Mrs. Bixby's Weekly Newsletter
KINDERGARTEN
Eisenhower Elementary School
ROOM 116
A p r il 2 8 , 2 0 1 7
Mrs. Bixby’s Weekly Newsletter Kindergarten Literacy
Readers’ Workshop
Below are a few of this week’s books. We decided to mix things up a bit and read some books about robots, in honor of our very important Art Elements Review lesson at the end of the week.
This week the class learned two new poems, searched for sight words, rhyming words and punctuation marks. Readers enjoyed reading their “Just Right Books” to partners.
• Robots, Robots Everywhere! by Sue Fliess
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Hidden Word: Readers chose snap words to write with white crayon and color over with markers to make the words magically appear.
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Ladybug Life Cycle Books: Readers wrote a book detailing the different stages of a ladybug’s life cycle.
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Word Books: Readers stretched out and wrote each sound in CVC, CVCE, and CCVC words.
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-ick Word Family Books: Readers read and wrote words in the –ick family.
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Roll a real word or nonsense word: Readers roll three letter cubes and read the word (tap out each sound in the CVC word). Is it a nonsense word (silly word that is not real) or a real word?
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Self Portraits and nice, neat name writing.
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Book Group
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Listening Center: Bear and Duck by Katy Hudson
• Clink by Kelly DiPucchio • Pete the Cat: Robo-Pete by James Dean • Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman • Robo Sauce by Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri • Silly Sally by Don and Audrey Wood • Randy Riley’s Really Big Hit by Chris Van Dusen Writers’ Workshop—Opinion Writing Writers began a new opinion book reflecting on their learning this year in kindergarten. They are working on writing to convince a reader that they are amazing kindergartners. We learned about alliteration when we read Silly Sally and used alliteration to create an exciting title for our books. Examples are: Brooklynn’s Bright Brain, Luke’s Learning, Lovely Lillian, Jazzy Jeremy, Cute Kendyl, Terrific TJ and Radical Rex. We can’t wait to share our writing during our Publishing Party May 19! Science: Ladybug Life Cycles We released our ladybugs on Monday. Each scientist found a special spot outside to let our ladybugs go free. Some even found other types of ladybugs living outside and even some ladybug larva crawling around. It was fascinating to explore the difference between our Pink Spotted Lady Beetles and the other ladybugs already outside.
Mrs. Bixby’s Weekly Newsletter Math: Money, Money, Money Continues!
Learning Centers
Mathematicians continued to explore the world of money and coins. We went on coin hunts around the classroom and practiced singing our money poems to help us identify each coin (heads and tails sides), and the value amount. Below are the six new math station games we played this week.
At Star Project kindergartners continued to work on their class fact book about ladybugs.
How much money in your piggy bank?: Mathematicians have a book of piggybanks. Each page says the piggy bank should have a certain amount, and a mathematician’s job is to use coins to make the correct amount of money in the bank. Coin Sort: Mathematicians cut, sort and glue the heads, tails and value amount of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Real Coin Sort: Mathematicians have a cup of real coins and sort them into labeled containers (penny, nickel, dime, quarter). Heads or Tails?: Mathematicians toss a cup of 10 pennies and record how many heads and tails. Coin Graphing: Mathematicians sort, count and graph the number of pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters in a bag. Bankrupt: Mathematicians pick and read coin sticks from a cup. When they pick a stick, they say the name of the coin on the end until they pick a stick with the word “Bankrupt,” then mathematicians have to put all their money sticks back in the cup and start again.
Builders enjoyed creating houses, castles and towers using the big blocks in the block center, and building with Magna Tiles and Playtix. The writing and creativity table has been very busy recently too! They experimented with sand in the sensory table. It was interesting to see what you can/cannot make with wet sand versus dry sand. Art Review Lesson: Elements of Art RETRO ROBOTS! This week artists designed their own “Retro Robots” incorporating all the elements of art that we have learned in kindergarten. We read some robot books to get an understanding of the fantastical robots of yesteryear. Then we used a slide show to review the elements of art that we have learned so far: Color, shape, line, pattern, 3D shapes and texture. After finding kindergarten art elements in retro robot photos, artists set about making a robot that had a little bit of everything. Detail oriented artists even had a checklist to make sure they included all the art elements. The biggest feature of each robot is kindergarten’s most important art element, which is, of course,
FUN!
Reminders •
Friday, May 19: Kindergarten Publishing Party Breakfast. 7:50-8:50. All family and friends welcome!
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Please make sure all library books are returned by May 12.
