We are continuing to work on our ABC books.  We are having lots of fun thinking about all the things we have done in kindergarten this year!  We can’t wait to share them with you!  Today we completed the K and L pages.

We did our Jack and Jill writing assessment.  What a change since the beginning of the year!

We have been watching our seeds in the window and recording our observations each day.  What is happening to the seeds in your child’s glove?

We watched a National Geographic Kids Video, Geo Kids Tadpoles, Dragonflies, and Caterpillars.  The movie was about metamorphosis.  Ask your child what that means?

We listened to more of our wonderful “animal teachers”.  Below are today’s wonderful teachers and the animals they helped us learn more about.

Jasmine – sea turtle

David – leopards

Keira – bass fish

Rylee – butterfly

Isabel – deer

Rachelle – coyote

We had some more delightful animal experts today.  We learned about the following animals –

Katelyn – corn snake

Simon – turtle

Bailee – jellyfish

We finished our science unit about habitats.  We played a Habitat for Sale!  After hearing a description of an animal habitat we had to correctly identify the animal that would want to “buy” that home.  We also played kindergarten habitat Scattergories.  We have really learned a lot about animals and their habitats.

We visited Mrs. O’Toole’s fourth grade classroom for their musical about the regions of the United States.  They were wonderful!

Our letter in our Kindergarten ABC memory book was J.  What did your child choose to write about?

We are beginning to do some end of the year assessments.  We wrote the alphabet and wrote our numbers.  Many of us wrote the alphabet with both upper and lower case letters and we tried to write our numbers all the way to 100.  We also did a story writing assessment for our portfolios.  We have really worked hard this year and made lots of progress!  We also did a name writing assessment.

Our animal projects are fabulous!  The creativity was wonderful and everyone worked so hard!  Today we began sharing our projects.  We will share a few each day.  Here are the “teachers” we had today and the animals they helped us to learn more about.

Hailee – dolphin

Sophia – zebra

Owen – kangaroo

Dillon – tiger

Jaden – giraffe

George – lion

Tommy – water buffalo

We talked about our last habitat today – the Arctic and Antarctic.  What can your child tell you about the north and south poles?  What are some of the animals that live in these cold environments?   Do polar bears and penguins live in the same place?  Which one is the driest, windiest, coldest place on Earth?

Sophia is our super kid this week!  Here is her story – Sophia has an older sister named Karena.  She brought her favorite stuffed animal, a koala bear.  When she grows up, Sophia wants to be an ice skater.  She went to Mexico and Hawaii.  Her favorite colors are light pink and light green.  We think Sophia is an awesome friend!

We worked with the letter Z and the star words “here”, “is”, “a”, “at”, “to”, “go”, and “the”.  Our star word wall is very full!

We also practiced writing the letter Z during handwriting.

We have begun talking about plants and did some planting today.  We planted popcorn, sunflowers, pumpkins, zinnia, and zucchini.  Where did we “plant” the seeds?  What is different about the seeds hanging in the window?  We will be keeping a seed journal, and recording what happens to the seeds hanging in the window.

Officer Jim came to talk with us about bike safety.  What should we always do?  Wear a helmet!!  Ask your child about Officer’s Jim’s chicken helmet.  What happened when he dropped the egg in the helmet?  Without the helmet?

Our Quiz Me Animals were the giraffe and the owl.  What can your child tell you about these two animals?

Dads tonight is your night to check the backpack.  We are bringing home our Mother’s Day surprises.  SHHH – don’t tell mom!

Don’t forget that our animal projects are due on Monday.    All classroom Razzle Dazzle reading books are due on Monday too.

Have a very special and wonderful Mother’s Day!

We read Oliver Button Is a Sissy by Tomie dePaola.  Ask your child to tell you about the main character, Oliver.  We made text to text connections between this story and Amazing Grace.  What connections did your child make?

I was the letter in our kindergarten memory book today.  We thought of ideas, insects, illustrators, and indoor recess.  What did your child write about?

We talked about the ocean habitat.  What can your child tell you about the ocean?  (it covers 70% of earth, made of saltwater, the ocean gets darker as it gets deeper, and there are warm and cold oceans)  What animals live in the ocean habitat?  (harp seal, dolphin, sea otter, sea turtle, hermit crab, clown fish, seahorse, blue whale)

We read The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle and talked about things that might help and seed to survive and things that would be harmful.  Would the following be helpful or harmful?  Why?  Bird, mouse, rain, sun, weed, foot, wind, and soil.

We read Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman.  What are some things your child can tell you about Grace?  Did your child like Grace?  Why or why not?

What Daily 5 stations did your child do today?

What amazing animal experts we are becoming!  Today we guessed both Quiz Me Animals on the very first clue!  Ask your child what the two animals were today?  (tiger, panda)  What did your child learn about each of those animals?

We learned about the Grasslands habitat.  The grasslands are covered with grasses and there are not many trees or bushes.  Animals have few places to hide so animals that live in there can run fast.  Who lives in this habitat?  (African elephant, ostrich, lion, cheetah, kangaroo, giraffe, baboon, prairie dogs, and bison)

All classroom Razzle Dazzle reading books will be due Monday, May 14^th.  Friday, May 12^th will be the last day we will bring any books home.

Don’t forget that the animal projects are due Monday, May 14^th.  We can’t wait to learn more about animals from our classroom experts!

This week our Daily 5 stations include practicing ABC order with animals; listening to Walking Through The Jungle by Debbie Harter and then choosing a habitat to draw with some of the animals who live there; word work; working on writing; using the I pods and I pads; working with the “ump” word family; and practicing our comprehension skills with the story In The Rain with Baby Duck by Amy Hest.  What did your child work on today?

We practiced making text to text connections.  We read Move Over, Rover! by Karen Beaumont.   We talked about connections to three other stories we have read – The Mitten, The Umbrella, and One Dog Canoe.  Ask your child to tell you about the connections he/she made.

The desert was our habitat today.  Ask your child to tell you some of the characteristics of a desert.  (A desert gets very little water.  Few plants live in the desert because of the lack of water.  It can get very hot in the desert.)  What animals live in the desert?  (kit fox, camel, roadrunner, meerkat, burrowing owl, geckos, rattlesnakes, and sidewinders)  We also had chance to watch a short Reading Rainbow video.  The story was called Desert Giant: The World of the Saguaro Cactus.

Tommy is our super kid this week!  Here is his story – Tommy has a trophy from basketball.  He has a stuffed dog that he likes to play with.  Tommy’s favorite colors are blue and green.  He has a baseball book.  Tommy has a special blanket.  Our class thinks Tommy is an awesome basketball player!

Simon celebrated his birthday today by giving a book to our class.  It was very appropriately called Simon Finds a Feather by Gilles Tibo.  Ask your child to tell you about this great story.

We learned a new strategy today called a metacognition frame.  It is a great way to organize your thoughts and learning.  We pretended that we wanted to tell some preschoolers about kindergarten.  Each child wrote 3 things that he/she wanted to share about kindergarten.  We will also be using these metacognition frames for our animal family projects.  (see the note in the this week’s Friday folder)

We talked about another type of reading connection – “text to text”.  When you make a connection from a book you are reading to one you have read before that’s called a “text to text connection”.  Making connections from one book to another can help you understand the new story and make predictions about what may happen based on what you know from the other story.  We read The Umbrella by Jan Brett.  We decided that this story reminded us of The Mitten and One Dog Canoe.  Ask your child what connections he/she made to either one of these books.

We finished the reading portion of the NWEA tests.  We will take the math on May 18^th and May 23^rd.

During math we did some Brain Boosters.  We are thinking more and more about how we know an answer!

Spring school pictures are in this week’s Friday folders.  These pictures need to be purchased or returned to school by Wednesday, May 9^th.

In the Friday folder there is a note about a fun family animal project we are doing as part of our living things science unit.  As a class we made a list of animals we would like to learn more about.  Then each child chose an animal that he/she would like to do their project on.  We will have a chance to share our projects with our classmates and the other kindergarten classes. 

Wow, what a talented group of kindergartners we have!  We would like to celebrate the many talents among our kindergarten students.  Our class and Mrs. Fogarty’s class will be having a “Talent Show” from May 21^st – May 30^th.  During this time your child will have an opportunity to share his/her “special talent” with his/her kindergarten friends.  We are aware of the nerves that can come from this experience, so this will be a performance for kindergartners only.  Thank you for understanding.  For more information about the talent show and your child’s day to perform, please see the note in today’s Friday folder.

Mark your calendars!  On Monday, June 4th at 12:20 the full day kindergarten classes will be celebrating the end of the year with a picnic.  We will share our ABC books and portfolio work with you.  Afterwards we will go outside and enjoy our picnic.  Bring a blanket and picnic lunch for your family.  We hope to see everyone!

We are so excited about our Quiz Me Animals contest!  Our animals today were the zebra and penguin.  Ask your child to tell you some things he/she learned about these two animals. 

Our letter for our memory book was E.  We thought of Eagle Eye, eggs, EEKK, and elbow partners.  What did your child choose to write about?

What did your child do during Daily 5 today?

We learned about another habitat, the rainforest.  How is the rainforest like a cake?  (layers of the forest)  What are some things your child learned about the rainforest?  (lots of tall trees so a lot of the sunlight is blocked, rains a lot, it is warm and humid, they lie on the equator, home to lots of animals and plants)  What are some of the animals that live in the rainforest?  (chimpanzee, lots of frogs like the poison dart frog, lots of insects, sloth, and the jaguar)  Does your child remember what endangered rainforest animal we talked about? (orangutan)  Why is the orangutan endangered?  (forests where they live have been cut down, and people are taking them for pets)

Tomorrow we will take the second half of our NWEA reading assessments. 

Tomorrow is also library day so don’t forget your books.

Mark your calendars!  On Monday, June 4th at 12:20 the full day kindergarten classes will be celebrating the end of the year with a picnic.  We will share our ABC books and portfolio work with you.  Afterwards we will go outside and enjoy our picnic.

We did another rotation of Daily 5.  What did your child work on today?

We went to the computer lab for NWEA testing.  We took the first part of the reading test and Friday we will take the second part.

We continue to talk about all the things we have done this year in kindergarten.  We wrote on the D page of our memory books.  What did your child write about?

We celebrated the beginning of May by making some beautiful spring flowers to hang in our room.

We watched two short movies about staying safe.  The first one was about bike safety with Bill Nye the Science Guy.  Ask your child what some of the important safety rules are to remember when riding a bike.  In the second movie Pinocchio talked about keeping safe when roller skating, skate boarding, and riding a bike.  Ask your child what he/she learned while watching that movie.  The most important thing to remember is to always wear a helmet!

Our Quiz Me Animals of the day were the alligator and the lion.  What can your child tell you about those two animals?

Mark your calendars!  On Monday, June 4th at 12:20 the full day kindergarten classes will be celebrating the end of the year with a picnic.  We will share our ABC books and portfolio work with you.  Afterwards we will go outside and enjoy our picnic.