November News

Wow, we are saying hello to a new month already! 

Check out our November News and November Lunch Menu.

October was jam packed with Parent/Teacher conferences, Pumpkin Painting VIP day, and our Fall Celebration. Thank you so much for all of the donations of cookies, sprinkles, frosting, and apple cider!  The kids had a blast decorating cookies, making a pumpkin art project, playing games, and making a popcorn hand.  Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures---it was BUSY!

We are finishing up our non-fiction unit on bats and will be talking about weather next week.  We will also learn a new comprehension strategy called questioning by reading a book about a familiar character, Mrs. Wishy Washy!

In math, we will talk about measurement, positional words, shapes, and writing numbers. 

As always, please let me know if you have any questions!

Cowboys & Chickens

What do you do when you're dressed in Western Wear?? You play COWBOYS & CHICKENS!  Check out this fun sight word activity we did today! 

Keep practicing those sight words, Little Learners!

Pumpkin Investigation

I had the pleasure of working with the cutest scientists today as we investigated pumpkins!  We talked about how scientists are great thinkers because they are curious and they like to ask questions. They think about how things work and connect what they know to what they are finding out.  We also talked about the importance of collaboration ( a big word to say 'work together nicely'). 

Together, we learned about our class pumpkin by using our senses.  Each group was in charge of learning something about our pumpkin and sharing what they observed.

What does our pumpkin smell like??

-seeds

-peppers

-lettuce

-celery

How does our pumpkin look?

-scratches

-bumps

-orange

-brown stem

-lines

-round

What does our pumpkin sound like?

-seeds knocking around

-hollow

How does our pumpkin feel?

-cold

-bumpy

-smooth with rough scratches

-heavy

We also wanted to know how big our pumpkin was so we decided to measure it's height.  We brainstormed different ways to measure our pumpkin and worked together to gather our data.

The pumpkin is 12 inches tall!  We used a measuring tape.

The pumpkin is 16 connecting cubes tall!

The pumpkin is about 2 markers tall!

The pumpkin is 3 pumpkins tall, but 4 pumpkins tall when you include the stem! :)

We also asked the question, what would happen if my pumpkin fell in the lake?

We made our prediction and thought that it might get eaten by a shark, it might sink, a fisherman might catch it, or it might float away.  We completed our experiment by putting our pumpkin in water and found out......IT FLOATS!  One scientist asked the question, "But how does it float if it doesn't have air?" (CRITICAL THINKING!!!)  So, of course, we had to experiment further by opening the pumpkin to see what's inside!

Was it really that hard, Mrs. Lindbo? Yes, yes it was... :)

OOOOOOH!

So, after checking out the inside and seeing the empty space (filled with air), we can understand why the pumpkin floated.  But all those seeds!  We better count them!

After reading a book, we learned that it would be much easier to make groups of 10 seeds and then count the piles by ten.  This required some intense teamwork!

There were about 183 seeds in our pumpkin!

These little scientists worked HARD today and I am so proud of the collaboration that took place!  We had a fun time asking and answering questions and being a part of an investigation.  

Great work, Little Learners! 

Five Little Pumpkins

These cute little 'pumpkins' helped to retell the story/poem Five Little Pumpkins while practicing our speaking and listening skills!

Enjoy!

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!

Engineer Visit

This week we were so lucky to have David, a software engineer, speak to our class!  Before we met him, we brainstormed ideas of what an engineer might do for his job.  We thought maybe they drive trains or other vehicles, and we also thought they might fix gears.  

David told us that there are many different types of engineers, but the all are problem solvers.  He taught us that an engineer takes a big problem and breaks it into smaller problems.  He showed us a really fun game about a turtle and a gem.  The goal of the game is to figure out how to get the turtle to the gem, but we have to solve problems first.  He taught us how to move the turtle by putting up our right hands to turn the turtle right, left hands to turn the turtle left, and both hands up to keep the turtle moving straight.  

David wrote our 'program' on the side of the whiteboard. 

We had a fun time working together to get the turtle to the gem!  

Can you believe we got to be engineers??  

Guided Reading and Book Bags

Exciting news!! We have started our Guided Reading groups today! 

Some students will be bringing home a book in their book bag that we practiced reading in our small groups this morning.  We focused on pointing to the words as we read and using the picture to help us figure out a word we don't know.  Normally, your child should be able to read their Guided Reading book independently at home.  This week, we are just getting our feet wet and getting into the routine so your child might need some assistance pointing to the words as they read.  I have included a special pointer in the book bags. :)

 

Long fingernails are quite useful... ;)

Please take some time to have your child read their Guided Reading book to you.  If your child gets stuck on a word, help them figure it out by looking at the pictures for clues and modeling how to sound out words.  We are still at the very beginning stages of reading, so building independence in reading strategies will allow us to grow as readers!

Here is what you will see in your child's book bag.

Yellow paper: Book log to keep track of the books sent home

Blue paper:  Tips for parents

Book: Fire Truck

Please let me know if you have any questions about our Guided Reading time and/or book bags!