Happy Birthday Aiden!

Today Confetti came to help us celebrate Aiden's birthday! Aiden turned six on Saturday, March 28th, and he said he had an awesome day! All of my friends and Aiden were very excited that Confetti came to school today. Aiden brought yummy cookies for all of us that we just loved and were so grateful for. We also enjoyed making Aiden's gift today and hope that he likes it. Here are a few pictures from Aiden's day at school! We hope he had a wonderful day! Happy Birthday Aiden!

 Birthday boy, Aiden, passing out his cookies!

 Aiden found Confetti by the projector!

 Aiden's friends singing him Happy Birthday!

 Birthday boy, Aiden, with all of his friends!

Aiden posing for a picture with Confetti and his gift from his class!

Quick week!!

This week is going to be a quick one!  As I am sure you all know our school is doing a pennies for backpacks drive this week where your child is asked to bring in loose change for this great cause, remember the LPS backpack walk is on Saturday, April 11th and my family and I will be there and if you aren't busy I hope you will consider coming down to check it out!
But I also wanted to let you know about a grant Mrs. Schroeder and I wrote and are hoping to get the funds for. Below is the link to see our proposal- by no means do we want you to feel obligated to donate money but wanted you to be aware of our project we are hoping to do!

http://flps.fund-it.org/grants/view_grant.php?gid=3554

Also just a reminder this Tuesday is a PLC day so we get out early and Friday we have no school! And we have a lot to learn so there is no time to waste!

In math we will keep working on telling, retelling, and doing story problems and listening for those key words! As well as focusing on those teen numbers!!

In writing we will keep working on adding voice to our stories!! My friends are loving this writing trait!!

We are enjoying reading some great books and having conversations about how to stay healthy! We are working hard on our books and can't wait to bring them home to show you!

In literacy we will be learning two new words - help and too! I am sure we will he talking a lot about to, two, and too this week!!! We will also be starting to learn about long vowels and focusing on the long a! Our essential question is "how can you help out at home?" so you might have some extra great helpers this week-although hopefully it will last for more than just one week!!
Our vocabulary worlds are chores, contribute, member, organize, and accomplish. We will also be discussing prefixes and suffixes. We will be reading "Peter's Chair", "Helping Out at Home", and "The Clean Up". During guided reading your child will read either "Let Me Help You" or "How can Jane Help" and in our new crabby books they will read "Jake and Dale Help". It is going to be another fun week in kindergarten!

Queen Olivia M

Olivia M was our Queen of the Jungle this week and she had a great week and we loved learning all about her. Olivia's mom was able to come to lunch with her and she even read her favorite story to the class "One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish". Olivia can even read that entire book by herself and helped read the first page!!! Olivia's favorite colors are pink and purple and she loves gymnastics, pizza, and monkeys! Her favorite movie is Cinderella and she likes the song "You Are My Sunshine" which her grandma sings to her! She is a special girl because she is funny and helpful which is so very true! When she is at home she likes to read with her family and when she grows up she wants to be a teacher just like her grandma. I just know that Olivia will make a great teacher someday! Please check out her video as Queen!

Review Week!

This week we will be working hard! We will be finishing up Unit 8 and will be talking about what we see in the sky! Our vocabulary words are distance, recognize, space, challenge, and surface. We will be reading "Bringing Down The Moon", "Day and Night Sky",  and "A View From the Moon".  During guided reading your child will either read "Going Up" or "In the Clouds" and in our crabby books they will read "Up! Up! Up!". We will be reviewing all of our letters, sounds, and words as well as making and revising predictions and comprehending stories. We will also be focusing on opposites and similes.

In math we will be making patterns and looking at shapes closely to see how they change as we move them around. We will also be representing teen numbers with equations, manipulatives and our fingers. We will be telling, retelling, and solving story problems using a simple math drawing, equations, fingers, manipulatives, and our brains! When we tell and solve story problems we know that there are key words in the problem that we have to listen for to tell us whether or not we will be adding or subtracting. For example when we have to use addition we usually hear the words "in all", "total", "put them together", or "altogether". And when we use subtraction to solve our story problems we hear the words "how many do we have left", "how many are there now", or "are still there". Ask your student if they can tell you a story problem during dinner, or ask them a simple problem to see if they can solve it. For example "There are 5 rolls on the plate but mommy ate one of them. How many rolls are still on the plate?" My friends are getting really good at retelling and solving story problems I really so impressed! 

In writing last week we learned about the writing trait "voice" and this week we will be focusing on how to use it in our writing! I just know that my friends are going to love learning about font size, bold letters, dialogue, speech bubbles, and voice through punctuation!  

During Unit Studies we have been talking about how to take care of our bodies and will be reading some great books and making our own book about our bodies! Last week we took all of our pictures for our books and the kids loved it - we took sleeping pictures, hand washing pictures, and exercising pictures which of course was our favorite! 

I will be gone on Friday the 27th to help Ms. S (a teacher at Meadow Lane) get ready for her wedding. The kids are all super excited and happy for her and cant wait until she comes back so we can call her Mrs. Hill!!! Mrs. Bogner will be here for me and I am sure my friends will have a great day!

World Down Syndrome Day!

We celebrated World Down Syndrome Day in school today. Over the next few weeks we will be talking and learning about different disabilities as an entire school. We have a unique opportunity to learn more about Down Syndrome because of our friend, Sam. We had some great discussions, read some great books, watched a video, worked on a few projects and learned so much about Down Syndrome! I had a lot of friends dressed in blue and wearing silly socks which was great to see all of the support we have for Sam in our room.

Down Syndrome was named after John Langdon Down who discovered the condition in 1866. It is one of the most frequently occurring human chromosomal abnormalities, affecting one out of every 733 children born. We found out that more that 5000 babies born each year are born with Down Syndrome and that they have one extra chromosome in one of their cells that makes them extra special. The word chromosome was kind of confusing but we found out that chromosomes contain directions that tell our bodies how to grow and that when there is an extra one it kind of mixes up a baby’s directions a little and sometimes can make them look a little different and it might take them a little longer to learn things. We also read that nobody really knows why babies are born with Down Syndrome but that it is nobody’s fault because people of all ethnicities, religions, socioeconomic and racial groups have Down Syndrome. We talked about how we are all different but how we are also all the same, because we all have different hair, skin, noses, eyes, bodies but that are bodies all work the same for the most part because our noses are for smelling and our eyes are for seeing, our skin keeps our muscles and bones safe and so on! We are all kids that have our own interests, talents, personalities and that every single one of us is special in our own unique way!

Here is a video that features pictures from the Step Up for Down Syndrome Walk that was held last October that I was lucky to be a part of and it also has a few pictures and messages for Sam from his friends here at Meadow Lane!

4th quarter here we come!

I seriously cannot believe we are starting the 4^th quarter of kindergarten! It is crazy how the year goes by so fast and we are going to continue to learn like crazy until we are ready for 1^st grade! I sure hope all of my friends had a fabulous spring break and are ready for more fun in kindergarten! We will have a busy week for sure! We will be changing our seats and groups almost everywhere and I am not for sure if they will come back or not – but in the past I have had some sneaky leprechauns come into my classroom on St. Patrick’s Day and play tricks on us – so this year I am going to be better prepared, because we have no time to waste!

In Literacy we will be talking about our country, the great USA! We will be reading quite a few informational texts that include “Ana Goes to Washington, D. C.”, “The Best of the West”, “See our Country”, and in our crabby books “Pack a Bag”. During guided reading your child will read either “See This” or “Places to See”. We will be learning about the letters y and z and our new words are “this” and “what”. Our vocabulary words are country, travel, careful, purpose, and connect. We will continue to blend and listen for certain sounds as well as change sounds to make new words!

In math we are going to be working on our night sky display – this is a great tool we use to help us learn more about groups of 10 and number partners and equations. I think that all of my friends will really like our display and we will be using it every day during daily math routines. Of course we will continue to work on story problems and teen numbers too! Also this week our practicum students will be teaching us!

During unit studies we will start talking about our body and what it needs to stay healthy! Now that the weather is nice we will be able to do a lot more activities outside that will teach us about this important concept!

In writing we will continue to write stories about our lives and the things that we like to do. We will review turtle talking and stretching out words we don’t know how to spell and will even learn about the writing trait – voice! We will talk a lot about voice and how we can use it to make our stories even better! My friends will LOVE this writing trait! Before we left for break we talked a lot about poems and we wrote our own poems and we even wrote one together and I would like to share it with you…

Meadow Lane

Meadow Lane is a good school.

A cool school.

A awesome school.  

A great school.

The teachers are nice.

We learn, have fun, and play all day.

We work hard.

We LOVE Meadow Lane!

Written by Mrs. Woita’s Kindergarteners

It is going to be a great 4^th quarter!

Queen Olivia K

This week Olivia K was our Queen of the Jungle and she had a great week! Her dad came in and read us two super cool books and her mom also came in to surprise her so she got to eat lunch with both of her parents on Thursday! Olivia is such a sweet girl that is always trying her best! She loves the movie Frozen and the song Let It Go of course! She also likes the color pink, soccer, monkeys, and cheese pizza. Her favorite book is Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss which we all loved and enjoyed reading! Olivia is a special girl because she is so much fun and when she is at home she likes to play hide and go seek! When Olivia grows up she wants to be a doctor. Olivia had a wonderful week - please check out the video of her week as Queen!            

MARCH here we come!

Can you even believe it is March?!? I sure can’t…especially with this weather!!! THANK YOU to everyone who attended conferences last week. I know it was SUPER cold, but I appreciate you coming to hear all of the wonderful things we are doing.  Please let me know if you ever have questions or concerns at any time! 

As you know we will be having spring break in just a week. That means we are at the end of 3^rd quarter already ( I know... I can not even believe how fast this year is flying by!!) This week I will be giving some reading assessments and we will be taking a math test. This means we need our friends to be rested up and ready for a week of learning.

We will start Monday off with our annual Meadow Lane book parade!! I am SO excited to see what all of my friends favorite book character and books are! Remember to bring your book with you if you have it!! We will be reading in our classrooms right after the parade and be having a healthy snack from our healthy challenge. The kids will need to have extra clothes if they wear an elaborate costume (because we want them to be ready to learn). We will also be spending some of this week celebrating Dr. Seuss so you may see some things coming home about this author!! On Wednesday we will have a surprise visit from the Cat in the Hat and if we are lucky the Cat will even be reading us a story!!!

In literacy we will be discussing what can go from here to there. This will include discussing transportation, which is what we are learning about for social studies!! Our vocabulary words will be transportation, vehicle, journey, fierce, and wide. The stories we will be reading are “When Daddy’s Truck Picks Me Up”, “The King of the Winds”, and “From Here to There.” We will be talking about how we can make predictions when we read, we will also be talking about the character, setting, and plot. The letters we will be learning will be ‘j’ and ‘q’.  Our two new sight words will be ‘here’ and ‘me’. During writing we will start talking about prepositions and poetry!! We are busy kids!!!

In math we will be finishing up our fourth unit. We will be working hard on teen numbers. We talk a lot about how many tens and ones a number has. For example, 13 has one ten and 3 ones. Of course, we continue to use  math talk every day and we really are getting SO smart with our math conversations. We will also be taking a look at graphing!

In unit studies we will start talking about transportation. We learn about vehicles that go in the air, on the land, and in the water. This is a favorite among our kiddos as they really love talking about things that go!! Make sure you are watching for our cute book we will be making!!!

Don’t forget to bring back your shamrocks so we can see why your kindergarten kid is so lucky!!! If you have questions about them please let me know!! Also, don’t forget we will be having spring break from March 9^th- March 13^th!!! It will be another fast and fun week in kindergarten!