News for the Week of September 17th

We had another great week in kindergarten!  We started off the week celebrating Constitution Day on Monday which is observed every year on September 17th.  We discussed what our constitution for our country is and why it is important.  We even wrote up our own school constitution.  The students told me what they wanted me to write down for this constitution.  I apologize for not taking many pictures this week.  I hope to take more next week to add to our blog.

In math this week, we finished our unit on Developing a Sense of Quantities to 10.  We had fun making our names on a ten frame.  They are hanging up in our hallway, so be sure to come and check them out!  We then began our new unit about Sorting and Classifying/2D and 3D Shapes.  We learned to sort pictures of a variety of objects and various objects based on their attributes.  We began learning about 2D shapes by focusing on the triangle and going on a shape hunt for triangles in our classroom.  We will continue to learn about more 2D shapes, as well as straight lines and curved lines next week.

In language arts, we read the poem, I Can!, and focused on the sight word, "I."  We wrote the word "I" several times and looked for rhyming words in our poem.  We read the book My Friend Rabbit by Eric Rohmann and Julius, Baby of the World by Kevin Henkes and focused on learning about characters.  We learned that characters are the people or animals in a story that talk and have actions.  We recorded a picture of our favorite character from each story in our reading response journals.  We also read Goldilocks and the Three Bears and Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale by Marcus Pfister to learn about setting.  We learned that setting is where a story takes place or happens.  The students then drew and colored a picture of the setting from both books in their reading response journals.  Next week, we will read more stories and focus on the elements of a story.  During our word study, we took a cut apart sentence and put the words back in order.  We used sentences we created as a class such as, "We read books in kindergarten," and "We sing songs in kindergarten."  The students glued the words in the correct order in their reading response journals after we went over the sentences as a class several times.  We also read a poem about the alphabet and noticed various letters, as well as rhyming words.  In writing, we continued our stories and some students finished and are illustrating their stories.  Everyone is almost done with their stories and some have started new stories.  Our class also continued work in our handwriting book and worked on the forming the letters X, Y, Z and C.  

In science, we finished our unit, Properties of Objects.  We started the week using the iPads and the Nearpod app.  We enjoyed learning how Nearpod works and look forward to using it more this year!  For the rest of the week we used our sense of smell to identify different scents, we used our sense of touch to determine texture of objects, we compared big and small items, compared the weight of different types of balls, and graphed a collection of shapes and colored items.  This was a lot of fun and we learned that scientists can record their information in a variety of ways.  We enjoyed discussing what we thought the different smells were the most (coffee, garlic, onion, pickles, and vanilla.)  We then finished our unit with an assessment.  Next week, we will begin another fun unit called Heat Causes Change.  On Friday we will have a day dedicated to apples!  We will be making applesauce to observe the changes in the apples through heating.  We also have apple themed activities planned throughout the rest of the day!

The Monkeys were very excited this past week to celebrate another superstar student of the week, CJ.  We were able to learn all about CJ's life and interests.

Next week, we do not have a superstar student.  Our next superstar will be announced this Friday afternoon.

Reminders

Please send in as many Box Tops as you can.  We are way behind other classes and grade levels this year in the competition.  September 28th is the last day of the competition at our school.  Even if our class does not win a prize, this Box Tops competition raises money for our PTA and it all goes back into our school and helping the students. Thank you!

Please be sure to check out the "Dates to Remember" below. 

Upcoming Dates to Remember: 

Sept. 24     Flu Clinic (for those students who were signed up by parents)
Sept. 25     Family PE/Wellness Night, 6-7 p.m.
Sept. 27     Coffee Chat for parents, Library, 7:45-8:15 a.m.
Oct. 8        Student Holiday/Parent~Teacher Fall Conferences
Oct. 9        Student Holiday
Oct. 12      PTA Movie Night, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Superstars & Birthdays:

Morris Superstar:

None

Morris September Birthdays:

Mozelle-9/14
Ethan-9/26