Happy Birthday Micah!!!!

Mrs. Schroeder's Rock Stars want to wish this birthday guy a Happy 6th Birthday!!!!!! Micah's mom joined him for lunch today and he brought us some AWESOME treats!! We had vanilla AND chocolate cupcakes with football rings on the top (and LOTS of green frosting:)) He even brought us Ninja Turtle plates!! If your kindergarten kid came home with a green face and tongue it is because they enjoyed these great treats!! We hope Micah had a great birthday and he was able to get the flu mist (and NOT a shot:))

Happy Birthday to you!!

Birthday Boy!!!

YUMMY!!!!

Thanks mom!!!!

Authors!!

Did you know that we are authors?!?  It’s true!!!! We LOVE to write stories. We write stories from our lives. It could be about a trip to the store, dinner, breakfast, a car ride, playing outside, it can be about ANYTHING that happens in your life….even the simple things!! The last few weeks we have been working on writing sentences and labels in our stories. We use high-frequency words and we can even sound out words using turtle talk!!! We always make sure our pictures match our words and that we can reread our story to our friends. Ask your kindergarten kid what their writing star and wish is!! Enjoy the pictures of us writing and some samples of our writing!!

Beautiful Writing!!!

I can play ball.

I like ball!!

The kids can play. We can have fun.

Apple Time!!

We have been SO busy in kindergarten that I can’t stop posting pictures and videos. I am just so proud of how hard all of these great kids have been working!!! Last week we learned about apples….and we tasted A LOT of apple stuff!!!!! First, we talked about how an apple tree grows. First, we plant a seed, then comes a sprout, then a tree, and finally APPLES!!! Next, we made an apple and labeled all of its parts. Ask your smart kid where the core of the apple is, where the stem and leaf are, where the seeds are, and where the skin is!! I bet they can tell you! We also did an apple investigation (such a big word!) We each got to pick a red or green apple. Then we weighed our apple, measure how tall it was, and stamped the apple. We also tasted lots of apple stuff (bread, gum, apple sauce, apple jacks, apple pie, apple juice, and apples). Most of us LOVED everything, but there were a few sour faces! We even made Johnny Appleseed hats!! On Friday we enjoyed the beautiful weather and played some apple games. We pinned apples on a tree, rolled apples down a slide, dug for sight words, had apple races, and threw apple bean bags. We had so much fun!!!

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEO TO SEE HOW MUCH FUN WE HAD!!!!

Here is our Constitution Day video....finally! Enjoy!!!!

Math Rocks!

Did you know that what kids know about math when they enter kindergarten and first grade predicts their mathematics achievement for years to come-even throughout their school career?!?  This is why math is SO important!! We work hard in kindergarten to understand and explore numbers. Many days we do math mat activities. We use numbers 1-10 and try to build arrangements for those numbers using square-inch tiles, money, and shapes. The kids participate in collaborative conversations by using math talk to discuss mathematical ideas. We have also started telling oral story problems and finding a variety of ways to solve our story problems. We have learned we can use our fingers to count, draw pictures, and use our heads to count. At conferences I sent home some purple numbers and tiles that you can use to help your kindergarten kid. You can also tell story problems about family meal time and solve the problems together!! I am enjoying watching your children become mathematicians!!

Check out our video and see what we can do!!!!!

Firefigher Kyle

Happy Sunday!! Did your kindergarten kid tell you that we had a super special visitor on Friday?!? We were so lucky to have Fireman Kyle come to discuss fire safety with us! Kyle works at Station #9 in Lincoln and is the daddy to a special kindergarten kid named Sidney!! We were SO excited to hear all of the stuff he had to say!

Fireman Kyle talked to us about how we can use our 5-Senses to detect fire! We can see fire, we can hear fire, we can smell fire, and touch fire. We DON’T want to taste fire! We talked about having smoke detectors in our house and how IMPORTANT they are!! Mrs. Schroeder even learned that we need to sleep with our doors shut because that can help keep fire out! I started sleeping with my doors shut last night!

A favorite activity was practicing crawling on the ground. We learned that smoke goes up so we go down! We talked about how having two exits is very important. First, we should go to the door and then a window. We practiced crawling to these two spots….it took us back to our baby years!! Fireman Kyle also told us how important it is for us to use the back of our hand to feel the door because it isn’t as sensitive. If we see smoke or fire when we crack our door we need to go the second exit!!

Next, we talked about the difference between tools and toys. We have spent a lot of time talking about tools lately so this was perfect!! We even talked about what an emergency is and when we should call 911….some of our ideas were; if people get hurt, if there is a fire, if you get poked by a needle or knife, car accidents, and bike accidents (we NEED to wear our helmet to prevent these!)

The last thing we did was watch Fireman Kyle put on all of his awesome fire gear! He told us that when he puts his gear on he is going to look different and sound different. Many of my friends thought he sounded like Darth Vader!!! We discussed that we need to have a plan on where to meet our family if there is a fire and that we should NEVER go back into a fire for ANYTHING!!!!! Thanks so much Fireman Kyle for a great time!! We LOVED having you come visit!!

PLEASE CHECK OUT OUR VIDEO OF THE GREAT PICTURES FROM ALL OF THE FUN!!!

So Smart!!

Hello everyone!!! We have been SUPER busy in kindergarten the past few weeks:) Mrs. Schroeder has been super busy with conferences….THANK YOU to everyone that attended. I loved getting the chance to talk with you about your sweet kids!!!

In literacy we have been working very hard on our SIX high-frequency words!! We read, spell, and write every day……and we have really COOL cheers for each word!! You can even do the cheers with your kids at home since you have directions on how to do them!!!! These words help us write sentences and read books…YES I said READ!!! We have been reading every day!!! The kids are loving guided reading and working in a small group:) Our puppet Spot has also been helping us blend words. He says 3 sounds

 like….c-a-t….and we have to say the word….cat!! This is super tricky so you could practice with your kids at home throughout the entire day!! This week we have been learning about how tools can help us learn and work. Last week we discussed how we can explore using our senses!! As we read books we talk about what kind of text it is. Is it informational or fiction?? Ask you kindergarten kid to tell you what they know….they know about all kinds of books!! We have been working hard on nouns ( a person, place, thing, and animal) and they know these VERY well!! This week we started learning about verbs (action words)!! I know they LOVE to practice action words, like running, jumping, and hoppingJ We have LOTS of energy!!! This week we have been talking a lot about the letter ‘P” and last week we talked about the letter ‘S’….we have been making crafts for our alphabet books (ask your kids about the starry sky and the playful piano:)) We can even sort pictures by their first sound and ending sound!!!

Reviewing at guided reading

Story time on the computer!!

In writer’s workshop we continue to write stories from our lives. We work hard on matching our pictures and our words. We also try to add lots of detail to our pictures. Many of our friends are using turtle talk (sounding out words) to write their own labels and words!! We use a lot of what we learn during literacy (blending, alphabet letters, and high-frequency words) to write!! Please encourage your children to practice writing and drawing at home. They have AWESOME stories to tell you!!

In math we work hard on building arrangements for numbers 6-10!! We just finished up the assessment for numbers 1-5 and I must say we have some SMART kids:) This past week we were introduced to the 5-finder!! The kids love the 5-finder and finding groups of 5. They are understanding that it is easier to count sets when we have groups of 5!! At hoe you can even find groups of 5…..they are SO good at it!! Thanks for helping your kids do homework….please make sure that you are just helping them and not doing it for them.... It really does help them get smarter at our math skills!!

5-finder!!

In unit studies we finished talking about American Symbols (you got your awesome book at conferences:)) I will be posting a video from Constitution Day in the very near future. Thanks to everyone that returned their family constitutions!! The past couple of weeks we have been talking about the five senses. We have a fun song we sing! Ask your kindergarten vocalist to sing it for you!! They know it well!! We read books about each sense and we popped popcorn to finish up the unit. We discussed how the popcorn sounded when it popped (loud), how it smelled (delicious), how it felt (smooth), how it looked (white), and OF COURSE HOW IT TASTED!! It was so yummy and buttery!! We even through some sweetness into eat by adding m&m’s!! The kids loved this activity and so did Mrs. Schroeder :) Who doesn’t love to snack!!

Listening to the popcorn!!

Looking and feeling the popcorn!!

We continue to learn new songs. We learned the fish song the past couple of weeks ( a very silly song!!) We learned a owl song (guess whoooooo loves owls?? We do!!!) If you ordered books they came home today and thanks for all your participation in silly sock day!!! We had some great silly socks!! As a reminder we will have popcorn Friday next week and October 14^th and 15^th is fall break!! I hope you have a marvelous weekend (I hope it is not freezing!) 

Fish Song!!

Sleeping day time owls!!

Silly Socks!!

Thanks for my teacher socks Lily!!

Love-Mrs. Schroeder