Kindergarten News

Pictures from Activity Day

2014-06-09T11:15:00.001-07:00

We had a blast today spending time with our buddies outside in this beautiful weather! Thank you to everyone who helped organize the event, our parent volunteers, and the RCC for the yummy treat!

Return All Books From School - Library and Guided Reading

2014-06-04T08:32:00.003-07:00

Please check your house for any books from school. Mrs. Chapados has collected all library and READING GROUP books! Return any books you find as soon as possible!

Thank you!

Mrs. Skeels

Picnic Reminder

2014-06-04T08:31:00.002-07:00

Picnic Reminder

Tomorrow (Thursday) is the day for the kindergarten picnic at Central Park!!

Here are some things to remember:

*Send your child in comfortable

clothing and athletic shoes.

*Pack a lunch and drink for your

child (unless you already notified

the teacher that your child needs

a lunch). You may want to send an

extra bottle of water as well!

*Feel free to send a hat and

sunglasses if you wish!

Thanks for your help in making our outing a great success!!

Kindergarten Graduation

2014-06-02T08:57:00.000-07:00

We had our kindergarten graduation on Friday and it was great! Here are some pictures with all our graduation gear on. Please email me if you would like a copy of the picture file emailed to your personal account!

For the remaining days of kindergarten, we have some fun activities planned! We will be writing letters to both the upcoming kindergarten class and our first grade/multiage teachers for next year. We will be showing the current 4K students around the classroom tomorrow, going on a class picnic on Thursday, and having a read-in day on Friday (see the note that will come home today). Next week, there are other fun school-wide activities planned and we will be packing up all our belongings to prepare for summer vacation!

A Note From Mrs. Chapados

2014-05-22T08:12:00.001-07:00

Library News:

All library books are due Friday May 30th. Any library book not returned by May 30th may be considered lost and a replacement fine sent home.

Thank you for helping your child remember to return all library books.

- Mrs. Chapados, Library Support Staff

A few more pictures

2014-05-18T11:42:00.001-07:00

The Farm

2014-05-18T11:39:00.001-07:00

Here are a few pictures from our farm field trip on Friday! Even thought the weather was a little chilly, we had a great time. A special thank you to the parents who were able to join us - the extra help is greatly appreciated!!

May 5

2014-05-05T07:31:00.001-07:00

Over the last few weeks, we have been reading several Eric Carle books and doing some activities with them. Eric Carle uses an interesting technique for making his pictures. He paints tissue paper and then cuts all his shapes and pictures from the painted tissue. We tried this in the classroom and had a ton of fun making our own artwork!

We have been practicing addition and subtraction in many different ways. A fun math game that we out into our math centers is a popcorn game. Ask your child about this! We have been reviewing many math concepts such as greater than/less than/equal to, breaking apart numbers, patterns, 3D shapes, and many others!

We have also been learning a lot about insects and plants. We planted seeds and have been watching them grow for the last couple of weeks. We also got our caterpillars and watched them grow from 5 mm to 35 mm and now they have changed into chrysalises. We are excited to see what happens next!

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks of school!

Here are some of our creations from recyclables on Earth Day.

Artwork in the style of Eric Carle

Math fact flowers

We planted seed and they have started growing! Your child will be bringing them home this week to be planted in a larger pot or garden!

Or caterpillars turned into chrysalises. When we came back from the weekend today, 2 of our butterflies have hatched! We got to hold the butterflies and let them fly around the room. We will post pictures of this soon!

Today we made pictures of our own bug jar! We will be writing facts we learned about specific bugs today too!

Important dates

2014-04-28T13:20:00.001-07:00

Dear Families,

There are a few important dates coming up! Your child will be bringing home more information about these special events tomorrow, so please watch for the notes!!!

*Book Fair at Community Elementary- 5/08 (Your child will visit the book fair with our class. You are welcome to send money that your child can spend at that time, but your child will also be writing a "wish list." You can purchase books after school or you can send in money on 5/09 with a list of the books that you would like your child to purchase.)

*Green Meadows Farm Field Trip- 5/16 8:30-2:30. We are able to take all chaperones who are interested on this trip! Please make work arrangements and let me know if you would like to come with us! This is a great field trip!

*5K graduation - 5/30 at 1:00 in the EPAC. We hope to see you there!

Reminder: Mallard's Baseball

2014-04-10T13:08:00.001-07:00

Just a reminder that your ticket request form must be returned by tomorrow (Friday) in order to get your Mallard's Baseball tickets for the June game. ****This includes ordering the free ticket that your child earned through the reading promotion!!

Tuesday, April 1

2014-04-01T08:56:00.001-07:00

Happy April Fool's Day! I have lots of kids trying to trick me today! They keep trying to telling me that there is a spider or monkey on my head or their sister is in college. One student really got me by saying he was going on a vacation to Florida!!

Over the last few weeks, we have been talking about Fix-up Monitoring and Summarizing in Reader's Workshop. Our class enjoys discussing the characters, setting, problem, and solutions of stories and also including these things when they write their own stories! We have been writing like Mo Willems, since we just finished our author study on this great writer and illustrator. You may have seen books about Pigeon, Gerald, Piggy, and Knuffle Bunny coming home. I am so impressed with the ideas and writing that is taking place in here. We have been working hard on remembering writing conventions (like leaving spaces, capital letter and the beginning, punctuation at the end, and even using only lowercase letters within the sentences).

In phonics, we continue to practice letters, letter sounds, and sounding out words. We review rhyming, breaking apart words, and saying words slowly each day.

In your child's reading group, we continue to meet several times each week to read a new story and to talk and write about it. Thank you for your help at home rereading the stories, reading new books, and completing the monthly homework packets. I am so proud of the growth that each child is showing this year. I appreciate you taking the time to practice skills at home, because it is so beneficial in the classroom too.

In science, we just finished our unit on bodies and germs. This was a favorite for many of our classmates. They were very interested in finding out what different parts of the body do and why they are important. Ask your child about our potato experiment, too. It was very gross, but also very interesting!! During the month of April, we will be learning about the earth and waste management. With the weather getting nicer, we will also talk about plants and will be growing some in here, too!

Please send 1-5 recyclable items to school with your child by Friday. Items may include paper, plastic, metal, and glass. We will do some sorting activities, talk about waste management, reuse many of the items, and recycle the rest. Thank you for your help in making this a fun experience!

In math, we continue to practice skills that we have learned this year in large and small group activities, with paper and pencil tasks, and within learning centers. We have several math games that the children like playing together. We have been talking about "math mountains," (which are like fact families), the symbols < > = and their meanings, strategies for solving addition problems, and problem solving.

These are some things that are coming up soon:

4/2 Turn in your child's Read-A-Thon money! ***Thank you for participating in this fundraiser!

4/4 Bring recyclables for a recycling sort and other Earth Day activities!!!

4/5 Kid's Fair- Community Elementary Gym, 9:30-11:30

4/11 Early Release for students

4/14-4/21- Spring Break

Here are a few pictures from our time at school:

Spring writing

Spring pictures

Trioxide and Knuffle Bunny stories

Science Notebook

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2014-03-17T08:32:00.001-07:00

Check out the iMovie we made about our leprechaun traps!!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VifdBFp5pnw

March 11

2014-03-17T08:31:00.001-07:00

This month we started with an author study on Dr. Seuss. Our class enjoyed learning about the fantasy genre. We did several fun activities including inventing our own animal, measuring our foot, and discussing rhyming and opposites. In math we have been doing many story problems, practicing addition and subtraction, and reviewing concepts like symmetry, 3D shapes, measurement, and graphing. In science, we finished our exciting unit on dinosaurs and have moved on to discuss healthy habits and the body.

This week, we began one of my favorite author studies: Mo Willems. If you haven't read any of his pigeon, Piggy and Gerald, or Knuffle Bunny books, you should check them out! He writes very funny stories that are easy for many kindergartners to read. During this author study, we will be comparing and contrasting fantasy with realistic fiction.

I hope that the weather will continue to improve as we get closer to spring. In the meantime, please be sure to send boots and snow pants while it is still chilly. Or playground can get pretty windy and it was very cold out there today!

Another reminder is to continue to collect pledges for our reading promotion, which begins on Monday. Let's work together to raise some money for new playground equipment!!!

Over the next couple of days, we will be reading some books about St. Patrick's Day. We will be discussing ways to catch a tricky little leprechaun and will be designing a plan for how to do this. If your child is interested in making a trap at home and bringing it in for sharing, you are welcome to do that! I can't wait to see what these imaginations will come up with!

Here are some pictures from the last weeks in kindergarten:

Our finished dinosaur mural

Some facts about dinosaurs

A fun weight comparison activity: we cut pictures from magazines, compared the weights, and explained the weight differences. Benno's says, "The ball is lighter because it is little. The board game is bigger because it looks big. Is that cool?"

We wrote biographies about friends in the classroom during our biography unit and around President's Day.

We wrote about what we would do if we were the president.

These are some of the animals we invented during the Dr. Seuss unit.

We wrote our own addition and subtraction problems and illustrated them!

We wrote our own pigeon stories!

We began talking a bout healthy habits. We learned about the importance of hand washing.

We checked on our tree, Army Tank Taylor Swift. We noticed that the leaves are gone. We made predictions about what might happen in the spring. Some people thought the tree would grow, grow leaves, and grow berries. We will see as the weather gets warmer!!

February 18

2014-02-18T13:27:00.001-08:00

We had an exciting week last week! On Wednesday, we got to travel to the University of Wisconsin Whitewater campus to see the play The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Everyone had a great time watching the different Eric Carle plays. Ask your child about the puppets and black lights.

On Thursday, we celebrated the 100th day of school. In the morning, we had the opportunity to visit many other kindergarten rooms to do different 100th day activities such as licking a lollypop 100 times, building with 100 toothpicks and gumdrops, doing 100 exercises, and dressing like a 100-year-old. In the afternoon, we compared our collections of 100 things. There were many different collections and we appreciate the time you took helping your child to count them out.

On Friday, we celebrated Valentine's Day. In the afternoon, we exchanged valentines and made a. book of all our valentines. I hope you had a chance to look through these at home.

This week, we are comparing and contrasting in Reader's Workshop. Our new sight word is AND. We will be finishing up our unit on dinosaurs this week. During math, we will be studying even and odd numbers and practicing measurement.

Here are some pictures from last week:

This is Logan's dinosaur that he made and painted.

This was one 100th day station...can you get to the center of a Tootsie Pop in 100 licks?

Building with 100 cups

Building with 100 gumdrops and toothpicks

Emma is 100 years old for the day!

Spending time in Miss K's room

Comparing our 100 collections using the balance

What had some long and short collections.

Friday, February 7

2014-02-07T15:13:00.001-08:00

We have had such a fun week studying dinosaurs! Our class has been so motivated to finds answers to their many questions. We have watched a few videos online, looked through lots of books, and talked about what some children already know about dinosaurs. This week, we learned what different types of dinosaurs eat and how big some of their footprints are. We worked together as a class to make a mural and we also made clay models of different types of dinosaurs.

In Reader's Workshop, we have been focusing on predicting. We read a fun story called Who's in the Shed? Ask your child about this story! We started making our own versions of Who's in the Shed this afternoon. I can't wait to read the clues and guess what type of animal each person hid behind their shed!

I have been so impressed with the reading and writing that is happening in our classroom. I am excited every day to meet with my reading groups and see the growth in each child. Today we wrote stories about a time that we got hurt. They were so great! Look for your child's story next week!

I ordered some new math manipulatively with my budget money and we. Have be engravings. Great time with these new items. One is a large number line. Students have been using dinosaurs to add and subtract by jumping up and down the number line. They have also been rolling a dice and racing to 30. We got some colored links that the class has been using to count with and make patterns. We have been focusing on problem solving and simple addition and subtraction this week.

Reminders:

Field trip money is due on Monday. $9.50 for students, $6.75 for chaperones. We have chosen our 2 chaperones already, but there is a field trip in May if any other parents would like to accompany our class!

Your preference sheets for multiage or single first grade are due next week on Wednesday. (This does not apply to students going to Yahara next year). Please let me know if you need another form!

Wednesday is our field trip to the Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Thursday is our 100th day of school. Be sure to send your child's collection of 100 things next week.

We have lots of fun activities to do with these collections!

Friday is Valentine's Day! Send in valentines any time next week. We will be exchanging on Friday.

As always, library books are due on Fridays.

Here are some pictures from the week:

Haley makes fossils with our dinosaur toys.

Jacob shows how the dinosaurs fight with each other.

These students are racing to 30 by rolling a dice and moving their dinosaurs.

Our new math links!!

Jackson puts some meat into the carnovore's stomach.

These boys are playing a new math game. Spin the number, make it on a tens frame, and cross it off. The first one to make all the numbers wins!

Here is our mural. We made clay dinosaur to add to it today and will be painting them next week. Some children enjoyed playing with the dinosaur figures on this background during play time!

January 2014

2014-01-13T18:01:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year! This is what is coming up in the month of January.

Literacy: We will continue to learn and practice new sight words (January words are do, come, in, and), read and discuss texts in guided reading, and write several sentences. Duringe writing time, we have been focusing on conventions (leaving spaces between words, capital letter at the beginning of each sentence, punctuation). In reader's workshop, we will be discussing traditional tales and doing an author study on Jan Brett. In phonics, we have been reviewing letter formation, sentence writing, letter sounds, and sounding out simple words.

Math: We continue to review and practice writing numbers 0-20 and beyond, simple addition and subtraction, patterning, and sorting. New concepts this month include symmetry, measurement, and 3D shapes. We will also be writing our own surveys and collecting data within the classroom.

Science: We have started a unit on polar regions. There will be many opportunities to explore different animals, polar regions, snow, and temperature. I can already sense the excitement from the class as they read through the many nonfiction books that we checked out from the library.

As always, please contact me with any questions. I will post more pictures as the month goes on!

This picture shows our math journal activity. Each student had a cup with several math cubes. They had to count the cubes, find a group of objects in the room that was equal, record the groups in their journal with a numeral and a picture, and then add the groups.

This is a journal entry from our Jan Brett author study. Today we compared her version of The Mitten with another author's. A sky our child about the similarities and differences between the stories.

Math: symmetry We painted mittens that had symmetry.

This was a fun game we played with partners. One partner made a picture on one side of the ruler and the other had to copy it to make the picture symmetrical.

They enjoyed checking their pictures with a mirror to see if they were symmetrical.

Last Friday we were finally able to open our stockings from the candy cane exchange. We had a blast playing several fun "minute to win it" activities. We also broke open the piñata that the class made in Miss K's class when they learned about Las Posadas. This is a picture of the candy cane mustaches that everyone got from Logan!

Friday, December 20, 2013

2013-12-20T04:08:00.001-08:00

Good morning, families! I hope that everyone is staying safe in these icy conditions. I am bummed that we are missing our fun activities that we had planned for today, but we will do them on the Monday that students return to school (including opening all our candy canes from the stockings!).

I have a couple of videos to share with you. The first one is my first attempt at making an imovie. This is from the day that Santa visited kindergarten!

The second video is of the holiday sing yesterday. A special thanks to Kevin Schmitz who recorded and posted it!

I hope you all have a very safe and happy holiday with your friends and families. If I don't see you over break, I will see you all next year in 2014!!!

Santa visit:

http://youtu.be/VN7UMJyylvY

Holiday Sing Playlist (all grades):

***Kindergarten is video #7!***

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKhozAC08gJtk_vDLkB0tDG613p2ZTSMz

Polar Express Day

2013-12-17T11:06:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures from all the great activities today, Polar Express Day!!! Thanks to Miss K for taking the pictures and thank you to the families that donated materials to make this day possible!

Kwanzaa

2013-12-03T12:06:00.001-08:00

This month, we will be learning about several different holidays that different people celebrate around the world. Yesterday and today we discussed Kwanzaa. Ask your child to sing you the Kwanzaa song and to tell you a little about this African-American holiday!

In these pictures, our class is making beads with salt dough.

Today, we strung the beads and made necklaces!

Math Centers

2013-12-03T12:01:00.001-08:00

These are a few pictures from today's math centers!

Jake and Bailey are playing a dice-rolling game. They roll 2 dice, add the numbers, and remove the marker with the answer. Once all the markers are removed, they win!

These kids are practicing writing numbers with shaving cream.

This was a fun game that we learned to play on the Smartboard. You spin the spinner and then move that number of spaces on the game board. The computer is your opponent. Whoever lands exactly on the end is the winner! This was a fun and exciting game for our class!

This is Logan choosing a game on the iPad. There are several math games to choose from. A favorite today was a game where the children had to get their character to a certain place on the map using a path of arrows that they designed. It was really fun!

December 3

2013-12-03T12:00:00.001-08:00

Last week and the week before, we talked a lot about families, being thankful, and the first Thanksgiving. I hope you had a chance to take a look at the Thanksgiving book your child brought home! On Wednesday at play time, we talked about what it would be like to be Pilgrims with no electricity and few toys. The class spent play time pretending to be pilgrims. We played in the dark with wooden toys. They made a "fire" to cook their food, and they pretended to go hunting for food to bring back for everyone to share. our class continues to enjoy playing "pilgrims" this week too!

Here are a few pictures from our Thanksgiving unit:

Here are some Pilgrims playing in the dark with wooden blocks and small stones.

This was a little project that Kaitlyn made for me during our Pilgrim play time. She didn't think they had glue, so she did not glue the pieces together!!! How cool!

This is our Thankful Turkey...filled with feathers of all the things that our class is thankful for - friends, family, toys, food, and more!

This is a chart we made about all the different things that families do together.

This is a poster we made about what a family is made of!

November 18

2013-11-18T16:39:00.001-08:00

These are some pictures from the last week in kindergarten. One day, we made an obstacle course to review positional words (over, under, around, etc) and cardinal numbers (first, second, etc). Then, we tried to draw a map of the obstacle course. It was a fun activity!

In math and social studies, we have been talking about phone numbers and addresses. We recorded everyone's phone number and address in a class directory and then practiced calling the phone numbers on a calculator app on the ipads. We also found a really fun (and free) app to practice dialing phone numbers and even calling 911! It is called DialPro if you are interested in getting it at home!

During writing time, we have been working on an "All About Me" book. this was a page about things that we like to do. We have also written about what we look like and who is in our family. You will see this book coming home for Thanksgiving.

Here is another math activity. We spent some time reviewing shapes and found shapes to cut from magazines.

In social studies this week, we are learning about the meaning of the word THANKFUL. Today. each member of the class made a turkey feather and wrote about what they are thankful for. We will be making a turkey to display for Thanksgiving. We have also been learning about the first Thanksgiving and about turkeys. We will be comparing what we have learned about turkeys with what we know about owls. It will be fun to compare and contrast these two birds!

We have a busy but fun week ahead of us!

Thanks for reading our blog!

November 5

2013-11-05T10:57:00.001-08:00

Last week on Friday, we headed out to the front of the school the check on our tree, Army Tank Taylor Swift. We took a look at the type of bark that our tree has and compared it to other trees around the school. We made rubbings of the different types of bark (smooth or rough). In the classroom, we also learned how to make rubbings from leaves!

October 31

2013-10-31T18:15:00.001-07:00

We have been working on making text to self and text to text connections in Reader's Workshop. Ask your child about connections!

Our sight words now include I, see, a, the, we, and like. Each week, we practice making, reading, and using our sight words. You can help at home by having your child practice reading and spelling our words (and others if they are ready) and by finding our sight words in books or on labels.

In phonics we continue to practice letter formation, rhyming, counting syllables, and listening skills.

We have been practicing writing simple sentences. We are talking about leaving spaces between words and putting a period at the end of a sentence. Our class has been excited about finding other types of punctuation during shared reading time.

In math, we continue to practice skills such as number recognition, counting, patterns, sorting, and graphing. Ask your child about math centers and our math journal.

In science, we have been learning about owls, pumpkins, spiders, and bats. This week, the class visited Mrs. Shogren's room for some fun science activities!

Here are a few pictures from the last week:

This was a labeling activity that we did during writing time. We learned what labeling is and practiced on Logan. Then, we tried labeling a picture in our journal!

Halloween Costumes!!

In Social Studies, we have been learning about community helpers and businesses. We have also been talking about maps. This is a map that we made of Edgerton. Later in the week, we added our houses and then worked together in groups to make local businesses.

Some of our business groups working together- We made Piggly Wiggly, the Dollar General, the police station, the bank, and Culver's.

October 16

2013-10-20T12:30:00.001-07:00

Here are a few pictures from the last week!

Making art from leaves

Working together to make patterns

The tree we "adopted"

Learning about community helpers

Our fire station field trip