March 2012 News

This past month, students learned about our five senses.  Using a picture of themself, they labeled the parts of their body that they use for hearing, seeing, smelling, tasteing, and touching.  Each day they tested a different sense. When  Lisa Muesenburger  visited our class, she brought different types of foods for us to categorize by taste (sweet, sour, bitter, or salty).   We also learned about various signs of spring. The plants outside are no longer dormant.  Animals are no longer hibernating.  Spring is the season of rebirth.  Students wrote a descriptive paragraph about a robin.  We also worked on a sequencial paragraph about a robin's life cycle.  Students practiced using the key words "first, next, then, and last" in their writings. 

Parent/Teacher Conferences were held this month.  A special thank you goes to my parents as we had 96% attendance.  Children learn so much more when parents and teachers work together as partners in  education.   Thank you for listening to your children read each night.  Juriksy and Taylor have read over 100 books this school year.  There are many more students that are getting close to 100 books!  Way to go!

On Tuesday, March 13th, students  preformed at their first music concert.  The children did awesome!  The concert was priceless, their voices were beautiful!  The children were so proud!  Thanks for supporting our music program!





On Wednesday, April 4th, we had an "egg-stra" special day.  Students created a graph showing how many raw or cooked eggs were in my bowl.  We only found eight cooked eggs!  Next, we tested to see how many blocks of wood four raw eggs could hold before breaking. The students worked hard making sure the weight was evenly distributed.  They successfully placed 26 blocks of wood on top of the eggs before two eggs cracked!  Way to think!   The Easter Bunny (Charlie Roy) visited our classroom and brought each student a piece of chocolate.  We also had our own Easter Egg hunt in the grass where students filled their baskets with THREE (and only 3) eggs.  It was an "egg-stra" special day!

 

February 2012 News Report

     Please check out the tabs on the top of our blog.  One tab says "kinder games".  If you click on this tab, it will take you to our kindergarten symbaloo.  This is a collection of great web site games that kindergarten students enjoy using.  The other tab says "Students Stories".  If you click on this tab, it will take you to our new Storm Lake Youtube site.  On the left side of the screen click on the word "playlist".   You will then see a listing titled Kindergarten Students Reading.  Several of my kindergarten students are very excited about being an author and illustrator.  They have created their own stories.  When you click on the student, you will get to view a short video of them reading their story to you.  We hope you enjoy our stories!
     February is such a busy month for us.    We started the month learning about night/day and our four seasons.  The winter season this year has been very confusing due to little snow and temperatures above freezing!  Students learned that the sun and the titled earth makes our seasons.  Students visited Star Lab, a portable planetarium, where they learned how to identify the "Big Dipper" in the night sky. 
     We spent the last two weeks learning about symbols of the USA.  We learned about our flag, the Bald Eagle, the Statue of Liberty, and the White House.  The students were excited to learn that the White House has a swimming pool and a tree house!  We learned about George Washington, our first president, and Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president.   Using magnifying lenses, we examined a penny, nickle, dime, and quarter.
     We  had a wonderful Valentine's Day Party on February 14th.  This was our favorite party!  It is so much fun recieving mail from our friends! 

     We had several visitors during the month of February.  Miranda's dad helped Miranda celebrate her birthday by reading us one of her favorite stories, Verdi.    Cole proudly shared his mother and newborn brother with us!

        

January 2012 News

We started the month of January with Book Club.   We highlighted the book titled "A Little Bit of Winter" where we worked on various comprehension skills.  Students learned about character, setting, problem and solution.  We learned about real rabbits and hedgehogs.  Using clay, we made a hedgehog to help us retell this story.

     One of the vocabulary words in this story was "companion".  Students then pick someone in the class that they regarded as their own companion to write about.  Their stories are posted in the hallway outside of our room.  Shown above are a few of the companion pictures.

Happy One Hundred Day!  Wednesday, January 25, was spent learning about the number 100.  We worked on a One Hundred Day book.  It took us three tries to be quiet for 100 seconds!  We made 100 day hats with 100 stickers.  Students worked in groups of three to create ONE design with one hundred pattern blocks.  We made a 100 piece snack to eat.

December News

During the month of December, students learned how to take good care of their teeth.  Nurse Twyla organized a puppet show for the students where they learned about good nutrition as well as dental health.  In the pictures below, Danielle gets ready to brush a tooth (Cristofer).  After the puppet show, we took a class picture with a large tooth. 

The students enjoyed learning about healthy habits during November and December.  Our dramatic play center became a doctor's office.  Doctor Gabriela  had many patients, including two mothers with babies waiting in the waiting room.

October 2011

 

During the month of October we learned about the seasonal changes that occur in Fall.  We learned that people harvest crops so that there is food for all to eat.  We looked at bowls filled with soybeans, oats, and corn.  Students harvested their own corn and saved it to feed to squirrels and birds in the winter.

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We learned about the parts and life cycle of a pumpkin. Squirrels and spiders were animals that we practiced writing descriptive sentences about. We also visited the fire station. The children enjoyed trying on a fire fighters uniform. We have a little more growing to do!

The best thing about kindergarten is finding new friends and enjoying our time together!

K-T News for September 2011

A new and exciting school year is up and running.  I have a group of students that just can't wait to learn how to read and write!     On the second day of school we began "shaking" out color words on the PWIM poster.  PWIM stands for Picture Word Inductive Model.  Through these posters, we will learn about reading, writing, science, and social studies.  So far this year, students have learned to read color words.  We have learned about the letters and the sounds of  Aa, Bb, Mm, Ss, Pp, and Tt.  We are learning to sort pictures and words by a common attribute.  We have learned about types of transportation, special me, and community helpers.  Nurse Twyla, our school community helper, taught us to wash our hands before eating food and if you must sneeze or cough...cover your mouth with your elbow!

Recently, we took a trip to the Pumpkin Patch north of Alta.  We had many parents join us on our field trip.  This was so nice to see!  The children enjoyed searching for pumpkins in the crisp fall air.  Our next PWIM poster will help us learn about all the changes that occur in autumn.

We also had a visit from Dan Wardell for IPTV.  He read a special book to us and then later in the day introduced our students to the six pillars of Character Counts.  Below, he is reading "There's a Rumble in the Jungle".

In math, students are learning about patterns, shapes, counting and writing numbers.  The students love counting out objects and writing how many are in each group.

Recess is one of our favorite times of the day.  Exercise is good for our heart and our mind.  We have three 15 minute recesses every day.

I Read, You Read

     The students have been learning to read this year.  To go along with our Snowman PWIM poster, we learned to read the poem titled "The Snowflake".  In this poem, I read one line, then the students chorally read the next line.  In order to be successful, students must listen to the other students read,  keep their place in the poem, and read in a clear voice.  Ms. Deniz, our classroom aide, video taped us practicing the poem.  The students did an excellent job reading together!