Goodbye April...Hello May!

What a fun day we had for field day.  Coach Grant planned an excellent morning for us.  Thanks to the parents that came to assist and cheer.  Enjoy these photos of field day!

Our field trip to the zoo is this Thursday.  Please dress your child in the yellow field trip t-shirt.  No need to send a lunch for Thursday, Chick-Fil-A is bringing lunch to us at the zoo.  The cost of lunch was included in the price of the field trip.  Chaperone parents can order a Chick-Fil-A lunch  for $7.00 with a deadline of Monday.  We will leave at 9:00 am and return between 1:30 and 2:00 pm.

The children will be wearing the yellow field trip t-shirt for the Kindergarten Celebration on Friday, May 23.  Khaki bottoms (shorts, skorts, or pants) need to be worn for the Kindergarten Celebration.  The Kindergarten Celebration begins at 9:00 in the lunchroom.  Immediately after the Kindergarten program, we will have a celebration of Room 114 in our classroom.  You will be back at work by 11:00.  If you need to get back to work earlier, I can make arrangements  for you.

Friday is our fiesta crafternoon.  Thank you for the overwhelming support of our Crafternoons.  It is hard to believe this is our final one.  Come Friday at 1:00 to help set up or 1:30 when the children return.

Monday is Nancy's Italian Ice for $1.00.  Return poetry journals on Monday and library books too.  The library will close on May 7 for the year.

Look at the readers in our classroom!   The students in Room 114 range from the five point club to the twenty-five point club.  We celebrate and cheer when a classmate moves to a new level.  Thank you for continuing to help us become stronger readers by listening to us read out loud at home. 


In math, we will begin measurement this week but continue to work on our addition and subtraction facts.  Look for April Calendar pages to come home  on Thursday.

In reading, we will spend two weeks on the letter Uu.  High Frequency Words are:  what, said, was. 

Last Monday and Tuesday, I read the children  the book The Paper Bag Princess.  I didn't show them the pictures.  Instead I stopped at seven intervals and had them draw their mental images (the movie inside their heads.)  This is a good exercise to see their thinking as they listen to a story.  Just more practice to build comprehension skills.  Look for your child's mental images in binders on Monday.  Here are photos  of practicing mental images.

I will be out of the classroom on Wednesday.  The children will be well taken care of during my absence.  I will be back on Thursday for our field trip.  


 
We have several special projects that we are working on for the month of May.  The above photo is just the beginning of one special project.  I love looking at those hands and imagining the future that those hands will touch.  I observe the way those hands work and show care for one another and I have great hope for the future. I'm very sad to see April leave and know what happens at the end of May.  Those hands touch my heart every day.  We are going to make the most of the month of May and celebrate each day.  I cannot express to you how much I love your child.  Thank you for trusting me with their Kindergarten year!

If you happen to pop into our classroom unannounced during the month of May, do not look around too closely.  We have several surprises that will make us sad if you see them  before we are ready. 

Upcoming Events:
Thursday, May 1 is Kindergarten's  all day field trip to the zoo. Wear yellow field trip t-shirts. 
Friday, May 2 is our final Crafternoon at 1:30  (1:00 is set up)
Friday, May 23 is the Kindergarten Celebration in the lunchroom at 9:00 AM.  We will have a celebration of Room 114 immediately following the Kindergarten Celebration.  You should be able to be back at work by 11:00 AM.   Wear yellow field trip t-shirts and khaki bottoms. 
Thursday, May 29 is the last day of school for students.

Contact me with any questions or concerns!

Funny Bunnies

Oh I how love these funny bunnies!  How fortunate I am that these are who I get to spend 7 hours a day with.  Thought you would be interested to know that the children chose the colors of their bunnies by a very, very secret ballot.   No one knew  what color anyone else was choosing.  We solved the problem of a rainstorm interrupting our plans by utilizing the stage, Mr. Darby's art room and the breezeway!    Thank you for sending in the eggs and thanks to the parents that were able to assist with the scavenger hunt.  (Some of you sneak out without me getting a photo of you with your child!)  Enjoy the photos here Spring Egg Hunt photos.

Field Day is Thursday.  You may want to apply sunscreen to your child before coming to school.  The children may wear a hat or sunglasses but they are responsible for carrying any personal items and keeping up with those items.   Please dress your child in the yellow field trip t-shirt for Thursday so that I can keep track of everyone quickly.  We will be participating in Field Day from 8:30-11:00.  Please join us if your schedule allows. 

Nancy's Italian Ice ($1.00) and our library day is Monday.  Don't forget to send in payment and permission slip for our Zoo field trip by Monday, April 28,.

We began to think of our moms in a very special way last week.  I hope you enjoyed our poem from last week and you finished reading the poem by turning it upside down.  We even did a directed drawing of our moms.  Check out the lovely moms of Room 114 here.  All of our hard work will come home in back packs on Friday, May 9.  Don't ask any questions or you will ruin our surprise for our moms.

In reading, we are investigating the letter Xx and we continue the high frequency words of yellow, green and blue.  In math, we continue to work with numbers up to 100 for the next week.  Help us count to 100 and use the chart on the back of the binder to find numbers.  Don't be surprised if your child flip flops numbers (ex.  your child points to 36 if you say 63.)

In reading instruction, we've been working on punctuation, telling sentences and questions.  We've been focusing on question words.  Last week, we began to write a friendly letter to one of our classmates.  I love the concentration found in these writing photos.  Room 114 is full of hard workers!

Please send in one or two LARGE glue sticks for your child to use for the remainder of the school year. 

Upcoming dates:
Thursday, April 24 is Field Day for grades K-3.
Thursday, May 1 is Kindergarten's  all day field trip to the zoo.
Friday, May 2 is our final Crafternoon at 1:30  (1:00 is set up)
Friday, May 23 is the Kindergarten Celebration in the lunchroom at 9:00 AM.  We will have a celebration of Room 114 immediately following the Kindergarten Celebration.  You should be able to be back at work by 11:00 AM.  
Thursday, May 29 is the last day of school for students.

Contact me with any questions or concerns!

Room 114 is Full of Sunshine!

My first attempt at uploading a video is a partial success.  It was not blurry when I uploaded it on my computer but it became blurry when I uploaded it to blogger.  So enjoy the small version video, do not full screen it because it might give you vertigo.  Remember that I'm trained as an educator and I'm flying by the seat of my pants as a blogger.  Which is why I can't seem to understand why my slideshows don't load anymore.  But I'm thankful that you are flexible and can click on links.

Anyways, what a bunch of sunshine I get to work with everyday!  I'm so thankful for each and everyone of them.  Our poetry journal last week was full of rain and sunshine just like the month of April.  Several of the students shared that their parents sing that song to them.   I hope the song was sung several times at your house this weekend.  Return poetry journals on Monday for a new poem.  Not to be too much of a tease, but mothers are really going to like the poem this week!  In fact dads will probably agree with it too because they love our moms!

Monday is Italian Ice for $1.00.  Monday is also library day.  I will be updating AR reading zones tomorrow.  Even though your child will increase in reading level, he/she can always drop back to down to the Kindergarten level books to check out at any time.  Try and have a goal of your child taking two AR tests a week from here to the end of school.

The book that Special Person #17's mom read to our class was very  informative and allowed for many new discoveries and conversations!  Love, love this young man and the joy he brings to Room 114.  Check out his special week here!

I sent an email out last Wednesday about how Coach Grant is using volunteers for field day.  Let me know if you can help out our class at field day.

In reading we are going to be working on the letters Jj and Ww.  The high frequency words are:  yellow, blue, green.

In math, we are counting numbers to 100.  Everyday a number is  called out and the students have to find that number and the number that is one less and one greater.  You can try that at home, even during the summer.  I have a couple of math games that I would like the children to play this week but I need a parent volunteer to assist.  Let me know if you want to play math games  with a small group of children this Tuesday or Thursday starting at 12:15-1:30. Last week, we spent a lot of time counting to 100 by ones and by groups of tens.  Counting to 100 is much quicker if you do it by 10's.  Check out our counting to 100 fun !  (click on the left)

Friday is our Spring Egg Hunt.  If you volunteered to help, please be at the school at 11:20. The egg hunt will begin at 11:30. If you haven't contacted me that you want to help, it is not too late and you are needed so come on and join us.   Please send filled eggs to school by Thursday.  Don't forget to underscore the 6 and 9 eggs.  NO BASKETS ARE NEEDED.  

 I had to laugh Thursday and Friday (at this point that is all that we can do) because of a strong sense of tea tree oil that seemed to permeate our classroom.  I never knew the smell of tea tree oil until this year.  Nurse Morgan praised the status of our class last week so keep doing those head checks quite frequently at home between now and the last day of school. 

Recently the children discovered the joy found in inexpensive play microphones.  It is amazing the confidence that blooms when a microphone is handy and you think no one is looking.  I encourage you to purchase one or two microphones for your family (even mom and dad can join in the imagination that a microphone unfolds!). Happy talking/singing/interviewing/imitating the intercom fun in your world!

Contact me with any questions or concerns!

Upcoming dates:
Monday, April 14:  PTA meeting  at 6:00
Thursday, April 17:  Turn in eggs for tomorrow's spring egg hunt
Friday, April 18 will be Room 114's Spring Egg Hunt @ 11:30. 
Thursday, April 24 is Field Day for grades K-3.
Thursday, May 1 is Kindergarten's  all day field trip to the zoo.
Friday, May 2 is our final Crafternoon at 1:30  (1:00 is set up)
Friday, May 23 is the Kindergarten Celebration in the lunchroom at 9:00 AM.  We will have a celebration of Room 114 immediately following the Kindergarten Celebration.  You should be able to be back at work by 11:00 AM.  
Thursday, May 29 is the last day of school for students.

A Quiet Week of Being All Together

You sent five boxes of crayons to Room 114 at the beginning of the school year.  The children received their last box of new crayons last Monday.  It is hard to believe we have gone through five box of crayons! 

Last week was a quiet week of learning and thinking.  No distractions and perfect attendance most of the week. Those are my favorite kind of days.

Nancy's Italian Ice is Monday for $1.00.  Please return poetry journals on Monday. The book fair continues until Wednesday.

This week is an assessment week in reading.  No new letter sounds or high frequency words.  I'm going to send home reading homework on Monday and Tuesday of this week to work on distinguishing the different sounds of the short  vowel sounds of the letters a, e, i.  Sometimes those sounds are hard to tell apart and throw in a southern accent and it can be even more difficult.  Work on the reading homework from Monday and Tuesday all week.

In math  last week, we were reinforcing that the numbers 11-19 are a group of ten and "some more."  After a lesson of using Unifix cubes to make groups of ten and some more, we decided to turn our Unifx cubes into New York City skyscrapers.  Love the focus and concentration found on the faces of Room 114 to build the tallest tower.  Click on this link for  Skyscraper photos   .

In math we are going to start working on numbers up to 120.  I will place a number chart in the back clear window of the take home binder's cover on Monday.  Help your child practice counting to 120  Encourage your child to touch the number square as he counts to make the physical connection between the brain and the number formation.  The difficulty comes in the numbers 19, 29, 39, 49, 59, 69, 79, 89, 99 (not really 99), 109,  and 119 and what comes next.   For extra just for fun practice, have your child draw the numeral 61 (or any other numbers.)  Don't be concerned if he writes 16.  Don't panic about the reversal.  Just find it on the numeral chart and have your child correct it.  The first grade teachers will be so excited if your child can recognize and read the numbers up to 100. This is something you can begin working on now and continue all summer. 

We discovered that our most recent special person of the week's favorite book was a book her mommy had growing up.  Her mother came and read that special book to us. Just more evidence that families that love to read raise children that love to read.   The students were so focused on writing a book for this special person that I forgot to get my camera out and take pictures of her book.   I am very sorry.  However, I did include (with permission) a very special photo for Special Person #16. 

Last week, we talked about that good readers are always thinking and try to figure out what comes next in a story.  This is called prediction and it happens throughout the story.  We also talked about how our thinking changes as we dig deeper into the story.  We documented our prediction for the story of Bridget Fidget and the Perfect Pet. One student's reading journal is documented below.  When you are reading books at home, stop and ask your child to predict what will happen next.

On Monday and Tuesday, I am going to update reading levels in the library.  You may start to see different colored dots coming home with library books.  Your child will still be able to check out orange dots if he/she chooses to.  Remember to fill out the tickets when your child is ready to take an AR test.

Upcoming dates:
Tuesday, April 8:  Spirit Night at Genghi's Grill (all day)
Friday, April 18 will be Room 114's Spring Egg Hunt @ 11:30.  Information will come home on Tuesday with details. 
Thursday, April 24 is Field Day for grades K-3.
Thursday, May 1 is Kindergarten's  all day field trip to the zoo.
Friday, May 2 is our final Crafternoon at 1:30  (1:00 is set up)
Friday, May 23 is the Kindergarten Celebration in the lunchroom at 9:00 AM.  We will have a celebration of Room 114 immediately following the Kindergarten Celebration.  You should be able to be back at work by 11:00 AM.  
Thursday, May 29 is the last day of school for students.

 The children were so excited to see our grade level t-shirt. I wish you could have heard the conversations when they saw it for the first time.  This t-shirt can take the place of a uniform top any day of the week for the remainder of the school year. I'm going to wear my shirt on Tuesdays with blue jeans.   Jeans can be worn only Tuesdays and Fridays. Regular Blount spirit wear can only be worn on Fridays. Thank you for supporting our school. 

Contact me with any questions or concerns.