February 16th Newsletter

This week we…

…learned about the work of the artist Joan Miro and created our own pieces inspired by his style.  (Thank you to our Art Lit parents for their time and guidance for this experience!)

…attended an assembly led by the author Elizabeth Rusch.  The children have become familiar with her work during their library time.  She told us about how she gets ideas, walked us through her writing process, and really brought excitement about writing and being an author!

…celebrated Valentine’s day with each other.  (More thanks for our wonderful party helper parents!)

…continued our math work with patterns by building onto patterns others have created, as well as expanding our ideas of what makes a pattern.

…have been working on adding more detail to our writing.  At this time of the year, I’m hoping for writing to begin moving beyond one sentence to build toward several sentence stories.

Upcoming…

• No school Friday (teacher work day) or Monday (President’s Day).
• Our Spanish instruction will begin on Tuesday.  Through song and games, we’ll learn Spanish for 30 minutes once a week for the next 10 weeks.
• The 100^th day of school will be here soon (ask your child how many days we’ve been in school).  I sent a note home today inviting your child to send in a collection of 100 items.
• Conferences will be held in our class February 27-March 1.  We’ll check in on those goals we set in the fall, as well as your child’s progress overall.

Spring Conferences

 Spring Conferences:

Our spring conferences will be held at the end of this month.  Sign-ups will begin on Tuesday, February 14^th.  I’ll be using the on-line system our school has set up.  The information will be on the school website or you can follow this link:  http://www2.wlwv.k12.or.us/wiki/index.php/Stafford .  User name is stafford and password is tigers.  There you will see my availability and can fill in your name on a time.  I must apologize in advance for the lack of evening conferences this time.  I just couldn’t get childcare for those evenings!  If you were hoping for an evening session and the available times don’t work, I would be happy to meet before school some day (7:00am or 7:15am?).  Be sure to let me know if that is the case.

I’m looking forward to sharing with you the progress your child has made so far this year and having an opportunity to talk about questions or concerns you may have. As with the fall conferences, it is usually most productive to meet just with parents but if you need to or would like to bring your child, that is fine.

February 3rd Newsletter

This week we…

…finished writing our own version of the book Goodnight Owl.  Ask you child about “Goodnight Fox!”  We’ll be taking turns bringing the books home soon.

…read more about nocturnal animals.

…brainstormed and wrote about things we do in the day versus things we do at night.

…learned about “growing patterns’ in our math work.  Can your child tell/show you?

…continued to enjoy reading from our book boxes.  Each child’s box has their literacy binder, up to 5 books they self-select, as well as a one or more books at their level which they’ve practiced with an adult.

…continued to practice asking interesting questions or giving detailed comments in response to kids’ sharing on Friday.  We’re trying to move beyond “I like it” as a typical comment into something more along the lines of “I like the pretty patterns on that shell.”  For kids who are sharing, I’m asking them to try and tell us 3 things about their item.  You can help at home by asking them to tell you the 3 things they are going to say about it.  Next week’s sharing will be our valentine’s containers so please leave other items at home.

Upcoming…

*Please send in your child’s valentine container by next Friday, the 10^th, and valentine’s by the 14^th.

* Our class will celebrate Valentine’s Day at the beginning of the day on the 14^th.   We will be passing out and enjoying our valentine’s, as well as having a special snack.  You are welcome to join us: approximately 8:10-9:00.

January 27th Newsletter

This week we…

…read about the Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year), made masks in the style of Chinese lions, as well as dragon puppets with our buddies.  Kevin passed out lucky new year envelopes on Monday and Friday we had milk and cookies with his family, who read us a another story with Chinese characters.

…have been working on learning about word patterns. Last week we brainstormed words that fit in the “-at” family (cat, sat, that, etc).   This week we did the same with “-an” words.  The goal of these types of activities is to draw children’s attention to word parts so that they will begin to look for and recognize patterns.  This is an important skill for beginning readers. We are also talking explicitly about the way we blend sounds together to make words, for those children for whom this is a new skill.  More advanced readers are challenged by this activity as they try to come up with additional words to add to our pattern list.

…began discussing day and night.  In addition to the science talk I previously wrote about, we read a few other books about day and night around the world.  We are working on writing our own version of the story “Goodnight Owl” by Pat Hutchins.

…continued our math work with patterning.  Working with the ideas of describing, extending, constructing, and recording patterns is a beginning foundation for algebra.  Together with your child, look for patterns at home or out in the world!

Coming up…

• Beginning in mid-February kindergarten classes will begin a 10-week sequence of instruction in Spanish.  Classes will happen once a week for 30 minutes.
• Today a note was sent home about our Valentine’s celebration.  Please send your child’s valentine container in by Friday, the 10^th.   For that day, our sharing will be to share our valentine containers, so please don’t send in other sharing for that day.  We will pass out the actual valentine cards on the 14^th.

January 20th Newsletter

What a funny short week we had!

Reminder: book orders are due Monday, Jan 23^rd.

This week we…

…learned a song about counting by 10s.  As we get closer and closer to the 100^th day of school, we’ve been finding many opportunities to count by 10s in our calendar discussions.  Can your child sing the song for you?  Count by 10s to 100?

…made sure everyone had at least one book in their book box which they can read independently.  We practiced on our own and next week will read it with our 3^rd grade buddies.

…drew self-portraits.

… added the to our  “word wall”.  This space is meant to be a resource for students as they write, and I would like to see these words spelled correctly in their writing.  We also spend time in class practicing reading these words.  Each week we add a new word. Currently we have: a, and, go, I, is, like, my, see, to, the. 

January 13th Newsletter

Thanks so much for your great contributions to our Invention Center. The kids really love putting their creative ideas to work in this way.

Class “Pet”:     This week we met Fields the Rabbit, a little beanie baby, who has joined our class.  Each child will have a turn to take him home for a night or two. Fields comes with the book Tell Me Something Happy Before I Go to Sleep and a journal to record his adventures.  I hope your child will enjoy this activity.  The goal of the journal is to provide another opportunity to provide writing practice.  You are welcome to help with the writing by recording your child’s ideas, but this may be a good opportunity to encourage your child to do some portion of the writing themselves.  Thanks for getting Fields back to school quickly so everyone can get their turn.

Sharing Time:     Beginning next week, we will use our gathering time on Fridays to have a sharing time.  Sharing times provide opportunities to practice speaking to the group, and gives the audience practice with listening and asking good questions.  I prefer items brought in to show something about the person:  for example showing something to do with a hobby or collection, sharing something about your family, etc.  Or consider bringing in something to do with our work in school.  The idea is to avoid it being purely a toy sharing time.  When your child shares, we’ll ask them to tell us a few things about what they are bringing and why they chose it to bring in.

Book Orders are due Monday, January 23^rd. Code for on-line orders is H23C2.

This week we…

…learned that our Ellie is moving to Cedar Oak Park Primary.  We will sure miss her!  We made her a card.

…got to meet a new friend: Madyson Mureson will be joining our class.

…created our own book boxes.  Each child now has a box to keep books for them to practice their reading.

….brainstormed and modeled three ways to read a book (read the words, read the pictures, re-tell the story)

…brainstormed what it should look like/sound like in the room when we’re reading to ourselves.  We began practicing having everyone engaged in a book for short sessions.  We will be working on building our stamina to go for longer and longer sessions.

…read about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  We did some writing of our own ideas about our dreams for making the world a better place.

…began working with patterns in math.  We spent some time with the 100s chart looking at patterns, as well as practicing counting and number identification.  We built cube trains with patterns.

Enjoy the long weekend,

Kristy

January 6th Newsletter

This week we talked some about wishing.  We shared our traditions for when we make wishes, then read a book about wishing traditions around the world.  We made paper wish stars, and wrote out a wish or two to attach to our stars.   We also learned how to draw stars that we’ll use for our calendar pieces.  These 5-pointed shapes will provide some practice counting by 5s.

We’ve been reading and talking about the change of seasons and sharing observations of winter.  We did some writing together and alone about winter.  We also explored geometry by making 6-sided snowflakes pictures out of geometric shapes.

During Discovery Time we added an Invention center to our options.  Thank you for your donations to this popular activity.  We’ll need to continue to replenish our supplies to continue this option. Here  are some of the suggestions I sent home in December:    egg cartons, buttons, plastic caps, string, wire, small boxes, corks, toilet paper tubes, empty spool threads, pieces of shiny paper, beads, ribbon, rick-rack, golf tees, yarn, pom-poms, sand paper, straws, wrapping paper, washers and bolts, little lids, bubble wrap, fake fur, burlap, felt, wooden dowels, film canisters, small wood pieces, feathers, small wheels, anything else you think would be fun!

A reminder from the office:  please be sure to call or email Kathy Cooley in the office to inform them of any absences.

Happy holidays!

Dear Families,

Thank you all so very much for the very special holiday wishes, treats, and so generous gift of Scrip.  I feel so grateful to have this wonderful group of children and families to work with everyday.

I wish you all a truly wonderful holiday time with your family.

Until the new year,

Kristy

December 9th Newsletter

This week we continued our study of gingerbread stories.  We compared two stories using a Venn Diagram, recording the similarities and differences between two versions.  This is another way to look at organizing and comparing information. We also made  “gingerbread glyphs”.  This is also a way of showing information.  Each color used and type of decoration means something about the person making it.  For example, if your favorite pet is a dog you would draw your mouth in a certain shape.

As we move to wrap up our alphabet study next week, we’ve continued “meeting” an Alphafriend each day.  This is a favorite activity for the children in which we go over letter formation, the sound and look of each letter, and brainstorm words beginning with that letter.

A few things about next week…

If you have a chance we’d love to have your Family Celebration page, which I wrote about earlier this week. As a reminder: on an 8.5 x 11” paper write/draw about a special tradition in your family.  We are loving hearing about these from the ones already sent in.  Thank you!

Thursday we will bring our gingerbread houses home.  We do have bags to wrap them in but I mention this in case you wish to pick them up yourself.

On Friday our class party will be held 8:15-9:15.  You are welcome to attend. This day is ALSO a schoolwide Pajama Day!  This means your child is invited to wear their pajamas to school if they wish.  We will still go out for recess, so they need to be dressed for outside play.

Over break…

I will be sending home the Literacy Binder we’ve compiled in class this fall with some of the songs, poems, and books we’ve learned in class.  I hope your child will enjoy sharing these with you and practice reading and singing them at home.  Please return them when we resume in January.

In January, I would like to add an Invention Center to our choice time.  If you have any of the items below (or you own ideas), clean and ready to use, please send them into school beginning in January.

Some ideas: buttons, plastic caps, string, wire, small boxes, corks, toilet paper tubes, egg cartons, empty spool threads, pieces of shiny paper, beads, ribbon, rick-rack, golf tees, little plastic pizza tables, yarn pom-poms, sand paper, straws, wrapping paper, washers and bolts, little lids, bubble wrap, fake fur, burlap, felt, wooden dowels, film canisters, small wood pieces, feathers, small wheels.  No need to go out and buy anything—just raid your junk drawers and recycling!

December 2nd Newsletter

I hope everyone had a wonderful week off.  We got right back into our routine and are off and running on what will be a busy three weeks until Winter break!

This week we….

…began reading different versions of The Gingerbread Man story.  After each version we’re discussing similarities and differences between the stories.  This helps build comprehension and retelling skills.  I’ve been impressed with their attention to detail in these stories!  I hope you enjoy the home art project sent home this week. We love seeing the finished ones come back in!

…enjoyed some activities around rhyming. The ability to detect rhymes is an important pre-reading skill. As children hear rhymes, they develop “phonemic awareness” or the ability to detect the individual sounds that make up words, a crucial first step in learning to read.

…had a fire drill.

…did several new math activities that have to do with comparing quantities.

…said good-bye to Deian.  We will miss him as he moves to a new school in Oregon City!

Upcoming dates:

• Thank you for those who’ve been able to send in candy for our gingerbread house decorating.  We could use a bit more. Some suggestions: mini-marshmallows, chocolate chips, straight pretzels, gumdrops, etc.  Further donations of any unwrapped candy will be appreciated until Tuesday, December 13^th.
• Our class will have a Winter Party Friday, December 16^th in the first part of the morning.  All are invited! This day will also be a school-wide pajama day!