Week 27

March in like a lion and out like a lamb.  This saying may be true when it comes to the weather but not when it comes to what we are doing in our class.  We are roaring ahead with some great science, math, and language arts concepts all the way to the end of the month!

Our class “Rocked it!”  We raised $120.15!  That means we won the Bronze Award and Kaylee Ramirez won the Olive Garden wrist band for donating the most pennies in our class.  She gets to have a FREE kid’s meal at Olive Garden, once a week for a whole year!  Congratulations, Kaylee!

LAST WEEK IN CLASS…

Language Arts Unit 5 Assessment

It will be coming home on Monday in your child’s homework folder.  Make sure you celebrate your child’s successes!  Then continue to review, review, and review the ones they missed. 

By this time in the school year your child should be able to write 6 cvc (consonant/vowel/consonant) words and write a complete sentence to include: a capital letter at the beginning, all sight words spelled correctly, put space between every word, and end with punctuation.  Look on the last page of the test to see how your child did.

President’s Day

We learned all about 2 of our most famous presidents: Abraham Lincoln & George Washington. 

Among other things we learned that President Washington wore a 3 corner hat and dressed very differently from us. 

 The children then wrote about both men and did a fabulous job!  Stop by our class to see what your child wrote about these wise and brave men!

Important Dates for this week...

• Tuesday - Library day
• Thursday - Homework folder Due with reading minutes
• Friday - $1.00 Free Dress
• Friday - Spelling Test
• Friday - Minimum Day, school dismissed at 12:45 pm                   

          
                               

Week 26

We reached our goal of 120 tally marks by synergizing together as a class!  The reward that we were working towards was a game day.  We played Lucky Ducks, Fishing, ZINGO, Barrel of Monkeys, Ring Toss, and Frogs.  Each team had to work together to follow the rules and take turns.  I was so excited to see them communicating and working together as they rotated from game to game!

Now we are working on getting a total of 150 tally marks to have a... 

LEGO building activity!

Last week’s VALENTINE’S ACTIVITY was a blast!  Thank you to our fabulous parents for a great activity.  We played Number BINGO with numbers to 30.  We made a valentine to give to someone special.  We worked on our counting and fine motor skills with hearts and chopsticks.  We also used our math skills of estimating, counting, and graphing.  Then, we ate yummy fruit pizzas while listening to stories.  Finally, we opened our valentines and practiced reading our newest high-frequency word, from.

Thank you for all of the wonderful valentines you gave me!  I truly do feel loved!

SCIENCE

We are continuing to explore living things and their characteristics.  Next week we will be growing grass and observing and dissecting seeds.  To do this we are in need of the following donations:

• 1 bag of large lima beans
• 25 – 8 ounce clear Solo cups
• 1 small bag of grass seed
• 1 small bag of Miracle Grow potting soil

Please contact me if you would like to donate any of the above items.

Something to think about...

Just a reminder about tardies and absences as we continue through our adventure of kindergarten.  As of last Thursday, our class has 170 tardies and 217 absences.  That is a lot of lost learning time that is difficult to make up!  When a child is absent, Mrs. Karren works with them to teach them what they have missed.  We are happy to do it but that means that child will need to miss out on Specials: PE, Music, Art, and Spanish to catch up, and it diverts Mrs. Karren from her other responsibilities of working with children with special needs.  Each child also has a 20 minute, daily Waterford session that they need to complete on the IPad that is only accessible from school.  Children that are absent are doing 2 - 20 minute sessions to catch up for each day missed.  We have to do this in order to keep our usage up that qualifies us for the grant that pays for the program. Once again, that also takes away from other learning opportunities in the class or their specials. 

I understand that it is unavoidable when a child is sick.  Then, I want them to stay 

home.  I also understand that sometimes doctor’s appointments require that they leave early or come late.  But, please make every effort to help your child be to school every day, on time.  Thank you for all of your efforts!  

We had a fabulous turn out at Parent Teacher Conferences!  Thank you for taking the time to come!  I hope you enjoyed the Leadership Notebook your child shared with you!  As a teacher it was so rewarding to see them take charge of their conference!  Make sure you keep the pink paper that I gave you and refer to it often.  It shows you what your child needs to work on to be prepared for the end of the year DIBELS assessment and for first grade.  

Week 25

I want to give one last reminder to come sign up for a Parent Teacher Conference time if you haven't already done so.   

If meeting on Thursday is not convenient for you please contact me and we can schedule another time. 

I need to meet with EVERY parent.  

The Eagle has landed in Kindergarten!

Last week we had a special treat in the kindergarten!  Bryce from The Ogden Nature Center came to our class with his eagle, Des Ta Te.  What a great way to end our eagle unit!  We learned that 17 year old Des Ta Te’s name is Apache and translates as: May the sun shine in your heart and on your face in a good way.

We also submitted our Eagle Books that we authored and illustrated to the 

Love Your Library Contest.

SCIENCE

We are continuing to learn about living and nonliving things.  This last week each of the children chose one living or nonliving thing and wrote about it.  Make sure you look for these displayed next to our class door when you come for your child’s Parent Teacher Conference on Thursday. 

MATH

We are learning how to compose (put together) and decompose (take apart) numbers less than 10.  The children are really starting to catch on to these concepts. 

      We are learning what a number bond is and how it contains 2 parts and 1 whole. 

  When we compose a number we start with 2 parts and put them together to make  a whole.  We say: “Part/Part/Whole”

 When we decompose a number we start with the whole and break it into 2  parts.  We say: “Whole/Part/Part”
          

      We can change the position of the number bond but it will still give us the same  information.  Just like in the pictures below.  Have your child explain the number  bond and tell you a story about 2 pigs and 3 frogs.

      

120 TALLY MARKS!

We earned 120 tally marks for synergizing together!  Our reward is a Board Game Activity.  This week we will get to play board games that center around math, colors, Spanish, and fine motor skills.

Have a fabulous week and remember:

• Thursday is a minimum day.  School will be dismissed at 12:45 pm  
• NO School ~ Friday the 17th & Monday the 20th

Week 24

HIP HIP HORRAY, WE HAD A BLAST ON 100 DAY!

We had a lot fun celebrating!  Here are some of the activities that we did to celebrate the number 100!

We did 100 exercises

We read a funny poem with 100 words

We made 100 Days Smarter crowns 

& 

shared our 100 Day Collections with our 3 clues

We took pictures of ourselves to see what we will look like when we are 100 years old

We counted to 100 by 1’s & 10’s

We counted by 1’s & 10’s while stringing cereal to make a necklace

We synergized in groups to create a 100 day snack.  

Ask your child what they did in their group.

RAZ KID READERS!

Boy do we have some fabulous Raz Kid Readers!  These kids all passed of a level of Raz Kids last week!  They earned a yummy, free

Frosty from Wendy's!  Yummy! 

Jacob Sibbett

 Avery Cottle

Caleb Ceja

Eloise Phipps

Jude Colwell

 Payton Norman

Zairah Jolly

PIZZA HUT COUPONS

I sent Pizza Hut certificates home in the blue folder this week again for January Reading minutes.  Be sure to use them in 30 days or less.  There is no money needed to redeem the coupon.  The kids are very excited about going to Pizza Hut.  Thanks for reading with your child!  Remember, reading in Kindergarten is: doing my homework, someone reading to me, the student reading and finding “snap words”, practicing letters and snap words, name writing, reading the pictures in books and retelling story to someone or reading on RAZ Kids.

VALENTINE CARD EXCHANGE

We will be passing out Valentine cards 
Tuesday, February 14th

• Students may bring in their Valentine cards any day this week.  Please do not send candy in the cards.  The cards may have stickers, pencils, etc. if you desire.  

• We do not address the cards to a specific person.  It takes too long to pass them out, but we are working on the snap word “from”.  I ask that they write from _______ (their name) on each card so they can just drop one of their cards into everyone’s bag.  

• We have 22 students & 2 teachers in our Kindergarten class.  

• We will be making this Heart Buddy sacks in class so they do not need to bring in a box for their Valentines. This activity will be centered on reviewing and reinforcing the Spanish concepts of body parts vocabulary.  

Our fabulous room moms are planning activities for the children that day that center on math and friendship.  Thank you to these wonderful moms in advance!

             
   

LOVE YOUR LIBRARY CONTEST

Our Eagle Books & I Like Books are finished and ready to submit to the Love Your Library Contest this week!!!  I am so proud of the hard work the students have put into their books and can’t wait for you to see them! 

The sign up for conferences is up in the lobby.  I noticed that 9 of you have already signed up for a time ~ thank you.  If you have not signed up just remember that I can also conference with you before or after school any day next week except Wednesday.  But, if you would like to come on the 16th please call the office or stop by to pick a time. Your child should attend the conference, too.  He/she will be sharing their Leadership Notebook with you.  We will also review the DIBELS data.