Happy Spring Break!

A look at our learning...

Fundations: we continued to work on blending and reading 3 sound words.  We changed the initial, middle or ending sounds to create new words. (example: bed, led, leg, etc.) We also blended nonsense words, such as bez, for decoding mastery.  When your child is writing at home and they ask you how to spell a word, please encourage them to "tap it out and write the sounds they hear."

Shared Reading: we read the books What Animals Eat and Do you play? to help us learn our word wall words to & do.

When we return from Spring Break our new word wall words will be:

are

for

Math: this week we played a match game with 3D shapes, explored caculators, took a survey about the types of pets we have at home and used pan balances.  Ask your child what they liked about math this week. 

Writing Workshop: on Thursday we took our informational writing assessment.  Over the past couple of months they have loved learning about this type of writing and have become experts on penguins and elephants.  They did a great job!  When we return from spring break we will begin our final unit of writing, opinion writing.  

Counselor: Mrs. Roof read the story Chester and the Big Bad Bully.  The main character is Chester from The Kissing Hand.  The kids talked about what to do when someone is bugging you and bullying you.  We also talked about the difference between bugging and bullying.  Ask your child to tell you how bullying is different than bugging or just being mean.  You can also ask your child why Mrs. Roof had on ladybug slippers and a ladybug and Stinky the Skunk puppet!  Mrs. Roof is so fun and entertaining! 

March Reading Logs: you can turn in March reading logs when we return from Spring Break.  The April reading logs are in their take home folders today, we are not sending home Friday Folders this week due to break.  March is the last month for the Pizza Hut Reading Program.  It only runs October-March.  However, the BEU expectation is that children are reading/being read to at least 4 times a week for 20 minutes so we will continue that portion through April and May.  

Penny Drive: thanks again for the generous donations to our penny drive!  Even Dr. Majerus and Mr. Woods saved up pennies for us!

Happy Spring Break!! See you in April!

March Citizen of the Month

Yay Miles!

He was chosen as our March Citizen of the Month!

Penny Drive Update

You guys are awesome!  This week our class alone has raised another $89!  Our Kindergarten total is up to approximately $360!  Only $140 to go to reach our $500 goal! Our last day to collect money is Friday.

 Thank you for your amazing generosity!

STEAM Bus

We had fun on the CPS STEAM Bus today!

We heard the story Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey and then were challenged by Craig Adams (STEAM Bus teacher) to be mathematicians and engineers and design a duck and a nest that could hold the 8 eggs in the story.  They were also challenged to be creative and find ways to make sure the nest and eggs were safe from predators. Check out the video and photos below. 

There were 3 rules on the STEAM Bus:  

1) You can use as many Lego's as you want, BUT you have to be able to count them all

2) Cooperation and Kindness

3) Don't give up, even if it is hard--Positive Mindset

Ask your child about their creation!  

They had a blast with this perfect rainy day activity!

To learn more about the CPS STEAM Bus click here:

https://www.cpsk12.org/steambus

They also have a Twitter handle @CPSSteamBus

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It was a MUCH better week this week in regards to attention, focus and being active learners!  Thank you for your help with this at home!  Hopefully we can have another successful week, full of learning, before Spring Break!

A look at our learning...

Shared Reading: we read the big books Get In and Polly Gets Out to help us practice our word wall words she and he.  We also learned the silly poem called The Lucky Leprechaun.

Next week's new word wall words:

do

to

Fundations: check out the paper in the Friday Folder and ask your child to tap out and spell the week 3 and 4 words for you over the next week or so.  

Math: we continue to focus on addition and subtraction through story problems.  We also had fun using dominoes to help us with addition (you can add the two sides together).  Check the Friday Folder for more ways to extend math learning at home.  Below we are working on EveryDay Math games online.  Don't forget you can access this at home as well.  

Writing Workshop: most friends have finished up their 2nd informational book about penguins.  We have switched our learning to elephants and have learned many interesting facts!  

Next week we will be writing and finishing up our elephant informational books.  We will also be taking our informational writing assessment on Thursday.  This will help me see strengths each child has with this type of writing and areas where they can grow over the last 2 months of school. When they do a writing assessment they do it independently. They do not have help from me or their friends.  They are doing a great job with this unit of writing!  Ask your child what cool facts they have learned about elephants!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!
That tricky leprechaun destroyed our room while we were in the tech lab!  Lucky for us, he left behind some of his gold!
Check out the video and pictures!