Hello, February!

Wow! February already!  It's another busy month- check out what's happening at the OKC:)

February Calendar

February News

Kindness Week

Lunch Menu

Weekly Update

Hello!

What a great week we had!

As I mentioned in our last post, we started learning more about science and what scientists do.  We talked about asking questions and doing experiments.  One of the books we read asked the question, does salt melt ice?  Well, we decided to complete an experiment in order to answer the question, or draw our conclusion.  Here's what we did!

We used two cups and put an ice cube into each cup.  Our control cup only had the ice cube.  The other cup had the ice cube and 1 teaspoon of salt.

While we observed the experiment we noticed that both cubes melted, but the cube with salt melted quicker.  

We wrote about our experiment and made the conclusion that salt melts ice.

It was fun to be a scientist and we are looking forward to next week when we become engineers!

Welcome 2016!

Hello families!

It is so good to be back in the swing of things here at school!  We are recharged and ready to continue learning and getting ready for first grade.

We've already been busy this week with reviewing Text Connections as well as short vowel word families.  One of our Daily 5 activities is spelling short vowel words so make sure to check out your child's Seesaw Journal!  We are also practicing skip counting by 10s and reading numbers.

This week we are talking about science and what scientists do.  Stay tuned for all the fun pictures and information on our science units coming soon!

I hope everyone had a nice break!  Please see our January News below and let me know if you have any questions!

News from the Week

We were BUSY Little Learners this week!  We talked about our five senses and used The Gingerbread Man book to help us describe gingerbread cookies.  We used our sense of sight to notice the features of a gingerbread cookie such as arms, legs, head, buttons, eyes, and mouth.  

Our sense of smell told us that gingerbread cookies have a spicy scent.  

We did a fun activity using QR codes to use our sense of hearing to guess who quoted the Gingerbread Man when he said, "Run, run as fast as you can!  You can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"  

Can you guess who said it?

When we used our sense of touch we noticed that a gingerbread cookie feels smooth, crispy, and bumpy.  Finally, we used our sense of taste and ate a gingerbread cookie!  Ask your child...

We also had our gingerbread house VIP day on Friday and had a great time!  Thank you so much for all of the candy donations!  The houses were beautiful and I'm sure quite tasty as well!  I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did!

Thanks for a great week!

Next Week:

Miss Guhlke is in charge!  She has some fun things planned!

Please remember that library books are due back to school on Thursday, Dec. 10.

Let me know if you have any questions.  :)  Have a great weekend!

News from the Week

Hello!  Here are a few highlights from our week!

We met Miss Guhlke, our student teacher!  

She will be in our classroom until Dec. 22nd. 

We also worked on the comprehension strategy of questioning.  When we don't understand something, or we want to know more, we MUSTACHE a question!

Our good friends in Mrs. Hawkinson's class wanted to learn how to use Seesaw so we taught them!

Peer-to-peer teaching.  

Doesn't get much better than this!

Don't forget to sign up to see your child's learning through this digital portfolio! You received a QR code specific to your child at conferences.  If you need the code again, please let me know!

We will be having another VIP day coming SOOOOON!!! 

If you'd be willing to help out with donations, please sign up through Volunteer Spot.  

1) Click this link to see our Sign-Up on VolunteerSpot: http://vols.pt/QCqRYi

2) Review the options listed and choose the spot(s) you like.

3) Sign up! It's Easy - you will NOT need to register an account or keep a password on VolunteerSpot.

Note: VolunteerSpot does not share your email address with anyone. If you prefer not to use your email address, please contact me and I can sign you up manually.

Thank you so much!

Hello November! How'd you get here so fast?

This week we learned about how asking questions can help us be a better reader.  By asking questions, our minds stay focused on the story while we look for evidence in the text.  This group read a story about desert animals and asked the question, "What is in a camel's humps?"  We didn't find any evidence in our text, but luckily, we were able to find a reliable source to get the answer to our question!  Guess what! It's NOT water!  It's fatty tissue! Learn something new every day, right?

We also practiced asking questions during our 10 Feather Celebration.  After a friend showed their toy, we took turns asking a question about the toy.  

In math this week, we talked about positional words.  

"My hand is beside his head."

"My hand is below the table."

"I am going over the chair."

"He went under my legs."

Each day during calendar time, we stay engaged by using our white boards.  Sometimes we get to write on the ActivBoard!  We practice writing numbers, making patterns, and showing numbers in different ways.  We call these name collections!

How many ways can we show '7'?

And, sometimes, this happens.

CAUTION! KIDS AT WORK!!

See that pile of coats, whiteboards, water bottles, etc?? Those things are LONGER than a whiteboard marker.

See that lonely little eraser? He's SHORTER than a whiteboard marker.  

See those whiteboards all over the floor?  We were way too busy and excited to find and compare longer and shorter objects that we made a mess in the process!  But it was fun, so it's all good! :)

Great job this week, Little Learners!

This & That

We had another great week here at the Kindergarten Center!

We read a story about Mrs. Wishy Washy and talked about her character traits.  She seems to be very responsible and she loves to keep her things clean!  

Google image

In math, we worked with sorting different objects.  We talked about the ways we could group objects by how they are the same.  In our partner group, we took pictures of our sorting and uploaded them to an app called SeeSaw.  You will learn more about SeeSaw at your Parent/Teacher conference!

In writing, we have been working hard at coming up with a sentence about something that we did.  We check to make sure we have a complete sentence by asking if it has a 'who' and a 'did what'.  We clap our sentence as this helps us to understand that each word will need it's own space.  We then count the words that will be in our sentence and finally we start writing our sentence!  

This Little Learner is reading Mrs. Lindbo's sentence.  She taps each word as she reads!

Mrs. Anderson talked to us about staying on task.  A few kids got to be special helpers while Mrs. Anderson read Press Here .  This is such a fun book! If you haven't read it, please do!

We have also earned 10 feathers again! We decided to have a lunch date in the classroom with the teacher! It was fun and I'm proud that we have already celebrated 3 times!  Great job, Little Learners!

Peek at Next Week

Monday, Oct. 19 and Tuesday, Oct. 20 are our first Parent/Teacher conferences.  I am very excited to share the progress that your child has made in the first month of school.  We will discuss letter names/sounds, Guided Reading, math concepts, and behaviors.  I will also share more about how we integrate technology into our classroom and invite you to stay connected to your child's learning with several apps.  Of course, there will also be time for you to ask me any questions you might have!  Thanks so much for taking time to visit with me during your scheduled conference! 

Pumpkin Painting VIP day on Wednesday, Oct. 21 from 1:20-2:00

Please stop by the office to sign in and get a visitor sticker!

No School on Thursday, Oct. 22-Friday, Oct. 23

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Well hello, October!

It's a new month!  Check out our October News and the October lunch menu.

Weekly News

Hello!

We had a full week with a few special events!  On Wednesday, we met a college student who will be helping us in our classroom.  Ms. G goes to school at MSU-M and hopes to be a classroom teacher some day! We also had a Very Important Person visit our classroom! Mrs. Toy came to our room so we could ask her a few questions.  We brainstormed ideas of things we wanted to learn about Mrs. Toy and then invited her in for an interview.  We even had photographers and an audio manager!! (Thanks August, Ava, and Willy!)  

Check out our interview!

Mrs. Toy even stayed to read us a book!  She is an excellent reader and we hope to have her back!

THANKS, MRS. TOY!

On Friday, we learned about bus safety from Gene the bus driver,  He taught us the rules of the bus and we practiced following the rules on a short bus ride around the block.  Have your child tell you about ways to be SAFE, RESPONSIBLE, and RESPECTFUL on the bus!

Thanks for a great week, Little Learners!

Mrs. Lindbo :)

What a Week!

This week I had a couple of district meetings so I was gone Wednesday and Friday.  I heard only great things from the teachers who helped out in the classroom! You should be so proud of your child, I know I am!

Your child also experienced their first fire drill of the year on Friday!  Again, I heard that everything went well!  We will have many more fire drills throughout the year so you can expect to hear about it again!

A Peek at Our Upcoming Week:

Monday: NO SCHOOL  (Teacher Professional Development Day)

Thursday: Library Books are DUE

Friday: Bus Safety, celebrating Johnny Appleseed’s birthday (WEAR RED!)

Letter/Sounds: Ee, Jj, Kk, Nn

Math: Shapes, Dot Cards

Daily Five: Introduction to Listen to Reading, Word Work, Work on Writing

I’m excited for another great week!

Let me know if you have any questions. J

Peek at Our Week!

We had another great week of learning!  We are in our routine and things are going smoothly.  I hope you had a chance to read about our Morning Meeting!  If not, you can read about it here.

This week Sheyenne High School will be celebrating Homecoming.  We will be joining in Spirit Week by dressing up each day!

Monday-Wear ORANGE
Tuesday-Wear PJ'S or COMFY, COZY CLOTHES
Wednesday-Wear BLUE
Thursday-Wear your FAVORITE TEAM JERSEY
Friday-Wear OSGOOD or MUSTANG clothes

I will send a REMIND text each evening.  :)

Our specials this week are
M- PE & Art
T- PE & Music (LIBRARY BOOKS ARE DUE!)
W- PE & Art & Book Checkout
Th-PE & Music
F- PE & Library

Have a great week!
Mrs. Lindbo :)

It's Friday!

Happy Friday!

It's been a long but great week here in our classroom! We are starting to get into the swing of things with our daily routines such as Morning Meeting, Writer's Workshop, and Daily 5.  I am planning on posting more about our routines in the future to give you more information about what we do each day!  Stay tuned!

This week we talked about how there are 3 ways to read a book.  We learned that we can read the words, read the pictures, or retell a familiar story.  The kids were pretty impressed with themselves when they learned that they already know how to read! 

This poster helps us remember the different ways to read a book!

We also practiced one part of Daily 5 which is called Read to Self.  During this time, students read books from their book baskets while the teacher meets with a group of students for Guided Reading.  We are working on our stamina, meaning we want to practice reading quietly for longer and longer each day.  We made it two whole minutes on Thursday which is awesome! Imagine your teacher asking you to be quiet for more than two minutes....Fweew!  The goal of Daily 5 is for students to be actively engaged in their own independent learning while a teacher meets with small groups.  I will discuss the other components of Daily 5 in the future.

This week we also discussed appropriate behavior at school using the language "Above the Line", "Below the Line", and "Bottom Line".  Behavior that is appropriate such as raising our hands, walking in the hallway, and using kind words are all Above the Line.  Behaviors which we try to avoid such as blurting, not participating, or being unsafe are considered Below the Line.  Bottom Line behaviors are those that hurt such as kicking or hitting.  Please talk with your child about appropriate behavior in school and have them share a time that they were ABOVE THE LINE!!

Finally, I wanted to share some center work that your child did this week! This time is usually spent doing a hands on activity such as play-doh or pattern blocks.  We love this time of the day!

Highlighting the sight word "I"

Tracing names with dry-erase markers

Pattern Block letter puzzles

Play-doh 'snake' names

Thanks for a great week!  Remember that there is

NO SCHOOL on Monday, Sept. 7. 

Happy Labor Day!

Mrs. Lindbo

#happyclassrooms



Happy Friday!

We had two wonderful days in Kindergarten!  On Thursday we read a story called The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn.  We completed a special project that I hope you saw in your child's take-home folder!  We talked about how the main character, Chester, was feeling on his first day of school.  We also met Mrs. Rensch and Miss Richard at Phy Ed, as well as Mrs. Hollingsworth at Music.

Today we began our alphabet study with the letter Aa.  We read a story about an alligator who was looking for the perfect job.  Have your child tell you what Abby Alligator decided to do!  (She was an author!)

Your child also

• met their Art teacher, Mrs. Larson
• enjoyed Friday Fun 
• earned Owl Tickets
• Students who earn Owl Tickets are showing Safety, Responsibility, and Respect!  After 10 Owl Tickets are earned, students are able to pick a reward such as a small prize, an award from Mrs. Toy, lunch with the school counselor, helping with school videos/announcements, high five line

We had two wonderful days of getting to know one another and I want to thank you for sharing your child with me.  We have a GREAT class and I know this will be year full of friendship and learning!

A few things to keep in mind:

• Tennis shoes EVERYDAY as the students have PhyEd and recess
• Water bottles are welcome!  I will allow students to keep their water bottles at school for the week and send them home on Friday for the weekend.
• Take Home Folders should come to school each day!

Please contact me with any questions!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Lindbo :)