Welcome back! I hope you had a wonderful holiday and great New Year! I want to thank you all for the wonderful gifts you donated to the room and gave me. Thank you all very, very much!

K - 5 has been waiting for the first day of winter. We start each day with our morning meeting and go through the calendar. We say the day, month, year and season. The first day of the winter season is the day of the year when the Sun is farthest south (on December 21st). On Monday, Jan. 3rd, 2011, the students are going to be so excited to say it is Winter! They have all been saying, "It feels like Winter, but not yet!" Well, it definitely feels and is winter!

Our theme is "On the Farm".
This week K - 5 will be learning the letters "Gg" and "Ff".
Our sight words are: here and this
We will be using the vocabulary words anxious, huddle, moans, productive, idle and scrumptious as much as we can. The students hear their vocabulary words in each week's big books and library books. We go over each word and I am amazed at how the class remembers the meanings of the words. K - 5 does a great job on their vocabulary words!

We will be working in our centers this week. The students are learning how to work independently.

We will also be listening for the final sound in a word, making more lists and we will talk more about the beginning, middle and end of a story.

Our class Christmas Party was great!

We started with our book exchange.

Played Bingo!

Made ornaments you can put on your tree!

Made a delicious snack and then played more games!

Malia's Dad came in today to read to the class. He read Malia's favorite kind....a Fancy Nancy book. Thank you Mr. Velarde! You did a great job!

Please know that if you have sent me an email, I am not ignoring it. The school's Email hasn't been working today! I'm hoping anything sent over the last couple of days will make it in or out sometime over the weekend.

The students got to visit England today and learn all about how they celebrate the Holiday Season there.
Ask them:
What do the children in England call Santa?
What do the children in England do to the letters they write to Father Christmas?
What did Father Christmas toss down the chimney long, long ago?

After we talked about how they celebrate the holiday, out came the GLITTER! The students decorated their own stocking!

Folded Paper and Paint Symmetry

I gave each student a piece of card stock that already had a fold line. They painted just one side and then folded it in half. They rubbed the top of their papers carefully and then opened them up. Their pictures were great and perfectly symmetrical!

Mrs. Velarde came in today and demonstrated how to make the Scandinavian cookie, Krumkake. The classroom smelled wonderful all day long. She came in both in the morning and in the afternoon! She made all the Kindergarteners one! Malia was her helper! Thank you!!

"Christmas" the name the class gave our elf on the shelf is watching our class!

We have been talking about geometric shapes and today I challenged the class to make some! Wow! Their shapes were amazing!

Malia, our Star of the Week, shared her "All About Me Tee" Poster today!

Next week (Dec. 6th - 10th) K - 5 will be getting passports to travel to "Holidays Around the World". Actually we will be traveling just next door to the other Kindergarten classrooms. The students will be learning from all the different kindergarten teachers about holidays around the world. The students will love learning about other cultures and they will get to see the different classrooms for 45 minutes each day.

Today the students learned all about Star Fruit!

Some students were excited!

Some loved it!

Some were a little unsure....should I try it......maybe.....

and then almost everyone did!

and some students showed me what they thought!

Gavin's Mom, Dad and brother came in to celebrate Gavin being Star of the Week. They read "Green Eggs and Ham"! Gavin read the last page! We learned that Gavin has a Boxer named Rocky and that he is a great big brother!

Gretchen brought in a Create and Color Enchanted Castle! The class will love decorating it with colors and we'll add some numbers and words and............we will brainstorm and think of a lot more things!

Welcome back to school! I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday!

This week we start a new theme in Language Arts: On the Farm
We will be making animal mobiles, singing songs, learning about the vowel "Ii", listening for the sound at the beginning of a word, learning the new sight word - "come" and much more.

Our new vocabulary words are: squabble, mischief, uproar, tend, soggy and wobble

We have been working in our Literacy Centers and doing great! This week we will have a Listening Center , Reading Center, Word Work Center, Writing Center and a Letters and Sounds Center.

Malia's Mom came in to celebrate Malia's birthday! She read one of Malia's favorite books. It was a Fancy Nancy Book!

K - 5 is thankful for you!

Click on the picture to see all of the classes artwork!

When I was taking attendance, I noticed something that one of my students was wearing. It was a great time to talk about symmetry! Gavin, who makes me smile with some of his comments, was not symmetrical today! I explained what the word symmetrical meant and then asked the class to look around and see if they could guess who was not symmetrical. Then I asked who was. Sam guessed that Jasmine was symmetrical. Look and see! Oh, Gavin told us that one shoe just didn't feel good with a sock and the other did!

K - 5 is thankful for:

Sam's brother, Jack, read to the class today for Star of the Week. Thanks Jack! You were great!

EVERYONE tried the Kiwi Fruit today and Luke ate it like an apple (skin and all)! Ask your son or daughter where they are grown, how they grow and what other fruits Kiwi reminded them of.

Week of November 12th - 19th:
I hope you all got outside and played in the snow! Did anyone make a snowman? Did you put a cap on it?

This week the class will be rereading stories from the theme "Friends at School." When we reread a story, we encourage children to chime in on familiar words or phrases, to ask question and to make predictions. The students will be writing and illustrating what happens at the beginning, middle and end of a story.

We will be working with words ending with -an and -ap this week.

Our new sight words it "he". You can help you child learn our sight words by making flash cards and you can look for them together in a magazine or newspaper! So far we have learned:

I, a, my, the, go, to, like

In Science, we will be looking at how our tree is still changing and we will be learning about different foods.

Our vocabulary words are: sly, proceed, apparel, announced, imaginary, precisely, active, gigantic, voyage, gasped, glum, whimper

It was great talking to all of you at teacher parent conferences. Thank you for coming!

Today we worked on the letter "Dd" and wrote a sentence in our November Journals using our new sight word "like". We are working on always starting a sentence with a capital letter, spacing our words in a sentence and ending it with a punctuation mark.

I like my ________.

In math we will continue to work on writing numbers 1 - 10. We will be working on number lines and I will introduce different 3-dimensional shapes. Today we talked about a sphere and a cylinder. I asked the students to find the shapes in the room. They found the globe and the kickball. Jasmine also said the Earth is shaped like a sphere. Luke said a baseball. Sam said a can of soup is like a cylinder. Jasmine held up a glue stick and said, "This looks like a cylinder." Adeline and Jessiah found things in the room too!

Wow! The students were so excited to see their Grandparents or Grandfriends walk through the classroom door! The Kindergarten Program was wonderful. The students enjoyed performing and I know the Grandparents and Grandfriends loved watching! Thank you all for coming! Check out all the great pictures.

Here is Gavin with his Grandmother and Great-Grandmother!

The students are practicing their songs for their Grandfriends! If you haven't let me know if your child's grandparent or grandfriend is coming please put the information in their backpack tomorrow.

Tomorrow each student will get to work on an I-Touch. We will be working on writing words and writing our numbers. We will end with a fun game! I can't wait!

The students are working well in their literacy centers. I set up 5 centers and we made it through all of them. I was able to listen to each guided reading group read. I told the students at the end of the day that they gave me goosebumps!

Adeline's Mom, Dad, and sisters, Lilly and Emma, came to celebrate the Star of the Week! They read a funny book to the class and showed some wonderful photographs of Adeline.

This week instead of focusing on a new letter, the students will be learning phonograms: -at, an, and -am. They will use what they have learned about rhyming and letter sounds to help them blend sounds together to create words.

Our sight word for the week is to.

Vocabulary words are: sly, proceed, apparel, announced, imaginary and precisely.

In math we will be finishing up our chapter with numbers 0-10. The students are learning how to write their numbers (and letters!) correctly. In class we've been practicing starting at the "sky", going through the "fence", and ending at the "ground". When you practice writing at home, please reinforce this skill!

The book fair is going on in the Media center. Stop in and check out all the new books! The class will have the chance to fill out a wish list.

Friday is Grandfriend's Day at Shirley Hills. If your child is going home with their Grandfriend on Friday, please make sure that you have filled out the form and have sent it back on Monday, November 1^st.

The students are having so much fun roller skating with Mr. Halvarson!

Thank you to all of the parents who helped with the class Halloween Party! The students had so much fun! There was "Put the nose on the Pumpkin", a great guessing game, the students made popcorn hands, made decorative pumpkins and bats and played Bingo! Then they split up into three teams and made one of their classmates a mummy! Take a look at all the pictures. Just click on a picture under the title "Picasa Photostream".

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

We have been working on writing numbers 0 - 5. Tomorrow we will
practice on numbers 6 - 9. All the students are great at memorizing
the rhymes that help us write the numbers. They start at the sky, past
the fence and go down to the ground.
0 - Round and round just like an "O", now you've made the number zero.
1 - Start at the top and down you run, that's the way you make a one.
2 - Make a candy cane and give it a shoe, that's the way you make a two.
3 - Around and around just like a "B", that's how you make the number three.
4 - Down and over and down some more, that's how you make a four.
5 - Short neck, belly fat, Mr. Five wears a hat.
6 - Make a "C" then in you go, now you've made a six you know.
7 - Across the sky and down from heaven, that's the way you make a seven.
8 - Make an "S" and then don't wait, go back up and make an eight.
9 - Make a circle then a line, that's the way you make a nine.

Week of 10/25 - 10/29:
This week we will be rereading stories from the theme "Families". Rereadings enable a child to discuss a story's big ideas on deeper levels.

This weeks letter: "Aa"

We will be reviewing the sight words: I, a, my, the and go

We will be reviewing all our vocabulary words: feast, gusto, prepare, lonely, remind, preoccupied, appetite, savor, urgency, aroma, surround, tradition

In Math we will be using benchmarks to make estimations. We will be talking about the words estimate, more and fewer.

In Science we will be observing what is happening to our class tree.

In Social Studies we will be talking about the "gifts" a family gives each other. We will be making a Family Book.

I will be sending home conference slip reminders this week. All conferences will be Monday, November 8th. If you have any questions regarding your conference time, please feel free to contact me. I'm looking forward to meeting with all of you.

This week the students will be getting very excited for our Halloween celebration. There are some parents planning our class party which I know will be a great success. On Friday, October 29th, please have you child wear his/her costume to school. It will be a very fun day! The MWHS band will be performing their annual Halloween concert for the whole school at 9:00 am. Mrs. Swanson will follow with Halloween safety tips. Our class and Mrs. Schmitz class will parade around the 1st floor classrooms after the assembly is over. (Costumes may not be scary, bloody, or include weapons.)

This week we will be reviewing our sight words, going over our vocabulary words, working on graphing in math and practicing writing our numbers. We will be checking on our class tree. We will be making observations and seeing how it has changed.

We will be working on a Reader's Theater play this week too. The students loved the book Laura's parents read to the class last week. I found a script that goes along with the book, "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything". There will be a lot of CLOMPING, WIGGLING, SHAKING, CLAPPING, and NODDING going on in the classroom!

Laura's Mom and Dad came in to share some traditions they do as a family to celebrate the Star of the Week. They also read the book, "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid Of Anything".

Today was our first time going to the Computer Lab. Mrs. Couser does a great job explaining how to use the computers. She has a wonderful way showing the students where and what to do. Thank you Mrs. Couser!

Today we practice writing the letter "Cc".

Laura shared her "All About Me Tee" Poster with the class.

October 11 - 15
This week we will continue talking about what families do together and the class will be reading the stories "Bee-bim Bop" and Up, Up, Up! It's Apple Picking Time".

Our sight word is "go"
We will learn about the letter "Cc"
We will be talking about words that rhyme.
We will be focusing on the characters in the stories we read this week.
Our vocabulary words are: appetite, savor, urgency, aroma, surround, tradition
When the students write in their October journal this week, we will be working on sentences. How do we start a sentence and what are the different kinds of punctuation marks we can use.

We will be starting our Social Studies Unit: What is a family?
We will explore what makes families special and make our collage. We will talk about "gifts" family members give and do for each other.

Five Little Pumpkins Sitting On The Fence!

Rose's Mom came in to celebrate Rose's birthday and Rose being Star of the Week. Rose unwrapped birthday books her family donated to our classroom library! Thank you Mrs. Gonzalez for reading the books and teaching the class some Spanish words! You did a great job!

Please have your child bring in a picture of an activity you do as a family by Friday, Oct. 8th. They can draw it or it can be a photo. We will be making a classroom collage.

It was a beautiful day for a Field Trip to the Apple Orchard! The students learned how the apples are washed, they learned how to pick apples off the trees, we went on a hayride, picked apples, and had some apple cider! We had a great day!

Congratulations to Malia's Dad for running in the Twin City Marathon! Malia brought in her father's medal!

Happy Birthday Rose!

This week we are starting a new theme: Families
Your child will be reading "Bear's Busy Family" and "What Will Mommy Do When I'm at School?" We will be talking about the characters in each of the stories and making predictions. The children will brainstorm and chart different activities families like to do together.

Please have your child bring in a picture of an activity you do as a family by Friday, Oct. 8th. They can draw it or it can be a photo. We will be making a classroom collage.

Our sight word is " the".
Letters of the week or "Nn" and "Pp".
We will be learning about and writing captions.
Our vocabulary words are: feast, gusto, prepare, lonely, remind, preoccupied

We will be finishing up our Chapter in Math about Patterns and moving on to numbers 0-5. We will be discussing the vocabulary words: same as, equal, more, more than, fewer. We will also be making graphs.

Today we started our year-long observation of a tree and the students examined the roots, bark, branches and leaves. We will be watching to see what happens the next couple of weeks!

This week:

Sight Word for the Week: "my"

Letter of the Week: "Tt"

We will be reviewing the vocabulary words: ability, confident, reverse, complained, talent, encourage, differ, stalking, mellow, automatic, perfectly, resemblance

Math: We will be working on patterns.

Science: We will be starting our Tree Unit.

The students will be starting centers this week. They will learn how to rotate and use each center.

Luke's parents came into the classroom today and we all listened to Luke read the book, "If You Give A Pig A Pancake". Luke did a great job reading!

It was Sam's birthday today!
Happy Birthday Sam!

Sam's Mom came in a read one of Sam's favorite books to the class.
Then Sam's family donated the book to our classroom.
Thank you to Sam and his family!!

What a great week! Last Wednesday, I assessed each student and got to know everyone a little better. I have an amazing class. We are still practicing and learning all the expectations of being a kindergartener.

This week:

Sight Word for the Week: "a"

Letter of the Week: "Rr"

Our vocabulary words are: differ, stalking, mellow, automatic, perfectly, resemblance

Jessiah turned 6 years old today!

Today was Jessiah's Birthday! He was the first to have a Birthday Crown and pick a present from the Birthday Box! Jessiah's Mom came in and helped with snack. She brought a peanut free birthday snack to celebrate Jessiah's special day. She stayed and read a book to the class.

Happy Birthday Jessiah!

Today we practiced writing the letter "Mm". We used the sidewalk in front of Shirley Hills and chalk! Look at some of the students work:

Here's Mackenzie's:

Here's Luke's:

Here's Robert's: