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!

St. Patrick's Day!

We had some sneaky leprechauns come into our room overnight and boy oh boy did they leave a HUGE mess!

BUT in their hurry to leave, they left behind their bucket of gold!  
Lucky for us!!

Peek at our week

A few reminders:

*spring pictures are on Monday-only students who return their package order form will have their picture taken

*we are continuing to collect pennies (or any monetary donation) for the Missouri Department of Conservation to help the Monarch Butterflies-thank you to those who have donated so far!

*Scholastic Book Orders are in the Friday Folder, they are due NEXT FRIDAY, March 24th.  You can order online at www.scholastic.com with classroom code FN4GP or return the paper forms with a check to Scholastic Book Clubs.  You only need one check, even if ordering from multiple forms.  CASH NOT ACCEPTED.

Grace and her family donated an entire milk jug full of pennies-WOW!!

A look at our learning...

Fundations: check out the fundations handout in your child's Friday Folder this week and work on it at home.  This will help with their spelling, reading and fluency skills.  Fluency is a BIG part of what we are working on in their reading groups.  

Shared Reading: this week we read the Big Book Bananas Sometimes and the poems Fast as a cheetah and The leprechaun song.  They featured our word wall words of the week: look, as.

Next week's spelling words: 

she

he

Math: this week we finished our Bunk Beds and Apple Boxes unit that focused on decomposing numbers.  Decomposing numbers is the process of separating numbers into their components.  Example:  10 can be made the following ways 0+10, 1+9, 2+8, 3+7, 4+6, 5+5.  You can see some of their Apple Boxes work in their Friday Folder today.  

Writing: it has been such an EXCITING week in our classroom during writing workshop this week!  Over the last 5 weeks Miss Nemechek and I have chosen what non-fiction topics the class would learn about (penguins and butterflies) and front-loaded the children with information via books and video clips.  Then they took the information they learned and wrote their own "fact books" on those topics.  This week, however, the KIDS chose what topic they wanted to research.  Each child could choose a different topic.  Ask your child what topic they are researching.  

On Monday, they researched their topics on PebbleGo.  PebbleGo is a digital database for the earliest of readers.  They took notes on what they learned while listening to PebbleGo.  
On Tuesday, they looked through/read books that Mrs. Fitch pulled for them from the library on their topic and took more notes.

On Wednesday, we recorded the kids talking to the ipad telling us everything they have learned on their topic.

On Thursday and Friday, they used their notes and were able to listen to their videos from Wednesday to help them start writing their own fact book on their topic.

We will continue this on Monday.  Next Tuesday, they will work on memorizing their fact book. 
Next Wednesday, we will record them presenting what they learned in front of a green screen. The final products will be sent to you hopefully before spring break!  

Miss Nemechek, Mrs. Fitch (media specialist) and Mrs. Eastman (district technology specialist) have been helping me with this.  We have been amazed at how smooth it has been to incorporate all of this technology and higher level thinking into our kindergartens writing time! They are doing an amazing job and we are all so excited to share their final products with you soon!

Pi night!

Beulah Ralph's 1st annual Pi Night was so much fun and very well attended!  I snapped a picture of every kiddo and family that came into our game, Compare and Double Compare!  We are happy that so many of you attended and hope you had as much fun as we did!

There are MANY more pictures on our school's Twitter page.  Twitter handle:

@BeulahRalphElem

Monday Morning Excitement!

It was an exciting Monday morning in room 302!

At the Monday morning meeting we learned that Grace would have lunch with the principal today!

Our name was also drawn to keep the Lego Tub this week!  Yay!  We will work on Lego creations this week in our classroom and they will be on display in the glass display case across from the tech lab beginning on Friday, March 17th and will stay there until March 24th!

When you come for math night tomorrow, look for this cart rolling around the school!  When you see it, stop the teacher rolling it and try and guess how many items are in each container.  The winner will be announced and will get to keep the tub!  How cool!

A look at our learning...

Thank you to the friends who have donated pennies to our penny drive for the Missouri Department of Conservation!  This will help the Monarch Butterflies, which is what our Kindergarten Service Learning Project is focusing on.  A detailed note came home in last week's Friday Folder, please let me know if you need another note.  Keep sending in those pennies (or quarters, dimes, dollars, etc.)!!!

Fundations: the kiddos are getting better at hearing/seeing/noticing digraphs in words when reading, writing and spelling.  We have been focusing on the digraphs wh, ck, ch, sh, th. On Tuesday and Thursday they brought home sorting papers with these digraphs.  Check your Friday Folder for the Fundations newsletter to find ways you can help continue their learning at home.

Shared Reading: we read 2 big books this week to help us with our new words had and did.  We read Lucy Did It and I went walking.  We also read the poem Mary Had a Little Lamb.  

Next weeks spelling words:

look

as

Daily 5/Reading Groups: I love seeing the wonderful comments on the Tuesday/Thursday reading homework logs from you guys!  One of the many things I love about Kindergarten is how they learn to read for the first time!  It is thrilling to them and they LOVE bringing home their newest book from their reading group to share with you on those days!  I'm glad to hear that you love it just the same!  

Math: we continued our Bunk Beds and Apple Boxes math unit, this week focusing on the Apple Boxes portion.  This portion focuses on addition as well, just like Bunk Beds did last week.  Miss Nemechek told the kiddos a story about how she went to the grocery store and wanted a box of 10 apples.  She wanted a box with red AND green apples, but they only had boxes of red and boxes of green and nothing with mixed colors.  The grocer was confused and didn't know how he could make a box of 10 with both colors and it was up to the children to help us!  Check their Friday Folders for their work!  We are learning how to organize our thinking to find ALL possible ways to make a number.  Last week it was all ways to make 8 with bunk beds and this week it is all ways to make 10 with apple boxes.  They are learning to start at the number 0 (or this week 1 because we want red AND green apples so starting at 0 isn't a choice) and then to work their way up the numbers.  They are also learning to "flip flop" solutions.  So if they know they can have 1 red apple and 9 green apples, they can "flip flop" it and also have 1 green apple and 9 red apples.  It's amazing how well they are catching onto this concept.  

Writing: they are loving the informational writing unit.  This week we are finishing writing our informational books on caterpillars/butterflies.  Ask your child to tell you some facts they included in their book. 

Next week is going to be super exciting because they were able to pick their OWN topic they want to learn more about and will be researching that topic and writing about it over the next two weeks.  Not only that, but we will be incorporating technology into it! They will be researching their topic through library books on that topic AND on ipads/computers via PebbleGo.  Once they take notes on their topic with these resources, they will voice record on an ipad everything they have learned.  They will then use their voice recordings to help them remember their facts and use it to write their story on paper.  Once that is finished they are going to memorize their story and we are going to record them reciting it in front of a green screen with pictures that match their topic on the green screen.  We will send these to you to view once they are complete right before spring break!  It's going to be so fun and so cool!  
Ask your child what topic they picked for this!  We had some good ones!