Good News!

I am so happy to announce that my DonorsChoose project has already been fully funded! That means we should be receiving lots of cool science discovery materials within the next few weeks! I have a lot of family and friends to thank for making it happen, but it's nice to know that they care about the children that I teach just as much as I do!

Also, have you heard of Sharing Spree? It is a great site that offers excellent deals on great stuff with huge savings! From April 1st-8th, Sharing Spree is donating 100% of their profits to Tigard-Tualatin School District! Here is some info on how it works.

 

1. SIGN UP

Sign up to receive the daily deal for your city/region. www.sharingspree.com

 

2. DAILY DEAL EMAILS

A new email will arrive in your inbox Monday through Friday providing all the details of a local business offering you great discounts! Or you can visit the site everyday to see the deal of the day.

 

3. BUY AND SAVE!

If you like shopping - but LOVE saving, then this is for you.  Everyday we will feature a local business that will provide you substantial savings over any other offer you may find.  You get the satisfaction of getting a great deal AND helping give back to the local community.
AND, Sharing Spree comes with a guarantee that if the minimum number of deals isn't met, you will not be charged.
Buying through us is the best way to save BIG!  Sign up today to start getting your Sharing Spree deal of the day delivered to you.

 

4. EARN CREDITS BY SHARING

You can easily share the deal with your friends!  When you share the deal with them and they buy it, you will receive a discount on your next Sharing Spree purchase.

 

5. WE GIVE BACK

Every deal you purchase benefits a local charity.  You have the option to select a specific charity within your profile to ensure that they receive credit for every purchase that you make.  This is a great way to support your local school or a cause that you love.

I signed up over a month ago and have gotten some great deals on things like massages and mani/pedis. There are deals for local restaurants, fun places to take kids, and enjoyable events for grownups! I would encourage you to sign up and take a look at the cool deals they have to offer...especially next week when all of the profits go to our district and help our kids!

Authors

Welcome back! I hope you all had a wonderful break! Here are some of the things we have going on this week:

Reading and Writing:

We are focusing on the letter U this week and the /ou/ sound. Our sight word is here. On Wednesday I am going to introduce the four block strategy for writing to help the kiddos get a sense of how to write several sentences on the same topic with details. As we progress towards the end of the year we will be focusing more on writing and writing in different ways.

Usually on Mondays the kiddos do a letter looking activity and highlight the letter of the week in a short poem. This week I decided to make it a little more interesting and both classes wrote their own stories starring lots of "u" words. We started by reading our letter u book and then each student brainstormed words that start with u and wrote them on a small whiteboard. Then as a whole group, we came up with a story that I typed on my laptop and projected on the big whiteboard. As I wrote, the kids helped me think of what to write next and made sure to include lots of words that start with u! After we were done writing, we reread the story and highlighted all the words that began with the letter u or had the letter u in them. I think we may have to create some illustrations with captions to go along with these great stories!

Unberto and the Unicorn

By: Mrs. Toppel’s AM Kindergarten

One day Unberto found a unicorn under an umbrella. The unicorn was wearing underwear, so Unberto gave him a uniform. The unicorn really likes the Ducks, so Unberto gave him a University of Oregon uniform. Unberto tried to ride the unicorn, but the unicorn said it was unacceptable and he got mad. The unicorn flew up, up, up into universe so he could barely see the United States anymore. Unberto was so upset, he cried, but then he realized the umbrella was magical. He turned the umbrella upside down and the umbrella started to fly. He flew up, up, up into the universe and found the unicorn. Unberto said he was sorry for trying to ride on the unicorn and the unicorn forgave him. Then they flew together under the stars.

The End

Up Goes the Unicorn

By: Mrs. Toppel’s PM Kindergarten

There was a unicorn and she found a mermaid under the water. Up the mermaid came and popped out of the water. She was cute. The unicorn was upset because the mermaid didn’t understand unicorn language because she only spoke mermaid language. The mermaid tied a balloon onto the unicorn and the unicorn went up, up, up into the universe.

The End

Math

We started Unit 4 of math today and we are focusing on a grocery store theme as we practice teen numbers, patterns, and other math concepts. Today we talked about the grocery store poster which I have displayed in the kitchen area and reviewed fruit and vegetable vocabulary. It was fun to hear the kids share what they know about grocery stores and they enjoyed sharing. Tomorrow we will practice telling math stories and using small fruit manipulatives to go along with the stories. The students will also write down math equations that go along with the math stories told by their partners. I don't have my camera at school as I write this, but I will take some photos to give you a better picture!

Conferences & Donors Choose

It was wonderful to see so many of you during conferences and to see all the kiddos showing off their skills! I had never done student-led conferences prior to this year and I thought they were great! It seemed like many families stayed for longer than a half hour, which was wonderful, but I think that next time I would schedule time slots for longer than 30 minutes just so families don't feel rushed. If you have any additional feedback about what you liked or didn't like about this kind of conference, please leave me a comment or let me know. I am always interested to know how parents perceive things and want to make sure that you are getting what you need out of the experience.

I got some feedback from several parents during the conferences that the time with literacy bags is too short, so I am going to extend the length of time each bag can stay at home. I will send a note about this when we return, but I am thinking of extending the return day to Wednesday as I realized it really makes more sense for the bags to be in the hands of students than hanging in my closet during the week.

Right before break, Nikole Emerson and I looked through some of the cool science materials that Lakeshore has to offer and I put together a proposal to get some fun activities through DonorsChoose.org. The project posted yesterday and I was very pleasantly surprised to discover that there have already been $125 in donations from some of my friends and family :0). They very cleverly have created a way to link proposals to facebook to help teachers spread the word. The idea behind DonorsChoose is that public school teachers can request materials needed for a specific project, activity, classroom enrichment, etc. Once donations have been made in the entire amount of my proposal, they will ship the materials. Here are the items that Nikole and I chose to request:

Since we do not have enough time in our short half-day program for science instruction, I want to have these great materials available to students to use for discovery and exploration during choice time. I used DonorsChoose to obtain many of the books that are included in the literacy bags and have had a few other successfully funded projects when I taught first grade. I am hoping this project is funded as well so that my classes this year can benefit from these materials.

See you next week!

Scooter Town

Our gym has been invaded with Scooter Town and I have to say it is AWESOME. Mr. Gaffney put a lot of work into creating the coolest set up for students to ride scooters through. Once again, I will let the photos do the talking, but a few of the cool features were:

a movie theater with a real tv
a car wash
a Starbucks
a hospital
a jail (for speeders, of course!)
a gym
a ping pong club
an art gallery
a parking lot
a cell phone store
a gas station


Kids could work at the various places and earn Scooter Town money (with Mr. Gaffney's photo on it!) and then they could use their money to buy things like drinks at Starbucks, movie tickets, and cell phones. The concept was great and the kids had a blast!

See you at conferences this week!

It's Been Awhile

My apologies for not posting at all last week! Can you tell I am approaching finals week at PSU? I don't have final exams, but have spent quite a bit of time writing papers and preparing presentations these last few weeks and weekends. I am very much looking forward to spring break and a week without class/homework! I have some pictures from a few fun activities we did last week that I will post soon.

Here is a quick look at what we are working on this week:

Reading:

We are focusing on the letter "k" and the sight word "was." We are also working on the /ay/ sound like in play. I haven't done sight word songs in the past few weeks because I was not really thrilled with the lyrics. A teacher wrote them, yet I didn't really feel they were entirely appropriate, so I decided not to teach those songs to the class. This week our song goes like this:

I spell was w-a-s
I spell was w-a-s
I spell was w-a-s
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear, I guess!

Writing:

 Last week the children received their very own journals that we will use from now on for writing time. Now that we have the hang of our weekly writing routine, they will be able to do all of their writing in their journal, which is wonderful because then we can have a great compilation of their writing and we will be able to see the gains they are making. I am continuing to ask a question each week that the children respond to verbally with a partner and then in writing in their journal. Last week's question was, "What do you like to do in Kindergarten?" This week they will write using the prompt, "If I see a wishing star, I will wish for _________________. We will also work on finishing up our Bear Books this week.

Math:

Today we worked on ordinal numbers (first through fifth) and the rest of the week consists of some new math activities. Tomorrow the kids will show a teen number using some of the pasta and cereals that were brought in for the 100's collections. We will also do a science connection this week using some bug images for addition expressions. The children will work on problem solving by figuring out how to divide 12 crackers among 4 people and also being able to communicate a reason for giving a particular answer to a math problem. I am planning our unit 4 math assessment for next week.

Fun Stuff:

It was great to see so many of my girls at the Father Daughter Dance. I think the PSO did an amazing job turning our cafeteria into Candyland and I was happy to see that the event was very well attended.

It seems like a lot of kiddos are also going to OMSI tonight and I hope it's a lot of fun.

Our Teddy Bear Parades will take place next week on Wednesday. The AM parade will be at 9:30 and the PM parade will be at 1:00. We will march through some other classrooms and every student who made a teddy bear in Kindergarten at Durham can bring their bear on that day. I am also thinking of doing a little "Teddy Bear Picnic" (inside) with some Teddy Grahams and/or Gummy Bears for a small snack. If you would like to help out with providing snacks, please let me know.

Conferences:

I will be having conferences on Tuesday March 15th and Thursday March 17th, which is next week already! Many of you have already scheduled your times, but if you have not, please email me or call me to do so. Otherwise, I will assign you a time and send home the information on Friday. This time, the conferences will be student led, so please bring your child! He/She will lead you around to a variety of different stations and demonstrate some of the activities we do in the classroom. You and I will also have a chance to talk.

There is no school on Thursday or Friday of next week due to conferences and teacher training.