Warming up with Writing!

Happy November!
November brings some unseasonably warm weather.
We are certainly thankful for these extra few days of warm temperatures before winter. 

What's going on in Room 5?

Read Alouds:

     

Fundations:

-We've learned two new letters this week: A & G.
-So far we have learned 11 letters. Only a few more weeks before we've learned all 26 letters.
-A and G have many different looks. We will learn to write the lowercase a & g displayed on our Fundations cards. However there are "fancy" versions of you might see in a book: a - g

       

a-apple-/a/

g-game-/g/

Some guiding questions you can ask your child:

-What sound does the letter ____ make?

-What are some words that begin with the letter ____?

-You could even make the letter sound and ask them what letter makes the sound___ (/t/)?

Writing:

Since the beginning of school, students have completed a series of "Power Writes". These Power Writes are brief, cross-curricular writing experiences. The power writes are taught in a single day. It is a way for students to get their "feet wet" in a wide variety of writing styles. November marks the beginning of our Extended Writing Units, which are longer units of writing projects based on a gradual release approach. The whole class works on a writing piece and then gradual leads to an independent project. 

Our first Extended Writing Unit (EWU) is on Narrative Writing.  

Features of Narrative Writing include:
-A story about a real life event with real people.
-beginning
-middle
-end
-How the main character/write feels

Students will write and illustrate their own personal narrative about our Halloween Celebration. Our hope is to include all of our Narrative features into our own writing.  The process has been very successful! The students love writing in their own "office" with their own box of crayons, while soothing music plays in the background.  The room comes to life as the students create their own book pages.  

Next week we will put together our books with a special cover and share/celebrate our writing. You'll be able to see your child's personal narratives at conferences. It's one of my favorite pieces to share with parents!

Math: 

The first part of Topic 4 focused on: 
    - Comparing numbers through 10
    - 1 more
    - 1 fewer

Ten frames are used throughout our curriculum. They are great ways to organize counters and objects. They are used for counting and comparing numbers. We've been emphasizing counting strategies. For example, if a ten frame is filled, a counter in each square, you don't need to count to figure out how many counters there are. Or if the top row is filled you know there are 5. If the top row is filled and there are other counters in the bottom row...count on from 5.

Art & Music:

-Music is a daily occurrence in our classroom. We use Music to learn songs, letters, and even numbers. The two videos below are perfect for November themes of gratitude and thankfulness.

 Raffi's Thanks a lot:

Turn the World Around by Bill Harley

Jack Hartman's counting to 100 by 1s

Art-We are working on making our classroom display area into a fall harvest. We've made pumpkins, scarecrows and even ears of Indian corn using bubble wrap and lint rollers! Next week we will make sunsets, pinch pots, and plenty of turkey crafts! Keep an eye out for these colorful and creative pieces of artwork! 

Reminders:

No School Tuesday November 10th and Wednesday November 11th.

Conference Slips went home this week and are due Friday November 13th. Please let me know if you have not received a conference sign-up. 

Spooktackular Week!

We had a "Monster" of a week! 

Halloween week featured Monsters, Onset and Rime, and Counting

Read Alouds:

   

Fundations:

 

C-Cat-/c/ and O-Octopus- /o/

This week we reviewed our vowel sounds and learned the letters C and O. The class is doing a great job discovering words around the classroom that begin with the letters we have learned so far. Our centers bridge our Fundations lessons through added practice.

Centers:

-C and O Alphabet Books.

-C and O Fundations Practice 

-Poetry: The Witch 

-Writing: Narrative Writing

-Listening Center

-Frankenstein Art

-Writing Around the Room

Phonemic Awareness: Onset and Rime

Onset and Rime is the process of dividing one-syllable words. The Onset is the initial consonant or consonant cluster. The Rime is the vowel and consonants that follow. For example the word sun, /s/ is the onset and -un is the rime. 

We called this "Monster Talk". The students created their own monster puppets and playing cards to practice these skills.  Puppets/games went home Thursday for you to play at home. We are in the beginning stages of sounding out words and identifying initial sounds. This will help with reading and writing. 

We will continue to practice onset and rime as well as word families next week. 

Writing:

Every week students write a story about their real life experiences. This is known as Narrative Writing. The class has written 3-4 stories and even shared their writing with a partner and small group. The discussions are filled with questions, compliments, and even extensions to new writing prompts! 

Next week we will spend a lot more time on writing as we begin our first Extended Writing Unit on Narrative. Each student will write their own individual story about a classroom experience. Look out for more information about our writing.

Math:

-We've finished our topic on our counting, reading, and writing numbers to ten.  

-Our next topic, Topic 4 is about comparing and ordering numbers 1 to 10.

-Guiding Questions: What is a ten frame? What group of objects has more? Which Group has fewer? How many fewer? 

-Monster Math games and Monster Math Ten Frames were apart of our fun filled week too!

Halloween Celebrations

Friday Morning we got dressed in our costumes and ready to parade around the school. We went to each Pod and performed our song Witches Brew. We even did two performances in the cafeteria! 

After our parade, we headed back to our classroom to change and have snack.  We needed to gear up for our Halloween Celebrations!! Room 5 hosted Ghost Bowling, Ghost Writing with Shaving cream, Halloween Masks, Ghost Necklaces, and Roll a Pumpkin activity. Room 6 hosted: Build a pumpkin, Feed the Ghost, Pumpkin Ring Toss, Pumpkin Puppets, and more!

Thank you to our volunteers! We appreciate all of your help and celebrating our day with us!

Misc.

-We went to library and heard Mr. Murphy read a story by Peter Brown.

-In computers we created our own pumpkins.

-New Lunch cards are in! The lunch cards feature your child's school photos which should be coming soon!

-Mrs. Davis Read us a story about a Big Green Monster but didn't show the pictures until the end of the book so the students could visualize and create their own monsters. They came out great!

-Lunch and recess routines have been running smoothly.

-We achieved our first class reward!! Our first reward was a movie on Halloween. We have brainstormed a great list of options for our next reward!

Next Week:
-Writing will be a large focus next week. We will think, pair, share and write our own narrative stories.
-We will learn the letters A and G in Fundations.
-Math we will start Comparing and Ordering Numbers 1-10.
-Lots of New Seasonal Read Alouds and Books
-Check out the calendar section on the blog for upcoming days off. November is a "short" month with all of our days off.

Happy Trick or Treating!!

Halloween Reminder

Dear Parents,

Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow, October 30th is our Halloween Celebration. Feel free to come to Fox Hill tomorrow, to see your child participating in the Kindergarten Halloween Parade!!

If you plan on attending, please note the following:

• Please report to the cafeteria no earlier than 9:15
• We will be parading through the cafeteria between 9:25 and 9:35 (please note this is an approximate time).
• Once in the cafeteria, there will be a viewing area where you will stand to watch the parade.
• Please remember that once the children have finished singing “Witches Brew,” we need to continue on with the parade right away, and there will be no time for individual photos with your child.

Some other reminders:

• Please send in your child’s costume in a bag. Students will be changing out of their costumes after the parade.
• It would be helpful if your child’s costume can be worn over his/her clothes☺

Thank you in advance for your support, and we are looking forward to a spooktacular day!

Volunteers

Thanks for volunteering to help us celebrate Halloween. As you may already know, our view time for our Halloween parade will be from 9:25-9:35 in the cafeteria. Once we are done singing we ask volunteers to sign in at the main office and report to Pod 1 for further instructions.  Volunteers will be assigned to a room and an activity. We are excited for a fun filled day and appreciate your time.