Hello Kinder Families, We have been doing all sorts of exciting learning in Room 5 over the last two weeks! Please read below for some updates :-) OUR CLASSROOM COMMUNITY NORMS We are a class who…
· Staff Day - NO SCHOOL – Friday, March 6 · Field Trip to The NAT - Wednesday, March 18 · Beginning of Spring Break – Half day – Friday, March 20 · Spring Break – NO SCHOOL – Monday, March 23 – Monday, April 6 (School will resume on Tuesday, April 7) Check out the slideshow below with pictures of our story workshop, research work, whole school ribbon cutting ceremony, and writing work. Thank you for all that you do! Warmly, Ms. Addy
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Hello Kinder Families,
Here are some updates on the happenings in Room 5! OUR CLASSROOM COMMUNITY NORMS We are a class who…
· Staff Day - NO SCHOOL – Friday, March 6 · Beginning of Spring Break – Half day – Friday, March 20 · Spring Break – NO SCHOOL – Monday, March 23 – Monday, April 6 (School will resume on Tuesday, April 7) I want to thank all of you for taking time out of your schedules to meet with me for conferences. It was wonderful to get together to celebrate your children and discuss goals for our second semester. In the coming weeks, I will be sending out information about upcoming field experiences and volunteer opportunities. Thank you for your support! Warmly, Ms. Addy OUR CLASSROOM COMMUNITY NORMS
We updated and finalized our classroom contract for the Spring semester! We are a class who…
VALENTINES DAY Children will be making and decorating vegan cupcakes during the day. Please sign up here if you can donate some candy so kids can make bug toppings. Think Cupcake Wars, Kinder style! YOU'RE INVITED For our Valentine's celebration on Thursday, Feb 13th, please join us from 12:10-12:40 if you would like to sit and have lunch with your child. This is when kids can eat their cupcakes and exchange Valentines. We have a special song to sing to you at the end of the day. Please have each child bring 24 Valentine's for the class. It is easier if the cards are not labelled. This is not mandatory and, if you need assistance in getting small Valentine's cards, please let me know and I can help supply them for your child. CONFERENCES Conferences are quickly approaching and I am so excited to connect with each of you! Click here to sign up for a time slot. Thank you to those who already have signed up. IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES · Conference Week – Half day schedule – February 10, 11, 12, 13 · President’s Day Holiday – NO SCHOOL – Friday, February 14 and Monday, February 17 Thank you for all that you do! Since returning from Winter Break, kindergarteners have been moving and grooving with new academic and social-emotional skills! Below, you will find updates related to our kindergarten learning and upcoming events.
OUR CLASSROOM COMMUNITY NORMS These are the agreements that our class brainstormed and voted on: We are a class who…
SNACKS NEEDED Snack donations would be greatly appreciated for students who forget their snack at home. Our emergency supply is running low. Thank you! IMPORTANT UPCOMING DATES · Martin Luther King Jr. Day - NO SCHOOL - Monday, January 20 · Conference Week – Half day schedule – February 10, 11, 12, 13 · President’s Day Holiday – NO SCHOOL – Friday, February 14 and Monday, February 17 Thank you for all that you do! Hi room 5 families! What a week! What a first semester of kindergarten! Below are some highlights from our week before winter break. We made ginger bread houses with our 5th grade buddies. Thank you for all of the donations. We also made pizza together as a gift from room 5 teachers. We hope you have a restful break filled with family.
We are so proud of our room 5 kindergartners! We hope you are too. Their hard work on sounds, letters, sentences, drafts, and thoughtfulness in creating a calm down space shined during exhibition night. Below are some highlights from their night and touring the school on pajama day. Thank you for coming out to support the students. Families you can still continue the discussion at home by asking, "What was your highlight from exhibition?" "What were you most excited to share?" We are always looking for fun and creative ways to practice our fine motor skills. In kindergarten using scissors is always a constant work in progress. The motion of using scissors helps build fine motor skill muscles and control in the hands. To practice these skills we made snow globes! We had a special story teller come visit us. This type particular type of story telling is called kamishibai, which is a Japanese tradition of using art work and theatre to tell stories. We enjoyed stories from Ms. Betty who brought we here a mini stage, beautiful art work and stories about heroes. Oral stories are also a great way for families to pass down family history and memories. It's also a great way to help students build listening and comprehension skills.
We had our Kinder Feast! Thank you to everyone for making this possible. This week we reflected on things we are thankful for in our lives. We also made thankful placemats for our Kinder Feast. At school we use the phrase, "I appreciate _________ for ______________." We encourage students to think of a friend how has been kind or helpful to them. Families can use the same phrase at home! We also made thankful trees with our buddies! We wrote down things we are thankful for in our lives and decorated the tree by finger painting. In fundations we are working on letter recognition within different types of prints. When students are reading at home, families can ask them to point out letters that they recognize, name the letter and sound to help reinforce what we are practicing in class. Often times in nonschool text, the "fancy" a, g, t, f, and k appear. Below Ms. Addy is helping us practice our letter and sounds by looking at fancy prints.
Hi room 5 families! We can't believe November is almost over. This past month we have been busy learning about drafting and critique. We're also learning about different tools to help us express our emotions and feel calm when we are upset or sad. Read on below to see what we have been up to and for follow up questions for families to ask at home. In math we are exploring written numbers and quantity. Here we are playing a game with a partner called Match It. Each partner takes a turn turning over one purple and one white card to see if the written number matches the quantity that is flipped over. This is a great way for students to practice number recognition and linking a quantity to a written number. Families can create a similar game at home with two different colored index cards or two different colored squares of paper. One square gets a written number (e.g., 10) and the other card gets a matching quantity shown with dots. Kindergarteners work on addition and subtraction with numbers between 1 and 20. We started working on sight words! Sight words are words in English that do not follow phonetic rules but are rather read and pronounced a specific way. In these cases, students are asked to learn how these words are read and written instead of sounding them out (because it won't work). Here are the words we have been working on in November: is, the, you, and. At home students can practice these words by making with with play dog, writing the words in salt trays or shaving cream. Students also enjoy finding them in text that we read as a class and highlighting them. When reading at home with your child you can ask them to find and point to these words in the book you are reading together. You can also start expecting your child to write these words without sounding them out as these words do not work with the phonetic rules. Families can put these words on stickies on the fridge as a way for the child to find the words (like our classroom word wall) when they are writing. Here we are at our school jog-a-thon! We worked really hard to train for it with Coach Cribbs. Here we are making signs to cheer on our fifth grade buddies and some pictures and highlights from our run. Families can cask, "What was your highlight from jog-a-thon?" "What was a low?" "What would you like to do for next year's jog-a-thon?" In writer's workshop we are learning about writing how-to books. As a class we talk about the different things we know a lot about and can teach a reader or a friend through writing. We are learning about putting down our thoughts that follow a sequence (first, second, third, last...) and making sure that our pictures match our directions. We had a guest speaker, Abuela Liz, come in a teach us all about tofu - something she is very passionate about. Our next step is to write a how-to book on how to create the recipe that we made with Abuela. Families can ask, "What is the first step in making tofu stars?" "What is the next step?" "What is the last step?" "Do you have any tips for your readers?"
Hi room 5 families! We can't believe October has come and gone. Read on below to see what we have been exploring in room 5 and for ways families can support their child through discussion at home. In Fundations Ms. Addy is helping us learn about the letters s, d, e and r. We've learned all of the short vowels and are practicing on recognizing them in texts and hearing them in words that we want to write. At home parents can ask, "Readers scan the sentence to see if there are words and letters that they recognize. Do you see the letter ____?" "What sound does that letter make?" "Do you see any other words that begin with _____?" "Writer listen to the sounds the they want to write? Let's say the word you want to write slowly and stretch it out. What sounds do you hear that you know?" In October we celebrated Fall Festival at our school and Dia de Los Muertos. Gary's abuela is a vegan chef and partnered with Ms. Tasi to teach the class about sugar skulls to celebrate Dia de Los Muertos. Here we adding the final touches to our sugar skulls. We also had a special reading done by Ms. Diana (Amelie and Diego's mama) to learn about Dia de Los Muertos and what is done to celebrate the day and why. Parents can ask, "What does Dia de Los Muertos celebrate?" "What type of flower is used to celebrate?""Who does the day celebrate?" As a part of our project, we are learning about our emotions and how they can affect us and others. Ms. Jill, our school occupational therapist, stopped by to teach us about the Zones of Regulation and to help us create one of many clam down tools, a squishy ball. The Zones of Regulation is a way to group emotions and help students become aware of their current feeling and how it affects them and their body. For example, a student might say "I'm in the blue zone." Often times for young students feelings are hard to put an exact label on it so the zones help them identity what they are feeling and from there we talk about what it could be that they are feeling and what they need to move forward. As we all know feelings don't differentiate time and place, and sometimes feelings bubble up and erupt! When these moments happen parents can use the language students often hear at school, "For example, I notice you're upset, what zone is your body in?" From there parent and child can talk about what is making them feel like they are in a particular zone and what solutions they can do to move out of a particular zone and into a different one. In writer's workshop we are writers who can teach others through our words! We are exploring how our writen words can help someone learn to do something or teach them something new. Here we are writing our first shared book together. We are writing a How To Make Lemonade book from a shared experience we had at the beginning of the week. Kindergarteners are experts at many things inside and outside of school. At home students can write how to books on every day things that they are in charge of at home. It can be from a how to on putting away the trash to something like how to make brownies! Parents can help support students with this part of the journey in their writing by asking, "I notice you are writing a story on making _____. What are the steps to doing it?" "What pictures would help a reader know what materials to use and how to use it?"
Hi room 5 families! Thank you for a lovely conference week. It was a pleasure meeting with each of you and celebrating each student. Below are some highlights from room 5. During the last two week, our class launched our project called Shared Spaces, our 5th grade buddies taught a math game called Top It, we've been discussing what makes a shared space feel good to be in and when it doesn't, we even made a scarecrow to raffle off at our school's Fall Festival and sugar candy skulls in honor of Dia De Los Muertos. Read on below to learn more about these activities and for questions to spark on going discussions about each activity at home. Here we are launching our project called Shared Spaces. For our project, we are thinking about what makes a shared space (an area that we use with other people), how people use shared spaces, what makes a shared space feel good to be in and what is happening when a shared space doesn't feel good to be in. We are also learning that many of the things that we are learning about shared spaces in kindergarten adults even practice outside of school in many places! Below we are doing a chalk talk about different shared spaces outside of school such as a public library, restaurant, grocery store, park, and public bathroom. We worked in groups to come up with ways adults and other people stay safe while using these shared spaces. On of our favorite came from the group of students who were in charge of restaurants norms. One student drew that it is not polite to shout "I don't like pickles! Instead you should tell someone politely that you don't want pickles in your sandwich." This activity was a powerful way for kinders to see that the norms and agreements that we practice at school can be found outside of school and that many adults practice similar norms as well. Parents can ask, "What is a shared space?" "What shared spaces do you like at school? Why?" "What shared spaces at school do you have a hard time in?" "Why?" "What could you do make it less challenging?" In math we are strengthening our number sense through counting, number recognition, and comparing quantities. Our 5th grade buddies taught a math game using cards called Top It. To play the game you need two people and a deck of cards. The deck of cards is split in half and each player is given a half. Then each person puts down their top card. The person who has the with the bigger number wins that round and gets to keep both cards. The game continues until there are no cards left that can be played. The "winner" is the person who collected the most amount of cards. Parents can ask, "How many ______(shape/suit)______ is on this card? How do you know?" "How do you know this number is bigger than this number?" "What if the numbers are the same?" Every year Explorer hosts a Fall Festival for the school. It's a great way for the school community to come together and raise money for the school. One of the ways classrooms raise money is to decorate a scarecrow that is raffled off at the festival. Every year the scarecrows turn out amazing and are transformed into the most wild and amazing characters. Room 5 students voted very carefully (and for a long while) for what we wanted to dress our scarecrow up as. And the winner is...a vampire pikachu! Thank you to Ava, Scarlet's mom, who has roots in the clothing industry, helped make our vision come true. Here were are putting the final touches on our pikachu and stuffing pikachu until it is just the right amount of fluffy for the Fall Festival. Vampire pikachu will be ready for families to win at our school's Fall Festival on Saturday, October 19. Here we are with Ms. Addy learning about the letters a and g. During conferences we talked about the importance of students learning the picture keys that go with each sound as each picture was chosen because it highlights the key sound that each letter makes. The pictures become another way for students to access letter sounds and create letter-sound recognition. Below Ms. Addy is highlighting the fancy a and the fancy g that most likely show up texts. Parents can ask, "what line does the letter a start on?" "what line does the letter g start on?" "What sound does the letter ___ make?" "What are some words that start with ____?" Parents can even add an extra challenge by having students find things around the home that start with certain letters.
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Room 5Our class blog will be place for families to see what we have been exploring in the classroom. It will also contain helpful ways for families to support their child at home through discussion. The teachers will email you to let you know when the blog has been updated. Archives
March 2020
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