Weekly Update, April 24-28…

April 24 – 28

Popcorn Words:  some, come.  

April popcorn flash cards were sent home to add to your kinder’s collection. The work that you do at home helps your kinder be the best student they can be. Thank you!

Sports Day: We had a blast with sports day Monday! It was fun to see everyone’s sport gear and play a baseball sports math game. 

 

Writer’s Workshop:  We have really blossomed as writers.  This week we picked a piece of writing from our writing folder that we fixed and fancied.  Then, we visited Mrs. Stadt’s first grade class and read them our writing.  They shared a piece of writing with us too. We even got to check out the incubator in their classroom filled with eggs that will soon be baby chicks! The Kindergarteners will be exploring opinion writing during the month of May.

Reader’s Workshop:  We are continuing to identify with characters in stories that we read.  Making connections to how they feel, something they have done or even connecting to other books that show that same action. We had so much fun creating readers theaters plays and performing for each other! I am working on posting these for viewing soon! Some tech. difficulties this week! 

Split Lit:  The Kindergarteners have done a great job making choices on their own during our split lit. time.  They are choosing from writing words, sentences, and even listening to books.  We have even started to do some readers theater work in small groups.  Each of the students getting a part in a play and then reading it together.  It has been fun to see them enjoy this task. 

Math: In math this week we worked on subtraction, addition, teen numbers, finding groups of 10 and even discovering equal and not equal groups! 

Science:  We wrapped up our study on soil and started our observations of our rock collections.  The Kindergarteners have loved making the different kinds of rocks.  Using pressure with starbursts to create their own edible sedimentary rocks and then using pressure and heat from their hands to create their own metamorphic rocks.  We also melted chocolate and butterscotch chips to make igneous rocks, using the microwave as our extreme heat! We wrapped up our study of rocks by doing rock centers Friday! They brought their collections home Friday! Our plants are taking off too! We have had so much fun observing them everyday! 

 

Earth Day Crafts:   We had so much fun sharing our created crafts using recyclable and reusable items.  The Kindergarteners were very creative!!   This project helps us kick off our study of living and non/living things next week.

Mystery Reader:  This week Jay was filled with excitement when his dad walked in! He brought the Dr. Seuss classic, All the Places You’ll Go. Thanks so much for coming! 

Explorer of the Jungle: We started traveling home with, Iggy, a traveling Iguana that is friend’s with Banana’s. The students will fill out a journal page, writing a sentence or two to tell us about what they did with Iggy.  Thank you for helping your child with this activity.

*MONTHLY CALENDAR:  May is FILLED with many birthday celebrations.  Be sure to look at the May June calendar for May and summer birthday celebration dates, along with other important information.  It has been posted under CALENDARS at the top of our blog.

Upcoming Dates:

  • Monday, May 1…ART, Bring Take Home Books.
  • Tuesday, May 2…STEAM, LIBRARY, Bring Library Book. Celebrate Jay’s B’day!!! 
  • Wednesday, May 3…GYM, Bring Take Home Books, Homework Due.
  • Thursday, May 4…MUSIC, Bring Take Home Books. Celebrate Jasper’s B’day!!! 
  • Friday, May 5…ART
  • Tuesday, May 9…Field Trip.   We will be leaving at 9:15 a.m., lunch at Huizenga Park in Zeeland, return to school by 2:00 p.m.  Please feel free to join us for our picnic lunch.  We will be at the park around 12:00pm. Your kinder will need a home lunch and water bottle to enjoy during our picnic lunch.  NO SANDALS, FLIP FLOPS OR CROCS. TENNIS SHOES NEED TO BE WORN!!  We will be walking through woods and trails and playing on a big playground.  Please dress your child according to the weather. We will be OUTSIDE for most of the day!
  • Friday, May 12…Early Release Day, 12:15 p.m.
  • Friday, May 26…  Wear RED, WHITE and BLUE!
  • Monday, May 29…NO SCHOOL, Memorial Day.
  • *FRIDAY, JUNE 2:  Kindergarten Olympics  Volunteer note due Friday, May 19- INFO COMING HOME THIS WEEK!

Library Book and Earth Day Homework, Due Tomorrow…

Tomorrow, Tuesday, April 25th is library day! Be sure to bring your books back, we were missing many library books last week! 

Also, Earth Day homework is due tomorrow! Bring in a recyclable item that you can think of another use for! If you have time to create it, make it! If you just bring it to share un-made that’s fine too! I will have extras in case you forget! Rich brought a great one back today already! A gatorade bottle that he turned into a music shaker! So fun and creative!!! 🙂 Can’t wait to see your new inventions tomorrow! 

Weekly Jungle Update, April 17-21…

I hope everyone is out and about enjoying the beautiful weekend! It’s getting busy, as were almost down to the final month of KINDERGARTEN! WOW! 🙂

Popcorn Words:  these and they   The Kindergarteners worked hard on learning these words with daily sentence writing, whiteboard and worksheets.  We have learned soooo many popcorn words this year!!! Be sure to ask your kinder the song that we sing to help us remember the spelling for “they”. 

Writer’s Workshop: In writing this week we continued the fun of choice time at writing. Many of us chose to write a how-to book, write about a friend, animals, lists, etc. It has been so fun this month to see how excited the kinders have gotten with writing their own stories! They have gotten upset when writing time is ending for the day! We will pick a piece this week to fix and fancy and celebrate with a different grade!

Reader’s Workshop: In workshop this week we have been working on identifying the importance of characters in stories.  We have made connections to characters and next week we will start working on performing as characters. We will do some readers theater! We’re constantly working on using our decoding strategies and our comprehension skills to tell all we know about the story when were done reading!  I have started re-assessing students reading levels this week and many students bumped up in their take home/just right book level! This is a HUGE accomplishment! We’re shooting for reading level D by the end of kindergarten!  I will plan to get back to more testing soon! I LOVE to get the opportunity to test with my students it is sooooo exciting to see their progress!!!

Math: In math this week we worked on finding partners, addition and subtraction fact fluency and greater then and less then!  We will continue to finish our final math unit of the year over the next few weeks!  They are amazing math magicians!!!!!  I am soooo amazed by their growth!!

Science…Rocks!!!   We explored more about soil this week and then started talking about rocks. Friday, was so fun we got out of rock collections!! We shared our favorites! Tested if rocks sink or float!? We discovered that a rock called pumice, floats!! So fun!!! We will continue to investigate our rock collections by sorting them different ways the rest of the week! We will also get into learning about the 3 different types of rocks this week!

Friday we planted bean seeds in preparation for our next  science unit…….living and non-living.  Learning about the need for soil was a great connection to our seeds. 

We also now have tadpoles in our classroom tank and will be learning more about the transformation from tadpole to frog!!!

Mystery Reader: We had another special reader on Friday!! Drew, Cole’s big brother came to read to us! Cole is in 3rd grade and was in my classroom when he was in kindergarten! Cole read, How Do Dinosaur’s Get Well Soon?. It was so fun to have an older sibling visit us! E-mail me if you would like to wrap up the year as a mystery reader!

Explorer of the Jungle:  We started our final Explorer of the Jungle, special student of the day! This time it’s a visit with Banana’s Jr. (the stuffed monkey). They will bring the special monkey home and write about their adventures together! This has been fun so far!

Field Trip: More info. coming home with your kinder before the trip. The 6 chaperons for the nature center have been notified. You will need to provide your own transportation to the park, we don’t have enough room on the bus!

All parents can feel free to join us for our picnic lunch.  We will be at the park around 12:00pm. Your kinder will need a home lunch and water bottle to enjoy during our picnic lunch.  NO SANDALS, FLIP FLOPS OR CROCS. TENNIS SHOES NEED TO BE WORN!!

Upcoming Dates:

  • Monday, April 24.. Sports Day!!! Dress sporty!!!Take home book!
  • Tuesday, April 25… Library and Earth Day homework due!! Bring an earth day recyclable item that can be reused! 
  • Wednesday,April 26…Take home book!
  • Thursday, April 27…bring TAKE HOME BOOK
  • Friday, April 28…
  • Summer Birthday’s are being celebrated in May… check for your child’s special day: they can bring a small edible or non-edible treat for the class we have 21 students!!
  • Tuesday, May 2…Jasper’s birthday celebration
  • Thursday, May 4… Jay’s birthday celebration
  • Tuesday, May 9… Spring Field Trip!!!
  • Wednesday, May 10.. Rich’s birthday celebration
  • Thursday, May 11… Liam’s birthday celebration
  • Tuesday, May 16… Mady’s birthday celebration
  • Thursday, May 18… Lila’s birthday celebration
  • Tuesday, May 23… Ellery’s birthday celebration
  • Thursday, May 25… Dayne’s birthday celebration
  • Friday, May 26…Red, White and Blue Day!  Wear your Red, White and Blue to school!!
  • Monday, May 29.. Memorial Day… no school!
  • Wednesday, May 31… Kayler and Braylee’s birthday’s!
  • Thursday, May 26… Brady’s Birthday!
  • Friday,June 2…Kindergarten Olympic’s– more info. Looking for help coming home soon!
  • Friday, June 9…LAST DAY OF SCHOOL…dismissal at 1:00 p.m.

Liam’s super cool fossil his big brother found…

Planting our lima bean seeds…

Visiting the schools recycle bin…

Picking up trash on in celebration of Earth Day with our buddies….

Sports Day Reminder and Earth Day Homework…

Hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful sunshine weekend! 

Just a reminder that tomorrow is sports day! Break out your sports outfits and sports jerseys and hats for tomorrow! 

Also, on Friday we celebrated and talked about Earth day and things we can do to take care of the Earth. We watched a short video clip about how we can recycle or reuse different items. For example, the girl in the video turned an empty soup can into a pencil cup holder. For homework by Tuesday this week I would love each kindergartener to bring in an item that can be reused. Examples: toilet or paper towel roll, old newspaper/magazines, glass jar, metal can, water bottle, egg carton, any recyclable! They can simply just bring the item in and share with the class the other use they have for the item or for fun they can take some time at home to turn it into something new! We can’t wait to see and hear their new inventions! 🙂 I will bring some extra items in just in case you forget!! Thanks! 

Rock Collections Due Tomorrow and Upcoming Sports Day….

Don’t forget to bring in your rock collections tomorrow!! We will plan to study our rocks and then bring them home sometime next week! 

Also, the kindergarteners had an exciting day today… we earned our 10th rock in the rockstar jar for outstanding class behavior… that means Monday will be SPORTS DAY!! Break out your team jerseys, dance/gymnast outfits, favorite sports team shirts, hats, gear,etc.!!! We can’t wait to celebrate in sports gear!!! 

 

Art Show Night, Wednesday!

It’s here…the 2017 HPS Student Art Show is up and ready for you to visit!  The HPS Art Teachers invite you to stop by the Hudsonville City Hall to view art created by some of the most talented artists in our district.

The show runs from April 17 – 25 and is open from 8AM – 5PM during City Hall Hours.  There are special Artist Receptions held each evening from 5:30-7:30 PM. 

Georgetown Artists – your night is Wednesday, April 19 – I plan to attend the first half hour of the show Wednesday, 5:30-6:00 pm!!! If you can swing by then I would love to see my featured artists. We have 5 featured artists in our classroom~  Come by and see their work, plus many others!!

Jay – Turkey
Kyla  – Mr. Mondrian
Finn – Snowy Pines
Nolan  – Monster Truck
Braylee – Texture Spider

Weekly Jungle Update, April 10-14…

Popcorn Words:  Jump, Him.

Math:  This week we started Unit 5.  We began by arranging our own “Math Night Sky.”  The Kindergartners helped me put together a Math Night Sky showing 10 stars on 10 posters.  Each poster has a combination of purple stars and yellow stars.  We then added a number sentence that said what the picture showed.  For example, 1 purple star and 9 yellow stars goes with the number sentence 10=9+1.  We then counted the stars by 10’s to make up 100 stars all together in our Math Night Sky.  We wrapped up the week by playing some fun easter themed math games.

Split Lit.:  We are doing a wonderful job with our split lit. time!  The Kindergarteners are able to pick from over 8 different activities while also meeting with a teacher everyday to practice their specific reading needs.  I have seen amazing growth with our Kindergarteners!!  Keep up the great work at home with the sight words/popcorn words and reading!!

Writer’s Workshop:  This month we are reviewing all of the different types of writing we have done so far in Kindergarten.  During Writer’s Workshop the Kindergarteners have had the choice to pick from writing an All About book, How to book or a Small Moment Story.  They are so excited about having the choice to write what they want!!

Reader’s Workshop:  This week in readers’s workshop we have been combining our class with Mrs. Stutz’s class to learn about Characters in books.  We have listened to stories with characters in them and talked about how characters have emotions in stories.  Discovering that the author writes words that a character says words in a story by adding “quotation marks.”  We also have learned that the illustrator shows how a character feels in a story by drawing details on a character’s face.  We have discussed these characteristics and then partnered up with a friend from Mrs. Stutz’s class to read back to back and then share the characters in our book at the end of our reading time.  We have enjoyed this whole group reading and learning time with our friends.

Science:  We have literally “dug in” to learning about Soil this week.  The Kindergarteners helped collect soil samples from around our school.  We collected a sample from the creek by the playground, the field and then the sandbox.  After collecting we were able to take a closer look at each of these samples.  Some of us had worms and bugs in our soil!  We learned that soil is made up of many different components!  Learning that soil has different levels:  bedrock, subsoil, topsoil, and humus.  We wrote in our journals pictures of the 3 different soil samples we collected.  The Kindergartners are having so much fun with this unit so far.  We will continue to talk about soil next week.  We will begin our study of rocks by the end of our week with our Rock collections due Friday, April 21.

5th Grade Buddies: This week our 5th grade buddies had to take the M-Step test. We sent them sweet encouraging notes of encouragement and good luck wishes each day by making them little notes with a sweet treat attached!! ” You’re a smartie pants” with a smartie attached, ” You’re star-bursting with knowledge!”, with a starburst. And finally, “Let’s rock and roll” with a tootsie roll. The kinders loved making and hand delivering these to our buddies each am before their testing started! We will continue to deliver notes to them next week as they wrap up their standardized testing. 

*** Calling all mystery readers!!! I am in need of a reader sometime this week! It doesn’t need to be Friday! If your able, a grandparent or an older sibling is interested please e-mail me!!! I would love to have a special reader this week!! Thanks! 

Field Trip Update: Thanks for the great response for the upcoming May 9 field trip! We have our 6 chaperons to volunteer for the first part of the trip. You were contacted today by e-mail if you  should plan on coming!! I will place other interested parents on a waiting list. However, everyone, including younger siblings are welcome to meet us at Timbertown Park in Zeeland for a picnic lunch and play! More info. and directions coming soon! Thanks for the great response back for the park portion as well! Looks like we have a great turnout of parents joining us! 

Upcoming Dates:

  • Monday, April 17…PE , Bring Take Home Book.
  • Tuesday, April 18…Music, Library, Bring Library Book.
  • Wednesday, April 19…Art, Bring Take Home Book.
  • Thursday, April 20…Steam, Bring Take Home Book.
  • Friday, April 21…PE, Rock Collections Due.  Celebrating Earth Day!  Popcorn Friday.

Spring Field Trip…

We are approaching our spring field trip! Our field trip this year will be on Tuesday, May 9th with Mrs. Stutz’s kindergarten class. We will be going to Hemlock Crossing Park  (10-11:30am)  in West Olive for a nature and wild life study. We will then head to Huizenga Park from 12-1:30 pm ish  in Zeeland for a picnic lunch and play. A  blue note with more information is coming home in your child’s folder today.

Hemlock Crossing does limit our number of parent chaperons. I can only take 6. I am just going to take the first 6 volunteer papers that I receive. I will put the rest of you on a waiting list.

However, all parents are welcome to meet us for the second portion of our day at Huizenga Park in Zeeland. They can join for a picnic and play. 

If your able to attend, please fill out the blue sheet and return it asap! I will be in contact with the parents soon to let you know if you should just plan on the picnic or chaperoning the morning as well. 

Thanks so much for your support and understanding!

~Ms. Yankee 

Weekly Update… March 27-30…

March 27-30…

I hope everyone is having a fun filled and restful spring break! I am hoping we move into some spring like weather finally this week! I have been here over break, piling on the layers to keep warm! I can’t wait for sunny skies and warmer temps!!! Below is our update from before spring break…

Can’t wait to see my kinders next week!

Popcorn Words:  We have not added any new sight words.  The Kindergarteners reviewed sight words this week and learned a few sight word games that they brought home.  

Writer’s Workshop:  Before leaving for Spring Break we worked on our “on demand” all about books.  I was so impressed with how well the Kindergarteners did with writing these books!!  We gathered information on Wolves this week and wrote our facts we learned together.  Then with our facts each Kindergartener wrote their own, All About Wolves information book.  We also celebrated our amazing journey of becoming Non-fiction writers by sharing our All About Wolves book with our friends from Mrs. Stutz’s classroom.  We enjoyed a yummy animal cracker snack and watched some silly videos of zoo animals.  After spring break we will be going back review all different genres of writing!

Math: We reviewed our Math skills this week.  Playing different games, like the missing partner game.  We will jump into Unit 5 after spring break! 

Science:  After Spring Break we will begin our study of soil and rocks.  A note went home asking the Kindergarteners to gather a collection of rocks.  This is due Friday, April 21.   Spring break may be a fun time to gather some interesting rocks.  Can’t wait to explore these with the kiddos!  I LOVE SCIENCE!!  This is one of my favorite units we do!!

Reading Week:  This week we celebrated being readers! On Wednesday we had a visit from an 8th grade leadership class at Baldwin Middle school. The 8th graders decided that they would like to volunteer to read in a few different kindergarten classes over the year to share the gift of reading! We loved having them! Nathan in our class especially because his big sister, Anna was in the class! 🙂

 On Thursday we had a very fun P.J. day traveling to the different Kindergarten classrooms to hear some favorite stories.  Each Kindergarten teacher read a story and did a fun activity with the Kinders.  So fun! Our class was surprised by Mrs. Stutz’s Kindergartners as our Mystery Reader’s Thursday!   If you would like to be a Mystery Reader please sign up on our signup.com link or contact me at myankee@hpseagles.net!! I am in need of more readers to finish our year!

Reader’s Workshop:  We are continuing to work on using our story map to retell a story and find the heart of each story we read.  The Kindergartners have worked with their reading buddies to share a book, read a book and retell the story they have read.  Even having fun reading to their buddy they brought for P.J. day fun.  They are working so hard as readers!!

Upcoming Dates:

  • April 3 – 7…Spring Break, NO SCHOOL
  • Monday, April 10…Steam, Bring Take Home Book.
  • Tuesday, April 11…PE, LIBRARY, Bring Library Book.
  • Wednesday, April 12…Music, Bring Take Home Book.  No homework due….no homework was given over Spring Break!
  • Thursday, April 13…Art, Bring Take Home Book.
  • Friday, April 14…Steam, Early Release Day – Dismissal at 12:15 p.m.
  • Friday, April 21…Rock Collections Due.
  • Tuesday, May 9…Our Spring Field Trip with Mrs. Stutz’s…details coming soon.