March 27, 2009

We had star student lunch today. Eight students made it this month-double from last month. Hopefully we will have even more for the April 24 star student lunch. The star students are...Gavin, Logan, Evan, Grace, Sophia, Torrey and Kyle. Nicolle earned a spot too, but she was in Arizona so she will eat with me after spring break. Great job Star Students!!!! Work hard for next month too!

We also earned our last 2 stars and we are having toy and ice cream day after lunch/recess. I am proud of how hard all of my students are working!!

Clown Day-March 20

We had lots of fun clowning around on clown day. We painted our faces. We sang clown songs, read clown books and poems. We drew clowns and wrote about clowns. We are making clowns out of construction paper, paper plates, coffee filters, dot paints, foam shapes and more. We will be displaying our homemade clowns when we finish them. We finished off clown day with a parade at Day Five Alive!

March 13

Sarah Visits from Ace Dance
Sarah came to visit on Friday, March 13. She came before lunch and we had fun "traveling" to other countries. We made a passport and got a stamp in it for every country we visited. We traveled by boat, plane and train. Some of the places we went to were Canada, China and Ireland. After lunch, Sarah came back dressed up as a super hero. We wore our "capes" (pillowcases) and pretended to be super star super heros too. We braintstormed and acted out ways to use positive behavior to defeat the Unthinkable behaviors lurking in our room. It was lots of fun.

Week of March 9th to March 13th

3-12-09 Today 4 students had a "STAR" lunch with Mrs. Milow. These students have been using star behavior in the classroom. They have been good listeners. They have been following directions. They also are kind and helpful to others. They are Logan, Tyler, Ellie and Grace.
We are going to have another "STAR" lunch on Friday, March 27. Mrs. Anderson and I are on the look out for star students to have a special lunch that day!

Other things going on in the classroom:

Reading: This week we have started Reader's Workshop. The different components of Reader's workshop are: 1. Read to Self 2. Read to Teacher 3. Read to Partner 4. Listen to Story 5. Word Work . We have practiced all of these parts as a whole group. Now we are doing them in small, independent groups. Everyday we do read to self as a whole group. I want them to practice reading uninterrupted in school everyday. Then we rotate the other parts. So far we have made two rotations. I have split up the class into 4 groups with 5 or 6 in each group. Each group has done two areas so far.
Read Alouds: This week we have been focusing on making connections as our reading skill. As I read a story, we stop and talk to our "elbow" partner about the connection we are making with the story. We also share our connections as a whole group. During read to self, I am encouraging the students to try and make connections with the books they are reading. We are making connections during our chapter book "Elliot's Park Saving Mr. Nibbles".

Math: This week we did workjobs. We worked on counting pennies and nickels together. We played together as a whole group and then we played individually. I was amazed at how well the students were able to switch from counting by 5's (nickels) to counting by 1's (pennies). We also spent some time practicing telling time. We told time to the hour and to the half hour. We also practiced writing the time( 8:00 or 9:30) .

Writers Workshop-We have been talking about choosing different topics. Some of the students have been writing about favorite topics over and over. I am encouraging them to write about something new. We also talked about writing more than one word or sentence. Their writing continues to impress me! We are going to clean out writing folders soon so you will be able to see their work.

Week of Feb. 23 to Feb. 27

We have been busy and having fun in kindergarten! It was our last week of "I Love To Read" month! Our class read 1,974 books this month in school and at home!!!! WoW!!!!! We counted backpack books and independent reading books. We also included read alouds and we counted the calendars that a few students have returned. Thanks for reading at home! What a fun month.


Reading/Reading Activities-We have been reading a lot in kindergarten! Our AlphaFriend this week was the letter Qq. We talked about how "q" and "u" are always together. We read the mini book "Fan". We reviewed the "an" family. We did independent reading 4 times this week. We did shared reading one time this week. We also talked about visual images. We read a poem about weather and the students drew the mental image on paper after each verse. We also wrote and read about weather and seasons.

Writing/Writer's Workshop-We talked about using periods at the end of sentences. We had a mini-lesson on writing more and drawing less. We had a few students from Mrs. Jurek's class come over and read their writing. We reveiwed the vowel sounds and practiced listening for them in words.

Math-We played a card game called Top-It. It was card game about greater than or less than. We had workjobs on Tuesday. We reviewed telling time to the hour. We also talked about the minute hand and practiced counting by 5's to figure out the time. We did simple addition also.

Social-We are continuing our work with the Unthinkables. We are making posters and brainstorming ways to defeat the unthinkable behaviors.

All Day Read/PJ Day
We read all day. We read with partners, individually and with small groups. We had special guest readers including Emily (High School Helper) ,MRs. Wharram, Mrs. Petersmeyer, John (Grace's Dad) and Mrs. Jurek. We had a total of 28 read alouds that day! Mrs. Biorn's 4th grade students came to read with us. They read a couple of books and we read a couple of books. It was a fun day of reading!