End of September

We are having so much fun in kindergarten and learning so much – I can’t believe that the first quarter is almost over! These next two weeks we will be doing a lot of assessments to get ready for report cards and conferences! Please remember to return your conference notes this week, if you have any conflicts please just let me know – I am looking forward to talking with you and your kindergartener about all the things we are working so hard on.

In Literacy we finished up Unit 1 and are ready to start Unit 2 – Let’s Explore! Our new essential question is “How do tools help us to explore?” I can’t wait to hear the conversations we will have about tools that we use! The vocabulary words we will discuss are tools, discover, defeated, fetch, and rumble. We will be learning the word “a” which hopefully we will all already know! We will also be focusing on the letter “p” and the sound it makes. We will be reading “The Handiest Things in the World” and “Discover with Tools”. In guided reading we will either be reading “We Need Tools” or “A Trip”.

In writing we will be talking a lot about sentences and what makes a good sentence! We will learn about spaghetti and meatball spaces and move into using finger spaces. We will also talk about punctuation marks and how at the end of every sentence we have to use either a exclamation mark, question mark, or a period. My friends have been doing a great job labeling their pictures and using turtle talk to sound out words.

We took our Unit 1 math test and it went great! We will be starting Unit 2- Explore 5-groups! We will be talking about groups of 5 and finding groups of numbers – we will look at a park scene and discuss what we see and we will be learning about problem-solving strategies to solve math story problems. We will even get to act our story problems together. This week we will also be using nickel strips when we do our counting mats. I think on Monday we will also meet the “Five Finder” – a special math superhero who loves the number 5! Make sure to ask your kindergartener about the “five finder”!

We started talking about our five senses this past week in Unit Studies. We have read some wonderful stories about our senses and have talked a lot about our sense of hearing! This week we will explore our other senses and work on our Five Senses book. We even learned a few fun songs about our senses, and know that our senses are pathways to our brain!

Don't forget we have library on Fridays and this Tuesday is a PLC day so we will be getting out of school at 2:18.

I am looking forward to another fun week in kindergarten! :) Mrs. Woita

Also a lot of you know that I work very closely with Mrs. Schroeder and some of your kids might have told you that we made her a special video and had her class over on Friday afternoon. We will be doing a lot of fun things with Mrs. Schroeder’s class throughout the school year. But tomorrow – Monday, Sept. 29^th she will be having her baby girl and we are all so very excited for her. Although I am sure gonna miss her a lot when she is gone but not to worry because she will be back right before Thanksgiving. Please check out the cute video we made with her students  - although I will warn you it is a rather long video because we all give her advice on what she should name her baby! It was so cute a lot of my little friends chose their mommy’s name or siblings name – of course I think Mrs. Schroeder should name her baby after me!

                     

Happy Birthday Zach!

We had another birthday boy in our room today! Zach turned 6 years old today! Snowflake came and made a mess again and was hiding up on the shelf by the coathall. We also all thought about words that describe Zach and made him a special gift! Zach brought yummy cupcakes today and we thought they were delicious! Here are a few pictures from his special day!

                                                 Runza for his birthday lunch!

                                                          Zach with his friends!

                                             singing Happy Birthday to the birthday boy...

                                                     eating yummy cupcakes...

                                                      Birthday Boy, Zach, and Snowflake

King Arthur

Arthur was the King of the Jungle this week and he loved every minute of it! We enjoyed reading Arthur's book and checking out his super cool toy! His favorite color is blue and he loves his Dinosaur book, he even showed us the skeleton page that he liked. His mom and dad both got to come and eat lunch with him too! He loves the Lego movie and swimming. He likes to eat pizza and his favorite animal is a rhino. His favorite song is the Star Spangled Banner which we all love as well. He enjoys playing legos at home and when he grows he wants to be an astronaut. Arthur enjoyed being the King of the Jungle this week - please check out his video of his time as King!

                        

Finishing up some units!

This week we will be finishing up Unit One in Math and will be taking our first math assessment, although I know all of my friends will do great so please don’t worry because we have been working very hard during math. We have been practicing writing our numbers, drawing objects to show different numbers, counting objects, connecting dots in counting order, and finding objects that are the same and different!

We will also be finishing up one of my favorite units – American Symbols! We loved learning about the symbols and especially the constitution – we have been referring  back to our kindergarten constitution and know that we always need to do our best to make our classroom the best that it can be! I am looking forward to seeing your family constitutions as well! A video from our symbols unit will hopefully be coming this week sometime! Also if you are in the school building towards the end of this week please check out our hallway display featuring some of our projects, don’t worry it will be up for awhile!  We will also be starting to talk about our Five Senses – a super fun science unit that we will also love! The plan is to focus in on one of our senses everyday!

In Literacy we will also be talking about our senses! We will read “Senses at the SeaShore” and “A Feast of the Senses” and in our crabby book we will read “Sam Can See” and “I Can See”. And if you haven’t guessed it yet – our new word will be “see” and we will be focusing on the letter S! Our vocabulary words that we will discuss are explore, senses, feast, finished, and kneads. We will continue to work on blending sounds together to make words and finding sounds in the beginning, middle, and at the end of words.

In writing we will continue to work on adding details and words to our stories. We will also be working on drawing people so they look real and also drawing them in action  - this is tricky but hopefully we will be saying goodbye to stick people! We are becoming great writers!

What another fun week we have ahead of us! :) Mrs. Woita

King Aiden

Our first Jungle Royalty was Aiden! This was super exciting and all the kids were a little jealous and kept asking when it was there turn to be the King or Queen - I reassured them all that they would get a turn but that it may be a little while!
Aiden was a great King this week and shared with us his toy snake and his book about alligators - boy did I learn a lot about alligators - did you know that an adult male alligator can grow to be 14ft long (that is as long as a station wagon) - I am super excited to live in Nebraska and I told my friends that those alligators can stay down south! Aiden also shared his pictures with us up on the big screen because his mom had emailed them to me - this was super fun and the kids all enjoyed looking at Aiden's pictures - we all laughed when he told us he put his chair in his swimming pool! Aiden also told us that his favorite color is black and that he liked the book "The Lorax". His favorite movie is Dragons "Fire and Ice" and enjoys football and likes to eat spaghetti! He likes zebras and the song "Let It Go" from the amazing movie "Frozen"! Aiden is a special kid because he makes people laugh and smile and when he is at home he likes to play with his sister. When Aiden grows up he wants to be a scientist! Aiden had a great week being the King of the Jungle - please check out this video featuring King Aiden!

                       

Mrs. Woita the Queen of Woita's World

This week we are starting our King/Queen of the Jungle. This is a special week for boys and girls where we get to learn a little but more about our friends. But first I would like to tell you all a little bit about myself. As most of you know I have three small children who I talk about all the time! Henry is 5 years old and is in kindergarten, Lily is 3 years old and Macy will be 1 this week! Boy oh boy how time flies by... I have been married to my high school sweet heart, Justin, for almost 7 years and we couldn't be happier - how lucky we are to have three happy and healthy children! We also have a dog named Olivia who we got right after we were married who taught us a lot about parenthood! I have been a lifeguard and swimming lessons instructor since I was in high school and I love to swim! Now on to some of my favorite things... My favorite food is pasta, and I love volleyball and have been a volleyball official for 13 years! I can't really pick a favorite book but I do love Dr. Suess and Nicholas Sparks! My favorite movie is The Lorax and I love almost every song from the movie and I LOVE the song "Happy"! Here is a little video I made for myself featuring pictures of my family and me and my new kindergarten friends!

                         

Learning all the time...

We are moving right along in the literacy department! We are starting week 2 of Unit 1 and our essential question is “How do baby animals move?” We will be reading and listening to some great stories called “Pouch”, “Baby Animals on the Move” and we will also read a version of “The Tortoise and the Hare”. For shared reading (in the crabby book) we will read “We Can” and “I Can, We Can” and then during guided reading when your child comes over to me at the rainbow table they will be either reading “Hop!” or “We Hop!” Remember you can go online to the wonders website at anytime and check out the books we are reading - I bet your kindergartener would love to read you a story!

We are also going to be learning the word “we” this week and focusing on the letter “a” and the sound it makes and where we hear the “a” sound in words! We will continue to work on blending sounds together to make words! Our new vocabulary words that we will be learning are: adventure, movement, arrived, exciting, and exhausted.

During writing we will continue to talk more about nouns and will keep finding nouns in sentences. I know it is crazy -  nouns!! Your kindergarten will soon be able to tell you that a noun is a person, place, or thing or even an animal if they can’t already! This week is actually a very big week in writing because up until now your child has been telling stories orally and drawing pictures to go with their story – but this week we are going to learn how to label our pictures and use turtle talk to sound out the words we want to write and also how to use our alphabet chart to help us during writing time! I am very excited to see what writing has in store for our classroom this week!

In Math this week we will continue to explore numbers 1-10 with our counting mats and daily math routines. We will also learn how to dot-to-dots with straight lines to make an object (the tricky part about this is starting at the number 1 and going in counting order).   We will also be practicing drawing groups of numbers and learning more about shapes and how to make them! We are really enjoying learning about 2 and 3 dimensional shapes! I am also so happy to see all of the homework coming back to school – the kids get super excited every time I hand homework out so I am sure hoping the enthusiasm to do homework is still there when your child gets home! A homework routine is a great thing to start in kindergarten when they enjoy it! Even on days when there is not an actual paper homework please utilize the resources you have at home to keep practicing the skills we are working on!

We are continuing to learn more about our American Symbols – we still have the White House and Bald Eagle to read about. But this Wednesday, Sept. 17^th is a super fun day for our country – it is Constitution Day! We will be learning about what the constitution is and why we have it and we will also be making our very own Kindergarten Constitution and I am hoping all of my friends will agree to it and sign it so we can have a successful school year. On this day we will be doing lots of fun crafts and you will be getting home our first family project where you will have the opportunity to create your own Family Constitution – so please look for this on Wednesday! We are really enjoying learning about our country and we are very proud to live here!

I can really tell that my friends have been practicing their address and phone number at home – please continue to work on this!  Remember your child will get a special treat when they can tell me their important information that will help them stay safe and can use in case of an emergency. We will also be adding to our list of things to earn this week. I have some patriotic pencils and once your child can recite the Pledge of Allegiance they will earn their American Flag pencil!

Picture Day is Wednesday, Sept. 17^th – please turn in your papers if you would like to order pictures!

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns! It is going to be another fun week in kindergarten! :)Mrs. Woita