Last Week Before Winter Break

We only have four days of school this week and will be working on three sight words (in, it, at).  Movie day is Tuesday, so they'll get to watch half of a movie!  Then on Thursday will be our Christmas Party!  I am so excited to make fun crafts with your kids!  On Friday Winter Break starts and will end on January 6th when we come back to school!

December 9th-13th

Last week we learned about Uu and "was" and "see."  This week we're learning Kk and "of" and "not."  We're reading Penguins, Penguins Everywhere and will be learning more about Penguins this week!  We'll finish off the week by making a penguin!  We're also learning how to take away from a number.  We have been doing it for awhile, but the Kindergartners don't know it yet!  It should be a very fun week!

November 18th through 22nd

This week we are working on the letter Ll, and the words:  "with" and "has".  We are reading the book:  "Who Will Carve the Turkey This Thanksgiving."  We will also be working on learning the who, what, when, where, and why of a book.  It will be a fun week with Happy Bear and the Hearing/Vision Screening!

November 11th-15th

I won't be there for Monday and Tuesday, because I'll be attending a conference in order to better teach!  This week the Kindergartners will be learning "he", "she", and the letter Pp.  We're still reading "What Should I Make?"  We're starting to learn more about turkeys this week and will be reading "I'm a Turkey!"  We are continuing to learn how to add up to 10 and it's going very well!  They love when we use snacks in order to count!

No estaré el lunes ni el martes porque asistaré una conferencia de enseñanza.  Esta semena los alumnos aprenderan los pronombres él, ella, y la letra P.  Todavia estamos leyendo un libro que se llama ¿Qué debo formar?  Empezamos aprender de los pavos esta semana y leeremos un libro que se llama ¡Soy un pavo! Seguimos aprendiendo la manera de añadir hasta 10 y nos vamos muy bien!  ¡Les encanta cuando usamos comida para aprender a contar!

November 4th-7th

This week we're working on just one sight word-for.  We're also working on the letter O!  We're reading Bunnycakes by Rosemary Wells and "The Doorbell Rang" by Pat Hutchins.  We are going to be discussing the books and working together to come up with important details-the who, what, when, where, why questions.  We will be starting to add numbers up to ten as well!  I can't wait to start this awesome learning!

This week

Yes, I know I'm a little late!  Sorry!  This week we are learning the words:  "do" and "go."  We are also working on Ff!  We are reading Fall Mixed Up and The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog.  Thanks for helping your student work on counting to 50 (our goal for the next nine weeks)!  We also are working on rhyming!I love how imaginative my kids are!  We wrote an awesome version of The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog.  Ours are The Pigeon Finds a Pumpkin and The Pigeon Finds a Sandwich.  We are always working on writing and talking with complete sentences! 

October 21st through 25th

We only have school on Monday and Tuesday, but I'm still going to have the kids learning two sight words, since we are on "to" and "me."  I think they can handle it!  I love how hard they're working to learn their sight words!  Thanks for all you do to help your child learn and grow!  I'm looking forward to meeting with everyone this week at Parent/Teacher conferences on Wednesday through Friday!  I have something awesome to share about each student!

October 14th through 18th

This week is going to full of report card testing, so that way you will know exactly how your child is doing right now when we meet for Parent Teacher Conferences.
We will be learning about main idea and details in a story, as we read our story for the week.  We are also changing up the centers, since your kiddos have learned so much the last 37 days of school, we're ready to move on to harder things!  They will be working on their sight words, so at home when you have them read, see if they can recognize their sight words!
We are also working on counting-as pull a counter up, so they see that each number is worth one counter, and can count up to 25.
Last week was all about pumpkins!  We learned how they grow-from seed, to sprout, to vine, to flowering vine, to green pumpkins, to orange pumpkins!  Then we opened a pumpkin and the kiddos got to feel the pulp and seeds!  The next day we counted our seeds and were amazed by how many seeds we had!  The morning class had 380 seeds and the afternoon class had 446!  They did an awesome job counting!

Writing Practice

Here are all of the letter writing videos for what we have done so far!  Now that I'm putting them on, I will send home paper for your student to practice writing on!

My sight word videos

This next week

On Monday we will start working on the letter M and the sight words:  'I' and 'is.'  We will be reading:  Alphabet Adventure by Audrey Wood and Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton.   

The kids love our sight word watches and books that we make!  I will be sending home pink book bags with a book for you to read to your child.  We have discussed these sight words:  a, and, the, that.  Have your students read those words in books!  I need the books to come back daily, so that if they are ready to change books they can!  The book order forms are due on the 23rd.  There are some great cheap books! We will also be studying groups up to 5 and then numbers up to 7.

Great youtube links

These are great videos to watch at home with your kids, in order to help them learn more!

ABCs song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36IBDpTRVNE&list=TL6ScW7dIkvtg
Shapes song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUMUaxiPUlo&list=TLXG1HF-r3JYA
We can count to 100 (not the one we sing in school)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbHBYGY2fs0

Scholastic Reading Club

I strongly encourage parents to buy books from the Book flyer whenever you can!  There is always a $1 book and most of the books are under $5!  It's a great way to invest in your student's learning!  You can go here to order online.  My online code is:  M9NL7.  Remember if you order online, then you can order from any flyer, not just the Kindergarten one!  Thanks for helping me help your students (and our classroom)!

Kindergarten Class

I am so excited to be teaching Kindergarten at Garfield Elementary!  I have been working hard on my classroom the past couple of weeks to help my Kinders feel comfortable, welcome, and happy to learn! 

I will add pictures soon!  We have a farm word wall, a tractor math word wall and soon a Word Family Tree!

Behavior Clip Chart

Outstanding-Pink

Great Job-Purple

Good Choices-Blue

Ready to Learn-Green

Think About It-Yellow

Teacher’s Choice-Orange

Parent Contact-Red

Flipped Classroom

I went to a Summer Conference and was fascinated about the idea of a flipped classroom.  This would be so awesome for every grade!  What it is is the student will do their homework at school (where they have help) and watch the short "lectures" at home or wherever their mobile device will let them.  The "lectures" are a minute to minute and a half per grade level, so depending on what grade I teach, that's how long they'll be.  It's a lot of work for the teacher, but it pays off in having the student actually learn what they need in their own time.  This is great for our ELL learners that need the ability to stop and rewind or pause and then restart the lecture.  Any of the students can watch as many times as they need in order to understand and parents can watch along with their students, so they can see how and what I am teaching!  I think this will go really well in my classroom and I'm looking forward to posting some videos!

Fun with Word Families

I just finished a big unit on Word Families!  We made a word family caterpillar:

I just had a caterpillar body part for each word family, which worked out well for the students!  They loved writing a word on the body!

We also used a TON of diecuts and made a fun Spring board under the White board!

We have -op butterflies, -ing ants, -an flowers, and assorted planters with flowers in them (it was for the end of the unit)!

Then we had a word family race (a great idea from a Phonemic Awareness book)!

Great fun with word families, and I know that my Kindergartners are able to pull chunks out now!  We're going to be starting poetry soon!