Weekly Update- November 18-22

Posted on November 24, 2013 by yankee

Popcorn Words: This week the words or, for and am popped into our room. We learned that words can sound the same but mean different things. For example, the word for is different than the word four (a number). The kindergarteners are becoming experts at finding these words all around them and writing them in their journals.

Readers Workshop: This week we continued working on using our “Reading Superpower’s” of Eagle Eye and Lips the Fish. New superpowers were introduced to us as well. We met Stretchy Snake. He helps us stretch out the sounds in tricky words to help us say the word. Chunky Monkey swung in too and taught us how to find chunks in words to help us read a tricky word. For example we found the chunk “or” in goodmorning everyday. Skippy the Frog hopped in too along with his buddy, Tryin Lion. These two superpowers work together, skippy frog tells us to skip the word we don’t know and then Tryin Lion roars- go back to the beginning and try the line again to help figure out the unknown word. We will learn one more superpower next week and then we will know all the reading decoding strategies to help us read words! The superpower strategies are introduced in beanie baby form and they always sit and watch us as we read to remind us to keep using them to help us be our best readers we can be.

Writers Workshop: This week we finished working on our booklets. We started this unit using our “scientist” writing skills and made a small book that was about an object that we zoomed in on. We had chosen a gourd or indian corn to write about. This week and last week we moved to making a book about something that we are thankful for. Our students zoomed in on the object or person that they were thankful for and made a book. We focused on everything that was special about our item that we are thankful for. For example if we brought a picture of our family then we started a page about one person in our family. Our next page may then zoom in on another person in our family. We might also zoom in on what we like to do with our family. The kids seemed to enjoy making these books! They brought them home on Thursday this week following our Writing Celebration with Mrs. Stutz’s class. Hopefully, they had fun reading their hard work to you! Our kindergarteners partnered up with a friend from Mrs. Stutz’s class and shared their favorite book they made. We then “toasted” to each other. It’s always fun to see them work with new friends. Not only do we get to “cheer” each other on as writer’s we get to practice talking to friends about what we wrote and get to know new friends better.

Math: We continued finding groups of 5 in numbers 6-10. Practiced writing numbers, finding the order of numbers and continued with telling math stories. We also learned about new shapes, like a hexagon. A hexagon has 6 sides and 6 corners. We found hexagons in a soccer ball or a bolt! The kindergartners sorted shapes that were hexagons and NOT hexagons. We also are getting good at warming up our math brains by doing our counting to 100 with our bodies listening to our 100 song from youtube! We also started doing our 10 + 1 counting with a song that we found as well. The kids love to sing the song and use their bodies to count. Anything to make it fun. We will wrap up Unit 2 in Math in the next 2 weeks.

Social Studies: This week we focused on what a bully is and how we can help. We all took a pledge in our classroom to promise not to be a bully and to help stop it by telling a teacher/adult if we see it. Thanks for reading over those pledge’s at home together and sending them back in! We related this school wide pledge to the pledge we take as a class every morning! Ask your kindergartner to recite it for you! We visited Mrs. Stutz’s class to make our very own “Be Nice” bracelets together. Our “Be Nice” bracelets are for us to remember to Be Nice and help end bullying if we see it. They loved making these! The Kindergarteners really enjoyed listening to books from a great website called We Do Listen (www.wedolisten.org). This website has wonderful animated children’s books written by Howard Binkow. These books have a main character named Howard P. Wigglebottom. Howard encounters many different situations and feelings in these books. The kids loved watching this character stand up to bullies, be courageous and most importantly be himself. It was so fun and rewarding to see the Kindergarteners take in this concept and apply it daily with eachother. They really watch out for one another and are continuing to be good friends to each other!

Split. Lit. Centers: During Split Lit. time we have been working very hard on stretching our pre-reading skills. We played fun games with rhyming this week too. Please continue to practice our sight words that come home. This extra practice really works. I have been so impressed with how much growth I have seen the Kindergarteners make even since conference time…Wow. They will be bringing home a bag of sight word books next week. These books are for them to keep at home and continue to practice reading.

Thanksgiving Fun with Stutz’s Class: In addition to making our Be Nice bracelets and celebrating our writing we also got together with Mrs. Stutz’s class for Fun Pilgrim and Indian centers on Friday! Big thanks go out to all the wonderful parents who donated supplies and helped make this special day possible! Special thanks to Mrs. Miller, Mrs. Hersberger, Mrs. Bottrell, Mrs. Cobb, and Mrs. Hoag who helped run a center! We got to make indian headbands, necklaces, a horn book, pilgrim boy hats and girl bonnets. They got to bring home a bag full of these goodies on Friday. The kids seemed to really enjoy this shared experience!! It was so much fun to see them with all their different crafts. Many of them wore at least one of their hats home. It was a ton of fun!!!!

Mystery Reader: This week we were surprised by another dad reader, Mr. Foust, Cooper’s Dad! He brought the perfect book, Family Huddle, a book all about a family football game, something will all probably be watching with family over Thanksgiving! Mr. Foust shared with us that this book helped Cooper’s parents decide on his name, Cooper, since the main character has this name! It was so fun to listen to him read the book and hear Cooper’s name over and over! Thank you for coming Mr. Foust! We loved your visit!

Thankful for: Thank you so much for all of the canned goods and non-perishables that you donated to our P.E. C.A.R.E.S. drive. We have such wonderful Georgetown families. I am so thankful to work with your child and be supported by wonderful families each day! I am so blessed to work such an amazing job! I hope that this Thanksgiving finds you and your family with quality time together and lots to be thankful for! Enjoy the break!

Upcoming Dates:

November 27-November 29….no school.
December 3…..6:30 p.m….Holiday Program. Please arrive at the church by 6:15 p.m.
December 5 & 6——Our classroom holiday shopping day. Envelopes came home with your child. If you would like to have your child shop you can send in money in the envelope provided and an adult will help them shop.
December 19…..Our classroom holiday party. 2:00-3:00 p.m.

Be Nice- Be Safe Pledge

Posted on November 21, 2013 by yankee

Yesterday students came back from their “Be Nice- Be Safe Pledge”, this is apart of a school-wide approach to stop and prevent bullying! I was so excited by the many excited kinders that brought it back signed today! If you haven’t returned it yet, I encourage you to read it over and sign it together!

We will continue to talking about bullying and ways to prevent it at school together! Hopefully your kiddo has come home this week to share what their learning! 🙂

They all loved making our “Be Nice” bracelets yesterday with Mrs. Stutz’s K class!

Hope everyday is having a Terrific Thursday!

Toys for Tots

Posted on November 21, 2013 by yankee

Georgetown will host a TOYS FOR TOTS box this year. It will be stationed outside of our library (Media Center). The box will be available from November 18 through December 12.

For more information about this special service project, please read this post !!!

Thankful Turkey

Posted on November 17, 2013 by yankee

Check out those fun feathers!!!

Weekly Update- Nov. 11-15th

Posted on November 16, 2013 by yankee

Popcorn Words: Our words this week were: all and in.

Readers Workshop: This week we dug deeper into how we read words. We were introduced to three new reading strategies this week. We talked about how sight words are easy to pick out of our books and read them in a snap! Eagle Eye taught us how to use the pictures in a book to help us read our words. Lips the fish taught us how to get our lips ready and sound out the first letter in a word. When we combine all of these reading strategies we can try to read words.

Writers Workshop: We continued our scientific writing by working on our small books about an object that we studied. During this writing we used objects to write about; indian corn, gourd or a small pumpkin. We wrote across several pages about our chosen object. The kindergartners zoomed in on specific details about their object. Each page told something specific about their object. For example, one page zoomed in on what color our object was. While another page told about how our object was bumpy. We are good scientific writers!! The Kindergarteners also started looking at making lists as writers. We made lists of items that we would bring on the Mayflower. We pretended we were Pilgrims and brainstormed a list of wants and needs to take to America. Then, we put the list inside our brown suitcases and took them home with us to share. The students enjoyed the idea of making lists and pretending to go on a long boat trip like the pilgrims. We will continue our work as scientific writers next week as well.

Math: We have been working hard on using our fast fingers to count and show numbers. This week we learned how to show ten with a ten finger freeze. We have been using our finger freeze to count numbers 10-19. The Kindergarteners have been getting really good at recognizing numbers that are a number plus one more. This has been a concept of concentration this week, a number plus one is a new number. For example, 10 plus one more is 11. We also continued our work on identifying and classifying shapes. We found shapes in pictures in our Math books! The Kindergarteners are doing so well at math time!

Social Studies: We started this week with Veterans Day on Monday. The kindergarteners were shown a brief children’s video on what Veterans Day is and how some heroes don’t wear capes. You may have seen a coloring page come home with this caption on it. We salute our Veterans and are thankful for all of them!! We continued our week by talking about wants and needs. We are learning that a need is something that we have to have in order to live. A need would be clothing, food, water and shelter, and of course love! A want is something that we want to have but we don’t need it to live. Wants included things like candy, video games and toys. The kindergarteners are doing a great job identify a need vs. a want. We will continue this unit next week. Also, next week we will begin our discussion on bullying and will roll out our school wide commitment to stop bullying and teach kids how to identify bullying, how to help and in turn hope to create a bully free school environment. We will focus on creating a kind environment, using kind words and being mindful of others feelings in Kindergarten. I am so excited to make this our classroom goal and commitment!

Literacy Centers: The kindergarteners have been working very hard on sharpening their language arts skills. This week we were writers in journals, found beginning, middle and ending sounds in words, worked out our tiny muscles (fine motor muscles) with activities, and have been working to build our pre reading and reading skills everyday. It’s so exciting to see their progress!!

Mystery Reader: We had our second dad mystery reader this Friday!!! Mr. Downer, Allison’s dad came and read an Allison favorite, Arnie, the Donut .This book had us all cracking up!!! Thanks for sharing! Thanks for the large interest in coming to read to us, I will be contacting more volunteers soon to come in after Thanksgiving!

Fun with Mrs. Stutz’s Class: On Friday we got together as a whole group with Mrs. Stutz’s kindergarten class. We did our Math corner together. Did you know we have been in school for 51 days?! Wow!! We also did a fun counting “exercise” where we used our big muscles to count all the way up to 100!! We had so much fun teaching our favorite brain break song, Gummy Bear to her students!! Wow! It’s fun to learn and play together!

Special Friday November Thanksgiving Centers: I started a sign-up genius spot for needed supplies for Friday, Nov. 22 centers. I am still in need of donations by Wednesday this week! If you can donate to our special afternoon that would be greatly appreciated!! Check out the link below for our needs… Thank you!

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0948ADAD2AA13-thanksgiving1

More Winter Bundler Held Needed!!!- I still need your help in putting together a schedule for helping getting the students bundled up for winter once the snow arrives! We will be needing your help at 11:00 ish and would love for you to stay throughout recess (you can wait inside if you’d like or enjoy the elements). Recess starts at 11:20 and is over at 11:40. After our kindergarteners are inside and ready for lunch then you will be free to go. Let me know…what days would work for you? How often would you like to help (every day, every other day, once a week/once a month/as needed/back up only?) I am all set for Tuesdays, and every 1st and 3rd Friday of the month but I still need more help! Please e-mail me if your interested and available! With only me it makes winter time rough with getting all our gear on and off to play!! I appreciate any extra help I can get! Thank you!

P.E. C.A.R.E.S.: A big thank you to all of you who have brought in canned goods and non perishables to help us with our food drive! Check out our P.E. blog for an update: http://mvankoev.edublogs.org

*Donations for the PE CARES food drive (canned/non-perishable foods) will continue until Nov. 22. Help us win a T-shirt and a bowling field trip! I didn’t have the camera handy but we had so much food to bring that we ALL had an item to carry. Wow! You can still donate items this week.

REMINDERS AND INFORMATION:

*November 27-29 Thanksgiving vacation

*Holiday Music Program is December 3. More details coming!

*Holiday Gift Shop….Dec 4-6. Details coming soon on our shopping day!

*Mark your calendars! Our Holiday Class Party will be Thursday, December 19 from 2-3pm. I will be in contact with my planners and helpers soon, but as always everyone is welcome to join us! We will have a holiday book exchange as apart of our party. Each child will be asked to bring a newly wrapped book for a boy or a girl that will go into our exchange. Book order for Nov/Dec. and more information on this coming home soon!

Enjoy the rest of this warmer (but not for long) weekend! 🙂

~Ms. Yankee

Show- and-tell Homework – Due Monday, November 18

Posted on November 16, 2013 by yankee

The students came home with a note yesterday reminding them of a show-and-tell item they need to bring to school, Monday. This item is something they’re thankful for- family photo, stuffed animal, special toy, award, etc. They should pick wisely as we will be drawing all the details and looking closely at our show-and-tell item as apart of our writing workshop. We will probably keep their show-and-tell item at school for a few days so we can take our time to write about it. Please let me know if the item must come home Monday night.

Thanks so much! Looking forward to sharing what we’re thankful for! 🙂

Thanksgiving Activity Sign-up

Posted on November 15, 2013 by yankee

If you can donate supplies and/or time check out the following site to sign-up!

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0948ADAD2AA13-thanksgiving1

Thank you!!! 🙂

October Book- it Calendar

Posted on November 11, 2013 by yankee

If your still holding onto your October reading calendar the last day to turn it in is tomorrow, Tuesday, October 12th to receive your pizza coupon!!!

Keep reading and filling out the November one!

Weekly Update, Nov.4-8

Posted on November 10, 2013 by yankee

Popcorn Words: like and here. We are so good at finding these words in books, morning messages and all around us!

Writer’s Workshop: We have shifted our writing focus to being scientific writers. As scientific writers we need to look very closely at an object. We sketched a leaf this week including all of the details of how it looks. Zooming in on the different colors of the leaf, using detail to draw the shapes of the leaf and different parts of the leaf. It was challenging for us to draw our leaves but we tried our best and did a GREAT job! To help us see how writers use labels and zoom in on details in their writing we read several books that showed us details in their pictures, labels in their pictures and provided us with great examples of how to be awesome scientific writers.

Reader’s Workshop: This week we dug deeper into what a character is in a book. We discovered that characters can talk, characters have a voice in a story and that they have personalities. We read three different versions of the tale, Chicken Little to help us identify the characters. We used a bubble map to describe Chicken Little. The kindergarteners described Chicken Little as a chicken, yellow color, crazy and confused. Many of us had a chance to use our own voices to be chicken little and say….”the sky is falling, the sky is falling” or another character in the book. We continued to work on characters throughout the week by making our own “this is me” bubble maps where we described ourselves. The Kindergarteners described themselves by using characteristics like eye color, age, family, favorite sport/activity, hair color, and a personality trait. We ended the week by comparing two characters of the book Chicken Little. The Kindergarteners compared Chicken Little and Foxy Loxy. They discovered ways that they were the same and ways that they were different. I was really impressed with how well the Kindergarteners did with these comparisons.

Math: We continued exploring groups of 5 with numbers 1-10. Our kindergarteners have been using 5 penny strips and single pennies to make up numbers 6-10. For example, we made the number 8 with a 5 penny strip and 3 more pennies. We continued to add and subtract with partners, but also enjoyed creating addition and subtraction problems with our Friday popcorn! We learned and discussed +1 relationships, as well as comparing numbers and objects to see if they are equals (=) or not equals (= with a /through it). We also continued to practice our number writing.

Handwriting: We completed our Starting Corner Capitals (H, K, L, U, V, W, X, Y, Z) this week! And we started to move on to Magic C Letters (C and O ). Please practice the correct formation with your child at home!

Mystery Reader: Our very first dad, Mr. Bromley surprised us Friday as our mystery reader! We loved having a dad come read to us for a change! He shared a favorite of Kadon’s, I Met a Moose in Maine One Day. Then we had fun listening to Kadon share about his trip to Maine and all the fun things he got to see and do there! Thanks for coming to visit us!

Special Braille Presentation: We had a very special visit Tuesday from vision specialists Ms. B and Ms. Nancy. They taught us all about how our kindergarten friend, Kellen in Mrs. Stutz’s class uses braille and his cane to see the world around him. Some of the students even learned how to help lead Kellen properly around the classroom. We also got to “eat” the first letter of our name in braille. Ms. Nancy brought us candy dots that we made into the first letter of our name. We got to bring home a copy of the braille alphabet and even our names written in braille. Using our sense of touch to feel the braille, our hearing to listen to our friends lead us, looking at our environment to get around the room, tasting and even smelling our braille alphabet…..our senses are used ALL THE TIME. There are special tools and books that we all use to learn and it was really fun to learn about new ones. Our mindful kindergarteners were amazed at all of this information. I encourage you to ask them about this visit.

5th Grade Buddies: On Friday we had some great free time with our buddies! The sunshine was out and we took our buddies outside on our playground to play! Wohooo!!! We had a blast playing together! It was the perfect ending to our week!

Conferences: Thank you all so much for coming to conferences this week!!! It was such a pleasure to meet with you and share all of the wonderful progress of your Kindergartener. Thank you all so much for sharing them with me!! Please feel free to contact me at any times if you ever have any questions or concerns.

Bananas’ Travel Updates: This fun, loving monkey has been having so much fun on his sleepovers with the Kindergarteners! Last week he even made it all the way over to Detroit with Cooper to see his first Piston’s game! They love to share their adventures together with the entire class! Thanks for your help. If he hasn’t been to your house yet, expect a visit soon!

REMINDERS AND INFORMATION:

* TURKEY FEATHERS CAME HOME THIS WEEK TO BE DECORATED! I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE THEM BACK BY TOMORROW, MONDAY OR EARLY NEXT WEEK IF POSSIBLE! Have fun decorating together!

*No more cuddle buddies- Cuddle buddies were sent home last week. We’re now using our quiet time to be quiet readers! Thanks so much!

*Library day will resume on Wednesday. Don’t forget to return your child’s book! Thanks for all your great book fair purchases!

*The weather has turned cooler. Please dress your child in warm outside clothes…warm coat, hat/headband, mittens/gloves. We go outside to play for lunch recess and at the end of the day. If your child has outgrown their winter boots, PLEASE CONSIDER PURCHASING BOOTS THAT FASTEN WITH VELCRO CLOSINGS!!! LACES TAKE TIME AND ARE DIFFICULT TO TIE/UNTIE WHEN WET. Thank you!

*PE CARES food drive begins on Nov. 11 and continues until Nov. 21. Your donations of canned or non-perishable food items can be brought into school anytime. The kinders will be bringing them to gym class to add the our school collection. The class that brings in the most items will receive a PE CARES t-shirt and a special bowling trip. Thank you for your donations and thinking of those in need this season.

*Have you read the November calendar? It is posted under CALENDARS at the top of our blog page.

*Thanksgiving Break: There will be no school for students beginning Wed., November 27 through Fri., November 29. Students will return to school on Monday, December 2.

*Save the date—-Georgetown Holiday Music Program is the evening of Tuesday, December 3. More information to come!

Weekly Update- October 28-31st

Posted on November 2, 2013 by yankee

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween! Enjoy the video of our special day! BIG thanks go out to Mrs. Hoag, Mrs. Clockman, and Mrs. Bromley for planning an excellent party! And more thanks go out to all the wonderful parent helpers! We had a GREAT turnout!

Color of the Week: Brown

Popcorn words: “go” and “stop”

Please add the October flash cards sent home today to the prior ones. Thank you so much for practicing with your child. It is making a difference! This was the last color book. Enjoy reading all the books and singing the color songs at home!

Reading Workshop: We continued to work on retelling stories we read together. We also had fun creating a Brown Bear, Brown Bear retell bracelet. This bracelet came home Monday, hopefully they shared with you! 🙂

Writing Workshop: This week in writing we finished up our small moment stories writing across 3 page booklets! I am excited to share their progress with you at conferences! We have all come so far in our writing! I can’t wait to begin our new unit of labeling and list books as we investigate the world around us as scientific writers next week!

Math: Our math activities helped us know that we can compare numbers using the tiles = (equal) and =/…a diagonal line through (not equal), order numbers to complete dot to dot pictures and make groups of 6-10 using 5 strips and extra ones.

Upcoming Dates:

Due to the Book Fair being held in the library…we will NOT be going to library this week to check out a new book. We are scheduled to preview books on Tuesday from 12:30- 1:00 and to purchase books on Wednesday, November 6 from 12:30-1:00pm. Please send your child’s money in an envelope labeled with YOUR CHILD’S NAME and BOOK FAIR. The book fair will also be open during conference times or you can order online at http://bookfairs.scholastic.com/bookfairs/cptoolkit/homepage.do?method=homepage&url=georgetownelem
*If your child went trick or treating, please have fun completing the CANDY HOMEWORK and return it to school next week. Have fun practicing math skills at home!
Monday, Nov. 4-Wednesday, Nov. 6.….Conferences. Can’t wait to share the progress of your Kindergartener!! They’re all doing wonderful! Please show up promptly at your assigned time and wait outside my door.
The November 2013 Updated is posted under CALENDARS at the top of our blog. It is filled with birthdays, popcorn words, reminders and activities that will occur in our classroom.

Ms. Yankee's Blog

Monthly Archives: November 2013