Buffalo Soldiers and the Wild West

February is known as the month of Love- and we covered that with celebrating Valentine's Day.  We had a good time expressing our creative side by putting together our Valentine bags- you can see a few pictures below of the students working hard- they were all unique and showed their personalities!

February also brought us snow day #2, cold weather, crazy winds (today) and some new outside "toys" to use.  Mrs. Pennell also got a Donor's Choose project filled with some outside toys- we have hula hoops, jump ropes, bean bags, musical instruments, balls, and a sand table (which our class will use in the future).

We are also studying Black History Month-our focus- school-wide is the role of African Americans in the Wild West.  We looked at Buffalo Soldiers and all that they did to help protect the expansion out west.  We made a chart to tell some things they did, wrote and illustrated one and designed our own stamp.  As soon as it is all hung up I will post a picture here and on the FB page.

We have been learning subtraction as well- we have used manipulatives to subtract and are really growing in our skill.  Quick tip- give your child between 1-10 items of food- ask them to eat a number and tell how many are left. (example- 6 goldfish- have them eat 4= how many are left)

We are also learning how to write using first, next, and last as well as learning about sequence of events and using text features in Reading and Writing.

Just a reminder we have P.E. on Thursday and Friday- PLEASE send your child in tennis shoes!

Our next break is Spring Break- it is March 14th-18th.

I will be making a few phone calls in the upcoming week- I want to update you on your child's progress and all that they are learning as well as some areas for improvement!

Where did January go?

Seriously- this month flew by!  With finishing up Winter Break, two hour delays, a snow day, and lots of indoor recess the month was over before I knew it!  So- a quick recap of where we have been and what we have been doing along with some exciting news!

Before break we built our Gingerbread houses- this was a lot of fun (and quite an experience).

We enjoyed our Winter break and then came back to school and settled right into the swing of things.  We also were able to enjoy some snow, some two hour delays and a snow day in there!  

We talked about Martin Luther King and our dreams.  We even got to paint a world where we added a heart with our dreams.  Next time you come into the school be sure to check them out!  

We have been working a lot on our writing and adding details to our sentences.  One day we wrote about what we were wearing- that helped us understand adding details!  Check out a couple of them below.  

We are also moving beyond just letter names and sounds- we are also incorporating CVC words- how to read them and write them, identifying beginning, middle, and ending sound, and counting the sounds in the word.  We continue to work on rhyming and syllables.

In math we just finished talking about how to make ten.  We will continue to review this as we move into adding and then subtracting!  

Finally- our big news.... Back in December I put in for a project on the website Donor's Choose.  On December 31, 2015, I got word that our project was funded.  We were given gears, some more magnatiles, puppets, ink and stamps (letters), playdough/clay letter tools to build words, and following directions cards.  The goal is to use these to tie into literacy and math. We are using these during stations and our community time/Wildcat time at the end of the day.  You will see pictures of these as time goes on but we are in the exploration process right now!  We are having a great time!

One last thing- please make sure the school has current contact information!  This is super important in these months where sickness is around more and winter weather is upon us!

Bird feeders, plants and Gingerbread

Here's a quick glimpse into the last few weeks:

• We made bird feeders with IU Biology Outreach
• We participated in a Native American Heritage Month program
• We enjoyed Thanksgiving break
• We started reading all kinds of Gingerbread stories
• We had a our last visit from IU Biology Outreach (sad) 
• We have been writing all about the gingerbread man.

Here's a few pictures to show you...

sorting cereal into groups that are the same and then we wrote about it

looking at our radish plants we made and learning how to label the parts of a plant.

Making bird feeders

What does the next week bring us?  BUSY!!!  

We have:

• a holiday performance by the 1-4 grade violinists
• holiday shopping (you should have received a note with our days)
• Breakfast with Santa on Saturday
• lots of holiday activities including more with the gingerbread
• a holiday "celebration" (more to come on this on Monday)
• making gingerbread houses (but shhhh.... that's a surprise)

SO- lots going on!  Don't forget to check out the FB page Bloomin' at the View

Busy, Busy, Busy

We have been busy little bees these last couple of weeks.  We had IU Biology outreach come again and plant with us.  We had Mr. Jon come read to us again (this time we learned about the The Tortoise and the Hare).  We finished up learning all of our letters and sounds.  We learned about 2-D and 3-D shapes and the list goes on and on!

Here's a snapshot (literally) of all we have done:

Learning about soil and mixing up our own kind of soil with IU Biology

Planting radish seeds

Mr. Jon reading us about the tortoise and the hare- the top picture is putting our animals from fastest to slowest

Free choice time- we have been working on building with blocks- the best part?  They are talking about shapes, building vocabulary, social skills and learning how to work together.  They also were retelling stories as they used stick puppets to help tell the story of Goldilocks.

We were also blessed to receive some magnatiles- they have loved using these.  They have created cars, cubes (3-D shape learning in action) and here- she said I made a football!  They have been so proud of their creations and all that they are doing.  

This is the last week of school before Thanksgiving break and we will be BUSY!  We have been learning about Native American history and why we celebrate Thanksgiving.  We are going to be presenting a Native American History Month program on Thursday, November 19 at approximately 2:00.  We would love to have you join us!  We are also continuing to work on analyzing character- we will use The Little Red Hen at the end of the week to do more with that!  We are going to be comparing and contrasting 2-D and 3-D shapes and are going to be working on different forms of writing.   We also have IU Biology Outreach coming again this week to spend time with us!

As always if you have any questions please comment below or email me at tgrandi@mccsc.edu

Fall is here!

We have been very busy the last couple of weeks.  We have been working on summarizing and continuing learning letters and sounds.  In fact, we are almost finished with our introduction to all of the letter names and sounds!  Our next go-around we will focus more on the sounds and blending them together to read words!

We have had the IU Biology Outreach Department come visit us again- this time we learned about pill bugs, walking sticks, and ladybugs.  We learned about why pill bugs roll up, the life cycle of the ladybug, and how the walking stick uses camouflage.  You can see pictures below!  The next post will have pictures of their upcoming visit where they will learn about plants.

These next few weeks we will be learning how to name and talk about characters in a story, 2D and 3D shapes as well as learning the rest of our letter names, sounds, and correct letter formation of those letters.

If you have not been in for parent-teacher conferences please email me at tgrandi@mcccsc.edu to schedule that conference as soon as possible.

Fall is Everywhere!

Sorry for the lack of posts- with fall break time got away from us!  Hopefully you had a restful fall break and the students are back and ready to learn!  The week before break we had visitors from IU's Biology Outreach Department.  They came, set up, taught, and we learned, explored, and drew.  This was an exciting day and we got to see (and touch) a snake, worms, crickets, and a guinea pig.  We even had a brief moment where a cricket got loose but thankfully didn't get far!  They will be back this coming week and I will be sure to take more pictures to share!

We have learned these letters: m, a, s, t, n, i, f, p and o.  This week we will be learning c, h, b, and u!

We have also been learning our sight words as we use them and seeing them in print.  We are going to hit them hard though so any help you can give would be great.  You can get the list here on page 1 (click the word here) or when you come to conference I will have a list for you.

We are using those letters and sounds we are learning to make CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) words- writing them, sounding them out, building them, and reading them!

We are also learning about summarizing and how it's an important part of reading.  It's retelling the story and showing that you understand what you read.  We will be working on that this week some more!

In Math we are learning one more and one less.  This is the beginning of understanding addition and subtraction so we have been working hard on this and will continue to do so!

This past week had a visitor- it was Mr. Jon from the Bloomington Hospital Foundation.  He came and read Pete the Cat- a Pet for Pete.  This is part of the Real Men Read MENtor program.  The students loved it!  They all even got their own copy of Pete (who of course is always a hit!)

As I mentioned earlier- Parent conferences are coming!  I am sending home a schedule with instructions.  This will be "first come-first served" so please be sure to follow the instructions to sign up for a time.  This is a time where I can brag on your child and also let you know some skills that we can work on together at school and at home to make progress so PLEASE make an effort to come!

As always if you need anything, have any questions, etc. call the school or email me at tgrandi@mccsc.edu

What do we DO in Kindergarten?

Here's a small peek at our day:
We start our morning with breakfast and morning meeting.  We review the expectations and have a morning message.  This week our reading comprehension skill was inferencing.  We talked a lot about what that means (taking what we know and what we see or hear and connecting them) and I tied in a lot to our Morning Message (example: I asked you to wear tennis shoes today.  It is Thursday.  What can you infer? Answer: that we have P.E.).  They are really starting to understand that skill- we will still do lots of practicing but the foundation is there!

After Morning Meeting we started our Reading Intervention.  We are focusing on letter names and sounds as well as the differences between letters and words.  Our Reading block is next and goes until 11:00.  We have been working on that skill (inferencing) and then during small groups we have been doing our Phonics lessons.  This week we have reviewed and learned the names and sounds of Aa, Mm, and Ss.  We worked on saying the sound quickly when shown the letter as well as identifying the beginning sound in the words.

Quick tip: This is something you can do with your child as you have free moments- give them a word and ask them to tell you the beginning sound.

After the break in our schedule for Recess and Lunch we came back and did our Calendar time and worked on writing those letters that we learned.  Pretty soon we will be looking at writing sentences with our sight words and words we can sound out!

We had a good week in specials and then came back to our Math lessons.  We have been working on counting.  We would like for them to be able to count to 100 by the end of school year so we worked on the rote counting and then we are also working on one to one correspondence.  Below you can see a few pictures of ways that we did that in the class.  We used a magnetic ten frame and button magnets in our large group and then counted goldfish onto Pete the Cat's ten frames at small group (and after we counted we ate them :) )

Next week we will be working on the following skills:
Reading- Continue to work on inferencing
Phonics and writing- Tt and Nn and review
Math- Continue to work on One to One correspondence

As always if you have any questions please email me at tgrandi@mccsc.edu