Vacation Fun!

Happy New Year's Eve!  I hope all of you are having a wonderful vacation with your families.  The week is going by sooo fast!  I can't wait to hear about all of the exciting things you did this week.  Add to the padlet below a picture or two or even just a sentence about something you would like to share about your vacation.  On Tuesday, each of us will be choosing one special vacation moment to write about.  This padlet can help with our brainstorming when we're all a little tired as we settle back into our routine. :)

Polar Express Day

We had a wonderful Comfy, Cozy Day! Children and teachers enjoyed being comfortable in their pajamas. 

This morning, children were excited to learn they each got their own Polar Express ticket that would be hole punched by a Conductor. We enjoyed watching a read aloud of the Polar Express with the other Kindergarten students in the library.

After, we had a short holiday sing-a-long! "Jingle Bells" and "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" were the favorites.

The special treat was that the conductor was actually my Grandpa!  The kids' excitement made his day!  He was happy to be a part of such a special event.

To conclude our Polar Express morning, each Kindergartner received their very own silver bell!

We returned to the classroom and wrote about our favorite part of the book.  In the afternoon, we shared our favorite moments of Comfy, Cozy Day.  Check out the padlet below!

It was another memorable day in Kindergarten!

Teddy Bear Day

We had a successful Teddy Bear Day in Kindergarten to culminate our two week look into the many versions of The 3 Bears.  Children have enjoyed listening to the various versions and have worked hard comparing and contrasting the characters, setting, and events of the different books.  We have also worked on retelling the story using picture cards.

On Friday, each child was able to bring in their favorite teddy bear or other stuffed animal and let their furry friends get a glimpse of Kindergarten.  Many joined in for the pledge of allegiance, morning work, Read to Self, a read aloud, and indoor recess.

Students also worked on labeling the parts of a bear and wrote about their cuddly friends.

In math, we explored describing size, weight, and height with our stuffed animals.  Students worked with partners to measure how tall their stuffed animals are.   

They also practiced making comparisons: "My bear is taller/shorter than your bear" and "Your bear is heavier/lighter than my bear".

This week we will continue to talk about characters and setting as we compare and contrast different versions of The Gingerbread Man.
Your child should be able to confidently identify the characters and setting of a story.  Do they have a favorite character?  Is the setting similar to another story they've heard?

Common Core State Standards:

Describe and compare measurable attributes.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.MD.A.1
Describe measurable attributes of objects, such as length or weight. Describe several measurable attributes of a single object.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.K.MD.A.2
Directly compare two objects with a measurable attribute in common, to see which object has "more of"/"less of" the attribute, and describe the difference. For example, directly compare the heights of two children and describe one child as taller/shorter.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2
Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.A
Capitalize the first word in a sentence and the pronoun I

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.B
Recognize and name end punctuation.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.C
Write a letter or letters for most consonant and short-vowel sounds (phonemes).

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.K.2.D
Spell simple words phonetically, drawing on knowledge of sound-letter relationships.

A time to give thanks

It has been a busy month filled with lots of learning and fun.  We made sure to slow down and take time to remember what we have to be grateful for and all that we are fortunate to have in our lives.  Our family, friends, our school, and our pets were at the top of everyone's list.

Last Wednesday, students were surprised they got to wear pilgrim hats and have their own Thanksgiving feast.  Thank you to parents who donated napkins, plates, juice, popcorn, and corn muffins.

 


















I made a giant turkey for my bulletin board.  Boys and girls thought it was just a decoration until I started carving it.  They were very excited the turkey was filled with popcorn!

Ms. Teixeira brought in her GoPro.  The kids loved it!  Thanks Miss T. for creating the video below!

I am very thankful for my kind, caring, smart students that I get to work with each day.  A heartfelt thank you to all of the parents for your support and communication.  You are raising some pretty wonderful children!

I hope everyone had a relaxing Thanksgiving filled with lots of family time and delicious food!    

Kindness Rocks!

November 13 was World Kindness Day. Mrs. Halligan, one of our wonderful Kindergarten teachers, planned and organized our Kindergarteners and first graders to take part in The Kindness Rock Project in celebration of World Kindness Day.  
The Kindness Rocks Project has two goals: 

GOAL #1: INSPIRE OTHERS THROUGH RANDOMLY PLACED ROCKS ALONG THE WAY…

GOAL #2: RECRUIT EVERY PERSON WHO STUMBLES UPON IT TO JOIN IN THE PURSUIT OF INSPIRING OTHERS THROUGH RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS”

My students were excited to work with Miss Klipfel's first graders in the cafeteria to paint the rocks. 

The next day, our two classes joined with Mrs. Halligan's class to brainstorm kind sayings before writing a simple word or happy phrase on our rocks that would make someone smile.  

We used Tagul to create this beautiful word splash of our ideas.

On Monday, the entire Kindergarten and First Grade met in the courtyard to display their collaborative works of art!  You can't help but smile as you see the colorful and beautiful rock display as you walk into lunch from recess.  We also took the Kindness Pledge.  Check out Mrs. Carreiro's blog for more pictures and a video of everyone saying the Kindness Pledge.

This was such a wonderful, collaborative event!  I love how excited my students were to work with other classes and how this was an opportunity for them to make new friends.  It makes me happy when my students pass Miss Klipfel's students in the hallway and they say hello to each other by name and exchange a kind greeting.

Duck for President!

Yes, you read that correctly!

Last week, students listened to the read aloud of Duck for President by Doreen Cronin. In the book, Duck was tired of doing work on the farm and thought if he ran the farm, things would be different.  Soon, he was voted to be governor, and then president.  At the end of the story, he realized being a president is hard work so he returned to the farm to write his autobiography.  We learned election vocabulary such as vote, ballot, and requirement.  
Then students had to share their reasons why they would vote for either Duck or Farmer Brown to be president.  Based on a persuasive list of reasons, it was already looking like Duck was the popular candidate.
Students enjoyed making campaign posters to show their support of their favorite candidate.  Listen to the students' reasons why they would vote for either Duck or Farmer Brown in the video below.


This month's school character trait focus is responsibility.  We discussed what responsibilities a president has as a leader of our country.

We also thought about the responsibilities teachers and students have.  We noticed that there are some similarities in responsibilities for children and adults if we all want to be respectful, caring people. 

This past Monday, students couldn't wait for the afternoon when they had the opportunity to be a part of the voting process and actually cast their vote.  Each child in my class had a job: check people in, hand the voter a ballot, be in charge of the ballot box, hand the voter their "I voted!" badge and thank them for voting, or hold up signs urging others to vote.  Everyone was very polite and patient!

We returned to the classroom and counted up the votes.  I recorded them on a chart using tally marks.  After I counted the ballots, I had helpers recount the votes for each candidate to ensure I counted correctly.  In my class, 11 people voted for Duck and 5 people voted for Farmer Brown.

For the entire Kindergarten, Duck won with 54 votes.  Farmer Brown got 22 votes and 2 children were undecided voters.

Reading Duck for President was a wonderful way to introduce children to the election process!

Pumpkins Galore!

Pumpkin day last Friday was a HUGE success! The day was filled with many pumpkin activities. Check out the fun we had!

We read to pumpkins in the Reading Patch.  The boys and girls were SO excited to read to the pumpkins!!

We played a pumpkin life cycle game, sorted pictures that start and do not with the letter p, and

matched rhyming pumpkins.

We also read our life cycle books with a partner.

The children were very excited for the afternoon when they got to travel to four investigation stations that parent volunteers facilitated.

Children counted the number of lines on their pumpkins and remembered to use smart counting strategies and they determined if pumpkins sink or float.  Some students were very surprised that their heavy pumpkins float!

These hard working mathematicians also measured the height of their pumpkins with cubes, and had the opportunity to feel the gooey inside of a pumpkin and count its seeds.

To count all the seeds, Mrs. Ingalls had the children each grab a handful and put a group of ten seeds in each small cup. On Monday, we arranged the cups of seeds into ten frames so we could practice counting by tens to 100 and then from there counted by hundreds and the leftover tens.  The total number of seeds for our pumpkin was 530!!  Ella estimated the closest with a prediction of 600 seeds.  Thank you to families who shared your seed estimates with the class.  We enjoyed reading the comments during morning meeting.

Thank you to Mrs. Fox, Mrs. Ingalls, Mr. Duran, and Ms. DeSanctis for helping with this fun activity!

We finished up our pumpkin unit this week by reviewing what we already knew about pumpkins prior to the start of our unit and what we were hoping to learn.  

The boys and girls were surprised with how much they learned about pumpkins.  Congratulate your pumpkin experts on the new knowledge they attained and have been eager to share.

Happy Halloween!

Wow!  What a spooktacular day we had!  After a morning of Halloween themed literacy activities, we quickly got dressed (thanks to a few helping hands from parent volunteers) for our whole school Halloween parade.  We loved seeing all the different costumes!
In the afternoon, after computers, we were eager to begin our Halloween party.  Children snacked on some yummy treats and then had time to turn pumpkins into silly mummies.
A huge thank you to parents who donated party supplies, bought or made food for the party, or volunteered their time in helping with costumes or helping out with the afternoon fun.  The students and I are very grateful!
A special thank you to the Lisitano family who donated a class set of pumpkins for Pumpkin Day and this Halloween activity.
Miss Teixeira and I were able to capture many happy and silly moments from today.  Enjoy the Animoto video below!   Wishing everyone a safe and happy Halloween! I am looking forward to hearing about tonight's adventures during writing tomorrow.

Favorite Stuffed Animal Day

Our school has been participating in Global Read Aloud along with other schools across the country and around the world. Global Read Aloud's (GRA) mission is to have "one book to connect the world. One book to read aloud." Mrs. Baker, our Digital Learning Specialist, has been coordinating this successful event from gathering books, to incorporating technology, to getting school staff members involved in classroom activities. The author and illustrator study for this 6 week event is Lauren Castillo.

Last Wednesday, Mrs. Baker read the book Twenty Yawns by Jane Smiley and illustrated by Lauren Castillo to my class. In this book, the girl, Lucy, falls asleep as her mom reads a bedtime story after a fun-filled family day. She later wakes up in a dark room where everything looks mysterious. After tucking her stuffed animals into bed next to her, Lucy is able to finally get back to sleep. 

 
Mrs. Baker invited our school nurse, Mrs. Marshall, in to discuss calming strategies with the class for times when students feel nervous or have a hard time falling asleep. Students learned the 4-7-8 breath. They breathe in for 4 counts, hold their breath for 7 counts, and then slowly breathe out for 8 counts. Children also liked the ideas of thinking of a happy place, finding a quiet spot and laying down on their backs, and listening to calming music with their eyes closed. 

On Thursday, each student brought in their own favorite stuffed animal and thought about what they enjoy doing with their cuddly friends. With the help of Mrs. Baker, everyone was able to make their stuffed animal talk using the iPad app Chatterpix. I then added all the videos into iMovie to make one class movie.

The children loved having their special friends join them at school.  A special thank you to Mrs. Baker for planning and organizing this great event!

How many seeds are inside our pumpkin?

We are very excited for Pumpkin Day on Friday when we will see if pumpkins sink or float, measure how tall our pumpkins are, and count the seeds of one of our pumpkins!  Today we made predictions or estimates of how many seeds the children think one of our pumpkins has inside.  To help educate the children on how to make a good estimate, I read them the book How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara.  We learned some important information from the book that helped us make our estimates.  Check out these cool facts we read:

•  Each line on the outside of a pumpkin has a row of seeds inside. 
•  The longer a pumpkin grows on the vine, the darker it is and the more lines it has. 
• The largest pumpkin doesn't necessarily mean it has the most seeds!

Check out our estimates!

Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and babysitters, we would love to hear YOUR predictions! In the comment section below, add your name and your prediction of how many seeds in this pumpkin!  

Hopefully the 8x10 frame can help give you some idea of the pumpkin's size.
Thank you for sharing your predictions!

Check back the beginning of next week for pictures of our Pumpkin Investigation Stations and to find out the actual number of seeds!

We can label!

Parents, do you know what it means to label? After today’s lesson, I hope your children have a better understanding of what it means to label a picture. A label gives the reader information about the picture.

When we learned about apples a few weeks ago, students were introduced to the word labeling.  They labeled the parts of an apple diagram and their pictures about our pumpkin picking field trip.

Today they got to label me, the teacher!

Yes, they can!

After, they had the opportunity to practice labeling on their own.  They each got two post-its and labeled something in the room.

I encouraged the children to go home and label the things around their homes – the couch, a table, their toys, a book, cat, anything! Rumor has it that you the parents might be getting labeled tonight – just a warning ;).

When they labeled, I asked the children to listen for and write the first sound of the object and, if they were able to, listen for the last sound as well.  For those who like a challenge, they tried the first, a middle, and a final sound! Associating the sound with a word they are familiar with is always helpful (i.e. /t/ like top if they are trying to spell table).

Labeling helps us to understand information in pictures and is a precursor to writing sentences. Recently, we started Writer’s Workshop.  I have modeled and the children have practiced beginning with an idea, illustrating it with great detail, and then labeling the people and things in their pictures. Eventually, they will be able to use those labels to develop their story and formulate sentences.  Children are learning that good writers have enough detail in their pictures to tell the story.  By the end of the week, your child should be able to confidently say "I can label a picture!"

I would love to share with the class what children labeled at home!  You can add a photo or sentence or two to the padlet below.  Simply click in the large, yellow padlet box, add your child's name as the title and either click on the camera to upload a picture or just write a sentence telling what your child labeled.  If you would prefer to email me a picture, I am more than happy to add it to the padlet for you!

When completing homework each night, encourage your child to listen for the beginning and ending sounds or the beginning, a middle, and an ending sound when labeling their illustrations.