Exciting Days Ahead...Friday, February 14th, we will celebrate Valentines' Day. Diane (Felix's mom) is planning an afternoon of fun that will include a valentine exchange. If your child chooses to bring cards to pass out it must be for the whole class. I am attaching a list of class names to help you prepare. When students get back from PE and recess at 3:00 we will have a class party. Family members are always welcome.
Monday, February 24th we will return from Mid- Winter Break (February 17th - 21st) to celebrate the 100th Day of School. This is a pretty big deal in kindergarten, involving a day full of fun activities! Students are asked to bring 100 of something from home that they can display for our 100 things gallery walk. Start talking to your student(s) about what they want to bring. You can send the 100 things in on the 100th day or, if you are like me and worry that you will forget the day after break, you can send them in sometime this week for me to hold on to. If you do forget, don't worry. I will have some backup collections to share. This Thursday, the kindergarten teachers will be out of our classrooms planning for our next PBL project! This "All About Animals" project integrates much of our spring academic instruction, including our Animals 2x2 Science unit, our Nonfiction Reading and Writing units, and our Measurement Math standards. Our PBL standards for this project will focus on collaborative group work. The project activities will teach the students the skills required to function as a member of a team working towards a specific goal and help them develop/strengthen these skills. On Thursday, March 6th we will launch this project with a field trip to the zoo. We will ride school buses, leaving the school at 9:45 am and returning by 1:30 pm. Permission slips will be sent home early this week. Please let me know... * if your child needs to buy a school sack lunch * if your family has a zoo pass (send in a copy) * if you are interested in chaperoning! Chaperones will lead a group of about 5 students to specific destinations at the zoo and may help take notes about the animals along the way! On the day of the field trip, please make sure you send a disposable sack lunch and dress your child for potential rain and lots of walking. | Wrapping Up Narrative Writing Recently, each student selected a true story from their writing folder that best reflected who they are as a writer and assessed it using our narrative and editing rubrics. I then asked the students to write an "On Demand" narrative assessment, giving them about 40 minutes (two 20 minute sessions) to use all they have learned as writers to write a true story about their life that is easy to read. I took the video posted below about 10 minutes into the first 20 minute "On Demand" writing session. In it you will see for yourself their stamina and focus ~ hunched over their papers and writing / sketching with purpose! What grown up, independent writers they have become! I just finished posting January writing pieces on the students' e-folios and am SO proud of how much progress each writer has made. Please take time to read and celebrate your student's recent writing, sharing comments for your writer about the exciting growth you see! Sharing our opinions about the books we read...If you have not had a chance to listen to any of our retell audio clips that we have been adding to our January 20th Childrens' Choice Book Nominations blog post, please do so. Last week, we also used our writing to share our opinions about these books with our readers. Here are a few for you to enjoy. Tracking Our Supplies... |