Baby Schroeder

Hello everyone!!!
I wanted to let everyone know that Presley Jo Schroeder was born today at 12:35 pm. She weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces and was 19.5 inches long!! We love her to pieces!!

Daddy and big brother with Presley!!

Baby Presley!!

End of September!!!

We are having so much fun in kindergarten and learning so much – I can’t believe that the first quarter is almost over! These next two weeks we will be doing a lot of assessments to get ready for report cards!

In Literacy we finished up Unit 1 and are ready to start Unit 2 – Let’s Explore! Our new essential question is “How do tools help us to explore?” I can’t wait to hear the conversations we will have about tools that we use! The vocabulary words we will discuss are tools, discover, defeated, fetch, and rumble. We will be learning the word “a” which hopefully we will all already know! We will also be focusing on the letter “p” and the sound it makes. We will be reading “The Handiest Things in the World” and “Discover with Tools”. In guided reading we will either be reading “We Need Tools” or “A Trip”.

In writing we will be talking a lot about sentences and what makes a good sentence! We will learn about spaghetti and meatball spaces and move into using finger spaces. We will also talk about punctuation marks and how at the end of every sentence we have to use either a exclamation mark, question mark, or a period. My friends have been doing a great job labeling their pictures and using turtle talk to sound out words.

We took our Unit 1 math test and it went great! We will be starting Unit 2- Explore 5-groups! We will be talking about groups of 5 and finding groups of numbers – we will look at a park scene and discuss what we see and we will be learning about problem-solving strategies to solve math story problems. We will even get to act our story problems together. This week we will also be using nickel strips when we do our counting mats. I think on Monday we will also meet the “Five Finder” – a special math superhero who loves the number 5! Make sure to ask your kindergartener about the “five finder”!

We started talking about our five senses this past week in Unit Studies. We have read some wonderful stories about our senses and have talked a lot about our sense of hearing! This week we will explore our other senses and work on our Five Senses book. We even learned a few fun songs about our senses, and know that our senses are pathways to our brain!

Don't forget we have library on Fridays and this Tuesday is a PLC day so we will be getting out of school at 2:18.

I am looking forward to another fun week in kindergarten! 

Love- Mrs. Schroeder

Rock Star & Birthday!!

Hello everyone!!
I wanted to blog about our rock star Ariauna and our birthday boy Kalai this weekend. However, my toddler decided to toss mom's phone into a tub of bath water:/ I am trying to rescue it right now and I hope I can get all of my pictures off of it. As soon as I can do that (fingers crossed) I will blog! So sorry!!!!!! A reminder that Miss Mach will be taking over for me tomorrow as Baby Schroeder is expected to make her debut. I will post pictures as soon as I can!!!

Love- Mrs. Schroeder

Rock Star Alycia!!!

Our Rock Star of the Week last week was Alycia and we had such a GREAT time learning about her!! Her favorite color is purple and she loves the movie Frozen…can you guess her favorite song???  Let It Go , of course!! Her favorite book is Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons. She loves the sport soccer and her favorite food is spaghetti. She loves unicorns and when she grows up she wants to be a nurse. If she could go anywhere she would go to Lost in Fun. She is a special kid because she loves babies and likes to help people. We EVEN got a chance to sing, “Let it Go!!” You ROCK Alycia!!!

Happy Birthday Kailyn!!!

Today Kailyn celebrated her 6th birthday!!!! We had so much fun and spotted Isis the Elf right away!!

We brainstormed words to describe Kailyn and we had SO many wonderful ideas and I know Kailyn felt super special :)

Kailyn even got a special surprise in the office at the end of the day and she LOVED it!!!

Happy Birthday Kailyn!! You ROCK!!!

Isis the Elf with a birthday crown!!

Kailyn with her SPECIAL frame!!

Kailyn celebrating with her class!!

We can READ!!!

We are moving right along in the literacy department! We are starting week 2 of Unit 1 and our essential question is “How do baby animals move?” We will be reading and listening to some great stories called “Pouch”, “Baby Animals on the Move” and we will also read a version of “The Tortoise and the Hare”. For shared reading (in the crabby book) we will read “We Can” and “I Can, We Can” and then during guided reading when your child comes over to me at the rainbow table they will be either reading “Hop!” or “We Hop!” Remember you can go online to the wonders website at anytime and check out the books we are reading - I bet your kindergartener would love to read you a story!

We are also going to be learning the word “we” this week and focusing on the letter “a” and the sound it makes and where we hear the “a” sound in words! We will continue to work on blending sounds together to make words! Our new vocabulary words that we will be learning are: adventure, movement, arrived, exciting, and exhausted.

During writing we will continue to talk more about nouns and will keep finding nouns in sentences. I know it is crazy -  nouns!! Your kindergarten will soon be able to tell you that a noun is a person, place, or thing or even an animal if they can’t already! This week is actually a very big week in writing because up until now your child has been telling stories orally and drawing pictures to go with their story – but this week we are going to learn how to label our pictures and use turtle talk to sound out the words we want to write and also how to use our alphabet chart to help us during writing time! I am very excited to see what writing has in store for our classroom this week!

In Math this week we will continue to explore numbers 1-10 with our counting mats and daily math routines. We will also learn how to dot-to-dots with straight lines to make an object (the tricky part about this is starting at the number 1 and going in counting order).   We will also be practicing drawing groups of numbers and learning more about shapes and how to make them! We are really enjoying learning about 2 and 3 dimensional shapes! I am also so happy to see all of the homework coming back to school – the kids get super excited every time I hand homework out so I am sure hoping the enthusiasm to do homework is still there when your child gets home! A homework routine is a great thing to start in kindergarten when they enjoy it! Even on days when there is not an actual paper homework please utilize the resources you have at home to keep practicing the skills we are working on!

We are continuing to learn more about our American Symbols – we still have the White House and Bald Eagle to read about. But this Wednesday, Sept. 17^th is a super fun day for our country – it is Constitution Day! We will be learning about what the constitution is and why we have it and we will also be making our very own Kindergarten Constitution and I am hoping all of my friends will agree to it and sign it so we can have a successful school year. On this day we will be doing lots of fun crafts and you will be getting home our first family project where you will have the opportunity to create your own Family Constitution – so please look for this on Wednesday! We are really enjoying learning about our country and we are very proud to live here!

I can really tell that my friends have been practicing their address and phone number at home – please continue to work on this!  Remember your child will get a special treat when they can tell me their important information that will help them stay safe and can use in case of an emergency. We will also be adding to our list of things to earn this week. I have some patriotic pencils and once your child can recite the Pledge of Allegiance they will earn their American Flag pencil!

Picture Day is Wednesday, Sept. 17^th – please turn in your papers if you would like to order pictures!

Also, thank you so much for all who attended parent teacher conferences last week! I enjoyed telling you all the wonderful things your child is doing!!

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns! It is going to be another fun week in kindergarten!

Rock Star Lizzie

Lizzie was our very FIRST rock star of the week this last week! She had such a great time sharing all of her things and important facts. The kids LOVED hearing about her!! Lizzie loves the color purple!! Her favorite book is Curious George (although she brought Pete the Cat to share at school and we had a GREAT time singing the song!! She loves the movie Frozen (I have yet to find a kindergarten girl that doesn’t!) And of course, her favorite song is “Let It Go!” Her favorite sport is volleyball and she loves to eat grapes. The animal she loves most is a monkey and when she grows up she wants to be a doctor!! If she could go anywhere it would be to her classroom (I am glad you like it!) and she is super special because she gets to go to her classroom every day!! We had a great time hearing about her family and seeing her stuffed unicorn! Thanks for being such a rock star Lizzie!!

You really DO ROCK!!!

Please enjoy Lizzie's video from her special week!!!

Love- Mrs. Schroeder

Fun AND busy week coming!!!

This next week in kindergarten is going to be a fun one - not only are we going to be having parent teacher conferences, but there is going to be a lot going on!

We are starting unit one in literacy which means we will be talking a lot about what good readers do! The strategy we will be focusing on is “asking and answering questions” and we will get to read a great book called “What about Bear?”. Our essential question this week is “how can we get along with new friends?” which is wonderful because we are continuing to build relationships with our new classmates and this ties in very nicely to making good choices and being respectful and responsible! We are going to be focusing on the letter “M” this week as well and will be sorting pictures that start with the sound M makes and we will also work hard on making the letter m correctly and by the end of the week we will be blending sounds together to make words! We will be making connections between all of the books we read and it is going to be a blast! We will also be putting the word “the” up on the word wall – please ask your child about the chant we do when we spell the word “the”.  Remember any extra practice you do at home will only benefit your child! We are also going to be starting guided reading (start is the key word) but please know it might takes us a few weeks to get into the full guided reading routine – your child will either be reading the story “Soup” or “Mouse and Monkey” at the rainbow table with me. Remember you can go online to the wonders website and check out the things that we will be doing in our classroom!

In writing we will be talking about nouns – yes I know what you are thinking nouns in kindergarten but we really do learn about them and the kids do a great job! We will learn that a noun can be a person, place, thing, or animal! We will also be focusing a lot on our pictures when we are writing our stories from our lives, because readers can find out more detailed information from our pictures. We will be talking about planning out our pictures and what we should if we don’t know how to draw things – although the most important thing to remember in kindergarten is that we always try our best! Hopefully by the end of the week we will get the chance to read the story “Scaredy Squirrel” and talk about why authors sometimes use labels in their stories.

In Math we will be continuing to learn more about numbers but will really be focusing on the numbers 4 and 5 and how to write them. We will also be distinguishing between different sized groups and counting a certain number of objects. Last week we started talking about 2 and 3-dimensial shapes and will continue to talk about the difference between them this week too and also have some discussions about shapes and what makes something a shape! I love when the kids learn the characteristics of shapes and are able to tell me all about them! For example a triangle has three corners and three sides that are all connected and that triangles can be all different sizes and can look different. Oh how we love shapes and numbers!! We will also be having homework every single night this week so please be on the lookout!  Don’t forget to make sure your child’s name is on it so they can get credit for doing it!

America… America… America! We are loving learning about the symbols that represent our wonderful country! We started our symbols book and will continue to work on it this week as well. This Thursday, Sept. 11 is Patriot’s Day and I would love for every child in my room to wear red, white, or blue as we honor and remember our patriots.  We will be talking about how we need to stand tall and be proud of the country that we live in! I truly feel so lucky to live in this country! 

Thanks again to all the families that were able to come to our Literacy night – I hope you had as much fun as I did! It was great to see all of you there and I am hoping you all learned something new – remember I will be sending home more things throughout the year to put in your binder if you purchased one.

I know it is going to be another fun and busy week in our classroom! 

Love- Mrs. Schroeder

Happy Grandparent's Day!!!!

On Sunday we will celebrate a VERY important day.....Grandparent's Day!!! The kids have been telling me all week how special you are to them and all of the fun things you do together! Thank you for all you do....know you are loved. Please enjoy the video we made for you...some of the pictures might even look familiar to you:)

Love- Mrs. Schroeder

Reminders!!

Hello...
A few more reminders for you!!

We have literacy night on September 4th from 6-7 in room 111. I can't wait to show you all of the wonderful things we do in class!!

We have parent teacher conferences next week (September 9th & 11th). Please e-mail me at cberner@lps.org if you don't remember you time!!

If you have not sent me pictures for our special project please do!! I have gotten some pictures and I am putting them in our video! I think it is going to be great!! If you don't have any to send through
e-mail please send a hard copy and I will snap a photo of it and send it back! I had to this for my pictures:)

Have a wonderful night and end to your week!!! Can you believe it is Wednesday already?!?

Mrs. Schroeder

Another FUN week is coming!!!!

I can hardly believe that it is already September!! The start of the school year has really flown by quickly!!! I am sure it is because we are SO busy in kindergarten!! We will continue to get even busier, if that is possible!!!

In literacy this week we will finish up with learning about the alphabet!! We will be learning about W-Z!!  That is SUPER exciting!! Although, the next week we will start focusing in on one letter a week!! I know the kids are going to be sad once we have made it through all of our silly songs, but I think we will still find time to listen to them. I hope on Friday we can review the alphabet and have a little celebration!!! We will continue to talk about all of the fun things kindergarteners can do. We have already been talking about things they can do now that they couldn’t do as a baby!! They think it is pretty crazy they can do all the things they are able to do these days! We continue to review the words ‘I’ & ‘can.’ We have even been reading them in books…YES I said they are reading them. It is pretty amazing to hear these kids already readingJ We have also been reading a lot of nursery rhymes…the kids really enjoy these!!

In writing we continue to become amazing authors!! We now have our writing folders and have been practicing writing ‘I can’ sentences!! This week we will really focus on trying our best as writers and how to draw objects that may seem tricky. We will even focus on how to draw people (and not the stick kindJ)!!!

We will continue to discuss Anno’s Counting Book in math! We will also be doing our counting mats and graphing with numbers 1-10!! We have also been working hard on writing numbers and will really focus on writing the number 3 this week! Please remember to practice with your children and also remember that sometimes they write number backwards…but we will work on that!! We have also been talking about things that are alike and different!! I love hearing the kids talk about math and seeing them reason about numbers!! They are just SO smart!!

In unit studies we start a new unit!! We will start to talk about American Symbols!! The five symbols we focus on are the Bald Eagle, Statue of Liberty, American Flag, White House, and Liberty Bell. We will be reading stories, looking at pictures, and making pages for our very own American Symbol book!! This is a really fun unit!

I have some reminders to give to you as well!! Please remember that we have literacy night this Thursday (September 4^th) from 6-7 in our classroom!! This is a very important night and we will talk about things you can do to help your child at home!! If you did not send back your RSVP please know that you can still do this! If you can’t make arrangements for other children it will be okay to bring them, but they won’t be allowed to play with things in the classroom.

Also, our parent teacher conferences are on September 9^th and 11^th in our classroom. If you forgot the time you are signed up for please e-mail me at cberner@lps.org. My long-term substitute will be attending so this will be a great opportunity to meet and get to know her!! The kids have made some super cute things to give to you at conferences!!

Well….I think that is all for now!!! I hope you have a great week!!!