Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Summer is here!

I cannot believe this year has come and gone!   Each child has grown so much in their own way and is so very ready to move on to first grade...we are so proud of them!  The beautiful thing about NDLC is that we have the chance to see the boys and girls often as they move throughout the grades and grow as learners...how lucky are we?!

Here are some tips and resources to keep those little brains reading, writing and thinking about math this summer!


Below are links to book lists at different levels. 
Reminder: The reading level that is listed on the report card is your child's instructional level. 



Here are some reading and writing choices! 
  • Read 20 minutes out of your book bag/box
  • Have a family member read aloud to you or take turns reading to each other
  • Look at the writing you’ve done lately and set some goals.  Write them down and keep them next to you when you write 
  • Write a book recommendation for a friend or family member
  • Call a family member and tell him or her about your reading or writing goals
  • Help write a grocery list 
  • Write a poem for someone
  • Read book reviews online and make a list of “must-reads”
  • Find a friend and read the same book.  Set goals and make a plan to chat 
  • Have a “reading marathon” - gather up a bunch of books, magazines and or newspapers, and read until you need to stop
  • Spend time writing a mystery/fantasy/historical fiction/sci fi/realistic fiction story
  • Draw a picture and write labels and give it to a friend or family member
  • Make a comic strip
  • Read a video game “cheat” book
  • Read and follow the directions for a game
  • Research something for your family 
  • Write a letter to convince someone to do or think something
  • Write a survey question and ask people their opinion and then use this in a piece of writing
  • Read and follow a recipe
  • Write a “how-to” for someone in your family or a friend
  • Reread your favorite picture book
  • Read a story to a sister or brother 
  • Read a story to someone on the phone
  • Write a play 
  • Take a scene from your book and write a script 
  • Write a letter to a friend or family member that lives far away
  • Write questions and interview someone.  Take notes during your interview!
  • Plan a trip (real or made-up) by researching places to go, things to see, and how you’ll get there
  • Read to a pet or stuffed animal
Math Ideas
  • Games with subitizing cards
    • Top it. Split a deck of cards with different dot patterns on them. Player 1 and Player 2 will both lay a card down.  Then, they will determine which player’s card is greater. The player with the greater card will get both of the cards. If the players lay cards with the same number of dots, they will flip another card to see who has the greater card.  For a challenge each player can flip two cards, find the sum and then compare.
    • Subitizing Game: To play, you need two players. a game board and tiles/counters to cover each of the subitizing patterns on the board. Once the board is covered with tiles, player 1 points to a tile and player 2 lifts the tile for one second. Player one then has to say how many dots they saw. If they get it correct, they keep the tile, if not the tile is replaced. Player 2 then has a turn. this continues until all tiles are removed, the winner is the person with the  most tiles at the end of the game. Here is a link to a gameboard
  • Use playing cards to play Memory. They will pick a card with a number 1-10. Then they will need to find the partner to ten. 
  • Here is a link to a five frame computer game. 
  • This website has TONS of helpful links. Keep in mind that adding, subtracting and structuring within 10 will help your child be ready for First Grade!

Monday, May 28, 2018

May 28-June 1

I hope you all enjoyed the beautiful weather this holiday weekend!  It is so crazy that summer is upon us!   In Kindergarten we will be spending our last days looking back on all we have learned and looking to 1st grade with excitement and pride!


Important Dates and Reminders:


Our BYE countdown to summer dress up days are below:


6/4: B= bright colors/sunglasses


6/5: Y= you're active/workout wear for field day


6/6: E= bE you! Wear whatever makes you, YOU! :)
6/6: 1/2 day 11:30 Dismissal 

Math: This week mathematicians will review and practice story problems. We will focus on making sure we have both a picture and an equation to show the answer.  We will also be working to show teen numbers in many ways:  with drawings, tools and equations.  Lastly, we will be working to compare numbers using the terms: greater than, less than and equal to.  All of this work will prepare us for our last math test of Kindergarten!

Reading: In reading this week we will shift from the role of a reader to the role(s) of actors and producers!  Readers will choose a favorite book to make into a "movie." They will create a plan to act it out and create props and scenery.  We will even have a "film crew" to record our movie and will celebrate our work with a class viewing party on Friday.  It will be such a fun way to wrap up our last reading unit of the year.

Writing: This week we will use checklists to revise and edit our writing.  We will put all of the things we have learned about composing stories, spelling and punctuation to publish our final story of our Kindergarten career.  One of the charts we will use is based on the work of our mentor author, Mo Willems! 

Science: Now that we've had a chance to really explore and understand inclined planes, we will be challenging ourselves to use our knowledge of gravity and force to change direction of  things headed down an inclined plane.  We will also have a chance to create our own simple machine inventions to make a job we have a bit easier.  

Saturday, May 19, 2018

May 21-25

Three short weeks left to go...I cannot believe it!  As I began some end of the year assessments recently, I was truly amazed at how much these kiddos have grown!  They are so hard working and LOVE to learn!  I keep telling them to just head on down first grade because they are so ready!

Important Dates and Reminders:
5/22: Tailgate Family Night
5/25&5/28: NO SCHOOL 
Our BYE countdown to summer dress up days are below:
6/4: B= bright colors/sunglasses
6/5: Y= you're active/workout wear for field day
6/6: E= bE you! Wear whatever makes you, YOU! :)


Math
 This week, the mathematicians will practice composing and decomposing 2D shapes, comparing numbers using greater than and less than, and creating teen numbers by circling a group of ten and then counting the extras. We will also discuss measurement; specifically, length, width, height, weight and capacity. 


Reading: Kindergartners will be starting book clubs this week! These book clubs help us to learn more about characters and what is happening in the story. Kindergartners explore characters and stories by acting out. Here are the most important parts to remember when acting out books:


  • Make your reading sound smooth (not. choppy. like. a. robot.)

  • Check how your character is feeling! 

  • Make your voice match the character's voice 

  • Make your face and body match the character's 

  • "Pop out" important parts of the book

Writing: This week, writers will learn about different ways to elaborate when writing true stories. One way to elaborate is to make their characters talk back and forth in speech bubbles. Writers also show and tell the way the character felt in the story, especially at the end. We will use a checklist to make sure our writing has a beginning, ending, speech bubbles, feelings, and setting. 


Science: After visiting the Building for Kids and thinking about how force can make simple machines work, we will dive in to a study on incline planes. We will watch videos to build our knowledge and then rotate through the following centers:


  • We will watch videos and look at pictures of balls and ramps. Then we will draw blue prints for when we make ramps. 

  • We will use paper tubes, wood, and bouncy balls to observe and explore.

  • Scientists will be given Marble Works materials to build, observe, and take notes on what we notice.

Saturday, May 12, 2018

May 14-18

I hope you all enjoy the  beautiful weekend!  I want to wish all of the mothers out there a very happy and blessed Mother's Day.  You are raising some pretty terrific kids that I am lucky enough to spend my days with!  You are their first and best teachers!  Thanks for ALL you do!

Important Dates and Reminders:
5/17: Building for Kids Field Trip
5/22: Tailgate Family Night
5/25&5/28: NO SCHOOL 
Our BYE countdown to summer dress up days are below:
6/4: B= bright colors/sunglasses
6/5: Y= you're active/workout wear for field day
6/6: E= bE you! Wear whatever makes you, YOU! :)


Math: This week in math our focus will switch back to comparing quantities and noticing similarities and differences in how groups of objects are arranged to show a number.  This helps us to be flexible as we look to find partners of numbers 6,7,8,9, 10.  We will also work on making two unequal groups equal and to really focus on what needs to be added to make them equal.



Reading:This week in reading we will focus on sharing the information we learn about characters with our partners.  Working to retell our stories and include character feelings will be a big portion of of our work this week. We will also learn that sometimes stories don't always come right out and say how a character is feeling and why, so we need to use what we have read to infer how a character is feeling.  This is such an important skill for young readers.

Writing: Our minilessons will be focused on checking words in their writing to make sure they look right.  We will use vowels charts to ensure that each word has a vowel. Also, we will use blend charts (sh, ch, th, etc.) and alphabet charts to make sure we are getting the right sounds and letters in our writing. Toward the end of the week, we will use the book Knuffle Bunny to study how other authors add beginnings, endings, and settings to their stories. 

Science This week we will continue our science unit about forces. Our key idea is that by playing with and thinking about forces, people can accomplish surprisingly big things. For example, this week we will solve the mystery, “How can you knock down a wall made of concrete?”  Your child will do an activity where they investigate what happened to a “wall” made of cups when they changed the strength and direction of a paper wrecking ball.

Sunday, May 6, 2018

May 7-11

We had fun putting ourselves "in characters' shoes" during reading on Friday!  We made masks and as we reread a book with a character in it we stopped to role play what they might be saying or thinking.  We learned this is something readers can do often as the read (mask or no mask) to really understand the characters and the story!

Check out our awesome masks!!


Important Dates and Reminders:
5/17: Building for Kids Field Trip- permission slips and $ due Friday
5/22: Tailgate Family Night
5/25 & 5/28: NO SCHOOL

Math:  This week in math we will continue to study the ways numbers to work together to form larger numbers 6,7,8,9,10.  This week we will continue playing a game called Pigs in a Pen.  The object is to put out 10 objects in 2 rows of 5.  One student closes his/her eyes and another student removes part of the group.  The other student then has to use how many they see to determine how many have been removed.
As students play they say this rhyme....


"Oink, Oink 3 pigs in the pen, tell me what is the partner of 10."
The students then say both quantities together "3 and 7 are partners of 10."

This game helps with both subitizing work and counting on from a number which is an important addition strategy. This would be a great to work with math at home!

Reading: We will continue acting out our books with a partner.  We will learn that readers think “How does this character feel right now?” and then make their voices, faces, and bodies match that feeling. Also, when readers come to a part where a character doesn’t say anything, they can think, “What might the character say in this part?” and then look closely at the pictures to help imagine those words. By acting out our books, we will develop an even deeper understanding of characters in our books. Partners will retell the story after reading each book.

Writing: After working hard during boot camp to make our writing easy to read and to write more sentences in our books, writers are ready to tackle true stories! We will start to brain storm by making book covers to help us hang onto our ideas. As readers, we know that we can take a picture walk to understand how a story will go. We will use that idea and quickly draw the pages of the book before we write. It's like a writing picture walk. Then as we think about writing the words, we will say them out loud and ask ourselves “does that make sense?” before writing.

Science: Our Force Olympics unit is off to a great start!  We have loved discussing machines that help us and how they work!  This week will explore the work that is done by large machinery that is used on construction sites and will discuss the amount of work they can get done compared to what we can do.  We will watch videos and observe the work done by cranes, bulldozers, trucks and excavators.  We will even learn to act out work words like: tilt, lift, push, and spin to really understand the BIG jobs of these machines!

Friday, April 27, 2018

April 30-May 4

This week is all about the NEW!  New units in (almost) every subject and a new month! It is crazy to think we are gearing up for our last full month together!!!

With our Building For Kids Trip quickly approaching, we do need an idea of interested chaperones by May 3rd! Please shoot me an email if you would like to join us, if you have not already sent back the permission slip!  We are hoping to take all of those interested, but the BFK needs numbers by this week so they can plan accordingly!  

Important Dates and Reminders:
5/17: Building for Kids Field Trip

5/22: Tailgate Family Night
5/25 &5/28: NO SCHOOL


Math: Here are a few highlights of what students will be doing in math this week:
  • Telling, retelling, and writing equations for addition and subtraction stories
  • building partners of 10 in many different ways to build fluency
  • Practicing showing partners for 7-9
  • Building numbers 1-20 with different tools and looking for patterns within the model

Reading: We will start a new unit on characters this week! We will start to learn the ways you can ‘meet’ the characters in our books. Some ways to do this are to pay attention to the title, cover, and setting. We will also take picture walks and think about the feelings our characters have. By the end of the week, we will be focusing on the changes in character feelings.

Writing: ATTENTION! Writers will be having a writing boot camp this week! As we head into the last part of the year, we will push ourselves to do what strong writers ALWAYS do: make writing easy to read and write more and more. We will make our writing easy to read by making sure we have a vowel sound in every word and checking to see that the first letter of the sentence is uppercase. In order to write more, writers ask questions to add more sentences to the page and set goals of how much writing they can get done in a day.

Science: We will began our science unit about forces:  the pushes, pulls, and other actions that we do whenever we do work. Scientists will learn that before we had machines, we had to do lots of work by hand. We will talk about how machines are not magical; rather they just seem that way because there are often moving parts hidden inside. Encourage your child’s curiosity by asking them to go on a “machine walk” around the house: invite your child to identify machines around your home.(examples include things like a washing machine or dryer, a dishwasher, a hair dryer, an electric toothbrush, a car).

Friday, April 20, 2018

April 23-27

Now that it is almost May (holy cow), hopefully spring weather will be here to stay!  There will be some snow on the playground, so please continue to send boots so students feet stay warm and dry...an extra pair of socks might also be helpful!

Important Dates and Reminders:
4/26: Movie Star Day
5/17: Building for Kids Field Trip
5/22: Tailgate Family Night


Math: Mathematicians will practice their nonpattern facts this week. The nonpattern equations are 3+2, 2+3, 2+2, 5-4, 5-3, 5-2, 4-3, 4-2, and 3-2.

We will practice using a variety of strategies including:

A game called subtraction smash that looks like this:


Drawings and math mountains





Using tools such as bead racks, math manipulatives or number lines





Using cut out hands to show the equations


These are great ways to practice any equations that your child may be working on!


Reading: Readers reread for many reasons! They read the first time to solve tricky words. They can read a book again to make their reading smooth. Then, they can read it a third time to post it funny, interesting, or important parts that they would like to share with their partner. Your reader will be creating a video to show you how they use rereading in their books! Check out the videos on Seesaw on Thursday!


Writing:  Our persuasive writing is coming to a close this week and these writers have become so convincing! They have been working on writing their opinions about problems they see in the world. To celebrate Earth Day and the end of our unit, students will be creating posters that show lots of writing about a problem. It could be littering, cutting down trees, wasting electricity, etc. We will share our opinion posters with Mrs. Lenzner's class on Friday!

Science: This will be the last week of our weather watching unit!  We will explore how the sun heats up different surfaces like concrete, grass, rocks and mud.  We will also do some close reading on different types of weather.

Summer is here!

I   cannot believe this year has come and gone!   Each child has grown so much in their own way and is so very ready to move on to first gra...