kinder buzz december 15, 2014 - web viewwe have been introduced to the -ig and the -ug word family....

Kinder Buzz December 15, 2014

Dear Families,

This letter says farewell to 2014 and …

HAPPY HOLIDAYS !It has been a fabulous journey so far!

HOORAY! The children are ALL reading and writing their way into 2015!

We finished November counting our UNICEF donation collection with our buddy class. Our two classes did an amazing job and collected just over $323.00! Combined with the other kindergarten class and their buddies, we collected a grand total of just over $522.00 for UNICEF!


December brings lots of excitement and anticipation for the children. We have taken on the holiday spirit with great enthusiasm. Take a look at what we’ve been doing …. CURRICULUM FOCUSORAL LANGUAGE The children have just started reading aloud in front of the class. They choose a book that they enjoy and are comfortable with from their Browsing Box, and they read one or two pages to the class. Then they tell us a little bit about the book and why they liked it.

MATH We love working on ‘Fun Facts Folders’ and having ‘Rocket Math,’ where we are learning to master our basic fact families for the numbers 0 to 10.We have been exploring numbers from 11 to 20 through all sorts of hands on activities. Our big focus has been on place value and recognizing the difference between the TENS and ONES columns. We should be now be confident in recognizing if a number is even or odd.


We are familiar with > < = signs in a number sentence and have even been reading numbers up to 100 when using these!

TOPIC

We finished up our THEN AND NOW study. We loved acting out sailing on the Mayflower as Pilgrims. We even measured out a 10’ x 10’ space (proportionate to the original number of pilgrims and the size of the Mayflower), to act out daily life on board. We decided sleeping and going to the bathroom were the hardest things to do!

For our mini leaf study we walked up a neighborhood street and collected leaves. We used these for our Grandparent’s Day crafts. Grandparent’s Day was a huge success! We proudly showed off Crestview to all our guests! We also water colored an autumn tree and wrote an acrostic poem

titled FALL to go along with it.

We learned about Hanukkah, danced, ate latkes and played a Dreidel game with Mrs. Tomarian, Mrs. Goodwine and Miss Baudelia.


We now know about different Christmas traditions in countries like New Zealand and Mexico. We created lovely Holiday, Christmas and Hanukkah crafts on our craft day.We wondered and giggled about our classroom ‘Elf on the Shelf’ (named Jack by a unanimous vote), especially when he kept moving positions and leaving us

notes in our North Pole Mail Box!

ENGINEERING We completed our Pilgrim Village. We decided it was important to build our cabins near fresh water and a forest.

Our next task was to design a model sleigh for Santa, out of just a few specific materials. It had to have a seat


for Santa, storage for the gifts and a bell for safety in snowy weather. It also had to slide down our whiteboard slope. This introduced us to the concept of FRICTION as we explored the reasons why some sleighs zoomed down the slope and others needed a bit of help. We now know why tires on a car have grooves and ridges! There are more photos coming soon on our Teacher Page.

AUTHOR’S SHOWCASEWe finally finished Charlotte’s Web and discussed what makes a really great friend. We know that a good friend LISTENS, HELPS, SHARES, CARES and PLAYS. It was lovely to hear the compliments we had for our friends during our ‘Thinking Pot’ time.Throughout December we have been discovering the works of author and illustrator JAN BRETT. We can tell you the common threads between most of her books. We listened to Mrs. Menasi read T H E M I T T E N . We were challenged to recall the story characters and sequence, but we rose to the occasion! We even made our own mitten and animals. It was especially fun to retell the story to a friend, using our mitten and animals.


TECHNOLOGYDuring reading and math centers we have worked on a variety of iPad applications.Some of these applications will be posted on our Teacher Page soon, so that if you wish to, you can obtain them for your devices at home. They can be useful for maintenance and revision over the holiday break.Recently and over the next month, each of us is being individually taught how to use the POPPLET application. It is a great way to learn how to use a graphic organizer. We will each be making a ‘Popplet’ called MY CLASS.

We will learn how to take photographs and access the photos to use in our Popplets.When we study HIBERNATION next month, we will each make a ‘Popplet.’


Keep a look out for them. We will email them to you. STAR WORDS TO THE END OF 2014

I see the like are was theyhave you for of what want to said COLOR AND NUMBER WORDS TO END OF 2014

red blue green black orange brown pink yellow purple gray white one two three

PHONICS AND HANDWRITING Short vowels are the big focus now and into the New Year.

We have been introduced to the -ig and the -ug word family. Handwriting continues to focus on formation, size and spacing between words.

READING AND WRITING

A BIG Shout Out to the entire class, as we celebrate everyone being a reader! The big focus now, is to continue to gain confidence in our own abilities as we use the word attack strategies that we know. Book bags will be coming home with Monday’s homework in the New Year.


Please listen to your child read to you, then ask them a few questions for recall, sequencing and comprehension of the story. Sign the bag when your child has read to you. Return it to school by Wednesday please.We have started writing our own VERY SILLY SENTENCE books. We are using a noun, and adjective and a verb in each silly sentence.

We wrote a letter to Jack, our class ‘Elf on the Shelf,’ We continue to use amazing TRY SPELLS that make our teacher’s very happy. Sometimes they laugh out loud when they read them too!


PHYSICAL EDUCATIONWe have finished units on Playground Games, Frisbee, Kick Ball, and Volley Ball Skills. We are presently doing badminton skills with Mrs. G.HOMEWORKCongratulations to our HOMEWORK AWARD recipients so far this month: Camille Craig Keira McNary

YES!!!!Great progress …the whole class remembered the SECRET

DIRECTION! IMPORTANT REMINDERS

Over the Winter break please aim to do one or all of these things with your child every day. Seeing mommy and daddy modelling is a wonderful motivator for children.

READ with, REA D to, READ by your child.

WRITE with, WRITE to, AND WRITE by your child.

REVISE STAR WORDS AND FUN FACTS with your child.

That’s all for now folks!


Have a restful winter break making lots of wonderful memories with your children.

See you next year!

Warm regards,

Christine Greig

kinder buzz december 15, 2014 - web viewwe have been introduced to the -ig and the -ug word family....

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