February 13th-17th

Thanks to the parents who helped out with our Valentine parties today and provided snacks. I really appreciate your help! The kiddos were very excited to open their Valentine cards and take home all their candy and loot! Thanks also for all of the wonderful volunteers who have been helping with bears. We are ahead of the game in both classes, but that works for me because I am totally okay with getting them done early. Usually the project takes 6 weeks, but we may finish by the end of February. I am so very happy to have so many helpful volunteers because it makes a world of difference in being able to manage the Teddy Bear project. I couldn't do it without all the help and the kids are LOVING it.

Reading

We have started working on "First Grade Sounds" in reading, which is very sophisticated and grown up :0) Last week we covered a_e and the kids really enjoyed learning about "super e" who helps the letter a say its name in words like game, tape, and name. We watched a video about super e and they just can't stop singing about it! This week we are working on /ee/. Now that we are starting to cover some of these more challenging sound spelling combinations, the kids will be able to read more and more words and refine their spelling as well.

Our letter of the week this week is B and our sight word is "what." Our country of the week is Brazil so we have been doing our good morning greeting in Portuguese. Olá!

Writing

We are beginning to write in journals twice a week. On Mondays we do weekend news. Each child gets a chance to share one thing they did over the weekend. I write in my journal to model sounding out words and to remind them of their goals for writing which are:

• write the date at the top of the page
• start the sentence with an uppercase letter
• use spaces in between words
• end the sentence with a period
• draw a picture to go with the sentence

After I write, they get a chance to write their sentence about what they did over the weekend. We start with the words This weekend I... and then they complete the sentence. At this point, I am asking for one sentence, but many kiddos will soon be ready to write more than one sentence on their topic or idea. When they write I ask that they sound out the words they want to say. They may not spell words correctly at this point and that is okay. I do, however, expect sight words to be spelled correctly. The sight words we have learned so far are all posted in the classroom and we find ourselves singing many of our sight word songs as we write because they are a great way to remember how the words are spelled.

Math

We are continuing to focus on teen numbers and recognizing that each teen number contains a group of ten plus some ones. We have added a second verse to our teen number song that goes like this:

Come on everybody let's sing it again
Numbers in the teens have a group of ten

Then we go through the teen numbers and sing..

11 is a 10 and a 1
12 is a 10 and a 2
13 is a 10 and a 3

and so on.

Coming up

Next week we will celebrate the 100th day of school. We haven't really been counting down to it, so the kiddos probably don't even really know it's coming up. We'll do some fun 100 activities and the kids will get to make a 100 snack consisting of 10 pieces each of 10 different kind of snacks like jelly beans, chocolate chips and Goldfish. The 100th day is not exactly the halfway mark because we're already beyond that point, but it's hard to believe that the school year is already more than halfway over!
  
Maternity Leave
I am still planning to be in the classroom until spring break. My last *planned* day is March 23rd, which is the last day prior to spring break. If for any reason the baby comes earlier, then Ms. Solheim will take over as soon as I need her, but I am hopeful that I will make it to the 23rd. My official due date is March 31st, but one never knows when babies will make their appearance, especially for the first one. I am trying to arrange for Ms. Solheim to be with me for the next round of parent teacher conferences in March, so that you can all have a chance to meet her. She and I taught together in Germany. I actually started out as her Third Grade classroom assistant and then I took a different position in the Special Education department. I spent a good amount of time supporting some of her students in her classroom, so I know first hand what a fabulous teacher she is. She and I will be in close contact for the remainder of the school year once I leave and I hope to visit the classroom with the baby so the kids can see her.

January 23rd-27th

Reading & Writing

This week we are focusing on the letter D and our sight word is "are." Today we did an Art Literacy project on dragons, which was really great timing because dragon is a D word. Today is also Chinese New Year and it is the year of the dragon! We learned that in the Chinese culture it is considered good luck to be born in the year of the dragon and many Chinese families plan to have babies during the year of the dragon. The kids were excited to realize that my baby will be born in the year of the dragon!

At this point, we have gone through the whole alphabet and learned sounds for each letter. We have also been working on the "tricky sounds" which are /ch/, /sh/, /ng/, /ck/, and /th/. We finished up our third unit of Fast Track Phonics and last week I assessed both classes to see how they are doing with remembering the sounds. Most kiddos know pretty much all the sounds which is great! I am continuing to check back with kiddos to see how they are doing with the "say it fast" and "break it down" skills as well because these are essential pre-skills for reading and writing. It is amazing how those skills come together all of a sudden for some kids. I will continue to introduce more sounds which I call the "first grade sounds" such as the long vowel a_e combinations and other long vowel combinations, but since these are more difficult and part of the first grade Fast Track curriculum, I only introduce about 1 new sound a week instead of several.

As we move in 2012 we are beginning to focus more on using the letter sound combinations we have learned so far to write. Last week we started a few new activities that we will continue doing in the upcoming months. One is called I Spy Writing. I have a few I Spy books and I projected a page onto the whiteboard. The kids got to take turns telling the class what objects they spied and then we sounded out the words and wrote them down. I also had the children draw a quick picture of each word to help you know what word they intended to write. At this stage, I am looking for kids to write down the sounds they hear in words. That means often letters are missing and words are not spelled the conventional way. That's okay! When you help your child with his/her homework or help them write something, encourage them to sound out the word and write down the sounds they hear. It is much more beneficial for kids at this age to work on sounds words out than for them to be told how to spell a word correctly.

We also started working with partner practice books which provide children the opportunity to work with a partner and take turns being the teacher and the student. This is a different way of practicing letters sounds and reading words that gives each child their own turn to go through each letter and word and read them. Typically our practice is in a whole group format, but this way, kids are more accountable for knowing the words and sounds on their own. We have practiced how to offer help to a partner who is not sure and how to give encouragement and compliments for a partner's hard work.

Finally we did a word building activity where each child gets an envelope and some letter cards. I tell them a word to make and they use the letter cards to build the word. With each consecutive word they have to change letters or rearrange letters in order to make the new word. At the end there is a secret word that uses all of the letters they have. They did great with this activity!

Soon enough each child will get his/her own journal to practice writing sentences and telling about their lives and what they do outside of school.

Math

In Math we are continuing to practice our numbers that contain 5 groups and we are beginning to move on to teen numbers. I showed the kids a video last week with a catchy little song about teen numbers to help them remember that all teen numbers start with a 1.

C'mon everybody let's get this done...numbers in the teens they start with a 1...

Sound familiar?

Here is the video in case you'd like to watch it too or watch it with your child.

If you have a child in the AM class, you might have heard that I was out this morning and Ms. Solheim was subbing. I was actually at school, but only in the classroom with the kiddos for about 15 minutes. The Kindergarten team has been participating in a training series called CARE which focuses on culturally responsive instruction. Today, we had the opportunity to watch each other teach along with Ms. Woods and the CARE facilitator. We met this morning to talk about our mini lessons, then I taught the class for about 15 minutes, then we traveled on to the other Kinder classrooms and met for the rest of the morning to talk about our activities and how they went. The kids did a fabulous job with the activities that I wanted all of those observers to watch. I was really proud of how much knowledge and mastery they showed. Our observation schedule came together late last week, so I didn't know I would be out until after I sent home the monthly calendar. I will be out all day on Thursday as well because we have another training with the larger group of CARE teachers from all of the schools in the district. The work we are doing as part of the training is really important to me and overlaps a lot with the work I will be doing for my dissertation in the coming year. Becoming a mommy and doing a dissertation...am I crazy!?

 As we get closer to February, I am starting to plan for our Teddy Bear project. Each child will sew his/her own Teddy Bear and this requires a lot of parent helpers! If you are interested in helping please let me know a good day of the week for you and I will add you to the helper calendar. You do not need any sewing experience to help with this project! I usually have 1-2 parents each day of the week for 6 weeks (Feb-mid March) and parents work with 1 or 2 students at a time.

January 9-13

I hope everyone had a wonderful and relaxing winter break. I apologize for not posting last week so here is a recap of what we've been working on...

Reading

Last week we covered the sounds /y/, /q/, and /th/. We've been continuing to review all of the sounds we've learned so far with emphasis on sounding words out in order to read them. Today we finished up the alphabet with the letter x and the kiddos were very excited to see the last letter card go up on the wall. I will be conducting assessments this week in order to check in with each child and see their progress. Now that we have finished the first three Fast Track units, we will move on to some "tricky sounds" like long vowels and other vowel combinations. Since these can be more challenging for Kindergarten students, I will typically introduce one new sound each week going forward and incorporate additional activities to practice reading and writing. 

This week our letter of the week is F and our word of the week is play. On Friday we will culminate our F week with "Fancy Friday." Students are invited to wear their fanciest clothes for a fancy day at school. Please make sure that children can still participate in regular school activities while wearing their fancy attire!

Math

We are continuing to focus on "five-groups" and noticing how the numbers 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 each include a five-group plus extra ones. The children are working on recognizing five-groups in dot patterns on our number cards. They are also using the math manipulatives (number tiles, square inch tiles, tile five-groups, pennies, and penny five-groups to show numbers 6-10 with a five-group and extra ones. We are building automaticity in number recognition as well.

Don't forget to work on your January snowman and send it in by Friday the 13th!

Vmath

Yesterday I logged onto Vmath in the classroom to show the kiddos what it's like. Previously in the year, I sent home your child's user name and password so that you can log on from your home computer to play math games. I will be sending another copy of that log in information this Friday in the Friday folder.

Vmath is a great way to practice the skills we have been working on in class and students can also create an Avatar character to look like them. There are activities relating to different math concepts we work on and kids can also play Vmath Live which allows them to play against another child who is logged on somewhere else in the world. These activities would especially be great to utilize over the winter break.

Here are some brief directions about how to log on.

In your browser search VMath and click the first link that comes up.
It should be http://www.vmathlive.com/.

Then, use the log in information (user name is your child's name after the #24, password is your child's school ID number) to sign in.

The main page looks like this:

The purple bars have the following math categories:

Under the category "Knowing Numbers and Patterns" the game called "Order Numbers to 10" is a great one to practice number order.

 I showed the kiddos several of the games in class and they were excited to try it out at home. 

Please let me know if you have any questions or trouble logging on. I did a short workshop for parents last year to go over how it all works and I am happy to do that again if you'd like some more information.

Have fun!

November 28th-December 2nd

I hope you all had a nice relaxing break. I spent the long weekend in California visiting my husband's parents. I asked each kiddo to share one thing about their break today and it was great to hear some of the fun things you all did.

Reminders

This week Durham is having a Scholastic Book Sale in the library. On Wednesday I will be taking both classes to look at books and that will be their designated time to purchase books. If you'd like to send money please, send it in an envelope on Wednesday. If you'd like to look at books with your child, you can also make purchases until 3:30 PM.

Tuesday evening Durham is hosting a Family Fun Night from 6:30-8:00 PM. Each family that attends will receive a "Klutz Build a Book" and there will be stories as well as some projects for kids to make.

Scholastic flyers will go home on Friday and will be due Monday. This is a very quick turnaround, but I want to ensure that books will arrive before break for anyone who orders.

Also, I will be sending another family project home on Friday. Projects (family tradition collages) will be due December 12th.

Reading & Writing

This week I am introducing the /sh/ sound and the /z/ sound. The children are also learning how to "Stretch and Spell" so they can write down words. This is a skill necessary for writing (thinking about the sounds in a word you want to write and writing the letters that make those sounds). At this age, I encourage kids to sound out the words they want to write and I do not correct them if they don't include all the correct letters in order to spell a word conventionally. It's more important to me that they write the words they hear and continue to try to write independently rather than relying on me to tell them how to spell a word. Most of the words we write as a group are short and we "break them down" so the kiddos can write each sound. When they write on their own, however, they tend to write longer words and don't always hear all the sounds. For example, if a child wants to write horse and he/she writes down hrs, that is a completely acceptable way to spell in Kindergarten. Children may not yet hear all of the sounds in a word and there are many tricky spelling patterns in the English language that they haven't learned yet. As the year progresses, we will continue to learn more sounds and long vowel spelling patterns, but for now, please encourage your child to sound out the words he/she wants to write and let them spell the words phonetically as they hear them. As they gain more and more exposure to printed text, they will start to recognize the "correct" way to spell, but it is a developmental process and we are just beginning!

This week we are focusing on the letter N and the children will color the flag of Nepal on Wednesday. We talked about how people greet each other in Nepal by saying Namaste and bowing, so we will practice that during our greeting circle this week.

Our word of the week is "to" and we have a very fun song that goes along with it.

Last week our staff attended a fantastic training on vocabulary with Anita Archer who shared with us some great activities and strategies to promote vocabulary development. I would like to start including a math and/or science word as a vocabulary focus each week along with our letter and sight word of the week.

Math

This week we are starting chapter 2 which focuses a lot on five-groups. We are practicing the numbers 6-10 with emphasis on seeing those numbers as a five-group plus a particular number of extras. Tomorrow the kiddos will use stampy markers to show the numbers 6-10 as a five-group with extras. On Friday, you will receive a parent letter from the math program with some visuals and a description of our work with five-groups. Those sheets are important to read and hold on to because it might help explain the homework that will come home for this chapter.

I am off to get back the results of our most recent ultrasound! Let's hope everything is looking good with Baby Girl Toppel!

A little bit of news...

Updates

This week flew by and I can't believe it's Friday already! My husband was away this week traveling for work in Central America, so I will be happy to pick him up at the airport tonight. I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend.

Reading & Writing

This week we reviewed the /r/ sound and /b/ and /f/ were introduced. I have been introducing a new sound every other lesson and focusing on learning the sound the first day, then writing the letter the following day. All of the kiddos are making great progress in writing their letters and recognizing the letter/sound combinations. We also focused on the letter T this week, so we made patterned ties and colored the flag of Thailand. We also focused on the sight word "see."

Math

This week in math we worked on writing the numbers 4 and 5 and drawing groups of pictures to show those numbers. Today I introduced dot-to-dot pictures and we talked about connecting the dots in order. We talked about the difference between straight lines and wiggly or curvy lines as the kiddos need to practice drawing straight lines for the dot-to-dot activities. We also used the words vertical, horizontal, and diagonal to describe our straight lines. We used our arms to show what each kind of line looks like. (Math vocab words are in bold).

Science

During our science time this week, we talked about how to be safe during science. Rules for being safe included listening to the teacher, using tools in a safe way, and wearing safety goggles.

Reminders

Next week we are beginning our hygiene drive to support families in need. My classes are in charge of donating toilet paper. You should have received a note about this in the Friday folder today letting you know the time period for donations.

If you signed up for Literacy Bags, your child got to take one home today! Directions and an inventory list are included in each bag along with several books and a game relating to a particular theme. Please enjoy the activities and books with your child and carefully check to make sure all items, including all activity pieces and instructions, are included in the bag when you return it. Bags should be returned on Wednesday. Since we have a short week and then we have a full week followed by a week off, I will not send bags again until after our Thanksgiving holiday. Please take good care of the materials and have fun with the bags. If your bag is not decorated, please feel free to add some art to it.

A big thanks to all the parents who came to help out with Halloween!

Have a great weekend!