Getting ready for pet week

As an introduction to pet week, I thought I'd share a picture of my dog, Maya.  Remember to send in a picture of your pet next week.  If you don't own a pet, have your child choose a pet that s/he would like and find a picture online or in a magazine.

Links to songs we sing in class

I Can Count to 100:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9-pEVaO4pM

2's, 5's and 10's song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTYxfltyPgg&feature=related

If You're a Kid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw6z94wJsWI

Letter Sounds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qy1Kmt9sMOA

Vowel Bat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g43EfOXvpG8

100's Day and Valentine's Day fun!

theme

Since our holiday break, our themes have included winter, diversity and coming next week, is a penguin theme.  We have been working on personal narrative writing and writing to inform.  Ask your child to tell you what a personal narrative is.  S/he should tell you that it is writing about herself/himself.

Coming soon will be our 100th day of school.  Begin thinking of a 100's collection that your child can bring to school.  More information to follow!

We will also start sending home an estimation bag.  Each child will have a turn to bring in a bag of items to put in the estimation jar.  The jar will be passed around during class, and each child guesses how many items are in the jar.  The students love doing this, especially when they get picked to bring the estimation bag home.

Welcome back!

Welcome back!  I hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday break.  It was nice having the time off, but it is good to get back into the swing of things.

This week, our theme is winter.  Now, where is the winter weather?  I am okay without it, but it would make the winter theme a little more authentic with a little white stuff from the sky.

Today in class, we played a math game called Train Game.  The students worked in pairs with 15 cubes and a die with the numbers 1, 2, and 3.   The goal was to build a "train" out of the cubes by putting them together as they rolled the die.  The students took turns rolling the die and putting that number of cubes on the "train."  The winner was the student who had his/her "train" together first.  It seemed like the students did well and enjoyed the game.

Last week

We had a very fun time reading different versions of The Gingerbread Man.  On Friday, we made a gingerbread cookie to share (picture below).  We still have a few more gingerbread stories to carry over into this coming week. 

Other pictures are from a math game and teddy bear day.

This week

This week we will be doing a thematic unit on Gingerbread stories.  I have many different versions of the Gingerbread Man.  As I read the books this coming week, we will compare and contrast the different version of the story.  I love this unit! 

Corduroy

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

This week, we are focusing on the story Corduroy.  Please remember to send a bear with your child on Thursday.  We will be doing various activities using our stuffed bears.

I have noticed great improvement in some of the students' writing this week.  It looks like a lot of you are really helping your child at home.  That is wonderful!!  Thanks for your help and support.

Library is cancelled this week. 

This week

I would like to thank all of you for coming to conferences!  I was nice talking with each of you about your child and his/her progress.  

The book fair was a great success!  Thanks to all who donated money for our classroom library.  I bought 3 great books, one even came with a CD for listening.  I also had a book donated from Sam.  Thanks to all!

The family homework turned out great!  If you haven't turned it in yet, please feel free to bring it in Monday or even Tuesday.  We really would like to hear about all of the families.

With the weather changing, please make sure your child has the proper gear for outdoor recess.  I also wear a hat and gloves outside.  When there is snow on the ground, the children must have boots to play on the playground.

The week at a glance

This week we finished up colors and also learned about shapes.  One hands-on activity we did was make shapes with Pixie Sticks.  It seemed more challenging for some than I was expecting, so it was a good chance for me to observe the students in action.  The kindergarten benchmark includes circle. oval, square, rectangle, trapezoid, rhombus (diamond), and hexagon.

The students really enjoyed the color songs these past two weeks.  You can locate the color songs on You Tube if you want to review them at home.  We mainly did the songs to learn how to spell the color words. 

I sent home the October homework with the Book-It certificates today.  Congratulations to those students who turned them in!

Please remember to send in the family circle map homework by Thursday next week.  The due date that came home stated Friday, but the students do not have school.  I will gladly accept the homework on Friday though.

Halloween pics!

Color Week

Today was red day.  Wednesday is orange day.  Try to dress your child in orange.  Thursday is yellow and Friday is green day.

Most of the students know their colors, so we are focusing on how to spell them this week.

Our words this week are like and you.

October Pictures

Monday

This week our theme is Halloween.  We will do some activities and read books related to our theme.  We will also work on our sight words my and no.

Last week we made a couple of class books.  I will place them in the hallway during parent/teacher conference time for you to see our work.

Wednesday

Remember to send back library books tomorrow! 

I emailed the Halloween sign up sheet to all that I have email addresses for.  If you didn't get it, let me know.  It is possible I don't have your email address.

Thursday

Our last sharing is tomorrow.  It is for the letter Z.  Please keep all toys at home after Friday.  Thanks for all the great sharing!

Popcorn will be for sale again tomorrow.  Limit of 2 bags.

Tuesday

We are almost done with our alphabet sharing!  Tomorrow is letter W.  We made a change to the sharing calendar, Thursday will be both X and Y.  We will end Friday with Z.

The Westland Fire Department will be coming tomorrow afternoon to talk about fire safety with the students.

More stuff

Thank you to the popcorn helpers on Friday!  I appreciate your help!

Tomorrow's sharing is for the letter U.  This week's theme is fire safety.  We will have a presentation on Wednesday from the Westland Fire Dept.  Extra credit homework this week is to devise a fire escape plan and meeting place with your family.  If your child tells me that you did this, or you send a note stating that you did this, I will give your child a special prize as the reward!

stuff

If anyone else can help pop popcorn tomorrow morning, please come at 9:00!  The more people helping will make it go much faster.  The proceeds go to help purchase things for our classroom.

More pictures sent in by Mr. Iannotti:

Thanks for sharing your pictures!