March 12-16

I cannot believe spring conferences are next week!  I am anxious to share the wonderful things your children are doing with you very soon!  Please use this link to sign up for a conference if you have not yet!!

Important Dates and Reminders:
3/16: Wear Green
3/19: Badger Day
3/20 & 3/22: Parent Teacher Conferences
3/28: 1/2 day 11:30 Dismissal
3/28: Egg Crack off and class color day- more info to come
3/29-4/2 NO SCHOOL


Here is a peek at the week:

Math: Mathematicians are digging deeper into teen numbers. We know that teen numbers are a group of ten and extras; we will discover that mathematicians can see that when they build numbers OR look at equations. Each student will create a book that shows a picture, equation, and correct way to write the digits for each teen number to solidify this understanding. We will look at partners of the numbers 6-10. Although students are not expected to know these partners fluently, they are expected to build with tools or draw to show the partners to 10. Mathematicians will review position words and shapes this week.


Reading: To wrap up our nonfiction unit, students will work in nonfiction book clubs to learn all they can about topics they are interested in. After readers read about the same topic, they can talk about the key details and ask “What’s the same? What’s different?” Readers will then be able to invent their own ways to share their books and keep the conversation going!

Some examples of how to share include:

 Acting out the book
Preparing a read aloud--just like a teacher!
Planting questions in the book to ask their "students"

Writing: As we are nearing the end of our All About writing unit. the writers will be focusing on revising and editing. We will check over our work to make sure we:

used lowercase letters in the middle of our sentences
used uppercase letters at the beginning of the sentence
have snap words spelled correctly
have punctuation in our books
included an introduction and conclusion
included our opinion on some pages

Students will write their final All About piece on Friday that will go into their portfolios! I can't wait to share how far they have come as writers during conferences.


Social Studies: After starting to think about what makes them so special, students will have a chance to show what makes them unique in the following centers:

Photographs—We will sort pictures on a timeline. Then students will create their own timelines.
Collage—Kindergarteners will look through magazines and cut out things that represent them. They will glue these onto a poster. We will share these at closing circle.
Starfall.com—Students will work with partners on Ipads to “write” about themselves

We will also put our writing skills to work and spend sometime composing An All About Me book. 

March 5-9

This Thursday we will have our Author's Breakfast!  It will take place in our classroom from 7:15-7:45am.  Stop by and admire some of your child's published work and enjoy a donut and juice.  Please come and go as you are able!

Important Dates and Reminders:

3/8: Author's Breakfast
3/9: 1/2 Day 11:30 Dismissal
3/16: Wear Green
3/19: Badger Day
3/20 & 3/22: Parent Teacher Conferences- more info coming soon
3/28: 1/2 day 11:30 Dismissal
3/28: Egg Crack off and class color day- more info to come
3/29-4/2 NO SCHOOL

Here is the March menu.
There is a menu change on 3/16- Corn dogs will be served in place of pizza dippers.

Here is a peek at the week:


Math: Mathematicians will learn about "magic number equations". Magic number equations make everything disappear! For example, 3-3, 5-5, etc. Students will be able to practice this skill by making a snack disappear:) Here are all the patterns we have learned to help us add and subtract so far:
When you +1, you count up
When you -1, you count backwards
When you +0 or -0, the number stays the same
When you subtract a number from the same number, it disappears to make 0

Mathematicians have been learning that there are some equations that they just know by thinking of the pattern, but there are some equations that they may need to solve using a strategy. We will introduce this chart as a reminder of the strategies the Kindergartners can use to solve addition and subtraction equations..



Reading: We are learning SO much about non-fiction topics during reading workshop!  One important strategy readers will work on this week will be to first say as much as they can while studying a page of their book and to listen carefully to the words they use and then to read the words.  Readers will come to realize there is a good chance many of the words they said while talking about the page will be there in print for them to read.  This helps us to read for understanding and also to take some of the heavy work out of decoding new vocabulary words.

Writing: This week in writing we will be looking closely at our books to make sure they have as much important information about our topic as they can.  We will use this chart to revise our books to make them better and will also work on editing so our books will be easy for others to read at Author's Breakfast.

Social Studies: This week we will switch gears and begin a 'self study' in social studies.  We will be reading books and listening to a song and poem to help us to begin thinking about what makes us unique and special.  This is such a fun time of year to do this unit because students are really coming into their own and are so self aware.

February 26-March 2

I hope the students enjoyed a few fun-filled winter days off!  I also hope this month will be more healthy for all!  Spring is so close!

Important Dates and Reminders:
2/27: Family Night: Music and Masterpieces- 6pm
3/2: Dress as your favorite book character
3/5: Culver's night 5-8pm
3/9: 1/2 day 11:30 Dismissal


Here's a peek at the week:

Math: This week we will be introduced to a new way to organize partners of numbers. 
It is called a math mountain. 
We will use these to show partners of numbers we know well, as well as partners of larger numbers.  Mathematicians will also be introduced to the 3D shapes: cone, cube cylinder and sphere.

Reading: One thing that sets non-fiction books apart from fiction books is that they contain more specialized vocabulary.  This week readers will keep track of topic words they find while reading non-fiction books.  They will use the pictures and words in the book to understand what the words mean and will teach them to their reading partner.  Each reader will create an expert word  list with sketches to show word meanings.

Writing:This week we will focus on elaboration: ways to add more to our writing.   We will be using text features like diagrams, bold words and definitions, comparisons and examples like we have seen authors try in the books we have read.  We will also begin to make sure we not only give information on each page, but say WHY that information is important.

Science/Social Studies: This week we will take some time for the students to learn more about the SeeSaw app and how they can use it to share their learning.  Up until this point I have been doing all of the posting, but I think the kids are ready to share the responsibility!  They will learn how to log in and post things to their profile and will practice taking pictures and videos for SeeSaw with the Ipads.  

February 19-23

It was a fun and exciting week in Kindergarten!  Check out some photos from our action packed week!  Thanks to our parent volunteers for helping 100 day run smoothly!

 Proud to be 100 days smarter!

 How many sits can you do in 100 seconds?

 How many rings can you string in 100 seconds?

 Block stacking challenge in 100 seconds!

 How many hula hoops spins can you get in 100 seconds?

Working together to stack 100 cups!

Look at these love bugs!!

Important Dates and Reminders:

February 22&23: No School
February 27: Family Night: Music, Melodies and Masterpieces- 6:00pm (notice the time change)


Here is a peek at the (short)  week:

Math: Mathematicians will be working on inspecting equations this week. We will discuss how the equal sign can come at the beginning of an equation (16=10+6) or at the end of the equation (10+6=16). The goal is for students to start to understand that equations are made of part-part-whole. We will also start to build fluency with subtraction. Mathematicians will discover that they can use the same strategies for subtracting as they did for adding. These strategies include:

• Using their fingers
• Drawing a picture
• Building it with tools
• Telling a math story
• Visualizing a math story

These are all great ways to start when working toward fluency!

Reading: The nonfiction books have been a huge hit in our room! It's so fun to listen to the students ask questions and share knowledge about the topics they are reading about. This week, we will take that work a step further by asking students to share the information by retelling, acting like a reporter, and having conversations about their books with partners. We will use the following conversation starters to help students carry on with their partner.

• I wonder....
• Maybe...
• I agree/disagree because...

We remind students that a having a conversation is like riding a seesaw; you take turns going back and forth!

Writing: There will be a strong connection between reading and writing this week! As nonfiction readers, students learned that they can ask questions while reading and even try to answer them! Since we are writing nonfiction books, we can use this chart to add more to our writing as well.

 First, writers will read through their books, asking themselves if they answered questions readers might have on each page. Then students will sit with their reading partners, read the books they wrote, and allow their partners to stop and ask questions--just like we did in reading! The partners will work together to try to answer the questions to add more to their piece of writing.

Social Studies:  We will use this week to continue working on social skills with an emphasis on being kind. Students will take a self evaluation and think about how they can be a better friend, work hard to follow the rules, etc. The assessment looks like this:

Feb 12-16

Well, after school on Monday your child will officially be 100 days smarter!  We will have a fun day together and will have more fun and excitement with Valentine's Day on Wednesday!  I just don't know how Kindergarten could get more exciting!

Important Dates and Reminders:

Feb. 12th: 100th Day of School- Dress like you are 100 years old

Feb. 14th:  Pink, White and Red Day and Valentine exchange at school 

Feb 16th: Funky Friday

February 22nd  and 23rd: NO SCHOOL
February 27th: Family Night 5:30- Music and Masterpieces 

Math: This week we will begin Unit 4.  The main concepts of this unit are finding partner numbers for 6-10 and identifying 3 dimensional shapes.  The unit also reinforces teen number composition and decomposition.  Please note that any partner work within 6-10 is expected to be done with math tools and drawings and students are by no means expected to be fluent in knowing their facts or partners to 10.  We will continue to work toward automaticity with addition and subtraction within 5.  Did you know there are 21 addition facts from 0-5 that students need to be automatic with?!

Reading:This week we kick off a new reading unit called Growing Expertise in Little Books.  This unit has a focus on non-fiction reading and really reading to gain understanding and learn from the books we read.  This week we will sort our classroom library to get all of our informational books organized so they are easier for us to shop for.  We will learn that as we read about a topic we become experts on it and learn to share that information with others by telling the main topic of a book and giving key details learned in the book. We will also work on stopping and asking questions while we read.

Writing:Our writing unit will be greatly supported by our reading work as we will begin a new unit called All About Books.  The goal of this unit will be able to write across one topic for several pages including key ideas and details.  Students will be able to show off their knowledge of personal interest and will take such ownership over being topic experts.  This week we will create book covers to keep track of our writing ideas and will be reading many All About books to help us understand the many ways we can show all we know about a topic.

Science/Social Studies:  Students will present their plant and animal projects they worked on this week.  Stay tuned to see these on SeeSaw.  We will also take some time this week to do some close reading of story books that have a focus on friendship and problem solving.  These are important things to discuss at this time of the year as students are very comfortable with each other and need reinforcement to understand how their actions can impact others.

Feb 5-9

Enrollment for the 2018-2019 school year is underway and we have a few spots available in Kindergarten! We find that word of mouth is the best way to market our school!

If you have friends or family with upcoming Kindergarten-aged students, please share what you love about our school! We will be having an open house to see Kindergarten in action on Thursday, February 8th from 8:15-9:00 or 2:15-3:00. Feel free to invite any families that have expressed interest in our school.

As always, families can also call Mrs. Frischmann at 766-6116 to set up individual tours.


Important Dates and Reminders:
Feb. 12th: 100th Day of School- please send 100 snack items by Friday :)
Feb. 14th:  Pink, White and Red Day
Feb 16th: Funky Friday
February 22nd  and 23rd: NO SCHOOL

Math: So I realize that in almost every blog I mention the students being fluent within 5 for addition and subtraction. This is a huge and important skill for Kindergarten that requires LOTS of repeated practice.  To be truly fluent with math facts research says students need to be shown an equation and solve it within 3 seconds without the use of counting, fingers or tools.  This is hard work!
 Each day we do things during math time to build our fluency.  The image below shows math skills in an "iceberg model" to show the different strategies students need to use and master before they reach the "tip" of the iceberg, which is seeing an equation and solving it fluently.

The games we play and activities we do focus heavily on the informal and pre-formal section of the iceberg because we want students to relate the visual representations they create with tools and see on game pieces directly to an equation so they can solve them quickly.  I hope this sheds some light on why I often repeat myself when talking about fluency activities! 

Reading: Readers learn to be problem solvers! Even when they get to unknown words in their books, they can use lots of strategies to figure out a word. Here are some of the ways we solve words:



Writing:Writers will pick one piece of writing to publish this week. They will use the following charts to help them revise and edit their books.

On Friday, we are inviting our 2nd grade buddies in to listen to our how to books and test out the directions! The kindergartners will create props for their buddies to to use while following the directions of their how to books. It will be quite the celebration!

Science: This week in science we will put together our knowledge of plants and animals and will select a topic we'd like to learn more about.  We will then do some research on our topic using books and iPads and find a way to present our learning to the class.  Some options might be: making a poster or writing a book.

Jan 29-Feb 2

Yikes!  How is it almost February already?!  February brings some exciting events in Kindergarten!  We will celebrate Valentine's Day and the 100th day of school.  We will exchange valentine cards with the class!  Here is a list of student names if you'd like to get started early!  I'll be sending a hard copy of this list home soon as well!   Be on the look out for 100 day information to come home soon too!

Important Dates and Reminders:

Feb. 12th: 100th Day of School

Feb. 14th:  Pink, White and Red Day 

Feb 16th: Funky Friday 

February 22nd  and 23rd: NO SCHOOL 

Here is a peek at the week:

Math: This week in math we will continue to solidify our understating of teen numbers and the equations and quantities that represent them.  We will be matching equations to representations of teen numbers and work to understand that the extra ones that join with ten are always the second digit displayed in a teen number.  It is common error for kindergarten students to write 71 for 17.  We will also work with partners of numbers and will play a game called missing partner.  This will help us to visualize how quantities combine to make a larger numbers.  This is something that could be played at home with coins or any small plastic object.  The goal is to display a set of objects and then cover part of that set and for students to be able to say what they see and say what is missing to make the total number of objects.  For example: "I see 4, one is missing, 4 and 1 make 5."

Reading: We have been loving digging into non-fiction books and showing and sharing our thinking with our reading partners and playdate groups.  Check us out adding post-its to our books!

This week we will continue with some non-fiction work and will meet in topic clubs to do more talking about and comparing books.  We will also take some time to become avid readers of poetry.  This will really help us to read more smoothly and to really understand what feelings poems are conveying.  

Writing: We will give our how to writing a jump start this week by working to write procedural books about this we do throughout the school day.  Since our daily routines can be easily transferred into a series of steps this will  be a chance for us to get some new pieces of writing done quickly while trying out some of our new writing 'moves.' We will also  add introductions and conclusions to our how to books.  We will also learn to use comparisons in our writing to give more specific directions.  

Science:  Well, our room has now become a plant and animal habit.  Our lima bean and alfalfa plants are growing more each day and we have three new fish: Cupcake, Fluffy and Flash Hermine.  We also have a colony of beetles for us to observe.  This week we will make further observations of our growing plants and will also begin to study how people can have an effect on the environment as a whole and also on animal habitats.  This will bring up the topics of reusing and recycling.  

Fundations: We will focus on new snap words this week:  get, big, little, not, away. As we work to improve our spelling, we have really been paying attention to the vowels sounds we hear in words.  The students have realized that some of the vowels have similar sounds so this can be tricky.  We are also learning as writers it is ok to go back and fix up vowel sounds that we have forgotten our used incorrectly.  We have been using a vowel chart similar to this to check our use of vowels in reading and writing!