Tomorrow's Field Trip

Hello parents!

I've been trying to check our email to be sure that you all know our field trip for tomorrow has been postponed, but the email server is still down. I'm hoping that most of you will have received Mrs. Costa's email, but wanted to be doubly sure you all knew!

Our email should be up and running by tomorrow morning, so please feel free to email me with any questions about the rain date for next Thursday.

Thank you and have a wonderful evening!

Mrs. I.

All The Places To Love

To begin our Writer's Workshop this year,  our class has been discussing how writer's take their own experiences and memories to write their own stories. We also discuss that in kindergarten we write stories about things we know and that have happened to us in our own lives. This helps us to add lots of details to our writing. (This is part of our Common Core writing standards for students to narrate a single event that happened to them through drawings, dictation and writing.)

During Writer's Workshop, we read the book, All the Places to Love by Patricia MacLachlan. This book has wonderful, detailed illustrations of all the places the little boy and his family loves best on their farm. In the end, the little boy cannot wait to begin to share his favorite places with his new little sister.

After reading the book, we discussed the places that we love best and a place we might want to share with someone in our own lives. We came up with some really great ideas, some of them are...

After brainstorming, we then began writing about our own place we love best. This early in kindergarten, we're looking for students to add details to their drawings, but don't expect lots of writing (or much more than one letter for each word!). Below are a few places we love best with lots of details in our drawings - and even a few labels!

My little sister is lying on a towel and I'm in a chair. I'm at the beach!

I was at Virginia for Easter. I had an egg hunt with my family and Eric and Emily.

Kindergarten Scientists

We've begun to learn about what a scientists is and how they do what they do. Our class discussed "what is a scientist" this week and came up with some really great ideas. In the words of our kindergarteners, a scientist is:
*someone who discovers things
*someone who finds dinosaur bones
*someone who looks at stuff to try to make new stuff
*someone who asks questions
*someone who knows a lot about outside

After we thought about what we think a scientist is, we read a book and found out they observe, write, draw pictures, make predictions, experiment many times, measure, and keep on trying.

After we did all of this thinking and listening, we were ready for our own experiment! I asked them to make a prediction of where water would go away faster - the sun or the shade. We had a 50/50 prediction on where it would go away faster, so we decided to jump right in an experiment ourselves.

As scientists, we tried to find out if the water would disappear faster in the sun or in the shade. So, we painted water in both areas.

We painted water lines all over the pavement! 

Most of us found that the water disappeared faster in the sun, others were thinking the shade might make the water disappear faster. 

Once we had tested our predictions with the water, we went back inside to write and draw about our findings. Most of the children noticed that the water went away faster in the sun. Here are some examples of their work:

Parent Night and Happy Weekend!

Hello!

I'm hoping that each of you have had a wonderful end to your weeks since seeing you on Tuesday evening.

I wanted to pass along my teacher introduction to you all just in case you missed it!

I also wanted to be sure that everyone knows that I'll be working on the student share calendar and volunteer schedule shortly and should have it posted to our classroom site soon!

If you have any questions on the curriculum packet, housekeeping items or general classroom items, please feel free to email me at binconiglios@topsfieldps.org.

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Welcome to Room 309!

Hello Kindergarten Families!

I am so excited to begin the 2014/2015 school year with you today!

I am looking forward to teaching and getting to know your student. I can't wait to start learning about each student individually and as a community of kindergarten learners.

Our first few weeks together will be focused on learning about our school and classroom. Your student will soon be learning a lot about math, reading, writing and how they can become scientists in their world each day in the coming weeks. I can't wait to see them look at the world inquisitively and ask many of the million questions that are running through their heads each day. 

The first few weeks will be a lot of work for them and they'll most likely come home tired, but I hope, excited about what they're doing each day! Keep encouraging them that they're learning a lot and should feel proud of themselves and what they're able to accomplish each and every day of kindergarten. 

If you have any questions as our year kicks off, please feel free to email me any time at binconiglios@topsfieldps.org.

Sincerely, 

Mrs. I.

Touch Tank Fun!

This week, the kindergarten classes were visited by marine biologist, Ellen Goethel. Ellen brought lots of interesting items with her including whale bones, teeth and baleen, shark teeth, shells and, of course, the touch tank animals!

Ellen taught the children the different names of the animals they were observing and being able to touch including crustations, bivalves, and echinoderms (starfish). The children were able to pick up various types of animals including a lobster, spiny crab, snow crab, red mud crab, many types of starfish, and a horseshoe crab which we learned is a living fossil.

Ellen also operates Explore the Ocean World, LLC in Hampton Beach, NH. There is a 150 gallon touch tank which houses many different animals found in the Gulf of Maine. Ellen's information is:
Explore the Ocean World, LLC
367 Ocean Boulevard, #3
Hampton Beach, NH
Open daily 10-5 from July - Labor Day
exploretheoceanworld@hotmail.com

Weekly Update - 4/29-5/2

Language Arts

This week, we learned a new sight word, "from." We have only three more to learn!

Some students are missing their reading bags (plastic gallon ziploc bags). Please remember these books need to be returned to school each Tuesday and will be sent home the day your student has their reading group. If you think you may have misplaced this bag, please just let me know.

We continue work in unit 4 of Fundations. We are practicing digraphs (ch, sh, wh, th, ck) and have learned the rule that "ck" appears at the end of words with short vowel sounds. The students are really enjoying trying to figure out how to spell "trick" words like chick, sock, and back. They're doing great work with this skill! We will complete Unit 4 this week and begin our fifth and final unit next Tuesday.

As we move into the last two months of school, the students will begin to focus on informational writing during 6+1 Traits of Writing. We have also begun to look at non-fiction texts and learn the various traits that make them non-fiction - the book teaches you something, the information is all true, some books have table of contents, most of the illustrations are real photographs, etc. We will begin learning more about these types of texts and exploring our own informational writing in the coming weeks.

Math

We have begun Chapter 14 and are again working on the skills of counting on to the number 20. Please continue to work with your student at home both during homework and down time to work on this very important skill. Over the past few days we have begun to look at the different ways we can make the same number (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10). Next week, we will be moving into the teen numbers.

Important Reminders

*Early release Friday, May 9th at 1:15 pm. Lunch will be served this day.
*Mrs. O'Brien spent the week with us getting to know the students and how our classroom routines work. Please continue to discuss this transition with your student at home as I will be talking with them next week as well. I will now begin to prepare the students for my final day, May 16th, and will also talk about the possibility of Mrs. O'Brien coming early if I need to leave earlier than expected.
*The Kindergarten Portfolio Breakfast is scheduled for Tuesday, June 10th. More detailed information will be coming to you shortly about this very exciting day for families and students in the coming weeks.