November Week 4

Dear Kindergarten Parents,

I am grateful for you! 

Here's the Gratitude Chart the K Kids created last Wednesday via Zoom.

Notice there are no toys listed?  Wow! That doesn't always happen.

You're doing it right!

Love,

Your child's teacher

#oreos❤😂

Me, too, DR, me, too!

Meanwhile at my home....

We made these for our 18 year old Rice Crispy loving son! 

Here's our sharing schedule for the upcoming week....

We are really doing hard things now! 

This is listening for the letter T sound...

Here are next week's skills for the week of November 30-December 4:

Literacy: Letter Cc, star work *a*, adjectives for colors, beginning sounds

Math: Data

Theme: Polar Animals

Social Studies: Meeting Needs Long Ago and Today

Science: We Can Change Objects

No School on Monday, December 7 Teacher Workshop Day

Big News; No School on Monday, December 7: Teacher Workshop

November Week 3

(page way down for the sharing chart for next week) 

Wow!  What a turkey of a week we had!  And I mean that in a good way!

Thank you for sending in the adorable family project turkeys.  The kids are doing an amazing job with their speeches telling us about their turkey!

Hahaha!  Here's the k kids showing off their little turkey finger puppet!  Usually they would have designed them in school but...oh you know!

Here's just one of the fun and educational charts we made this week...verbs for Run, Turkey, Run!

On this one we introduced Adjectives to describe this turkey...

And here's the five senses chart we worked on ALL week!

And now for the week of November 23-25:

Reading/Language Arts: Letter Tt, star word we​, 

~at family, adjectives

Math: Data

Social Studies: Our Families Now and Then

Theme: Thanksgiving and Gratitude

BIG NEWS: 

No School on Thursday and Friday, November 26-27 for Thanksgiving

November Week 2

Well,  here we go again...

My heart hurts for the kiddos who need to be at school to learn with their friends and me.

My heart hurts for every family that is struggling right now.

My heart hurts for administration who have these hard decisions to make. 

My heart hurts because I really really miss my k kids!

Mostly my heart hurts for folks who are losing people they love to this virus. 

But....

We can do this!   

We have to do this!  

I'm here.  

I'll help where I can.

Please reach out with questions, concerns,  but don't forget the celebrations!   There is joy to be found here, too.

So of course there's not many photos of the week...

But here's one that made the kids smile:

We had class in "outerspace"!

And here's a little mantra I need to repeat (and a painted this with my daughters this weekend! )

There really is soooo much to be thankful for! 

And now for the week of November 17-20:

Reading Language Arts: Letter A (short and long a sound), star word *see*, beginning sounds, and adjectives.

Math: Comparing #s to 10

Theme: Turkeys

Science: 5 Senses

BIG NEWS:

No School Monday, November 16 Workshop

Please sign up for conferences through the link sent to you earlier.

Thanksgiving Break: Thursday-Friday November 26-27

November Week 1 Letter Mm, Star Word "and", Candy Corn and Scarecrows~

Thanks to everyone who came on over for Trick or Treating at my house. 

It did my heart good to see the kiddos!

Hey!  We did it! 

We have a week of Distance Learning under our belts!

We worked hard and got our projects and pages done.

We shared and sang.

We laughed and cried (oh, that we ME!...sorry about that I just love that book about friendship but seriously I cannot get through it without crying)

Here's how I teach now!  Wow, I really miss those smiling faces that are usually in those chairs!

Oh my!

Those tiny scarecrows turned out sooooo cute!

Enjoy!

So here's a few things I learned this week:

i WILL NOT UNMUTE the entire class. 

 Nope. That does not work.

I WILL try to allow kids to unmute one at a time to share more often (this takes a bit longer than normal but it's the best we can do right now)

I WILL keep smiling and trying.  

Thanks for your patience and support!

First I want to THANK YOU!  You are all doing such a great job being near your kindergartener.  Someone asked me WHY adults had to be near.  Here's the best answer I could give:  In my classroom I give directions and then give them time to work.  I would never just leave them to struggle alone.  I am there to offer guidance and support.  I encourage and push.  That is your job now.  You can do it!!!!   (you'll notice I do not always tell them the answer, kids' brains need to be trained to THINK and as adults we are too quick to give them the answers...I am guilty of that too!)

Please take a moment to remind your child about the expectations for Distance Learning:

Eating and snack and gum chewing is for break time NOT DURING CLASS. Water drinking is OK.

Toys, pets, other items not needed for the lesson should be cleared away.

Students need to stay in their work area until break time or until asked to do something else.  Check those screens to make sure we can SEE your child.

Materials should only be opened on the day needed. Please DO NOT WORK ahead. Please DO NOT sort through materials.  Everything is in order for our day's schedule.

Completed materials should be clipped to the cover page (morning message) for the day and returned on the next materials pick up day.

SPEAKER view is the optimal setting.  Gallery view is not needed unless we ask for it. Kids on gallery view tend to look at each other instead of what's being taught

Marker boxes and supplies should be tidied up between each activity.  

Keep up the good work!!!!!   

Here's our online times:

8:10-9:30 Seat work, Morning Meeting, Math with me (Fridays Library)

9:30-10:30 PE and Music

10:30-11:30 BREAK TIME

11:30-12:00  Reading Language Arts with me (Thursday Guidance)

12:00-1:00 LUNCH AND RECESS BREAK

1:00-2:15ish  Story Time, educational videos for rest (optional) Centers and Theme projects. 

When the last project is done the kiddos are done for the day!

Let's hope this is the last packet you have to pick up! Next week in all ready to go!

And now for the week of November 10-13:

Reading/Language Arts: Letter Ss, star word review, verbs

Math: Comparing numbers to 10

Theme: Outer Space

Science: Sorting Manmade vs. Natural objects

Big News: No school for kids on 

Monday, November 9 and 

Monday, November 16 

Workshop days

Conferences coming soon!

October Week 4

Last weekend we hosted a zoom painting class for some of our grandbabies who are located from Atlanta to Indianapolis! 

I love love love these Halloween cats painted by my little loves ages 4 to 9!

Our week started out as normal as can be!  Ww is for witch which we sprayed with water to 'melt'!

We learned about bats...

We used pretzel sticks to create the letter x and then our names or initials...

We made our own Halloween Cats! 

We then began a fun measurement activity called  "Grow A Brain! "

We made these delicious yoyos on Yy day to eat!  Yummy! 

Aren't these the cutest yellow yaks you've ever seen? 

Earlier in the week we created these little clay ghosts. Then we made ghost houses for them using marshmallows and toothpicks!   What a fun introduction to STEAM activities! (Science Technology Engineering Art Math) There's so much more to school than reading and math! 

We finished up our bat facts just in time to close up school for 2 weeks....sigh

Sadly here's our Halloween boxes all packed up for the basement. 

We will now have 2 weeks of Distance Learning.  And we will make the most of it!  The kids were pretty excited to hear they were getting their own iPad! 

Thanks in advance for your patience! 

And now the week of November 2-6:

Reading/Language Arts: Letter Mm (all week!), star word 'and, verbs

Math:  numbers to 10 printing,  reading,  counting

Theme:  candy corn and scarecrows

Science:  Comparing Plants

Social Studies:  Long ago and Today

Big News: 

No school Monday, November 9 Teachers' Workshop end of 1st quarter

October Week 4

 Here's what we do for fun!  We drove up to NEARLY Canada (we were so close we could have thrown a snowball into that nice country! ) to hike to Magnetic Rock and go moose 'hunting' during our MEA break.  We stayed in Grand Marias and enjoyed the snow on the Lake and agate picking!  I just love winter! We didn't see a moose, but we did see a beautiful fox and a little red squirrel who stole our trail mix! 

 

 
We are attempting to backpack the entire Superior Hiking Trail (326 miles) and are currently over mile 200!

Someday we will finish...someday!

And I'll leave you with this beautiful video:

This week in Kindergarten we set up some new learning stations:

Skeletons:

Spiders:

The kids may bring their playdo over to the playdo center at Zone 2 when it is their day.  They are having a blast creating!

This week we have been looking at nouns!

Nouns for people and noun for places are our focus...(the kids added to it at choice time!)

  

Zone 3 always has academic games and activities that we share during group time:

Zone 2 has a fun beading activity!

On Tuesday and Wednesday we created these cutie patootie spiders to use in a song:

(clickable link if you wish to sing along!)

There's a Spider on the Floor, on the Floor!

There's a Spider on the Floor on the Floor!

Of course you have to have a little fun with UNDERWEAR on letter Uu day!

And how cute is this?  One of the kiddos staged their spider to hold the little umbrellas we got!

Oh my goodness!  Aren't these just amazing?  We painted spider webs and designed spiders to go on this colorful habitat!

We also used our science skills to write what we know about spiders:

Thursday and Friday we discovered SKELETONS!

We put this fella back together....Mr. XRay! We also looked at animal xrays and created our own skeletons!

 

Here's a super cute although VINTAGE Sesame Street clip about bones:

https://youtu.be/LP2rVGbZXrw

Bones Inside on You by the Count

Ms. Kay read us a great story during Library called Room on a Broom!

Zone 4 has ghostly cup stacking added to our fun and games!

This is a fun game called "Where's Spider?"  His is hidden under one of the letters!

And our snack on Vv day was to create VOLCANOS!

(I bring the ingredients a full week ahead, the kids assemble and eat!)

And now for the week of October 26-30

Reading/Language Arts: Letters Ww, Xx, Yy, Zz!!!!

Star word: 'the'

nouns for animals

Math: number 6-10

Theme: Bats and Halloween

Social Studies: Where Is It? Our Big Home

Science: Plants Change and Grow

BIG NEWS:

We will have a celebration on Friday, October 30 at 1:00. Students should  bring costumes to school NOT WEAR them.  We will hand out the Parent Group treats, watch Elmo Says Boo!, dance, and play games!

No School on Monday, November 9  end of the quarter Workshop