Weather Rain or Shine, We Love Kindergarten All the Time!

Owl-Ways Learning. . .

Weather

This week we began our unit on weather. We started by posting our schema, or prior knowledge, about weather. The students already understood different types of weather, but needed to expand on what they already knew. This is where our lessons, read alouds, and science experiments come in. Check them out below:

Our schema map:

Tree Map of the Sun and Rain:

After reading nonfiction texts, we ask students about their new learning. We frame sentences using the tree map. An example is: "What CAN rain do?" or "The sun has___" Their answers were very well structured and showed new understanding of these types of weather components. 

We made suns out of paper plates:

Rain Cloud Experiment: 

Birthday Invitations
On Friday, we began to combined our learning of weather and temperature with some writing.  Students were asked to write and design their own birthday invitations based on the season in which their birthday occurs.  For instance, if your birthday is on October 23rd, you would need to create a birthday party for a fall activity. The students picked the date and where the birthday party would take place.  Next week we will discuss what they will do at the birthday party and what their guests need to bring. Check out the students at work!

Guided Reading

During small, guided reading groups we used finger lights to help us with our pointing.  Pointing is a pre-reading skill which helps students track and read the correct words on the page. Another skill we have been discussing during groups is to make a connection to the text.  This can simply be practiced by asking your child, "What did this story make you think of?" Students can make connections with real life examples or a connection to another text/movie.  The connection needs to be relevant to the story and be meaningful. We will continue to work on connections and then talk about retelling a story from beginning to end. 

Brave Volunteers

Mystery Reader

Thank you Mr. Niedermeier!

Teacher Talk

Snacks

The cafeteria seems to have restocked their supply of snacks and ice creams.  This means there are a lot of choices and temptations for students purchasing lunch.  Most recently, I have seen students purchasing two snacks on top of their regular lunch.  Students are buying cookies and ice cream or chips and a popsicle. There is a limited amount of time for students to eat and when lunch is over we cannot save any food. Therefore, snacks and uneaten lunches are being thrown out. We are doing our best to ensure students are eating their lunch before their snack and reminding them of time, however there are still challenges.  We are asking that you please have a conversation and plan for your child when purchasing lunch.  Whether the rule be they purchase 1 snack a day or 1 snack on Friday. You can decide, just please speak with your child and let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

Thanks in advance! 

Community Helpers

Notices went home this week about volunteering to speak to our class about your occupation and how it impacts the community.  This opportunity depends on volunteers.  What I mean by this if we get a lot of volunteers we may need to select a limited amount of parents or if we do not get enough parents we may combine Kindergarten classes.  We will know more information as we receive slips back. If you have any questions or concerns please let me know!

Field Trip

On April 7th, we will be going to the Children's discovery museum. Permission slips went home Friday.  The cost of the trip will be $20.00 per child. We are looking for volunteers to help chaperone. If you are interested, you must be CORIed and have attended the Confidentiality meeting.  We will be returning early enough to have lunch in school.  We ask that your child eat a "big" breakfast, as we will not have time to have snack before leaving for our trip. Don't forget to have your child wear their Field Trip T-shirt for the trip! 

Conferences

I have received many conference slips back. Thank you for filling these out quickly. It helps with scheduling and planning ahead.  I will send home a confirmation slip next week. If the day/time does not work, please let me know as spots are filling up quickly. The conferences are scheduled back-to-back so conferences will only last for 15 minutes. I look forward to speaking with you about your child's growth thus far! 

Mystery Bags

Upcoming Events. . .

Cloud Show . . .March 17th

Community Helpers. . . March 31st

Field Trip. . . April 7th