take care of the Earth." We discussed the 3 R's...(reduce, reuse and recycle)! It is always fun to hear how the students will take care of the Earth! Our class learned about how big a landfill can grow by making an "edible" landfill.  Each ingredient in our landfill represented trash that gets thrown away (oil, yard waste, styrofoam, dirt to cover up the smell, paper, etc.)  We talked about how the 3 R's could make a lot of that waste disappear from our landfills!

We have focused on the comprehension skill of making inferences.  We have been writing "clues" to help our classmates "infer" what the author is feeling and thinking.  Then we share our clues and the class gets to "infer"!  This is a challenging skill and we are having a lot of fun practicing!

 Next week's schedule:
Monday-NO SCHOOL
Tuesday-C-day
Wednesday-D-day
Thursday-A-day
Friday-B-day

Weather, Time and The Three Piggy Opera!

It's been a great week in kindergarten! We've made clocks out of paperplates. We know what each part of the clock is called (face, minute hand, hourhand and second hand)! We are telling time to the hour and writing time to thehour. We have a few students who have figured out how to tell time to theminute! We will keep working with time through next week!  We read the book "The Grouchy Ladybug" and had fun making a book that we can use to retell the story at home!

 
We have been reading non-fiction books about the weather. The students have learned a lot of facts about different types of weather.  We have made some fun books about weather.  Make sure you have your child read his/her books to you!

We performed our musical for the entire school on Wednesday afternoon!We had a great dress rehearsal! Thursday night we had a big crowd! It is alwaysfun to see everyone perform!

 
Next week's schedule:

Monday-B-day
Tuesday-C-day
Wednesday-D-day
Thursday-A-day
Friday-B-day