Mrs. Morris' Class: April 2019

Sunday, April 21, 2019

News for the Week of April 15th

This week our class became a SHINE class! We completed our class application and were surprised by the PROS and Mrs. Hougham, who came to let us know and cheer for our class! Here is an explanation of a SHINE class:

S.H.I.N.E. Classes: To become a S.H.I.N.E. Class full of students who are Supportive Helpful Inclusive Non-Stop Encouragers, classes have to complete an application, including four components:

Receive compliments from two staff members
All students have signed the Resolution of Respect from No Plate for Hate
All students have to have given at least one affirmation to a classmate
Students work on a caring action (a student directed project or activity) that promotes peace and deep care for others in the class, school, or community

The kindergarten classes also got to listen to a couple of stories about service dogs on Monday morning in the library. Jessica Cunningham, who is a parent of two students at CCE, is training a service dog and will be on campus at times with her service dog, Paige. Mrs. Cunningham brought another service dog (who is almost finished with its training) for the students to see on Monday. She taught us not to talk to or pet the dog, because it is learning to work for someone who will need its help. The service dog has to learn to avoid distractions and focus on its job. She told us the dog will learn to do things such as turn light switches on and off, open and close drawers, pick up items from the floor and more.

In math, we continued working with developing number concepts for numbers 11-20. We also have been spiraling past math concepts that we have learned about this year in our math rotations. Next week, we will take a one week break from numbers 11-20 to really focus on recognizing coins. We will spend a day focusing on each of four coins: a penny, a nickel, a dime and a quarter. We will review our learning and complete a fun coin craft on Friday. The students have already been learning songs about identifying coins for the past couple of months.

In language arts, we read the poem, My Puppy, which focused on the sight word "and." We wrote the word "and" several times, looked for rhyming words in our poem and colored the pictures. We began our new unit called, "We Are Researchers." Each student has picked an animal that we might see at the zoo or in Africa. Some students chose an animal and are working on their research by themselves and other students chose animals that others were also interested in and are working in groups. We are exploring simple non-fiction text about our animals are will listen to more information about them on PebbleGo in the computer lab this week. The students are writing about their animal's parts and what they look like, their animal's diet and their animal's habitat. We are also learning many interesting facts about our animal. We will make a poster of our animal in our groups or individually for some. We will also write individual research reports about our animals that you will see at our Kindergarten Showcase on May 10th at 7:20-7:40 a.m.

In social studies, we have been learning about characteristics of a place the past 2 weeks. We learned about landforms such as oceans, plains and grasslands, deserts, mountains, rivers and lakes and glaciers. We made a book of landforms that we took home last week. We also learned about natural resources such as water, sun, air, soil, plants, animals, oil, coal, etc. Next week, we will begin our science unit on plant life cycles. We have already started to learn about this through our jalapeno and cilantro planting. However, we will focus more in depth over the next couple of weeks.

The Monkeys were excited to learn about our superstar student, Melvin, the week before last! We were able to learn about his life and interests.

A Note from the Music Room -

Please mark your calendars for Friday, May 10th at 8:00 am! You won't want to miss the Kindergarten Spring Music Program which will be held that morning in the CCE Cafeteria! We will share some songs and poems about our Kindergarten class, our Moms (just in time for Mother's Day) and even our own Big Dreams! We are looking forward to performing for you!

Mrs. Martin (Music) and the Kindergarten Students

Reminders

Please return the report card envelope if you have not already.

Please return book envelopes by Monday morning each week.

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

4/28 CCE Round Rock Express Day
4/29-5/3 Book Fair
4/30 Kona Ice after school
4/30 Book Fair open until 6 p.m.
5/10 Kindergarten Showcase 7:20 a.m.
5/10 Kindergarten Musical Performance, 8 a.m.

Superstars & Birthdays:

Morris Superstar:

Melvin!

Morris April Birthdays:

Melvin-4/11

Happy Birthday Melvin!

Sunday, April 7, 2019

News for the Week of April 1st

The first week of April is complete! It is very hard to believe that there are only 7 weeks of school left in the 2018-2019 school year! The Monkeys are continuing to work hard and learn more each day.

In math, took our math assessment and made a subtraction craft called "Snaggle Tooth." It is hanging in our hallway so come and check it out! We began our new unit, "Developing Number Concepts to 20." The students are learning to look at teen numbers in a variety of ways. We are recognizing and identifying teen numbers, writing them, counting out sets of objects, making them on 20 frames, using tally marks and looking at the word for each numeral.

In language arts, we read the poem, Come On, Let's Go!, which focused on the sight word "no." We wrote the word "no" several times, looked for rhyming words in our poem and colored the pictures. We continued our unit called, "Poetry: Fun With Words." The students have learned that many poems have rhyming words, but some do not. We discussed how some poetry can have rhythm and rhyme. We did movements and acted out a poem as a class and with a partner. We also focused on writing poems about colors, the rainbow and our favorite rainbow color. We hung up our rainbow rhyme poems in our classroom and we also made a poem about one of our favorite colors on a paint sample card. We read a poem about a goldfish and brainstormed a list of many things that goldfish can't do. We wrote our ideas down like a poem. We also began learning about compound words for our word study. We learned how 2 different words and be put together to form a new word with a new meaning. Ask your child what compound word they know.

In science, we continued our unit called Plant and Animal Characteristics. We learned about animal characteristics this week and focused on the parts of of animals and their body coverings. We learned about wings, tails, fur, beaks, gills, etc. We really discussed different classifications of animals such as mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and insects. We discussed different animals that fit into each group and characteristics of those animals. We will take an assessment on plant and animal characteristics this week. We will also be planting our cilantro seeds tomorrow.

The Monkeys were excited to learn about our superstar student, Benjamin! We were able to learn about his life and interests.

The Monkeys are excited to learn all about our next superstar student, Melvin!

From the office:

If you have a student in 4th or 5th grade, please refrain from scheduling doctor appointments that will require your student to be pulled out of class on scheduled testing days. Students who have not completed their testing at their scheduled lunch time will eat lunch in their classroom. We ask that all parents refrain from eating lunch with their children these two days. Our lunch schedule will be adjusted for testing so we cannot guarantee what time your children will be in the lunchroom. Parents are welcome to visit during lunch on any other days.