Welcome to April!!!

This week is going to be a quick one!  As I am sure you all know our school is doing a pennies for backpacks drive this week where your child is asked to bring in loose change for this great cause, remember the LPS backpack walk is on Saturday, April 11th!!  But I also wanted to let you know about a grant Mrs. Woita and I wrote and are hoping to get the funds for. Below is the link to see our proposal- by no means do we want you to feel obligated to donate money but wanted you to be aware of our project we are hoping to do!

http://flps.fund-it.org/grants/view_grant.php?gid=3554

Also just a reminder this Tuesday is a PLC day so we get out early and Friday we have no school! And we have a lot to learn so there is no time to waste!

In math we will keep working on telling, retelling, and doing story problems and listening for those key words! As well as focusing on those teen numbers!!

In writing we will keep working on adding voice to our stories!! My friends are loving this writing trait!!

We are enjoying reading some great books and having conversations about how to stay healthy! We are working hard on our books and can't wait to bring them home to show you!

In literacy we will be learning two new words - help and too! I am sure we will he talking a lot about to, two, and too this week!!! We will also be starting to learn about long vowels and focusing on the long a! Our essential question is "how can you help out at home?" so you might have some extra great helpers this week-although hopefully it will last for more than just one week!!
Our vocabulary worlds are chores, contribute, member, organize, and accomplish. We will also be discussing prefixes and suffixes. We will be reading "Peter's Chair", "Helping Out at Home", and "The Clean Up". During guided reading your child will read either "Let Me Help You" or "How can Jane Help" and in our new crabby books they will read "Jake and Dale Help". It is going to be another fun week in kindergarten!

Review Week!!

This week we will be working hard! We will be finishing up Unit 8 and will be talking about what we see in the sky! Our vocabulary words are distance, recognize, space, challenge, and surface. We will be reading "Bringing Down The Moon", "Day and Night Sky",  and "A View From the Moon".  During guided reading your child will either read "Going Up" or "In the Clouds" and in our crabby books they will read "Up! Up! Up!". We will be reviewing all of our letters, sounds, and words as well as making and revising predictions and comprehending stories. We will also be focusing on opposites and similes.

In math we will be making patterns and looking at shapes closely to see how they change as we move them around. We will also be representing teen numbers with equations, manipulatives and our fingers. We will be telling, retelling, and solving story problems using a simple math drawing, equations, fingers, manipulatives, and our brains! When we tell and solve story problems we know that there are key words in the problem that we have to listen for to tell us whether or not we will be adding or subtracting. For example when we have to use addition we usually hear the words "in all", "total", "put them together", or "altogether". And when we use subtraction to solve our story problems we hear the words "how many do we have left", "how many are there now", or "are still there". Ask your student if they can tell you a story problem during dinner, or ask them a simple problem to see if they can solve it. For example "There are 5 rolls on the plate but mommy ate one of them. How many rolls are still on the plate?" My friends are getting really good at retelling and solving story problems I really so impressed! 

In writing last week we learned about the writing trait "voice" and this week we will be focusing on how to use it in our writing! I just know that my friends are going to love learning about font size, bold letters, dialogue, speech bubbles, and voice through punctuation!  

During Unit Studies we have been talking about how to take care of our bodies and will be reading some great books and making our own book about our bodies! 

 

I will be gone most of the week this week. I have meetings at the district office all day Tuesday and Friday morning. On Wednesday and Thursday I will be gone for a funeral. Unfortunately, my husbands grandmother passed away so we will be out of town. I know my kiddos are great with other teachers when I am gone and I know they will do a wonderful job!! If you have an questions please let me know. I will be at school all day Monday! I hope you had a wonderful weekend:)

Mrs. Schroeder

Rock Star Rudra!!!

Rudra was our rock star before spring break. We let him keep his pictures up because he was sick a few days that week!! We had SO much fun learning about him!! His favorite toy was Batman and he brought a Curious George story to read. His favorite color is blue. He loves the Curious George book. His favorite movie is the "Lego Movie" and he loves playing soccer!! His favorite animal is a lion and he loves to eat mac & cheese. The song he loves most is "Shake It Off". When he grows up he wants to be a police man. If he could go anywhere it would be India. He is a special kid because he likes helping people!!

You Rock Rudra!!

Rock Star Mya!!

I got a little behind with my rock star of the week posts..I am so sorry!! Mya was our rock star a couple weeks ago and we had so much fun getting to know her!! Every time I would try to sneak a picture she would catch me and give me a big smile..she is such a sweet girl!! Her favorite color si blue and her favorite book is Scooby-Doo!! The movie she likes best is Rio and she loves to go swimming. Mya loves penguins and eating mac & cheese. Her favorite song is "Let It Go" (a pretty common favorite around here:)) When she grows up she wants to be a veterinarian and boy does she love her new kitten!! If she could go anywhere it would be Disney World. She is a super special kid because she loves her family. You ROCK Mya and we loved learning all about you!!

Please enjoy our video!!

Time for 4th Quarter!!

I seriously cannot believe we are starting the 4^th quarter of kindergarten! It is crazy how the year goes by so fast and we are going to continue to learn like crazy until we are ready for 1^st grade! I sure hope all of my friends had a fabulous spring break and are ready for more fun in kindergarten! We will have a busy week for sure! We will be changing our seats and groups almost everywhere and I am not for sure if they will come back or not – but in the past I have had some sneaky leprechauns come into my classroom on St. Patrick’s Day and play tricks on us – so this year I am going to be better prepared, because we have no time to waste!

In Literacy we will be talking about our country, the great USA! We will be reading quite a few informational texts that include “Ana Goes to Washington, D. C.”, “The Best of the West”, “See our Country”, and in our crabby books “Pack a Bag”. During guided reading your child will read either “See This” or “Places to See”. We will be learning about the letters y and z and our new words are “this” and “what”. Our vocabulary words are country, travel, careful, purpose, and connect. We will continue to blend and listen for certain sounds as well as change sounds to make new words!

In math we are going to be working on our night sky display – this is a great tool we use to help us learn more about groups of 10 and number partners and equations. I think that all of my friends will really like our display and we will be using it every day during daily math routines. Of course we will continue to work on story problems and teen numbers too!

During unit studies we will start talking about our body and what it needs to stay healthy! Now that the weather is nice we will be able to do a lot more activities outside that will teach us about this important concept!

In writing we will continue to write stories about our lives and the things that we like to do. We will review turtle talking and stretching out words we don’t know how to spell and will even learn about the writing trait – voice! We will talk a lot about voice and how we can use it to make our stories even better! My friends will LOVE this writing trait! Before we left for break we talked a lot about poems and we wrote our own poems and we even wrote one together...ask your kindergarten kid if they remember it!!

 Don't forget to send back your decorated shamrock AND wear green tomorrow just in case those sneaky leprechauns do decide to come visit us!!

Happy Monday!!

Love- Mrs. Schroeder

1 MORE WEEK UNTIL SPRING BREAK!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?!?

Can you even believe it is March?!? I sure can’t…especially with this weather!!! THANK YOU to everyone who attended conferences last week. I know it was SUPER cold, but I appreciate you coming to hear all of the wonderful things we are doing. We will be having spring break in just a week. That means we are at the end of 3^rd quarter ( I can not even believe how fast this year is flying by!!) This week I will be giving some reading assessments and we will be taking a math test. This means we need our friends to be rested up and ready for a week of learning.

We will start Monday off with our annual Meadow Lane book parade!! I am SO excited to see what all of my friends will be wearingJ Remember to bring your book with you!! We will be reading in our classrooms after the parade and be having a healthy snack from our healthy challenge. The kids will need to have extra clothes if they wear an elaborate costume (we want them to be ready to learn. We will also be spending some of this week celebrating Dr. Seuss so you may see some things coming home about this author!! On Wednesday the Cat in the Hat will even be reading us a story!!!

In literacy we will be discussing what can go from here to there. This will include discussing transportation, which is what we are learning about for social studies!! Our vocabulary words will be transportation, vehicle, journey, fierce, and wide. The stories we will be reading are “When Daddy’s Truck Picks Me Up”, “The King of the Winds”, and “From Here to There.” We will be talking about how we can make predictions when we read, we will also be talking about the character, setting, and plot. The letters we will be learning will be ‘j’ and ‘q’.  Our two new sight words will be ‘here’ and ‘me’. During writing we will start talking about prepositions and poetry!! We are busy kids!!!

In math we will be finishing up our fourth unit. We will be working hard on teen numbers. We talk a lot about how many tens and ones a number has. For example, 13 has one ten and 3 ones. Of course, we continue to use  math talk every day and we really are getting SO smart with our math conversations.

In unit studies we will start talking about transportation. We learn about vehicles that go in the air, on the land, and in the water. This is a favorite among our kiddos as they really love talking about things that go!! Make sure you are watching for our cute book we will be making!!!

Don’t forget to bring back your shamrocks so we can see why your kindergarten kid is so lucky!!! If you have questions about them please let me know!! Also, don’t forget we will be having spring break from March 9^th- March 13^th!!!