MERRY CHRISTMAS

Dear Parents,

I just wanted to share the kiddo's fabulous STEM graham cracker houses with you!  They really put a lot of effort into constructing them and then thoughtfully planning their decorative patterns!  I love them!

Thank you a million times over to all of the parents that came and helped with our houses!

On Tuesday we were also visited by Kris Kringle!  The children left one shoe outside of our classroom and he filled it with a book, bookmark, and candy cane!  It was so fun to see the looks on their faces when they saw what he had given them!

I hope you and your families have a joyful Christmas and very relaxing Winter Break.  Don't forget about the "Hot Chocolate Challenge" (see my last blog post for information).  

I'll see you all on Wednesday, January 4, 2017!

Mrs. Scalise

Week 18

Apparently we are really good at sharing germs in our class.  I was ill today so Mrs. Karren filled in for me.  She said that 9 of our kiddos were also absent.  EEK!  If your child is not able to come tomorrow for our graham cracker STEM project, please stop by our class.  I will give you everything they need to do it at home.  I also have a present for them. They have worked so hard to earn their pennies that I hate to see them miss out!  

We counted our pennies in groups of 10 to see how much candy we get to buy.  I can’t wait to see what great ideas they come up with!

If your child was at school today, Monday, they came home with a baggie containing the following:

1.    LA Unit 3 Assessment – Celebrate what they got right and then review any missed questions. 

2.    Math Unit 7 Assessment – Everyone did fabulous of this assessment!

3.    Pizza Hut Coupon – This is for reading minutes turned in the month of December.

4.    Hot Chocolate Challenge – This is to be worked on over the Winter Break.  When your child has completed one of the challenges on a mug then color it in.  Any kiddo that returns their paper, 100% completed will get to eat their lunch in our room, with me on Friday, January 6^th.  I will give them hot chocolate with marshmallows!  They will also get another surprise if I see that they have logged onto RAZ KIDS over the break.

3 Billy Goats Gruff

We read the story The 3 Billy Goats Gruff.  We tied the story into prepositions, the 7 Habits, math and measuring, and story elements.  We recreated bridges and then retold the story to our study buddy.  It was a lot of fun!

Have a fabulous, healthy week!

Mrs. Scalise

Week 17

We had such a great time at the Nature Center last week!  It was cold, but we bundled up and hardly noticed it.  Take a look at what we saw and did.

We learned how to be proactive when riding a bus.

Thank you to Dilan's mom for coming with us!

We saw eagles and snakes.

We learned about how animals congregate to keep warm in the winter and how their body coverings help protect and keep them warm and safe.

We fit our whole class in an eagle's nest!

We made pine cone feeders.

We pretented to be bears and climbed through a bear den.

Then we came back to school and wrote about what we saw.

MATH

On Tuesday we will finish up our math unit on measurement.  We will be taking the assessment on Wednesday.  We have learned how to measure using many different methods and objects.  We have learned the vocabulary; long, longer, short, shorter, tall, and taller.  

We have also been busy practicing patterning using many different kinds of objects.  We can make AB, ABC, AAB, and many other types of patterns.  I can’t wait to see how the children use this knowledge to decorate their graham cracker houses, next week.

SIGHT WORDS

A new set of sight words/high frequency words(yellow), came home in your child's homework folder today.  Please cut them apart and start practicing them, daily. Keep them in your snap word baggie with your other words.

STEM Graham Cracker Houses

We now have enough supplies for our project, next week.  THANK YOU for all of your donations!!!

The children are still busy earning pennies to buy their supplies.  Ask your child how many pennies they earned each day and what they did to earn them.

Have a fabulous week!

Mrs. Scalise

Week 16

STUFFED ANIMAL DAY!
 

 

We earned our goal of earning 100 tally marks and our reward was bringing our stuffed animals to school one day.  It was so much fun!  All the students were teachers and taught their animal what Kindergarten Leaders are all about!  Take a look at some of the things we did...

 We taught them how to sit with power.

 How to be a Kindergarten Leader and clean the room.

 We taught them how to follow directions in Spanish Class with Mrs. Sorensen

 We taught them how to sit in a chair and listen.

We taught them how to read a book

 

 and say the pledge.

 We taught them the snap words: you, me

and all about solid 3D shapes.

MATH ~ Patterns

We worked on PATTERNING a lot last week.  Please take time to look for patterns at home and point them out to your child.  They could be patterns with objects, colors, numbers and letters of the alphabet. 
So far we have learned how to make an AB, ABC and AAB patterns.  They will be using this knowledge when they create their graham cracker house.

Monday we will be making a Christmas Countdown Chain with an AB pattern using the colors RED and GREEN.  I hope you will hang this up somewhere special.  Each day help your child to remember to tear one chain off and practice their counting skills.

Ex. “My chain had 19 links.  I took 1 away.  Now I have 18 links left.”

“I have 8 red links and 9 green links.  9 is more than 8.  8 is less than 9.”

Show your child these patterns and have them tell you what comes next.  

 Is each row an AB, ABC, or AAB pattern?

 

Home Learn Folder

This week in your child’s Home Learn Folder you will see:

     A Pizza Hut Coupon 

If your child turned in their reading minutes for November they have earned a FREE personal pan pizza (compliments of Pizza Hut).  Thank you for supporting you child’s learning by having them read or by reading to them every week.  Especially on RAZ KIDS! Don’t forget to write down all of their minutes on the homework bookmark each week.

       Math Unit 5 Assessment ~ Shapes

Please celebrate your child’s successes on this test!  Everyone did so well! It has been so fun to hear the children talk about and describe the attributes of a shape. I also LOVED seeing what they brought from home for their Shapes Show and Tell!  Some kids earned 14 and 15 pennies for all of the shapes they brought!

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TUESDAY ~ We will be going on our field trip to the Ogden Nature Center to learn about animals in the winter!  We will learn that they hibernate, generate, propagate, insulate, and migrate.  We will also be making bird feeders and crawl through a bear den and mice holes.

Please make sure you send your child in full winter gear: coat, hat, mittens or gloves, and boots or sturdy shoes.  Part of the time we will be outside – regardless of the weather.  We will also be wearing our school uniform that day.

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 Graham Cracker STEM Project ~ December 20th

Thank you to the parents that have already donated to our upcoming project!!!

We now have enough of these things:

·         Plastic knives

·         Royal icing from Toppers

·         Cups for the frosting

·         Pretzels

We still need these things:

·         Lots more candy and cereal that would be good for making patterns

·         26 dinner size sturdy paper plates