April Lunch with the Principal

Yay Zephyr!

He was chosen to have 

Lunch with the Principal for April!

Happy April!

Important Kindergarten dates to remember:

*April 20th-Kindergarten music program @ 6:30 p.m. 

(more details in Friday Folder)

*April 27th-Class trip to Rock Bridge High School Planetarium at 9:00 a.m. (students and teachers only)

*April 29th-BEU circus (more details in Friday Folder)

*May 1st-possible Kindergarten field trip (more details later)

*May 4th-Ms. Nemechek's last day

*May 25th-last day of school/early release & short Kindergarten program and picnic lunch with families beginning at 10:00 a.m. (more details in Friday Folder)

A look at our learning...

Fundations: our focus continues to be on digraphs (sh, th, ch, ck, wh).  The kiddos know what sounds these digraphs make in isolation, but many are still having a hard time noticing them in words when reading and making the appropriate sounds or when sounding out words when writing.  For example:  they know that the digraph sh goes sh like ship when seeing it alone, but when they see a word in a book with that digraph (maybe the word is sheep) they still want to make the s sound like snake and h sound like hat rather than blending them together.  Then they can't figure out the word "sheep" because they aren't blending their sounds correctly.  When reading or spelling at home, please work on them becoming more aware of these digraphs.  

Shared Reading: we read the big books Bonkers likes to bark and Do you Play? to help us learn our new word wall words, do and to. 

Next week's spelling words:

*am
*are

Math: we are continuing to work on addition, but now in the form of story problems.  We are learning how to show our thinking with pictures, numbers and words.  Knowing the answer to a math fact is great, but being able to explain and show their thinking is even more important.  In their Friday Folder you will see some of the story problems they have worked on this week. 

Writing: since February we have learned about informational/non-fiction writing.  They have learned all about penguins, caterpillars/monarch butterflies and then whatever topic they chose for their video projects we sent home before spring break.  This week we reviewed all they have learned about informational writing and took their writing assessment on Thursday.  Next week we will begin our third and final writing unit, opinion writing.  

Service Learning Project: this week we we planted milkweed seeds.  We will water and give them sunlight in our classrooms over the next few weeks.  Eventually the kiddos will get to bring them home to plant in their yards.  Milkweed plants are essential for Monarch Butterflies and we hope we can be successful at growing them!  

We are continuing to collect pennies (or any monetary donation) for the Missouri Department of Conservation so keep sending them in!  Thanks to everyone who has donated to our Service Learning Project so far!  

If you would like to further help our project, please check out the link below. 

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/8050f4ca5aa2ca02-help

Mothersingers

This morning grades K-2 had the opportunity to listen to the Columbia Mothersingers.  They are a darling group of ladies from the Columbia area who go around and sing to all of the schools every spring!  This group has been around for 70 years! Every year they have a different program theme; this years was patriotic and all about our wonderful country, America! It is such a fun thing that the kids look forward to every year!  I think the Kindergartners enjoyed their first experience! 

Golden Broom Award-April

Whoo-hoo!!

Our class won the
GOLDEN BROOM AWARD

once again!

This means that the janitors thought we did the best job cleaning up our classroom and lunch table spots the week before spring break!

Way to Go!

Wonderful Writers!

We can't WAIT for you to see the videos your kiddos made this week to share about their informational writing topic!

They are SO EXCITED!

But first....let's see how the rest of the week went...

Fundations: after spring break we will begin our final unit of Fundations.  Please check out the detailed packet in your child's Friday Folder.  I encourage you to use the packet with your child at home to extend what we are learning in the classroom.  

Shared Reading: we read the big books Polly Gets Out and The Boy Who Cried "Wolf!" this week.  They had our new word wall words, he and she, in them.  We also learned a great lesson from The Boy Who Cried "Wolf", ask your kiddo to share the lesson with you.  

New spelling words after spring break

Week of April 3rd-7th

to

do

Math: we continued our work with decomposing numbers.  We worked in groups this week to find all the possible ways to make numbers 1-10.  Check out our posters we made to hang in the classroom and the work your child did this week in their Friday Folder.  

Now the fun and exciting part...

Writing!!!

Since the beginning of February we have worked on how to write non-fiction/informational stories.  These are different from narratives because they are "teaching" books.  We have learned how non-fiction books have headings, labels and real facts in them. We will soon be wrapping up this unit and wanted to do a fun project to show we are experts.

Please view last week's blog post to see how this 2 week project started and how we got to where we are today....

To continue last week's work, this week we did the following:

Monday-finished up writing books on each child's individual topic (this was day 3 of writing)

Tuesday-worked on memorizing the story we wrote with a buddy

Wednesday-Mrs. Fitch (media specialist) and Mrs Eastman (district tech. support) helped us record our memorized stories in front of a green screen

Thursday-as a class we viewed everyone's final project

Friday-sent these projects home for you to view!!!!! Please check their "take home folder" tonight for the written portion that goes along with the video!!! So exciting!!!! We hope you love them as much as we do!!! It was so much fun incorporating all of the technology and higher level thinking skills into our writing time.  

Happy Spring Break!!!

March Citizen of the Month

Congratulations to Mason!

He was chosen by his peers as 

March Citizen of the Month!

We are so proud of you!

   

K-2 winners for the month of March

Legos!!

Last week we were FINALLY the winners of the Lego Tub!

(the kids have been waiting very patiently for their name to be drawn each week at Morning Meeting)

Feel free to stop by school and check out their creations in the display case across from the tech lab/next to the gym. They will be on display until Friday.

                                     

                                                

Today at the Monday Morning Meeting we celebrated March birthday's by singing to them! 

Happy Birthday to Kiran, Zephyr and Emma!