Updated Daily Schedule & Happy Winter Break!

When your children return to school on Monday, January 3rd, 2011 we will have adjusted our daily schedule a bit. This may impact your volunteer times. Rather than send home more paperwork for you to fill out, please contact me if you would like to adjust the day/time you are scheduled to help in the classroom. 


Changes: 
Literacy will be all morning following Morning Meeting and then following the morning integrated arts special Monday - Thursday. 
Math will share the time block in the afternoon with Science. 


Enjoy the next week-plus with your Kindergartner. Remember to help your child remember to read from his/her new Read At Home Book Bag, and practice numbers from My Number Book. Most importantly, take time to be together joyfully - see you in the New Year! 

Library with Mrs. Frey

Twice weekly your children visit the library, listen to a story and check out books with Mrs. Frey, UES Librarian, and Mrs. F the UES library assistant. The read-aloud stories are rich with interesting vocabulary, adventuresome and thoughtful characters with problems that often relate to your children's life experience. Story time in the classroom and in library is an important component of literacy learning - Kindergartners are learning to listen, think, ask questions and make connections with what they hear/read as readers. Reading Comprehension - understanding what we read - is a significant literacy skill set your children are learning. Keep reading, and asking your child questions about what you are reading at home. Not only is this dialog critical to building thinking skills, it's fun to think, talk and ask questions about what we read! 

Day in the Dark - A Glowing Success!

We did it! We spent all of Tuesday, December 21st in the dark. With the aid of flashlights, glow sticks, black lights and incandescent lamps Kindergartners experienced life without light. It was tricky... hard to find our gloves, hard to see details in our stories and writing, and a challenge to adjust our eyes to the light of the hall and Music/Library classrooms. We even at lunch in our dark classroom!! 

With the darkest day of the year in the past, today we welcomed the light with a poem and by making very "sunshiny" suns that now illuminate our classroom windows. Children learned how it must have felt for people to live before the invention of electricity - not as easy as we are accustomed to today!

However, we can do many things in the dark that we didn't think possible, like play Light Brights, tic-tac-toe with white chalk on black paper, draw stars with highlighter pens and reading in our Kindergartner-made Starry Night and Space box. Grade three buddies joined us for some partner reading, and Mrs. Mello's first grade class came and read leveled readers to us. Hearing first graders read level books was very exciting, and inspiring for many Kindergartners.


Thank you so much for sending in so many great illuminating and glowing things that made our day special and fun. We're glad for longer days and shorter nights to come - Welcome Winter!

Gallon Milk Jugs

Reminder: Please send in as many clean, empty gallon size milk jugs as you can - we are saving them for a special project that will begin in January!

Read At Home Book Bags

Today, your kindergartner will bring home his/her very own Read At Home Book Bag. This special bag will be a place for your child to store books they have made at school or their National Geographic readers. These text focus on a particular theme and literacy skill, including heart words. Please help your kindergartner find a spot to keep this bag at home where s/he can easily access it. The bag is small enough to take along in the car, or bring places where s/he needs to occupy some time - why not practice reading? As we make books at school, your child will bring them home and should store them in this special bag. Make reading a fun part of your child's daily routine at home - we become better readers when we read, read, read!! 

Today was a special day - your children "packed" their brand new book baskets with "just right" books. They even added their own luggage name tag! Over the last week or so we've been learning how to choose a just right book, and their book baskets are the special place they keep these just right readers. 
This morning, the class learned that choosing a just right book is like finding a just-right-fit shoe.  Some books are too easy, some are too hard, and some are just right!  I taught the children that it is important to choose a just right book for their independent reading and taught them strategies to use when evaluating a book.  They learned how to use the 5 finger rule when choosing a book to know whether it is a just right book.  If you stumble on 2-3 words in a book, it is a just right book.  An appropriately leveled book will allow a reader to apply strategies for understanding the text.  A book that is too hard (5 or more difficult words) will only lead to frustration and a book that is too easy (no difficult words) will not support opportunities for growth.  A just right book will have some challenging words that the reader will have to solve and will also cause the reader to at times re-read a sentence to better comprehend the meaning.  

Save milk jugs!

In January, we will begin a school project that requires many, many empty, clean and capped milk jugs. Please save any one gallon jugs you empty from milk, fruit juices or water at home and send them into school with your Kindergartner for this special winter activity. Thank you! 

Daily 5 - Routines & Reading, Reading, Reading!

Each day begins with Morning Meeting followed by a story, then we swing into Daily 5. At this time, your child confers with me to learn/review/practice a specific literacy skill, and participates in a variety of literacy skill building activities happening in our classroom. The photos below will give you a peek into three of the five types of literacy learning activities your child is doing during Daily 5, and provide you with fodder for literacy-rich conversations at home. Enjoy!  

              Listening to Reading - The Mystery of the Stolen Bicycle, by Marc Brown

                                      Work on Writing - A nature story in process! 

Read to Self - Reading independently and listening to own reading to hear accuracy, build fluency and reading confidence

Word Work - Phonics-based literacy learning activities. Practicing Heart Words!

January Schedule - Sharing and Volunteering

Heads up... please check your child's home/school communication folder today for the January sharing theme and schedule. Meeting your children's favorite stuffed friends, and learning about why they are important has been so much for for sharing this month! Kindergartners are fantastic story tellers, especially when the stories involve adventure and similar experiences they share. 


Also, within the next week or so I will send home a parent volunteer form for you to complete so I can create a volunteer schedule for the winter months. You may notice that I will have revised our daily schedule a bit to meet our changing learning needs as we head into the New Year. Please take that into consideration when looking at your availability to join us in the classroom. We love, love, love you family volunteers!! 

Why is it important to know how you feel?

In guidance with Ms. Baker today, we explored the concepts of empathy to better understand how we feel, and how our classmates feel. If you see the feelings chart come home in your child's home/school folder today ask your child to play the feelings guessing game with you! Our faces, and our bodies tell us how we/others feel, and get us thinking about how we can help ourselves and each other.

This learning supports our class rules of Be Kind, Be Helpful & Use Words To Communicate, and connects with our C.A.R.E.S social learning curriculum. E = Empathy, showing friendship, treating others how you would like to be treated, and cheering people on!

Outdoor Classroom Today!

Just when you think it's too cold to go outside, think again - Outdoor Classroom with our North Branch Nature Center naturalists, Mallory and Amy, was a thrilling exploration of the outdoors, even in the chilly air. 

Have you heard the story of the Black Capped Chick-a-Dee finding it's winter home among the coniferous trees? Amy told our class the tale of the helpful pines - Fir, White Pine and Hemlock - passed down to generations of Abenaki Native Americans through oral storytelling. 

After playing a game of animal tag, we ventured out into the forest in our small groups (Owl Eyes, Deer Ears, Dog Nose and Raccoon Touch) to find places where animals might make their homes in Winter. 

We explored the frosty swamp, frozen streams and even found ice crystal among leaves and tree roots. 

We found a mysterious animal print, and scat that gave us two clues to the types of animals that make the woods surrounding Harrison Field their home. We will print out these photos and include them in our science center for children to make smart guesses about using our Think Box throughout next week. 

We learned how to make White Pine tea, used by native people to supply their diets with significant and necessary vitamin C to stay healthy and well through long cold winters. Our classroom sure smelled like pine today! 

New Learning!

Today, we began a new morning routine. Every day your Kindergartner "signs in" to help us keep track of who is here and who is absent. Now your child will sign in by practicing printing his/her name on a name card. This daily exercise engages children in practicing letter writing and fine motor skills, as well as builds their academic experiences at the start of the school day. 

Pinecone Bird Feeder

As an extension of November's 4Winds Science learning about the forest, particularly confer trees and their unique "seeds" pinecones, we made pinecone bird feeders at the science center today. These unique feeders are gluten/nut free since they are made from vegetable shortening, cornmeal and wild birdseed. 


Hang the feeders on a tree or hook near a window to watch the birds enjoy your child's creative snack. Make math and science learning fun at home... keep a journal of how many birds come to the feeder, record they variety of birds that visit, what time of day do they visit the feeder? 

Guidance Class in Kindergarten

During today's guidance lesson, Ms. Baker helped students identify similarities and differences in friends, and most importantly, showing respect for each other. This is the "R" in our CARES social learning curriculum - Respect/Responsibility. This learning is also part of our Kindergarten objectives that focus on understanding ourselves and others, and community building.

Week in Review

This has been a fun-packed week of learning for our Kindergarten class family! I have introduced a handful of new learning components to our daily routines, as well as new sharing, managing more outdoor clothing, and our KinderArt focus. As we head into the month of December, a time of year that can be particularly busy and exciting for many families, we are reminded how important positive routines and consistent expectations are for children.

As a class, we are taking time to review our rules throughout the day and assess how we are taking care of ourselves and each other in the classroom, and in our school community. Social conferences and our CARES social learning curriculum are important problem-solving tools that provide Kindergartners with opportunities to work through big feelings, social challenges and learning expectations with support toward independence.

Kindergartners are learning how to make "smart guesses" or estimates via our daily Estimation Jar. Building a visual memory of a grouping and approximate amount within that group is a foundational math skill. This is a fun activity that involves not only grouping, but sequencing steps in counting (count by - 5s, 10s, 2s, 3s?) and is a game of chance that involves the whole class.

An inquiring mind is a vital life skill. Children are naturally curious and have many questions about so many things. In our Science area, we have created a Wonder Box. Each week we will have an item or two connected with our Science studies that is a mystery. Children will have the week to study it, and then write their guesses about what the item is. We will share out guesses and solve the mystery together during a science discussion each week.

December means cold temps and snow! Let's work together to help our Kindergartners be prepared. Please be sure your child has mittens, boots, hat, snow pants and a warm winter coat clearly marked with his/her name on it. Also, please pack an extra set of clothing to keep at school. I've found a one gallon size zip-loc bag works best and fits into their cubby. Please include in this bag a pair of socks, underpants, pants, shirt. If the clothing is used at school, we will send the whole bag home in your child's backpack for your to pack with a new set and return to school to store in the cubby until next time. We are going to have a student Boot Organizer, who will help their classmates remember to wear their boots home every day.

Enjoy taking time to talk with your child about his/her learning experiences, their wonders and what they want to learn more about!