Happy Track out!!

I can't believe third quarter is over! It flew by, but then again having about 10 snow days, will do that!! As a reward for yet another great quarter with these lovies, we enjoyed lunch outside today. I will be at school all next week, don't hesitate to email me if you need anything. If they left anything at school you can come in and grab it. Don't forget to sign up for conferences, if you haven't already! Hope to see you all Tuesday, April 22nd. The sign up genius link is in a post below or you can access it through the other website. Enjoy your time with your kids. Send along pictures of anything fun you do, I'll miss seeing their faces:) 

Leading and reading

On Saturday we earned a popcorn party and reading with the 3rd graders. We will do this again for this coming Saturdays make up day, if any of the kids missed out! It was a great opportunity for the kids to synergize and look to the older kids as reading mentors. They asked good questions and showed comprehension through out the readings. The kindergarteners impressed the big kids with their reading, as well. 

Informational writing

In writing this quarter we have been focusing on informational writing to connect to the informational text comprehension skills we are practicing. We began the unit with "how to" writing pieces. The idea was to teach the reader how to do something step by step. We used transitional words, first, next, then, and last. We labeled our picture to help the reader understand the story and made sure to add lots of details to describe the steps. We've concluded the unit with "all about" books. The students picked a topic they know a lot about that they wanted to teach the reader. They had to create 5 pages that had different supporting details to teach about the topic. After they completed their writing we began partner editing each other's work. We use the five finger trick("did I use spaces, did I use capitals and lowercase correctly, did I put periods at the end of my sentences, did I spell sight words correctly, did I write neatly?). We are going to publish out stories to the class at the end of the week. 

Fluently subtracting

The past couple weeks we have been creating word problems to practice adding and subtracting to five. This week we focused on subtracting, we talked about key words in word problems to be able to tell its a subtraction problem. Take away and how many are left are the hints we looked for when partners worked together to create their own problems. We began our math lessons with a variety of stories( Five little monkeys, ten on the sled, ten rubber ducks, and many more!) These stories gave the back drop for what our word problems were going to be about. We acted out a few scenarios as a class, and I modeled how to write the subtraction problem to go along with it on the board. Students then paired up to use manipulative and math story mats to practice creating and solving subtraction word problems with five. We are wrapping up this unit by being able to determine if they are given a subtraction or addition word problems.I am going to be giving both types of word problems and they have to determine if they need to subtract or add to solve the problem. They are doing very well with this! Continue to reinforce these problems at home. While they may have it down, it's an important skill to continue to practice fluently to be able to retain. Next week we will move on to adding subtracting with ten.

Quarter 3 Parent conferences

Sign up genius

^ click the link to sign up for quarter 3 conferences on Tuesday, April 22nd

Secret visitor

A little visitor snuck through our room today and left us a note. He went by the name of, Larry the Leprechaun. We wrote about how we could try to catch him and had to be extra quiet, so we wouldn't scare him away if he were to come back! The whole class was on their best behavior today and earned otter den prizes or treasure box. These last two weeks of the quarter are going to be packed full of learning so it's important everyone is on their best behavior!

Lucky charms

Our math and literacy centers this week are St. Patricks themed! For math we are working on adding, subtracting and making ten. One of the centers below involves rolling a dice and picking that number of pieces of gold from the pot and then repeating to add and see how many pieces of gold you have all together. We are working on having a base ten stick and adding single cubes to count on to matching teen numbers. We use the rainbows to show pairs of numbers to make ten (this is great continued practice to do at home). As a class, we practice subtraction word problems and then they make them up with partners in a center using white boards. 

Keep shining!

We are sad to see Mychal move to a new school. He's a friend to everyone. As you can see the whole class wanted to get in one last hug. He makes everyone smile and exhibits the seven habits daily! We wish you the best of luck at your new school, Mychal. I know you won't have any problems making lots of new friends and being a positive spirit there, as well. We'll miss you, and hope you can come back to visit! Love, your very first kindergarten class:)

March Madness

We have kicked off literacy week in honor of Dr. Seuss, wacky and spirited as he'd like! Sports day was a success. There was a wide range of unique athletes. Here we have tae kwon do, a cheer leader, and a tough mudder. I most say I was a little surprised how few students were able to match my wacky-ness today!! I understand that there may have been some confusion with yet another snow day. Don't forget to remind your children that tomorrow is lake Myra spirit wear, Friday is book character day, and Saturdays make up day will be PJ day( fun for all). For book character day, you can be creative with what you already have to make up something. Please don't just send in your child with a Halloween costume, unless they have a book to bring in to show what book character they are from. We are really trying to emphasize the importance of reading and get the kids excited about it. All parents are welcome to come in for the parade to see the entire kindergarten and teachers in their costumes! Don't forget to log the minutes you are reading with your child every night. As a kindergarten team our goal is 10,000 minutes and we are at about 6,000. Currently, our class is leading in the entire school!!! Let's try to keep that up, but I need your help at home too. I can't put down how much they are reading at home unless, I know! If you don't know what happened to the slips at home, no problem! Send in a note with how many minutes they read. Thank you for helping make this week a success and spreading the love of reading. 

100 Days Smarter

100 days of kindergarten deserves a special celebration! They were greeted with a special banner entrance to make their accomplishments known. They made crowns where they had to tally and write numbers by ten to one hundred. 

All our math centers revolved around... 100! We stamped to 100, wrote numbers 1-100 on 100's charts, counted out 100 Cheerios to make tasty necklaces( I doubt any kids came home with all 100 still on there!), and we also shared and counted our collections. For literacy, we wrote about what they will be like when they are 100 years old. We also wrote about our favorite things so far in kindergarten. I also read aloud the story, "100th day worries".  It was a great day for the class to embrace and show off all they've learned in 100 days!

Love is all around!

I couldn't love these kiddos more!! We had fun spreading the love for valentines day. We had math centers where we had to graph candy sweet hearts, add hearts to get to ten, represent numbers using heart representations, and roll and add games. For literacy centers, we practiced writing valentines sight word cards, beginning sounds hearts to match pictures, and putting the heart halves together to identify beginning sounds. 

After all our hard work was done, we shared our valentines and maybe a little (just a little bit of sweets;) 

Holiday celebration

We enjoyed decorating sugar cones as Christmas trees for a yummy snack the last week of the quarter.

We loved having families visit our classroom and celebrate with us. Thank you to everyone who took part and helped out whether in the classrooms or supplying materials. It turned out to be a great event!

Snowy days

It's been a snowy winter inside the classroom, as well! Here we are working on adding and decomposing ten using snow balls!! You'd never know how many snow days we've had based on their continued growth and progress!