Fantastic Friday

Sight Words

Sight words are so important to practice and learn. They take up the bulk of what we read so knowing these on sight will make reading a much easier and enjoyable activity. 

We got to practice a new sight word app today in reading groups. The kids loved it! 

Kids practiced finding sight words with Mrs. McDonald also! 

Snowflakes

We ended our day with an oil resist snowflake painting. We drew a snowflake with white oil pastel and painted on top with water colors. I will post the finished product next week when they decorate our bulletin board. 

Symmetry Penguins

This week we studied penguins and we made our own symmetry penguins. We started with a piece of comstruction paper folded in half. Then we used black paint to make a 3 shape for the body. Then we added a little bit of orange for the feet. We folded them and squished the paint around. We added googly eyes and a beak for the finishing touches. 

Wonferful Wednesday

Tacky the Penguin

We have been reading Tacky the Penguin. Today we compared Tacky to his companions. 

We Got the Integrity Award

Today in our assembly, we found out that Mrs. Polikoff gave us the Integrity Award. We have been very honest about whether we can check out a book or not because sometimes we get so excited about a new book that we forget to get it checked out at the computer. Way to go kindergartners! 

We are going to add this to the other two class awards we have received: respect and effort.

Library

We had all but 3 books returned today! Nice job! 

Today Mrs. Polikoff read us two books. One silly one and one that was more serious. 

We started with The Book With No Pictures. Ask your child what they thought about the book.

Then we read Have You Filled A Bucket Today? It's a great book to teach kids how to treat people kindly because it fills other people's buckets and our own! 

What Are We Learning?

This week our literacy focus is on the last long o combination. We are also finishing up our pink pre primer sight words. Next week we will begin our focus on the yellow primer words. 

Marty 

Justin and Marty had a very fun weekend! He helped Justin pick out a new toy and he got to go to Shari's and the library with Justin's family. 

Publishing Books

With our new writers workshop, each kid is a publishing author! Once we have 2-3 writings in our journals, we get to pick our favorite and publish it into a book. I have seen tremendous growth since starting this! The kids have never been so excited to start writing. The published books go into our classroom library. When kids have two books completed, they get to take home their earlier book and keep it! You will have a nice collection of your child's books by the end of the year.

Here are some examples:

Naturalist in Residence

We had naturalist in residence today! We had the lady from Talk About Trees come again and teach us more about trees! We started by looking at Douglas Fir pine cones.

Then we read, Douglas the Mouse. It teaches us that Douglas Fir pine cones are recognizable because it looks like little mice are sticking out of the cone. 

Finally, we talked about how trees are helpful to different animals.

Can your child tell you how owls use trees?

How do beavers use trees?

How does a porcupine use trees?

How do bats use trees? 

Free Choice!

Free choice is such an important part of kindergarten. We learn so many great skills during this time that are harder to learn during other times of our day. We learn to share, work cooperatively, and we gain rich language.

These boys work on sharing while playing with the magnetic blocks. 

This group had great conversations while coloring.

This group is working on imaginative play and building their language and sharing skills. 

Marty

Marty got to meet Merritt's brother and his dog this weekend! Merritt did a good job of keeping Marty safe.

Library!

We love library with Mrs. Polikoff. She picks out excellent stories and helps build our love of books and reading. This week she read us one of the books about bucket filling. This helps kids to visualize that their words and actions have an affect on people. We can be bucket fillers by doing or saying something nice to someone. We are bucket dipper if we do or say something that is not kind. We practiced bucket filling words this afternoon and we are pretty good at it! 

Logan is reading up about dinosaurs!

Justin, Dushawn, and Iain are fascinated with their book.

Annabelle reads while Thomas, Paige, and Merritt try and find things in the I Spy book.

Alannah, Iain, Sammie, and Jaden patiently wait to check out their book. LaToya and Alivia pick out a bookmark! 

Polar Bears

With our story, Ice Bear, this week, we have been learning all sorts of things about polar bears. We created a graphic organizer to help us visualize what we had learned.

Then we created our own polar bears with oil pastels.

Marty

Marty had a fun weekend with Annabelle. They went to Papa's Pizza! She shared all of her adventures with us this afternoon.