Tag Archives: black history

News of the Week—Feb. 22-26

Welcome to March and the anticipation of spring. We learned this week that the weather during March can be like a lion (wintery, cold) or a lamb (spring-like,warm breeze). The kinders made a lion or lamb based on how they think March will begin. Check out our results….

POPCORN WORDS: AND. GET

MATH: Number bonds were introduced to the kinders this week. This is just another way to see number partners. The kinders did an amazing job working with this new skill. They were also introduced to Tiny Tumblers who live on Math Mountains. The Tiny Tumblers practice their tumbling all day long. Some Math Mountains have a lot of Tiny Tumblers on one side of the mountain and not so many on the other side, but when you count all of the Tiny Tumblers they equal the Math Mountain number. These math mountains help the kinders learn and practice number partners. For example, on math mountain 6 there are 4 tiny tumblers living on one side and 2 tiny tumblers living on the other side. (4+2=6) Here is a YouTube video that explains how we use the tiny tumbler concept in math that you might like to watch. We also practiced identifying 3D shapes, positional words such as under, above, behind, between, in front of, etc, compared numbers using the terms GREATER THAN and LESS THAN and writing numbers.

READING: We started learning about reading playdates! We learned that avid readers don’t only share books, they are always inventing fun things to do with books and friends. We used the chart below to guide us with our reading play dates! Students were able to pick if they wanted to play school, play games or play pretend! The students had fun working with their partners and taking part in the reading playdates! We also learned that really good readers act out the story in their mind, every time they read. We are learning that reading is a lot like going to the movies because of all the pretending we are doing! The kinders practiced reading non-fiction texts and talking like an expert about the books we read. They read books as groups and found things they thought were WOW about the books or moments when we want to ask questions, to learn more!

WRITING: We finished opinion writing by writing about the topics of: 1. Our favorite breakfast. 2. Our favorite color. 3. Our favorite snack. 4. What we like about Georgetown. We finished our learning by taking an assessment to show what we know about writing an opinion paper all by ourselves! That is called an “on demand” writing. The kinders had to decide on their own opinion, give reasons why to support their opinion and remember to write sentences that start with an uppercase letter and end with punctuation. That’s a lot to do all by themselves. I am so proud of them! I am excited to share these writings with you at our conferences.

LITERACY/PHONICS: The kinders identified sight words, blended and segmented sounds in words, identified final sounds in words and created new words by adding different letter sounds at the beginning of sight words (and, get).

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER This week we learned that George W. Carver was a scientist and inventor. He invented many uses for his favorite snack…peanuts. Thanks to him, we learned that we can be curious about many things.

We also learned about Mae Jamsion by reading a Scholastic newspaper. She was the first black female astronaut.

KOOL KINDERS SPREADING KINDNESS AND A BEING BOOK LOVER

REMINDERS

WINTER GEAR: Hooray for a bit of warmer weather and the snow starting to melt. Unfortunately, the melting snow is causing a LOT of water puddles on our playground. Please continue to send your kinder with snow pants, boots, a hat, gloves/mittens and coat every day! We are planning to continue to wear it outside to help keep us warm and protect our clothes from the mud.

SNACK & WATER BOTTLE: Please remember to send 2 healthy snacks AND a water bottle with your kinder each day.

VACATION: If you have a vacation coming up and your kinder will be missing school, please contact the office for a vacation request form.

CALENDARS: Here is the MARCH calendar You can read about upcoming events, birthdays and more. It is also posted under CALENDARS at the top of our blog. Here is the March lunch menu

UPCOMING DATES

*Monday, March 1—MUSIC

*Tuesday, March 2—GYM. Dr. Seuss’ Birthday…Dress in your Seuss-ish attire (black, white, red colors or your favorite Dr. Seuss character?)

*Wednesday, March 3—ART; TAKE HOME BOOKS & LIBRARY Don’t forget your books! Homework packet due

*Thursday, March 4—STEAM; If your kinder would like a sack lunch from the lunch service, please email me or write a note by Thursday, 3/4

*Friday, March 5—GYM; Fast Friday (Early Release) 12:15 p.m. Dismissal. HATS OFF FOR READING! Wear a cowboy hat or bandana

*Monday, March 8 and Wednesday, March 10…Parent/Teacher Zoom style conferences

***Have a fabulous weekend! Mrs. Bohl

News of the Week—Feb 8-12

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POPCORN WORDS: NOT WHO

MATH: We started Unit #4 by telling math stories using our fruit from our ‘fruit & vegetable market’ and looking for groups of items 1-10 in a market scene. We practiced finding partners of 10 by looking at ladybugs that were sleeping and awake. We made teen numbers 11-20 using a 10 group and extra ones using ten sticks and mini cubes. We learned you can write a teen number equation two different ways but they mean the same thing. One way is to write the partners first and then the total (10+4=14) or write the total first and then the partners (14=10+4)

READING: This week the kinders learned that an AVID READER reads a lot, finds places everywhere to read, keeps a stack of book nearby, can’t stop reading and really pays attention to the book but a BLAH READER is disinterested. The kinders sorted pictures to decide if it showed an avid reader or not an avid (blah) reader. They also learned that AVID READERS try to feel what the characters are feeling. Are the characters feeling happy, sad, excited, scared? This makes the story enjoyable to read. We re-visited an old favorite The Carrot Seed to notice feelings along with the poems Mary Had a Little Lamb and The Itsy Bitsy Spider. The kinders found important parts in their books and put a sticky note on that page.

WRITING: We continued with Opinion writing. After hearing a story that relates to the day’s writing, the kinders give their opinion, write two reasons to support why they feel that way and write a closing sentence such as “_____ is my favorite.” or “I really like _______.” WOW! WOW! They are encouraged to include popcorn words, spaces between words, sentence stoppers as well as giving awesome reasons. Our topics this week were: 1. Favorite season…winter or summer. 2. Choosing hot lunch or home lunch. 3. Going to the beach or playing in a pool. This is difficult writing but they are working hard and making progress.

LITERACY/PHONICS: We worked on sorting pictures by /ow/ like in snow or /ow/ like in cow, hearing syllables in words, using our word-part power by putting a new letter at the beginning of a snap word. (b-at=bat, h-ot=hot, f-in=fin) and matching CVC words to the picture.

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: JACKIE ROBINSON This week we learned that Jackie Robinson showed determination when he never gave up and became the first black man to play in the major league. Thanks to him, anyone is welcome to play baseball.

VALENTINE FUN!: After listening to a valentine story of The Day it Rained Hearts, the kinders retold the story by recalling the characters, setting (where did it take place) and the order of events. Enjoy hearing your kinder retell you The Day it Rained Hearts using the picture cards at home.

I introduced the kinders to one of my favorite book characters, Love Monster. We read Love Monster and learned about making friends. We read another Love Monster story called Love Monster and the Last Chocolate before creating our own math story of dark and milk chocolate candy. The kinders had fun making their own Love Monsters!

After reading Big Hugs, Little Hugs we tasted candy hugs and candy kisses. Yum! Next we colored our paper kiss to reflect our choice. Then we created a graph of Hugs or Kisses on the board. Last we gave a reason why we liked a candy hug or a candy kiss.

We created a mini book about Things I Love..

We used candy hearts for some math activities

We played Valentine Bingo

We enjoyed eating a Valentine party snack

KOOL KINDERS SPREADING KINDNESS AND A BEING BOOK LOVER

REMINDERS

WINTER GEAR: Please remember to send your kinder with snow pants, boots, a hat, gloves/mittens and coat every day!

SNACK & WATER BOTTLE: Please remember to send 2 healthy snacks AND a water bottle with your kinder each day.

UPCOMING DATES

*Monday, February 15—ART

*Tuesday, February 16—STEAM

*Wednesday, February 17—MUSIC; TAKE HOME BOOKS & LIBRARY Don’t forget your books!

*Thursday, February 18—GYM

*Friday, February 19—ART

Enjoy the weekend! Be safe and stay warm! Mrs. Bohl

News of the Week–Feb 1-5

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GROUNDHOG DAY: We learned a few fun facts about groundhogs, we made a groundhog craft and predicted if the groundhog would see his shadow and go hiding for 6 more weeks of winter OR would he not see his shadow and stay outside for an early spring. According to our classroom graph, many of the kinders were predicting a cloudy day. How about you? What did you predict?

POPCORN WORDS: HOW NOW The kinders noticed right away that these two words rhyme and that we wrote “how” A LOT of times during our How to….writing.

READING: They learned that snap words (popcorn words you can identify in a snap) can be disguised with endings of -ed, -ing, -s. The kinders activated their extra strength book talk power by remembering what we read by retelling who was in the story, where it took place, and predicting what might happen. The kinders are developing this skill as their reading level grows.

MATH: We reviewed math skills in preparation for our unit #3 test on Wednesday. The kinders worked hard as “office workers”. I will share their math test results with you next week. We enjoyed reading Ten Grouchy Groundhogs a few times before we read and completed the emergent reader Ten Little Groundhogs. We looked at the ten frame to determine how many groundhogs there were. Then, we reread the text and crossed off the last groundhog. Last, we completed the number sentence at the bottom of the page. See the earlier posting for our Day 100 activities. We will begin Unit #4 next week.

WRITING: The kinders began learning how to write a new style of writing…..Opinion writing. We started with learning the difference between fact and opinion. Then we sorted statements into an opinion or fact column. After hearing a story that relates to the day’s writing, the kinders give their opinion, write two reasons to support why they feel that way and write a closing sentence such as “_____ is my favorite.” or “I really like _______.” WOW! WOW! The kinders are working towards writing like almost first graders! Do I dare say that? 🙂 They are including popcorn words, spaces between words, sentence stoppers as well as giving awesome reasons. Our topics this week were: 1. What animal would you take home from the zoo? 2. Liking the swings or the slide. Have I said lately, how proud I am of them! 🙂 . This is difficult writing but they are off to a GREAT start!

BLACK HISTORY MONTH: ROSA PARKS This week we learned that Rosa Parks showed courage when she refused to give up her seat on a bus. Thanks to her bravery, anyone can sit where they choose on a bus.

WE HAVE MAIL: Yes, we have mail inside of our valentine mail bags. How exciting! The kinders were able to begin mailing the valentines this week. They were a bit disappointed that the mail bags were not coming home right away but they became excited when they found out more valentines are coming their way. Memory kind of moments. 🙂 I also wish that I could include the conversations that took place during these first mailings. So many kinders filling each others’ buckets by offering to help and squealing with excitement when they saw similar valentines. Oh my…I love this time of the year! Please bring the rest of the valentines to be mailed on Tuesday and Wednesday.

KOOL KINDERS SPREADING KINDNESS AND A BEING BOOK LOVER: We heard about kinders showing love to their cats and giving their parents and grandparents hugs this week. What kind hearted kinders! 🙂 We also read some fun books.

PE NEWS: Kids Heart Challenge through Feb 15. Please see the PE Blog for more information. Below is the sign up link. http://www2.heart.org/goto/georgetown

TAKE HOME BOOKS: I want to take a moment and thank you…kinder families…for writing comments about your kinder’s reading. Those comments are very helpful. I am working on having the kinders read for me to determine their best independent reading level. Your kinder may be taking home new level books.

REMINDERS

WINTER GEAR: Please remember to send your kinder with snow pants, boots, a hat, gloves/mittens and coat every day!

SNACK & WATER BOTTLE: Please remember to send 2 healthy snacks AND a water bottle with your kinder each day. If possible, enlist your kinder in choosing their snacks. Many are commenting that they don’t like the snack that is packed.

HEADPHONES: Please send in a pair of headphones for your kinder to use in STEAM If you have not already done so. Thank you!

UPCOMING DATES

*Monday, February 8—Winter Break–NO SCHOOL

*Tuesday, February 9—ART Mail Valentines. STUFFED ANIMAL DAY Bring a small stuffed animal that fits inside the backpack.

*Wednesday, February 10—STEAM; TAKE HOME BOOKS & LIBRARY Don’t forget your books! Homework packets due Mail Valentines

*Thursday, February 11—MUSIC

*Friday, February 12—GYM Valentine Party

Enjoy the 4 day weekend! Be safe and stay warm! Mrs. Bohl