Even Monsters Need Haircuts!

Today Nolan's mom came in and read us a wonderful story called "Even Monsters Need Haircuts" and we all loved it so very much! It was a funny story with silly monsters! It was so neat to have her come in and read to us! We sure do love having parent readers! Here are a few pictures

 Nolan and his mom!

 They checked the book out from the library!

 Nolan thought it was pretty awesome!

 We all loved the story!

 Nolan was so excited to have his mom come and read!

His mom even stayed to eat lunch with him and his twin sister, Caroline!

King Dennis

Dennis was the King of the Jungle this week and he loved every minute of it! Dennis's favorite color is blue, and his favorite book is "If You Give A Mouse a Cookie". Dennis loves minions and even brought one in to show his friends and he loves the Minion movie and the song! His favorite sport is soccer and his favorite food is McDonalds and his favorite animal is an elephant. He is a special kid because his smile lights up the room. When he is at home he likes to play on the internet. When he grows up he wants to be a police officer! He really did have a wonderful week, please check out his video!

             

Our First Parent Reader!

Last Friday we had our very first parent reader and it was wonderful!!! Devin's mom came in and read us "Alphabet Mystery" and all of my friends loved it! We always get super excited when we have specials guest in our rooms! Please know we welcome parent readers to come in on Fridays before lunch- just let me know and we can get it scheduled if you are free to come in and read. Here are a few pictures of Devin's mom reading to us!

 Devin was so excited to have his mom come in!

Devin and his mom!

King Diego

Diego was our very first King of the Jungle and he loved every minute of it! Diego's favorite color is light blue, he loves the Minions movie, his favorite sport is basketball, and his favorite food is pizza! He also likes cheetahs and his favorite book is "Jesse Bear What Will You Wear" which all of his friends loved when we read it! His favorite song is See you Again Wizk. He is a special kid because he likes to share and help people. Something Diego likes to do at home is play with his little brother, Santi, and watch tv. When he grows up he wants to be a scientist! I know that all of his friends and I loved learning a little more about Diego and he had a great week! Here is a video featuring King Diego!
                             

Last week of October!

This week we will be starting Unit 3 and will be talking about the rules we have to follow in different places, which is a great topic for us to talk about. It is so hard to understand sometimes why we have different rules at home and school or even different rules when we are inside or outside, but I know we will have some great conversations about this essential question. We will be reading “How Do Dinosaurs Go To School? “ “Be Safe” and “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”. In our crabby books we will read “Can I Pat It?” and “Tim Can Tip it”. We will be learning about the letter “i” and the sound it makes and will also be learning the word “to”. We are learning so much all the time in kindergarten! Our vocabulary words this week will be rule, cooperate, guard, prank, and responsible. I just know that we will be having some great collaborative conversations this week! I am also super excited because we will be learning about another great strategy that readers use – for the past few weeks we have been talking about how readers ask and answer questions while reading stories, and this week we will be introduced to a new reading strategy “visualize”. We will begin talking about how sometimes we can use the words and pictures in a story to make pictures in our minds of what is happening. Every week we read a interactive read aloud story that only has four pictures so this will be a great strategy to use!

We will also be reading some great fall and Halloween books this week. Many of my friends celebrate Halloween so we will talk about some of their traditions. On Friday we will hopefully be having a little Fall Fun in the afternoon where we will get to play some fun games – hopefully the weather continues to be nice so we can play some of them outside! 

A few weeks ago we were introduced to the CAPS man and we will be reviewing the conventions of writing again this week! We will continue to talk about the importance of adding details to our stories and also reviewing how turtle talk can help us spell words we don’t know how to spell.  It is amazing to see the sentences that the kids are writing – I promise you would be impressed!

In Math we will continue to tell addition and subtraction story problems and act them out when we can. We will also practice making the number 9 and have fun creating and extending patterns. This week we will also be using a new manipulative during counting mats to help us see numbers 1-10.

On Friday we had our all school assembly and got to watch a few videos that helped us get fired up about making good choices and living a healthy drug free life! We are working hard on making our door decoration – we have chosen to do superheroes – we have started working on our wall and even got to take a picture as a superhero! nWe will continue to work on our drug free books this week. We will talk about who can give us medicine and the different kinds of medicine that the doctors or parents might give us. We will also talk about things we can do instead of doing drugs. This week is Red Ribbon Week and everyday we will wear our red ribbons and we are also asked to wear a different color to show our support.

Mon. – Oct. 26^th  – wear red – to show we are RED-y to live a drug free life and be healthy

Tues. – Oct 27^th – wear your favorite team apparel or colors – so we can team up against drugs

Wed. – Oct. 28^th  – dress to be your best – to remember we have to work hard and be smart to be successful

Thurs. – Oct. 29^th  – wear bright colors – to show that we are too bright to do drugs

Fri. – Oct. 30^th – wear clothes inside out or backwards – to show the world we won’t let drugs mix us up on the inside of our bodies

Here are some pictures from the pumpkin walk to demonstrate the different days!

Queen Ms. Shipley

A little info about our student teacher...
My name is Miss Shipley, but that will be changing soon as I will be getting married in March. I have been with my Fiancé, Bryce for three years and cannot wait to get married! I have two pets, a dog, Mozzy, who is a Pembroke Welsh Corgi and a cat, named Trio. I also have a sister, Caroline, who is graduating from high school in May, which is very exciting! Along with student teaching during the week, I also work at a nursing home on the weekends as a receptionist, so I am a very busy girl! My other jobs have included working in a nursery at my church and at a daycare, as well as being a hostess at a restaurant, and a checker at a grocery store. In order to get to know me a little bit better, here are some of my favorite things… My favorite food is chicken and rice casserole. I got my recipe from my mom and it is amazing! My favorite sport to watch is hockey and my favorite book has always been My Big Green Pocketbook. I read this book every day when I was a little girl and I still love it to this day! My favorite movie is The Little Mermaid. Whenever I watch it, I cannot help but start singing all of the songs, I just love it so much! Some other things about me are that my favorite color is blue and I love to read, cook, and hang out with my friends and family. Here is a little video featuring pictures of my family and I, pets, and all my new kindergarten friends!

                  

Quarter 2- Here we come!!!!

I hope all of my friends enjoyed their 4 day break from school and they got to do something fun over Fall Break! I can’t believe we are already starting the 2nd quarter because I feel like school just started! Time goes by so quick when you are having fun!

This week we will be reviewing a lot about our school rules and what our job is at school! We will talk a lot about what kindergarteners look like and sound like when they are working!

This week in Literacy we will be finishing up unit 2 week 3 which is a review week although we will get to read a story called "I Love Bugs" and will talk about the different kinds of bugs we know about. The vocabulary words we will learn are curious, observe, attaches, process, and slender. As kindergarteners we know all there is to know about being curious! We will keep practicing our letters and sounds and blending them together to make words! Please continue to practice at home using your child's kindergarten folder! Also remember to READ, READ, READ for Book It – I can’t wait until I see all of your calendars at the end of the month!

In Math we will be continuing to learn more about numbers and using math talk to explain our thinking! We will also talk about 2-D and 3-D shapes and how they are the same and different!

In Writing we will review what good writers do and we will also talk about what the teacher does during writing time – the teachers in the room during writing time will go around to individual students and conference with them about their writing (which is a fancy way to say talk about their writing). During the conference the teacher is going to give each student a helpful hint to help them become a better writer – for example using turtle talk, adding more details to the picture or taking your time when drawing, or even helping come up with a sentence to write. Now that we are in the 2nd quarter we are going to start thinking of sentences to go with our stories – so we will think of a sentence and say it out loud a few times– then we will say it again and count how many words are in the sentence (this will help us remember what we are suppose to write hopefully). We will also hopefully be using our writer’s workshop folder as a tool to help us because it has an alphabet chart and all of our kindergarten words in there! I can’t wait to see all of the stories during writing time!

For Unit Studies we are going to jump back to Health and talk about drug safety – which ties in very well with Red Ribbon Week that is coming up. We will have discussions about drugs and how they can hurt our bodies if they are not used correctly. We will also be decorating our door this week with a drug free message. This Friday the 23rd is also silly sock day so please have your child wear silly socks if you have some. We will talk about how together we can "sock it to drugs" and make good choices to help our bodies stay healthy! There is also going to be a quick all school assembly on Friday morning to get us fired up for Red Ribbon Week!

Also this Thursday the 22nd is the Meadow Lane pumpkin walk and family's are encouraged to come back to school and walk together to receive a pumpkin! I will be there somewhere along the route and I would love to see as many of my friends as possible!

It is sure to be a fun week – I am looking forward to another great quarter in Kindergarten!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DENNIS!

Today Confetti came to help us celebrate Dennis's birthday! He will actually be turning 6 on Friday, October 16th, but since we won't be at school he came a little early! All of my friends were super excited to see actual confetti in the coat hall and were super excited when they saw Confetti by the easel. Dennis had a wonderful day and enjoyed the present that we all made for him. We hope he has a great day on Friday! Here are a few pictures of him throughout the day...

 Birthday boy - Dennis!

 Everyone singing Happy Birthday to Dennis!

Birthday Boy and Confetti!

Short Week!

I hope all of my friends enjoyed their 3 day break from school and are ready for 3 fun days of school before they get another break! I can’t believe that this is the last week of the first quarter. It will be a short week and we will be reviewing lots of things we have learned.

We will be finishing up Week 2 in Literacy and reading some fall books. We will continue to work on our letters and sounds and blending them together to make words!  We will also be doing some apple projects and learning more about apples!

In Math we will be continuing to tell math stories using addition and subtraction. We will start comparing numbers to see if they are equal or not equal. We will review how to do dot-to-dots using straight lines and going in counting order and we will also practice making the number 7. The five finder would be so proud of us and hopefully will come back soon… we have been making numbers 6-10 using groups of five during counting mats so we will just have to see!

In Writing we will be continuing to talk about the CAPS man (he helps us remember those conventions of writing) and we will start writing pattern books as a class!

For Unit Studies we are going to finish up our Five Senses unit with a fun popcorn activity! I sure hope your kindergartener tells you all about it Wednesday night!

Please remember Thursday, the 15^th and Friday the 16^th is our Fall Break and we do not have school so I hope you all get to do something fun together!

Fun and Fast Conference Week!

This week we will keep on learning  - although we really don’t ever stop learning in kindergarten! In Math I am super excited because we are going to start exploring with patterns. We will find patterns, make patterns, and extend patterns. We will use paper, manipulatives and ourselves to make different kinds of patterns –just wait I am sure your kindergartener will be finding patterns everywhere – although please help me teach them that patterns repeat over and over again and a pattern is not just two things in a row! We will also be focusing on the number 6 and will continue to tell math stories using addition and subtraction! Also did your child tell you about the five finder? It was crazy in my classroom that afternoon! The five finder took over my body and burst out of the back room and was finding the number five and groups of five everywhere – I guess she had on a cape, glasses, and carried a special wand - all of which had the number 5 on them! I don’t remember anything my friends just told me all about it! We are sure hoping the five finder comes back to our room soon!

In Writing we will continue to sound out the words we are wanting to write using our alphabet chart and start using finger spaces! Leaving spaces is a tricky thing but I know with some practice we will get them into our writing! We will also be learning about the CAPS man – he helps us remember the conventions of writing: C stands for capital letters at the beginning of a sentence, A stands for art work that matches our story, P stands for punctuation marks at the end of a sentence, and S stands for spaces in between our words.

In Literacy we will be talking about how shapes are all around us! We will continue to use the “ask and answer questions” strategy while reading our stories this week. My friends are getting really good at asking questions before, during, and after we read our stories. We will be reading “Shapes All Around”, “Kites in Flight”, “Find the Shapes”, “We Like Tam!” and “I like Sam” this week. Our vocabulary words are materials, nature, decoration, games, and world. We will also be learning the word “like” and focusing on the letter “t”. We will continue to practice blending sounds together to make words and sorting words that start and end with the “t” sound!

We will also be working on our five senses unit and will focus in on our smell and tasting senses! I hope your kindergartener has been telling you about the fun things books and activities they are doing with their senses.

This week we will continue to do some assessments to find out all of the wonderful things your kindergartener has learned already this year! It is sure to be a great week!

A reminder that conferences are this week on Tuesday and Thursday night! Please turn in your forms and letters if you haven’t already and bring your kindergartener to your conference. I am very much looking forward to conferences this week and can’t wait to see all of you!

Remember Friday, the 9th, we don't have school so it will be a fast, fun packed week!

Queen Mrs. Woita

Last week we started 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. I will be sending home more specific information about your child's week soon! 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 6 years old and is in kindergarten, Lily is 4 years old and in preschool and Macy just turned 2! Boy oh boy how time flies by... I have been married to my high school sweet heart, Justin, for almost 8 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, pool manager and swimming lessons instructor since I was in high school and I love to swim!  I student taught at Meadow Lane in 2006 and have been here ever since I graduated and I LOVE kindergarten! 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 (it's my spending money for the holidays)! I can't really pick a favorite book but I do love anything by 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!

                     

Symbols and Safety!

I am so sorry it has taken me so long to get our American Symbols  and Safety videos up – but finally here they are!

Our American Symbols unit and Constitution Day are really some of my favorite things we do during the year. I LOVED reading all of the family constitutions that you made together as a family! Please know you can still send them in if you haven't yet! Thank you for taking the time to do this together. We really do LOVE America and enjoyed learning about our American Symbols that represent our country! Please check out our video.

                 

  We finished up our Safety unit a few weeks ago and in this unit we talked about stranger danger, what do in emergencies such as a fire drill or if someone got hurt. If our clothes were to catch on fire we know that we can stop, drop, and roll! we also know the number to call if there is a real emergency! We know that it is important to know our personal information (please continue to practice this at home - the kids are excited to get a special prize if they can say it all by themselves). Here is a short video of our safety walk!