Fancy Friday

We sure have some handsome gentleman and beautiful ladies in our classroom!  I love seeing all of the kiddos dressed up fancy today in honor of "Respectful" Week!

I hope you all enjoyed listening to your little readers last night!  They beamed with pride as I read the comments you wrote to them on their reading log!  I hope you enjoy the Tuesday/Thursday reading homework each week!

Next week's word wall words:

was

my

Please make sure you are practicing word wall words nightly.  A few they are still having trouble with and need extra practice: said, can, you, like. Please make sure they aren't writing letters backwards such as b/d and p/q or any letters that change the meaning of the word.

Math

We have been working on numbers in the teens during math.  This is a song that helps us learn these tricky numbers!  Feel free to listen and sing along at home!

Don't forget about the collections going on at school:

*Kindergarten Penny Drive to help the Kindergarten students at Kohfeldt Elementary in Texas purchase new items for their centers and clipboards.  This is Kindergarten's Service Learning Project and we appreciate everyone's support.  We are collecting from now until Spring Break

*Box Tops until the end of February to help us earn a Pizza Party and new playground equipment

*Winter Clothing Drive for the homeless in Columbia.  4th/5th grade Service Learning Club is sponsoring this and the collection ends next Friday

*LEGO silent auction basket.  Please see the detailed note in the Friday Folder.  This is for the upcoming BEU Circus, our schools largest fundraiser

*100th Day of school collection for our classroom.  Due by Friday

91 and counting...

91 days of Kindergarten and counting!  Wow!  The kiddos are anxiously awaiting the 100th day of school!  We will celebrate in our classroom with fun crafts, activities and a dress up day! Check out the Friday Folder for a note with more information about this fun day!

A look at our learning...

Fundations: we continue to learn how to "tap out" words to help us spell, read and write.  Ask your child to "tap out" a simple word, such as hat, fog, sit, etc. to see what this means.

We are also quickly going over correct uppercase letter formation.  We learn 2 letters a day.  This moves much faster than when we learned 2 lowercase letters and practiced them a week at a time.  That is because most Kindergarteners come into school knowing uppercase letters from preschool or daycares and just need a quick refresher.  This week we learned uppercase A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H.

Shared Reading: we read the big books Jack and Lily's Favorite Food. I like and The New Forest Path to help us learn our word wall words like and by.  

Next week's new word wall words:

be

up

Daily 5: ask your child what Daily 5 centers they went to this week.  While they are at centers I am meeting with the kiddos in small reading groups of anywhere from 2-6 kids daily.  On Tuesday, they will begin bringing home their newest book from reading group to read to you!  Look for their book and a detailed note coming home in their Take Home Folders on Tuesday!  

Math: we have started unit 5.  There are several math papers coming home in the Friday Folder this week.  Check them out to reinforce their learning at home!  We also got to work in our new math workbooks for the first time.  In the pictures below we are playing and recording a game called "Roll & Record."  They roll 2 dot dice, add the numbers together and color in the total.  

Writing: we are learning to take our knowledge of "tapping out words" from Fundations and applying it during writing workshop.  We also continue to work on telling more detail in our stories, rather than just writing one sentence.  Check out the Story Hand that each child has in their writing folder.  This helps them tell more details by remembering to write who is in the story, where the story took place, 3 details, and how they felt.  

Counselor:Our counselor lesson this week was about having a positive mindset, which tied in nicely with our word of the week at BEU POSITIVE.  They discussed turning our cant's into cans and most importantly learning that mistakes are okay.  Mistakes show that we are learning.  The photo below shows something they have learned in Kindergarten and something they would still like to learn about.  They talked about how far they have come in Kindergarten because of a positive mindset.  They are doing things now that they couldn't do before! 

Social Studies: this week we learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. and why we celebrate him with a day off of school on Monday.  We learned that he was a KIND, RESPECTFUL, POSITIVE, PROBLEM SOLVER just like we are at Beulah Ralph.  We learned through read alouds and discussion that he changed rules that weren't nice and because of him we can go to school and be friends with all types of people.  We also talked about how it's not what's on the outside that is important, but rather what's on the inside that truly matters.  

Positive Week Celebration-NEON DAY!

What a bright bunch we are!

We have a new friend!

We have a new friend!

His name is Diego!

We had such a fun day getting to know him and 

so happy that he is a part of our school family!

Lunch with the Principal and Golden Broom!

Yay Lilly!

She was chosen to have Lunch with the Principal

for the month of January!

Our class won the Golden Broom Award!

This means the custodians thought our class did the best job last week of keeping our room clean!

Happy 2018!

Happy New Year!

While I miss sleeping in and wearing pj's all day, I loved seeing the kiddos again this week!  They did a great job transitioning back into the school routine and hopefully that continues when we have a full 5 day week next week!

A few notes...

*No Friday Folders or behavior checklists this week

*January reading logs are in their take home folders

*New word wall words: like, by

*Please check their take home folder for a few notes

Before winter break our class won the Lego Tub at the Monday Morning Meeting. Our Adventure themed Lego creations are in the display case across from the Media Center until next Friday.  Check them out when you are at school!

Indoor recess fun

Magnatiles

Pipes & Spouts

Bowling

Interlox

Candy Land

Connect Four

Merry Christmas

Happy Winter Break!

I hope you have a very, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Kindergarten cozy day and winter party day was so much fun!

Thanks for the awesome group gift!

 

Teacher's love cozy day too!

Enjoy your winter break and I'll see you in 2018!

December Citizen of the Month

Yay Chase!

He was chosen as December's Citizen of the Month!

This award is chosen by classmates.  They think about students who follow BEU's 5 character traits: Kind, Respectful, Responsible, Positive, Problem-Solver.

Holiday Fun

It's been a busy and fun couple of weeks around here!

Jack left us some candy cane's one day

Cutest elves in school!

Gingerbread's in disguise-so cute!

Jack likes to color too!

Ready for the book exchange!

What book will we get?!

Playing musical books

Everyone loved getting to take home a new book!