Happy Holidays!

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday and are looking forward to the next week at home with your families. Here are a few pictures of the class together over the last few days of 2013!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Winter!

This is just a friendly reminder to make sure your student has their snow pants and snow boots for Tuesday. If they do not have the appropriate clothing, they won't be able to play in the snow or on the structure during recess times.

Please also remember to send in hats, gloves, scarves, winter jackets, etc. with names in each item so that your student stays warm and safe while playing outside.

It's already the middle of December?!

How is it that the month is half over and we only have one more week before vacation? Here's what we've been up to over the past two weeks.

Language Arts

We've had two new words introduced since we last caught up - my and of. The of cards will be sent home the week of 12/16. Please remember to continue practicing all of our sight words at home with your student.

I will be sending home more paper books for your student to keep at home and continue to practice reading to themselves and to someone at home. Look for these books by Wednesday.

We've learned 24 letters so far! Over the past two weeks we've learned Vv, Ww, Xx and Yy! This coming week, we'll be focusing on our last two letters, Qq and Zz. We're almost there!

Math

During math this week, we focused on the concept of "more" and "1 more." We are using these terms to help the students learn about number relationships.

Social Studies

 We've been learning about holiday lights from around the world. Last week we learned about Hanukkah's eight nights of lights. This week we learned about Kwanzaa and the seven principals of Kwanzaa.

We've also been learning our holiday songs for next week's upcoming Winter Concert!

Important Reminders

*The Winter Concert is scheduled for Wednesday, December 18th at 9:15 am. The classroom Holiday Party will immediately follow.
*Each child will participate in the Holiday Book Swap. Please send in a wrapped book with your student's name on it. The book should cost no more than $4.00 that be suitable for either gender. We will pick numbers from a hat to find out who we will swap books with.
*I will be updating the classroom share calendar and the volunteer schedule this week. If your schedule has changed since September, please let me know so that I may make the proper adjustments.
*Please remember to send your child to school with both snow boots AND snow pants. If they do not have both items, they will not be able to play in the snow or on the playground structure.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here is a little video about what we're all thankful for this year. A huge thank you goes out to Mrs. Klipfel who put everything together!

Enjoy and have a happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from Mrs. Inconiglios' Class

Where did all the turkeys go?!

We sent home turkeys for the families to decorate, but I'm not sure they made it back! Here are the wonderful disguises you all came up with for our classroom turkeys!

Busy Bees - Nov. 18

Language Arts

As this is the week before Thanksgiving, we've been working on a few great Thanksgiving and turkey related activities!

We read the book A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting this week and discussed her word choice when she wrote the book. She used great describing words like quietly, lumbered, blundered and crunched to described how each of the characters in the book made their way to Mr. and Mrs. Moose's house for Thanksgiving dinner. For our writing block, we did the same thing by discussing how we would get to their house and came up with some great words like quietly, fast, scrunched and crunched. 

Our sight word, my, for this week is a tricky word. This is one that we cannot sound out and need to memorize. Please be sure to continue working with your student on practicing reading these words.

We had a busy week in Fundations this week learning three new letters - Hh, Kk and Ll. As next week is a very short week for us, we'll continue to work on these letters on Tuesday and Wednesday to get extra practice with these letters.

Language Arts

We continue to work on decomposing and composing numbers to 5. Math In Focus uses specific language to help teach flexibility in student thinking. When you begin to see homework or classwork come home, you'll notice that we're using language that looks like "2 and 2 makes 4" or "4 is 2 and 2." It's very important that we understand how these numbers work together before we can begin using more traditional mathematical words like addition, subtraction and equals. 

Science

We've completed learning about our Five Senses! The students loved having our taste test on Tuesday and are remembering where we taste certain tastes (sweet, salty, sour, bitter) on our tongues. I'm impressed with how much we've learned about our senses over the past month!

Important Messages

*Wednesday is an early release at 12 noon. Please remember no lunch will be served, but we will still have snack in class that morning.

*Parent/Teacher conference reminders will be sent home on Tuesday, December 3.

*Parent/Teacher conferences for the 3-day program will be held on Friday, December 13.

Two Week Update! - Nov 4-15

It's been a few busy weeks! Sorry for the lateness of the posts!

Language Arts

Over the past two weeks we've been learning a lot and putting our newly acquired skills to good use!

In our Daily 5 routine we've added in two new activities - read to someone and listen to reading. We rotate our stations each Daily 5 time and the students will have the opportunity to read to self and read to someone each day. On Fridays, we're lucky enough to have the iPads in our classroom and use the Storia app from Scholastic to listen to reading. The students used the iPads as a whole class on Wednesday this week and nine students used the iPads on Friday and did an amazing job!

Fundations has been moving along and we've learned four new letters! Ee, Rr, Jj and Pp are the new letters from the past two weeks we've been working on. Please continue to work with your student on their letters both the sounds they make and how to write them the kindergarten way.

We've learned two new site words, are and for, over the last two weeks. We now have 10 sight words that the students have been introduced to. It's very important that you add the new sight words to your sight word ring and practice the words with your student at home.

Math

 We've completed chapter two and have started chapter 4. Last week we wrapped up chapter 2 with assessments that will be coming home shortly.

This week, we began learning the very important skill of composing and decomposing numbers to 5. This chapter will also focus on counting from 0 to 10.

Science

We continue to learn about our senses and learned about our sense of smell this week. We smelled different jars that contained four different smells - orange, onion, coffee and peppermint. The students did blind smell tests and had to decide as a group what they thought was in each. Next week - the sense of taste!

Important Messages

*The Kindergarten teachers will be giving the book There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow as our gift to each Kindergarten student next month during our book swap!
*Early release on Wednesday, November 27th at noon - no lunch is served that day.
*Parent/Teacher conferences will take place on Friday, December 13th. This day is also an early release, lunch will not be served.
*Our Kindergarten Winter Concert is scheduled for Wednesday, December 18th at 9:15 am. We will have the holiday part immediately following the concert.
*Your student will participate in a Holiday Book Swap! Please make sure that the book is suitable for either a boy or a girl and the book is no more than $4.00. Please wrap the book and have your student's name on the gift as the giver.

A Hauntingly Fun Week! - October 29

Language Arts

This week we did a lot! We have finally reached our stamina goal of reading independently for 15 minutes. We've now moved on to practicing reading to someone else and taking turns reading during our 15 minutes. Next week, our goal is for each student to read for 15 minutes independently and read to someone else for 15 minutes.

In Fundations, we learned two new letters - Dd and Ss. The students are really beginning to own the sounds they're learning in Fundations and are beginning to apply them to their writing. Our next goal is for us to apply our letter formations to our writing as well as the sounds. We practiced writing the letters we've already learned by only hearing the sound they make. That is also a great activity for you to do at home with your student if you're looking for something else to practice with them at home.

I sent home on Wednesday our two new site words from last week and this week - at and to. I found an extra set on the ground after the party. If you're missing those words from your student's word ring, please let me know so I can send it home! Your student also brought home their very first sight word book for "I" on Wednesday. This is a book that we've practiced since September and will be able to read to you! Please make sure to have your student practice reading with this "just right fit" book.

The class was given a difficult task on Friday afternoon. We practiced our story retelling skills all by ourselves! On the whole, we did a great job for so early in the year! During November, we'll be focusing on only two parts of our story retelling - setting and characters - so that we can really begin to understand all of the parts of story retelling.

Math

We've almost completed Chapter 2 in Math in Focus! We've gotten through 8 and 9 this week and will focus on the number 10 on Tuesday. This week, we'll focus on assessments and finishing up the chapter!

Science

We've moved on to learn about our sense of hearing. We took a hearing walk around the school stopping at various locations, closed our eyes, and listened to everything that was going on. We heard doors opening and closing, machines humming, talking, laughing, cars, birds, honking horns and lots of footsteps.

Important Messages

*Thank you to all of the parents for making an exceptionally fun Halloween Parade and Party! I'm so happy that you were all able to make it!

*Our volunteer schedule has begun. If you're unsure of whether or not you've signed up to volunteer, please contact me via email. If you've lost your schedule, please let me know and I will resend it to you.

*We will be learning about our sense of taste on Tuesday, November 19th. If you would like a list of foods being given out for our taste test, please let me know.

*There is an early release on Friday at 1:15.

What a Whirlwind Week! - October 22

This week just FLEW by! I hope that it was a bit more relaxed in your home!

Language Arts

Go Away Big Green Monster!, by Ed Emberley was our source of inspiration this week during Writer's Workshop. We talked about the author's carefully picked describing words, or his word choice, that help us not only see with our eyes, but imagine in our minds, what the Big Green Monster looks like even if we didn't have the pictures in the book. Each student made their own Big Green Monster using brightly colored paper and a green paper plate. The students then used their own word choice to describe one part of their monster - nose, teeth, hair, ears, mouth - and spent a lot of time writing down as many sounds as they heard using their inventive spelling.

This week we learned two new letters, Aa and Gg. The students are really settling into the routines of Fundations and have learned 11 letters - a, b, c, f, g, i, m, n, o, t and u!

One of our goals for kindergarteners this year will be for them to retell familiar stories with little prompting from an adult. This means that students can tell you about a story's setting, characters, problem(s), events (beginning, middle and end), and the ending. To begin our learning together, we read the book The Legend of Spookly the Square Pumpkin, by Joe Troiano and worked together in groups to retell the story. The students did an amazing job for their first time working in groups cooperatively together and making sure they added the right details to each poster for the setting, characters, problems and the ending. We'll begin working on retelling events in the coming weeks.

Math

We're almost to 10! During our Math In Focus this week we looked at the numbers 8 and 9. The students are also learning and using a lot of different math skills in our Daily Calendar Math. We've been learning to count on, predicting and place value.

Science

We've begun learning about our Five Senses! This week we used our eyes to explore colors, mixing colors and talking about all of the things we use our eyes to do.

Important Reminders

• As we look forward to our Halloween Parade on Wednesday, October 30th at 2:00 pm, please remember to send your student's costume to school in a bag with their name on it. Also, there are no weapons allowed in the school. I hope you can join us for the parade and party!
• Please remember to check the share calendar on the website for your student's new share date. We've gone through one cycle already and are ready for new shares from friends!
• Our Kindergarten Winter Concert is scheduled for Wed. December 18th at 9:15 am.

The Tale Is True!

If you heard a tall tale this weekend from your student about a "lizard" being found in our room - they  weren't fibbing, telling a fish story, stretching the truth or lying! It was all true!

After we returned from our field trip, we gathered on the rug for our two shares. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a student holding something black - which I thought was plastic. I asked where they had gotten it, and all of a sudden, it started moving around!

Our custodian, Kory, informed us that it was an endangered yellow spotted salamander! They live in the Audubon next door and he must found his way inside through a door or window that was left open. He's safe back in the wild now, but it was a pretty great finish to our fun day!

 

Community Field Trip

Our community field trip around Topsfield was very exciting! The students had a wonderful time visiting each of our community helpers, learning more about what they do here in Topsfield and how they help our community.

Below are pictures of the day beginning at the library, moving to the fire department, then to the police station and finishing up at the post office.

A Short Teaching Week - October 18

Week Overview

This week was an extremely short week for us here in 309. We only had Wednesday to learn together, so we reviewed a lot of what we'd learned the week before.

In Fundations, we continued to focus on the letters Cc and Oo and were able to take more time to practice reading with Echo The Owl and making learning our letters fun. 

We also worked on our journal writing and are making great progress with our inventive spelling and adding details to our pictures. The students are getting more comfortable with putting down letters they're hearing when they stretch out their words. We're really becoming a room full of writers!

Math In Focus this week worked on the number 8. We practiced counting and writing the number in our workbooks. We're also beginning to look more and one-to-one correspondence when counting to these higher numbers, like 8. 

 

October 7th Classroom Headlines

Language Arts

This week, we focused on our favorite thing to do at the fair in our Writer's Workshop Journal time. We read the book, Time for the Fair, by Mary Train. We had a chance to share what our favorite part of visiting the Topsfield Fair and then we wrote about what we shared in our journals. Some of our ideas were going down the big slide, going on elephant rides, playing carnival games and visiting the bee hive building.

Our new sight word, "in," was introduced on Tuesday and we practiced throughout the week. Please make sure to add the new card to your student's sight word ring and practice the new word at home.

Fundations will be stretched over two weeks as next week is a very short week. We're learning Cc and Oo this week. We've already learned how to write these letters using our Fundations writing grid, did a two-way sort using pictures that begin with these letters and are getting used to the sounds these letters make. Next week, we'll make these letters fun by doing lots of different types of learning with the letters to continue our practice.

Math

Our math learning has moved on to the numbers 7 and 8 this week! We're learning rhymes to help with our counting and are looking at different arrangements of the numbers 7 and 8 to learn that no matter how many different ways we see our numbers arranged, they'll always end up being 7 and 8. We do this by counting the same number of objects in a circle or looking at different arrangements of objects with groups of smaller numbers in lines that we count all together.

In our Everyday Calendar math, we've been looking at arrangements of numbers to 9 using dominos. The students are learning to look at the arrangement of dots and quickly saying the number of dots they're seeing. This is called subitizing and we'll be working with different arrangements of dots on 10-frames throughout the year helping students to see numbers to 10 in various forms as part of our Common Core Standards.

Health

This week we were visited by Jump Roper, Mark Rothstein. The students had a wonderful time learning different ways of jumping rope and exciting new things to try while staying active. The students were excited and engaged, having a wonderful time on Friday afternoon.

Looking Ahead

Volunteers will begin next week, Wednesday, October 16. Please let me know if you signed up to volunteer, but did not receive your schedule Friday afternoon.

Our Community Field Trip is scheduled for Friday, October 18 with a rain date of Wednesday, October 23. We will be doing a lot of walking that day between the Topsfield Fire Department, Police Department, Post Office and Library. Please be sure to dress your student in sneakers/comfortable walking shoes and appropriate clothing for the weather. Please also send in a paper bag lunch with your student's name on it and be sure to keep in mind our Tree Nut/Peanut Free classroom. 

Our Halloween Parade and Classroom Celebration is scheduled for Wednesday, October 30th beginning at 2:00 pm. I know that our Room Parents have been in touch with everyone with details for the day, but if you have misplaced any information, please let us know. Also, please keep in mind that costumes should be age appropriate and safe for all students. I hope you can join us for the parade!

What did we do this week?

Language Arts

We had a very busy week in our Language Arts learning.

During Writer's Workshop we read the book Apples and Pumpkins, by Anne Rockwell. We discussed what some of our favorite things to do during the fall are, just like the little girl in our book. We came up with lots of great ideas including apple picking, pumpkin carving, raking leaves and jumping in leaf piles, and going to the Topsfield Fair. We also are continuing to discuss our inventive spelling and are getting the hang of putting down the letters that match the sounds we hear when pulling our words slowly out of our mouths. 

It was a busy week in our sight word learning, too, by learning two new words, is and it. We did a lot of practice reading the words with our new book What is it?, writing and identifying both words and will continue to practice with these, and our other words, during morning meeting and other parts of our day. 

During our Fundations time, we introduced the letters Ii and Uu - two very tricky vowels for new readers. We practiced with Baby Echo by stretching our the short Ii and Uu sounds so that we can begin to hear the difference between our vowels which will help in our writing now and later on.

Math

We completed our first chapter in Math In Focus! The students completed their first assessment as well which will come home to parents on Tuesday. We then began reading, writing and working with the numeral 6. We'll now be working with numbers from 1-6.

The students also practiced writing our numbers by completing our October calendar.

Science & Health

We were able to get outside again this week during science. We were scientists again this week by using magnifying glasses to see objects we found outside in more detail. We drew our objects in detail on our observation sheets using correct colors, size and details like scientists in the real world.

We continued our discussion about being safe and making sure we're with a buddy when we're in a public space. We also discussed that if we want to do something that might mean we're by ourselves for a few minutes, we check with an adult before going to do our activity. 

Other News

*During art class, Ms. Lang had our class create an art piece for the Topsfield Fair! Our artwork will be hung in the Public Safety Building at the fair - make sure to stop by with your students while visiting the fair this week!

*Our share calendar has been going wonderfully this week! The shares we've had so far have been perfect and we've had great conversations around each of them - thank you!

*I have been working on a volunteer schedule for our parents for the last week, and it's been tough making sure we're fitting everyone in. I am hoping to have it solidified by Monday and will be sending individual emails to parents with their scheduled days to visit the classroom. Please remember that you MUST have a CORI on file with Mrs. B in the office in order to volunteer in the classroom.

*More information about our upcoming Community field trip will be coming home this week - watch your student's folder for the permission form.

September 27 Classroom Headlines

Language Arts

This week during Writer's Workshop, we continued to work in our journals by writing personal narratives. The students were encouraged to create detailed pictures and then dictated their stories for me. We're beginning to work on stretching out our words by "pulling" them out of our mouths. Tying in a kenistetic movement, like pulling something apart slowly, helps students understand that they need to stretch out the words they're saying in order to hear all of the sounds in that word. The goal right now is for the students to begin hearing beginning or ending sounds they can write down as their inventive spelling, helping us to get used to writing by ourselves in our journals. 

Our new sight word this week is "the." The students worked on reading the word with our newest book bag book, Setting The Table.This book was put into our browsing bag in the classroom and will be used in the classroom over the coming weeks as one of our "just right books" for the students to read during our Daily 5 time.

We introduced the letters Mm and Nn this week in Fundations. Homework for these letters will be sent home on Tuesday, October 1.

Math

We have finished our first chapter in Math In Focus! We worked with the number 5 this week by counting groups of 5 and writing the numeral 5 in our workbooks.

To tie in with our apple activities this week, we read 10 Apples Up On Top, by Dr. Seuss. The students traced the numerals 1-10 on apples, cut the apples out and then pasted them in order on top of a drawing of their own heads.

Health & Science

We continued to discuss being safe in public by talking about using the Buddy System. We talked a lot about why and when we need to use a buddy to keep safe.

In science, we began using scientific tools, large magnifying squares, outside to observe what was in our square. We then recorded our observations by drawing pictures of what we saw in our squares.

Other News

*We will begin our share calendar this week. Each child will have an opportunity to bring in an object or tell a story that is important to them. I mentioned to the students that when they share these objects or stories that I'll ask three questions - What is it? Where did you get it? and Why is it important to you? The share calendar is now posted on our blog.

*Thank you for offering to volunteer in our classroom! I will begin contacting parents this week with our volunteer schedule for the next few months. My hope is that our volunteers will begin the week of October 7th.

The Second Week - Sept. 20th

I was excited to meet and talk with all of the parents during curriculum night on Wednesday. Thank you for your thoughtful questions. If any other questions pop up while reviewing the jam-packed folder, just let me know!

Language Arts

The whole class has been practicing writing our full names to get practice with all of the letters of our names. We will continue to practice writing our names over the coming weeks as well. We also graphed our names by how many numbers were in each student's name. We found that we had most names with five letters!

Fundations - We have been introduced to three new letters, Tt, Bb and Ff, this week. The students have been practicing these sounds in various ways by sky writing (drawing air letters), tracing the letters in their workbooks, and writing letters on the dry erase boards in class. We've been working on our pencil grip and use our chant - grip, grip, pencil grip - to help remind us of how to hold the pencil each time we write. We will also begin sending our first homework practice pages for letters Tt, Bb and Ff next Tuesday, September 24.

Writer's Workshop - We read the book, All the Places to Love, by Patricia McLachlan and talked about how authors use ideas that are very important to them to inspire their writing. The students wrote and drew about a place that they love.

Math In Focus

We jumped right into our math program this week, Math In Focus. We practiced using numbers to 4 in various ways this week. We looked at pairs of items, how pictures and objects can be the same and different from others, and began using manipulatives to help aid us in our math thinking. 

Science and Health

We began talking about being safe during the fall and the height of our town's exciting time, the Topsfield Fair. We began by practicing writing our name, town, state and phone number. We will continue talking about keeping ourselves and others safe over the coming weeks.

During our morning meetings and other moments in our day, we have also been talking about making sure we're all safe and happy in our classroom. The students worked together to create a set of our own classroom rules this week and we illustrated what it meant to promise each other be kindr, help our friends, use walking feet, not hurt anyone on the inside or the outside, and to raise our hands and wait for our turn to talk. We will continue working together to create a classroom in which we're all feeling safe and are able to take learning risks together.

Reminders

If you plan to chaperon OR volunteer in our classroom, please be sure to contact Mrs. B. in the front office to complete a CORI check. 

Early release will be on Wednesday, September 25 at 1:15 pm.

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Welcome to the first week of Kindergarten! Our class has been getting into our routines and having fun playing and working together.

I'll be adding information on our curriculum, activities and news from our classroom on this blog. My hope is to have information updated every Friday or Saturday for the previous week.

I can't wait to see you all at Curriculum night on Wednesday, September 18th at 7:00 pm. I'm looking forward to discussing the classroom, curriculum and our upcoming year together!