Tag Archives: spring book fair

Weekly Update: March 3-7

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Popcorn Words:  had, bad, and.  We noticed how had and bad both have the same endings, ad.  And is a popcorn word that we already knew because we see it so often.

Theme of the week:  Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  This theme helped us explore more about bears in our informational writing and non-fiction reading about bears.

Math:  We have been continuing on our work in Unit 4.  We explored partners of 10.  Also, we became math magicians and were able to find unknown partners of 5, 6 and 7.  The Kindergarteners worked with partners to play this game and did a great job!  We also got to know the Tiny Tumblers who live at the top of math mountains.  We explored different math mountains using yummy smarties.  We had fun telling stories about the math mountains and how some of them tumbled down one side and the rest tumbled down the other side.  These math mountains help us explore addition and find partners that make up numbers.  We ended the week with exploring 3-D and 2-D shapes. 3-D shapes that will continue to explore are cylinders, cubes, cones and spheres.

Reader’s Workshop:  This week we started our Non-fiction reading.  We are exploring what Non-fiction authors write about and the details they use to tell about the topics.  We have found table of contents, important facts and have discovered that authors teach us new information about topics.  We explored Grizzly Bears this week.  All of the Kindergarteners have added to their book boxes now having non-fiction books to read during our Reader’s Workshop time.

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Writer’s Workshop:  We are focusing on Informational Writing.  The Kindergarteners have explored our facts that we found on Grizzly Bears and put the information together into a chart.  We put these facts into a can, have and are chart.  Then we took this information and put it into pages on what bears can, have and are.  We will continue to explore these facts more next week and continue being informational writers.

Split Lit. Groups:  We are continuing to build on our pre-reading and reading skills.  Additional sight words have started to be sent home with each student.  Some of these words are the same as our popcorn words.  These words are what your child practices during our split lit. group time and with extra practice will help them master more sight words.  As your child masters these words at school they will bring home new sight words to practice.  We also started to explore retelling a story.  We retold the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  The Kindergarteners retold the story across their fingers and completed a worksheet using pictures.

5th Grade Buddies:  We got together with our 5th grade buddies on Friday.  We enjoyed the beautiful sunshine and got to play with them on their playground! We were all smiles as we got to slide down snow mountains together!

Spring Book Fair:  This week we will get a chance to preview the books at the book fair.  We will have a chance to buy books on Thursday, March 13 from 12:30-1:00.  If you are interested in having your child buy books please send in money on Thursday or before.

Conferences:  Thank you so much for attending conferences!  It was great to get a chance to share your child’s progress with you.

Mystery Reader and Landon’s Birthday: Happy 6th Birthday on Friday to Landon! He brought us very special, fun treat bags and we loved making the day extra special for him! Mrs. Jones came to surprise Landon as the mystery reader! It was a fun celebratory Friday, hope your enjoying your birthday weekend!

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Upcoming Dates:

  • Saturday, March 8….Daylight Savings…turn your clocks forward one hour.
  • Monday, March 10…All School Pajama Day!  Wear your P.J.’s to school!
  • Tuesday, March 11…Spring Book Fair Preview Day
  • Thursday, March 13…Spring Book Fair BUY Day
  • Friday, April 4 – 11…Spring Break…NO SCHOOL
  • Thursday, May 15…Outdoor Discovery Field Trip (More information later)

Jungle News: Week of March 4-8

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Special Happenings this week: 

 * Conferences- I enjoyed meeting all of my wonderful parents to share your child’s progress this week! I mentioned to some of you at conferences that myself and a few other teachers at Georgetown will be tutoring this summer. If your interested in tutoring support for your child this summer to keep them fresh or grow in their math and/or reading skills I will be tutoring at Georgetown a few mornings a week. I would love to continue working with your child to keep them fresh for 1st grade! Please get in touch with me soon to secure a spot! 

* P.J. Day was Friday!!! What a fun comfy, cozy day! 

Writing Workshop: We began a new unit this week, Informational, “All About… non-fiction writing. We kicked off this unit with coming up with a person, place or activity we knew a lot about. We had to come up with at least 5 facts on this topic in order to start our booklet. We talked about adding text features to our writing! Many tried adding bold words, labeled pictures, captions, highlighted words! We got many ideas from the non-fiction books we read this week! We had fun trying to add these features to our own stories! 

Math: We studied our shapes and learned that it does not matter what position the shapes are in, they are still squares, triangles, rectangles.  We compared flat shapes (2 dimensional) to solid shapes (3 dimensional).  Our tiny tumbler activities also provide fun practice with lesson and connection.  Creating teen numbers with 10 plus extra ones was also another area we have continued to work on by starting to create a mini teen number book. We will finish this mini book next week. Our Unit #4 math test will take place this week Friday! We will continue to review this week!

Reading Workshop: We used the “Shape-Go” Map and practiced how it can help us to understand and make connections as we read Goldilocks and the 3 Bears.  Remember, the map  is made up of four main shapes: Triangle-characters, setting, problem, Rectangle-What happened First, Next, and Then, followed by a Circle-what happened last, and finally ending with a Heart-what was the message or lesson that the author wanted us to learn. We will continue working with this fairy tell next week as we do some readers theater to practice retelling in a fun way! 

We were also introduced to non-fiction books this week! We began to learn what features a non-fiction book is and what it contains.  The children were excited to add some non-fiction books to their book bins! We had fun searching for what text features our books contained! 

 Mystery Reader: On Friday we had a visit from our 5th grade buddies in Mr. Gort’s class! They brought a non-fiction book to read to us! We also shared our books with them. Then at the end Mrs. Stacey, a paraprofessional in Mr. Gort’s class surprised both our classes as the mystery reader! 

 


Popcorn Words for this week were:

 “home” 

 

Important Information and Reminders:

* We are still on a search for a new pair of black snow pants for Faith Reahm! They have a great label inside of them, if these accidently were mixed up with your child’s please send them back to school for Faith! 

*There will not be any library next week due to the Spring Book Fair held in the library.  We are scheduled to preview books on Tuesday from 1:30-2:00pm and to purchase books on Thursday from 1:30-2:00pm.  If your child would like to shop for books, please send the money inside a labeled envelope “child name and Book Fair Money” on Thursday.  There will be parent volunteers available to assist your child in their selections.  If you would like to come and shop with your child, you are welcome to do that as well. 

*Take Home Books:  Remember your book each Monday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoons for an opportunity to read and exchange your book with your reading volunteers.

*Please continue to send winter outside clothes for your child to wear during recess.  The playground is becoming very icy, wet and slushy. 

*The March calendar is posted under CALENDARS at the top of our blog.  The March lunch menu can be found under the food service website on the side of our blog.

*Future Important Dates:

  • March 11-15 — Spring Book Fair (we shop on 3/14 from 2:30-3:00pm)
  • Fri., Mar. 29 through Fri., April 5 – Spring Break – No School

Don’t forget the time change! Extra daylight will be a nice perk! 🙂 Enjoy relaxing on this rainy Sunday!  

~Ms. Yankee

Jungle News: Week of Feb. 25-28

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Special Happenings this week: 

*Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss !  We spent the week preparing for his birthday on March 2 by reading many of his books and doing related rhyming activities.  Wacky Wednesday, Green Eggs and Ham and The Cat in the Hat were a few of the popular books we read.

*We celebrated our Rockstar Jar celebration by having a WACKY WEDNESDAY!  We came to school dressed WACKY!!!  Wacky clothes, wacky socks, wacky hair….it was crazy fun! :)   Thanks for helping us celebrate!

 

*Happy 6 1/2 Birthday Chloe!! We celebrated Chloe on Monday!

 

Writing Workshop: We finished up our writing unit on procedural writing by working  individually to write more “How to…” stories. We started the week with together making a pb & j sandwich. Then I introduced students to a flow map as a way to organize and plan their writing before writing across a booklet. I modeled my how to make a pb &j story stressing the use of precise words to explain what I was doing. The students were also introduced to transition words, action arrows, tools in the classroom that can help us spell words, and finally remembering to check for spaces! I will send those stories home with students next week, enjoy reading them together and celebrating! We will begin informational writing Monday!

Math: We started off the week joining Mrs. Iwema’s class for a group math lesson on comparing and contrasting 2 dimensional (square, rectangle, circle, triangle) and 3 dimensional (cylinder, cube, cone, and sphere) shapes. It was fun to learn in a big group together! We continued coming up with partners of 10, 6, 7, and 8 this week through exploration with our square (bug) manipulatives and workbook activities. We were introduced to math mountains and tiny tumblers this week as a way to display partners for a number.

Reading Workshop: The Little Red Hen was the focus story this week as the kinders were introduced to the SHAPE GO map.  This map is a tool to help with comprehension skills.  The kinders learned about the characters, the setting, problem, recalling sequencing of events and lesson of the story.  The Red Hen taught us that it pays off to help and work together! During our Read to Self time, the kinders had the opportunity to practice using this map.I will share this map with you at conferences so you can practice retelling at home when you read together!

 

Popcorn Words for this week were:

“had”, “bad”, “map”, “get”

 

Important Information and Reminders:

*Friday, March 8th is School wide PJ Day!!! Dress comfy and cozy on Friday!!!

*Library is on Tuesday.  Thanks for returning your child’s book.

*Take Home Books:  Remember your book each Monday, Wednesday and Thursday morning for an opportunity to read and exchange your book with your reading volunteers.

*Parent Teacher Conferences:  Pink slips with your child’s scheduled conference time were sent home with your child.  Please contact me with any scheduling questions.  You will receive your child’s report card on Monday in their Jungle Book folder. I look forward to seeing you all next week to celebrate the growth of your child! See the march conference schedule to check your time! 

*Winter gear:  It is needed daily, as the playground is very cold and snowy.  Thank you for preparing your child each day.

*The March Calendar has been posted under CALENDARS.  Please take time to read the calendar to see next month’s popcorn words and special events.

*Your generous donations this November during our MINDFUL GIVING service project raised enough money to purchase 48 lights for the staff at Nyaka School in Uganda Africa.  The staff wanted us to see photos of the reception in which they received their lights.  Thank you to everyone for the donations which brought light to this community of learners.

*Future Important Dates:

  • March 4,5,6 – Parent Teacher Conferences
  • Fri., March 8 — All school PJ day
  • March 11-15 — Spring Book Fair (we shop on 3/14  from 1:30-1:30 pm)
  • Fri., Mar. 29 through Fri., April 5 – Spring Break – No School