Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Merry Christmas!

It was a wonderful day full of so much fun!  We started our morning with a whole school sing-a-long in the gym!  Check out a few songs in the video below! Even Flash the Timber-wolf got into the holiday spirit!  We also celebrated December birthdays at the morning meeting!  Ember and Mason are our December birthdays!






Then we had donuts and milk for Mason's birthday!  What a fun day for a birthday!  After that, we finished wrapping presents for YOU!  Your child brought home a gift bag just for mom's and dad's, but you must wait to open it until Christmas!  I mean it's only fair if they have to wait for their Santa gifts!  It is breakable, so be careful!  

Next we had our cozy time and watched The Polar Express.





We ended our day with our AMAZING winter party!  We had fun decorating sugar cookies, making reindeer thumbprint ornaments and playing a silly snowman game!  THANK YOU THANK YOU to all the wonderful parents who sent in supplies, money or came to help!  It is greatly appreciated and the kids had a blast!  THANK YOU to our awesome room mothers, Jackie and Mara for all their hard work organizing it.  

Click on the video below to see the fun game!  The rest are pictures.  














Another big THANK YOU for all the wonderful gifts I received!  Your children are a gift to teach every single day and I am truly blessed!  I am so happy I left my comfort zone (teaching at the same school for the last 12 years)  and chose to teach at this new, wonderful school because it has been nothing but amazing!  I love all the individual gifts, as well as my class gifts that everyone chipped in for!  (personal laminator, laminating sheets, Starbucks gift cards, Chick-fil-A gift cards and calendar for the classroom and a Bluetooth speaker!)  WOW! You guys totally out did yourselves and I am blown away and beyond grateful and thankful!  

In your child's backpack is a gift from me to them.....a picture book and a box of math manipulatives!  I hope they enjoy!  

Have a WONDERFUL winter break, a very Merry Christmas and A Happy New Year!  I will see you and your sweet children in 2017!
Love,
Mrs. Concannon

Friday, December 16, 2016

December Citizen of the Month and weekly update

Congratulations to Stella!
She was chosen by her classmates 
as December Citizen of the Month!



A look at our week...

I tried to keep a pretty normal routine all week (for my sanity haha) but we have thrown in several fun, holiday things as well, as you saw on yesterday's blog post!  Jack, our classroom elf, was much happier this week with the kiddos behavior and so was I!  He even brought us candy canes today as a reward!



Fundations: we continue to quickly review the proper letter formation of the uppercase letters.  You can look in your weekly packet to see which ones we went over this week.  We also learned about word families, specifically the -at, -ug, -an word families.  We also have a new word family center at Daily 5 time. 

Shared Reading/Spelling: to help us learn our new spelling words, yes and no, we read the books I Can Help and He Said No.  We also learned a fun new poem called, Santa, that is sung to the tune of Bingo.  Ask your kiddo to sing it for you!  

I will NOT introduce any new spelling words until the first full week after winter break, January 9th.  Until then, keep reviewing the current list over break.  I have attached it to the email.  Find ways to make practicing fun!  Just make sure you include ways that has your child writing and reading the words.  Often times I find they can write the words, but then can't read them in text.  It's odd, but true! 

Daily 5/Guided Reading Groups: Ask your child what Daily 5 choices they went to this week.  Ask them which Daily 5 choice is their favorite and why.  Ask your child what books they learned how to read during their guided reading groups.  

Math: we made some awesome paper chains that represent teen numbers.  It also helped us see how ALL teen numbers are a group of 10 plus some more. 


Writing Workshop: we continue to work on sounding out words to help us spell, putting spaces in between our words when we write and telling more details.  I am encouraging all kiddos to move beyond telling just one sentence and trying to add a second sentence to their stories.  

Social Studies: this week we learned the difference between Needs and Wants.  It is often hard for 5-6 year olds to understand that they don't need toys, video games, etc. but this group did a great job with it!  We learned that needs are things you must have to survive and wants are just nice to have.  We watched a Berenstain Bears video about a case of the gimmies, sorted some pictures together in a pocketchart of things that were needs and wants and made the cute needs and wants stockings that came home on Thursday.  I thought this tied in nicely with Christmas coming up.  We had some great discussions on this topic this week!

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Oh what fun!

It's been such a fun week, I just knew I couldn't cram it into one blog post tomorrow.  So you will get a few blog updates this week! 

It's been cold, cold, COLD....some days we are able to go outside and play and some days we stay in our room and dance to get those wiggles out! Check out our dancing videos at the links below.

https://youtu.be/Y8OBYwM61L4

https://youtu.be/BfR7uMbF_gI


Our class won the K-2 "Fast Pass" Award this week.  This means we were the best K-2 class in regards to behavior at lunch and lunch recess. This also means that our class gets to go through the lunch line first all this week; therefore more time to eat.  This is voted on by the lunch and recess supervisors. The winners of this award also get to keep a stuffed animal of Flash the Timber-wolf in our classroom all week.  He has enjoyed hanging out in our classroom library and listening to the kiddos read.  

This week for some holiday fun, the teachers have been participating in a "Secret Santa."  We drew names and delivered gifts to the faculty member whose name we drew.  On Thursday we were supposed to give our Secret Santa a gift for their classroom.  Whoever has my name gave our class cookies and the DVD Horton Hears a Who. So of course we had an impromptu movie and cookies afternoon.  It worked out perfectly because we couldn't go outside for afternoon recess due to the temperatures.  Thanks Secret Santa!


Monday, December 12, 2016

Monday Morning Meeting



Kindergarten led the Monday Morning Meeting in the gym today! Check out the video of them singing the Snowflake Song. They also told the "Joke of the day" to the entire school.
"What do snowmen eat for breakfast?"
"FROSTED FLAKES!" ⛄⛄⛄



Friday, December 9, 2016

Lots of learning!

Wow, another busy week full of learning and excitement!  With the excitement of the holiday's approaching, Jack our classroom elf has noticed a few behaviors that he and the big guy think we need to work on.  They would like us to focus on:
1) Following teacher directions the first time
2) When a teacher says "BEU", they need to say "I see you" and FREEZE and listen
3)Using kind words towards our friends

Any extra reminders you can give daily at home on these 3 areas would be wonderful!  

Reindeer Cam-we have been checking in on Santa's reindeer at the North Pole every day this week at www.reindeercam.com  We haven't seen Santa come out to feed them yet, but have seen several reindeer and lots of snow!  Check it out at home!  The kids love it!  You can even add their name to "the nice list" that you will see at the bottom of the screen if you wish!  

A look at our learning this week...

Fundations-I forgot to send home the weekly packets last week so it is pretty big this week.  However, I encourage you to read through it and try the activities at home a few nights each week.  We are now getting into "tapping words" to help us read and write and the more you practice at home, the further along your child will progress in their reading and writing at school.

Shared Reading/Spelling-To help us learn our new spelling words, on and we, we read the books The Sandwich, We Make Cookies, and Games We Play.  We are becoming wonderful readers and add many books to our read to self book boxes each week!  

Next weeks spelling words: yes, no

Daily 5/Guided Reading Groups: We have a few more new center choices to work on at Daily 5.  

 Mix & Fix: we draw a card with a spelling word on it and use magnets to correctly spell the word.  We then record it on a recording sheet that you might find in your child's Friday Folder if they went to this center this week.


Roll A Sight Word: this is updated weekly with our 2 newest spelling words and then a few review words.  They play with a partner and take turns rolling dice.  Whatever number they roll is the spelling word they practice writing.

While the kiddos are at their Daily 5 centers I am pulling groups to read.  Ask your child who is in their guided reading group and what books they learned how to read this week.  We are learning to point to the words when we read, look at the picture when we are stuck on a tricky word and "tap out" or sound out unknown words.  If we try all 3 things and are still stuck, I will always help them.  When reading at home, please prompt your child to try those strategies when reading.  They tend to appeal to adults and just want to be told the words, rather than try.  Make them try!

Writing Workshop-ask your child to tell you about the spaceman sticks that help us put word spaces between our words when writing!

Math-we are becoming teen experts!!  I am excited to wrap up this unit next week and begin a unit on non-standard measurement when we return from winter break!

Makerspace Friday- Mrs. Fitch had her 2nd Makerspace Friday today! Makerspace Friday's focus on STEM activities (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)  Since our class loved the Ozobots so much from a few weeks ago, she got those out and introduced them to all classes that signed up.  Since our class was the "Ozobot experts" in the building we were able to make paths and codes to have Ozobot races.  We divided up into teams to make racetracks for our Ozobots and then went around to see whose went the fastest!  Zara, Bradlen and Ellie's group made the fastest track!  Ask your child to tell you all about it!  If you need a reminder as to what Ozobots are you can search back in the blog posts from early November where I provided a more detailed explanation. 







Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Lunch with the principal for December

Yay for Alex!  He was chosen from our classroom to have lunch with Dr. Majerus today!  How fun!



Monday, December 5, 2016

Our mascots name is......

Flash!

The kiddos were so excited this morning to hear which name won!  
They were also able to meet Flash the Timber wolf!  What a fun start to the day!







Friday, December 2, 2016

Back in the swing of things!

It's been a long time since we have had a full week of school...no days off, no sick teacher.  It was great!  Take a look at our learning!

Fundations: We have now learned the name, letter sound and correct letter formation for ALL lowercase letters.  When your child is writing, please hold them accountable for forming all letters correctly.  When they are reading and writing, please encourage them to use their letter sound knowledge to help them read/write words. 
We are now focusing on using these letter sounds to help us spell words.  We are learning to "tap out" 3 letter words to help us spell/read.  Ask your child to "tap out" a 3 letter word such as hat or lap and they can show you what this means!  

Shared Reading/Spelling: To help us learn our new spelling words this week we read the books Maria and her teacher and What makes me happy?, as well as the poem Jack and Jill. All of these were added to their book box on Friday as familiar reading books.  (These are the small, paper books that I send home from time to time when we clean out book boxes)
Next week's new spelling words: we, on

Daily 5/Reading groups: Reading groups are in full swing.  Every child is in a group based on their ability level.  The group sizes range from 3-5 children.  I have 5 reading groups, so I meet with 3 a day.  Essentially your child's group is meeting at least every other day, if not more.  We work on reading a book that is at their ability level.  We learn new strategies to try when they come to an unknown word.  They get to keep their books in their book boxes to re-read during "Read to Self" time.  Beginning in January they will bring home their newest reading group books a couple times a week to share with you.  I want to wait until then so they can get into the routine of reading groups first.  Ask your child what book they read during reading group this week.  

When I am meeting with reading groups, the rest of the children are working at their Daily 5 centers.  Check out a few of the centers below. 

Rainbow letters: at this center we practice correct letter 
formation of the letters we learned at Fundations.  
We choose 5 crayons and practice tracing the letters the correct way. 

Search & Tally: we search through books for our spelling words and put a tally when we find one.

Sight Word Center: we practice writing our spelling words with fun tools like highlighters and markers!

Math: up until winter break we are working on numbers 0-20, especially the numbers in the teens.  They are always the trickiest.  Check out the fun video below that we sing daily to help us learn our teen numbers!


Writing: we are really using our knowledge of letter sounds to help us sound out and spell words when writing.  We are also working on telling more than once sentence when we write.  


Science: we learned about germs this week.  We learned how to wash our hands correctly to get rid of all germs.  Water first, soap second, sing the ABC song while rubbing the soap on your hands, rinse the soap off when you are finished singing the ABC song, dry your hands.  Nurse Kristen also brought a really cool "germ light" that helped us see all the germs on our hands.  After they saw their germs, they were told to go wash their hands and then they could go back under the "germ light" to see how they did with their hand washing!  So cool!
We are really working hard on keeping our fingers out of mouth and nose to help with this.  




Wednesday, November 30, 2016

November Citizen of the Month

Congratulations to Kiran on being chosen by her classmates for November Citizen of the Month!  We are proud of you! 


K-2 Winners for November

Monday, November 28, 2016

Monday happenings...

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break!  Mine was great, but I am so happy to be back at school and see everyone again!  

It has been an exciting morning at Beulah Ralph!  

Meet Jack, our classroom elf!  He will be watching over us during the month of December!  I hope he sees lots of nice things he can report to Santa!



 The last Monday of the month, we sing to the friends who had birthday's that month during the school wide Monday Morning Meeting.  Zara was a November birthday from our classroom!



 Our school mascot logo was revealed this morning and they look awesome!  An email version of the order form was sent to all families this morning from Dr. Majerus and Mr. Woods and a paper copy is in your child's take home folder today. Order forms are due by DECEMBER 5th and will be in before winter break.  

Our new word wall words for the week are: and, me
Please practice nightly for our weekly test on Friday.  Your child brought home their most current word wall list last Tuesday.  They are expected to be able to read and write all words on that list (except for our classmates names).