Kindergator Update 10.11.18


What a hurricane of a week we have had! There was lots o’ learnin’ in kindergarten this week and lots o' assessing for report cards too. 

Reading: We are working on hard to notice the “Letters That Work Together to Make One Sound” tricks in the words we read. I hope you are seeing improved sounding out of words in their nightly reading like we are seeing here in class. We are also working on how to do a wonderful retelling of the fiction stories we hear. That means focusing on the characters, setting and major details in the story so you can retell the most important parts in order. 

Math: We are continuing our exploration of 3D shapes (cylinder, cone, cube, sphere) in our math centers this week. We are also learning about classifying (sorting) things into groups. We have been discussing how classifying means looking at one rule at a time only (by color, by shape, by size, by purpose) and how the name of your group has to fit everything you put into that group. This is a skill that will continue throughout the year in multiple subjects, so definitely a big deal skill.

Writing: We have been working on adding describing words to our writing by adding specific color words, patterns and/or material to our sentences. The kids are doing a wonderful job at thinking up unique ways to describe their characters this week. One of our favorites went like this…. “Ella was a cotton candy purple and sky blue bird.” Whoa!

STEM: We built garden “gates” to hold 5 pumpkins like those we read about in our “5 Little Pumpkins” book. The gates had to be between two things, off the ground or surface and be able to hold 5 pumpkins. It was fun to watch them try to figure it out.

Big Things:
Next week is conference week. That means early dismissal from school all week. Be sure to let us know if there are any transportation changes needed because of this. AND don’t forget to come for your child’s scheduled conference time. We cannot wait to meet with you and talk about all the progress we are seeing!

We are hoping to do a fun pumpkin STEM project and pumpkin carving experience next Monday, October 15th. We need help from you in order to be able to do that. First we are seeking 3-4 boards approximately 2-3 feet long and about 6-10 inches wide to use as a ramps for our “runaway” pumpkins. PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE THESE or spend your money for these. We are hoping some of you have left over boards in your garages or attics for us to use. If none are available, we will try to figure out a new plan for our ramps. We are also seeking 3 parent volunteers for Monday morning from 9:00-10:30ish to help us carve our pumpkins in class and perhaps monitor our runaway pumpkins. Please email me if you are able to send in boards and /or volunteer.

I posted some pictures of our STEM projects and apple sauce experience on the blog today too. 

Thank You To:

Ava’s Family for sending in delicious apple cake for us to try.
Grant’s family for sending in a pumpkin for us to carve.
Jackson’s family for sending in pumpkins and apple fritters for us to try. I am ashamed to say how many times I went back for seconds on those.
Reese’s family for bringing a pumpkin, teaching us how to make homemade apple sauce and making a batch for us to try. They had to peel over 50 apples to make this batch so please say thank you when you see them. It was amazing.
Harper H’s family for sending in a pumpkin and two types of apples for us to try. We actually had students, who had never given apples a try, say they loved them.
Landon’s family for making us amazing pumpkin muffins.
Dilan, Jackson, Reese, Harper J. Grant, Pennelope, Olivia, Elle, Arnold, Zeb, and Harper H. for earning STAR behavior.
Congratulations to Elle who was elected our October Leader of the Month. She is a wonderful class leader for sure!

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