Mrs. Bixby's Weekly Newsletter
KINDERGARTEN ROOM 116
Eisenhower Elementary School F e b ru a ry 1 0 , 2 0 1 7
Mrs. Bixby’s Weekly Newsletter Readers’ Workshop
Kindergarten Literacy Below are some books we enjoyed together: •
The 100th Day of School by Angela Medearis
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100 Days of School by Trudy Harris
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Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day of Kindergarten by Joseph Slate and Ashley Wolff
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Clifford’s Valentines by Norman Bridwell
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Love Splat by Rob Scotton
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Love Monsters by Rachel Bright
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There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose by Lucille Colandro
Letter, Word and Poems of the Week Our letter of the week is Z, zebra, /z/. Our snap word this week is were. This is a tricky word; we found it in our “Just Right Books” and in the new poems. We learned a poem to help us remember how to spell and read were. The class learned our 100 Days of School Poem and a “L-O-V-E Spells love” poem. Word detectives searched for words in-a-snap and shared pictures that came into their heads when they read these poems.
This week readers accomplished seven minutes of “Read-to-self.” They are learning how to choose books that are “Just Right” for them. Readers take a picture walk of the book and try to read the first three pages. If they have trouble with most of the words and feel frustrated it is “too hard;” if they can read every word quickly, it is “too easy;” and if they can read most of the words and have to use their reading tools (like tapping out each sound in the word and looking at the pictures for help), then is it “Just Right!.” Readers also went on a word family hunt and sorted words with ending chinks –at, -op, -og, -ug, ig. Our reading activities were: •
Hidden Snap Words
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Word Family Sort
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Roll a Snap Word and Race to the Top
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Chunk Book: -ap
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Roll a Chunk word, read it, color it.
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Choosing new “Just Right” books.
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Listening Center: Hedghog’s 100th Day of School by Lynne Marie and Lorna Hussey
• Teacher Table: Book Groups Writers’ Workshop—Y
100
This week “How To” writers wrote Valentine How To Books. They chose a person that they love in their family and wrote four steps on how to love that person. Our writers had many wonderful ideas including, giving hugs, drawing pictures, saying, “I love you,” helping them to clean and snuggling. They are excited to mail their How To love books to their families next week for Valentine’s Day!
Mrs. Bixby’s Weekly Newsletter Mathematics: The 100th Day of School This week mathematicians were wild about the 100th day of school! We spent the entire 100th day engrossed in several 100th day math projects. Mathematicians rotated among three stations where they created a Super 100 Cape with 100 dots, a huge poster with ten groups of ten different objects. Wow, that took so much patience and counting! We used a funny app called “Oldify” to see what we might look like when we are 100! That was kind of scary! We wrote a class book: I Wish I Had 100. Children loved reading 100 day books and singing 100 day songs. One of our favorite parts of the day was when we dressed up in our Super 100 capes, 100-bead necklaces and 100 crowns and had a 100-piece snack! We raised our water glasses and cheered to our 100-day smarter brains! We had a truly wonderful 100th day of school! Can you see what kindergartners are writing with their bodies in the photo below? Maybe your child can give you clues!
Learning Centers Kindergartners enjoyed writing Valentines in the Post Office and learning how mail is delivered! They have been writing letters to each other including their addresses. They love to check their post office boxes and retrieve their mail each day, as well as deliver mail to the mail box in the post office. Kindergarten explorers dug through the corn in the sensory table to discover Valentine treasures. At Star Project we learned how to reflect back on the past 100 days of school and think about how our brains have grown. We drew a picture of what our brains look like now and labeled the different parts that have grown. For example, “Now my brain knows how to use my words with friends, it knows how to count by tens to 100 etc.” Creative builders were busy all week making fascinating structures with 100 or more manipulatives. Science—Bulbs Scientists finalized our unit on bulbs and living things by observing their Paper White bulbs, recording how they smelled, looked and how tall they have grown. They also evaluated the results of our experiment bulbs. We were fascinated to discover that the bulb with no soil and the one with no sun had some growth. The cross-section bulbs we planted grew too! Scientists are excited to share their bulb journals and bulbs with families this weekend! Art: We found the “Art” in Hearts!
Reminders • Monday, February 13: Kindergarten Leads Rise and Shine • Tuesday, February 14: Valentine’s Day Party 2:00 • Monday, February 20: No School, Professional Development Day for Teachers • Friday, February 24: No School, Parent-Teacher Conferences
After reading Love Monsters and other Valentine’s books, we were inspired by hearts and love, so we decided to create our own Love Monsters. This week’s “heartworks” are made almost entirely of hearts and are full of love! We cut out colored paper hearts and glued them together with bouncy 3D legs and arms. Some of our masterpieces even have hair full of hearts! These very creative monsters will be on display for Valentine’s Day.
