I will continue to communicate with families using Seesaw. Look for the latest class news and work on the Seesaw Class app. You may message me on Seesaw Family or email my district email if necessary.
School will be closed until March 30th. Any announcements regarding the school closures and plans for the rest of the year will come from the district via emails or Skylerts. At this time there is no mandatory work for home although you may continue to do review activities with your child at home if you like. I have listed some resources to help you on my home page.
I will continue to communicate with families using Seesaw. Look for the latest class news and work on the Seesaw Class app. You may message me on Seesaw Family or email my district email if necessary.
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The children had a lot of fun this past week. We participated in the Annual Kindergarten Halloween Sing Along and Jack O' Lantern Contest. Our class did not win but they loved seeing everyone's pumpkins. We also celebrated National Sandwich Day by making our own sandwich snack in the cafeteria. Some children also received an ice cream reward for excellent bus behavior. The children fro the A, J, C, and P-1 buses in our room earned this treat.
This week we will be back to our normal routines. In Reading we will be reviewing Cc, Oo and Gg. Our first Superkids Progress Test will be on Tuesday, November 5th. We will then move on to Introduce our Unit 4 Superkid, Alf, and the letter Aa. We will focus on the short a sound as in cat and apple. The children will be breaking words into individual sounds (segmenting) so that they can hear the short a sound in the middle position as well as at the beginning of words they hear. Our Topic 2 Math Test will be held Tuesday, November 5th after a review on Monday. On Wednesday, we will move on to Topic 6 in which the students will learn to count, identify, and write numbers 6-10. We will focus primarily on Social Studies this week. The theme will be Long Ago and Today which will be tied to Thanksgiving. The children already explored the concept of being Thankful as we drew pictures and wrote messages to veterans for Veteran's Day. Please remember to include a warm coat and layers so that we may continue to have outdoor recess as often as possible. Monday is Library Day. Please return all books. This past week took us out of our routine just a bit. On Tuesday, the children did a wonderful job evacuating the building for a security drill. We spent some time talking about different types of drills and being prepared for anything. We made a connection to our PRIDE rules. P is for Prepare and being prepared helps us to do our best, learn, and be safe. On Friday, the children enjoyed our PBIS Celebration, which was a pep rally at the football stadium. They loved cheering for our school. The weather was beautiful and the children loved the extra time outside. The class earned extra PRIDE cash for their wonderful and safe behavior on the walk over and back. Due to the pep rally, we did not have time to shop for prizes, we’ll be doing that next week. I was also out of the room more than I’d like for some appointments and meetings this week. The children were fabulous for our substitute. Unfortunately, I did not quite finish the individual testing on basic skills we are working on. I will wrap that up early next week and get the Mid-marking period progress reports home to you as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience. This past week the children enjoyed our apple theme. We had an apple tasting and learned about opinions. Apple projects reinforced fine motor skills and following directions. A Johnny Appleseed story helped the class learn about good citizenship, cooperation and helpful behavior. Some upcoming themes in Science and Social Studies will be Living and Non-living things, Fall and Seasons, Fire Safety, Christopher Columbus and Explorers. We have one last PreK review story to do in Reading class this week. The ABC Book will help us finish up and review the entire alphabet. We will then move on to our Kindergarten Reading Program. The children will be introduced to the character Cass who likes to cook and the letter Cc. In Math, Topic 13 on shapes will be completed this week. After testing, we’ll move on to the numbers 1-5. The children will work on number handwriting, recognition, and counting carefully and accurately.
Important Dates: 10-8. Scholastic Book orders due (look for flyers Monday) 10-11 PTO Fall Fundraiser due 10-14 Teacher In-Service/No School for Students 10-17 Picture Retake Day 10-17 K5 Field Trip It's hard to believe, but Wednesday is the mid-point of our first marking period. It feels like we just started the school year! As mentioned at Back to School Night, we do not have very many traditional test scores to report on Skyward this early in Kindergarten. I will send a progress report home soon. I am hoping to have all individual testing and progress reports finished by the end of this upcoming week. This will give you an overview of your child's progress so far. Don't forget, there is a lot of room for progress before our first report cards. We have been working on name printing since the beginning of the year. If your child still struggles with first or last name writing, you may see some extra practice papers in your child's folder for homework this week. Please review identifying the letters in your child's name too. We should finish up our preschool Reading review, called Happily Ever After, this coming week. We have reviewed preschool skills like patterns, colors, shapes, and position words. We have also worked these skills in Math. Every letter of the alphabet will have been introduced by the end of the week. Soon we will start our Superkids Kindergarten Reading program focusing on one letter per unit. We will continue working on shapes in Math. Number of sides, vertices, and creating shapes from others (e.g., 2 trapezoids make a hexagon) will all be covered. Children will have fun building shapes with popsicle sticks and blocks in addition to the more traditional worksheets. They enjoy attempting the Today's Challenge, problem of the day, on their iPads. We'll continue to review numbers 1-5 as well. Science and Social studies lessons this week will revolve around Johnny Appleseed, Apples and the Five Senses. We'll also incorporate an apple theme into our afternoon centers this week. I can't wait to share pictures with you on Seesaw. Centers were introduced this past week. We began very simply with fine motor skills. These activities help strengthen fingers and pencil grip which helps with helps with stamina and control during handwriting tasks. The games seem simple but, fine motor control is difficult for young children and essential. The children also learned to cooperate at centers, follow directions more independently, and clean up when finished a task. Reminder...
As soon as you have sold one item for our PTO Fall Fundraiser, send in the white slip included in your packet and your child will receive a prize! No need to wait until you send in your total order. The highest seller in our room will win a prize. Our class will attend an ice cream party if at least 10 of our 20 students sell an item. The fundraiser ends October 11th so there is plenty of time left to support or school. The children have gotten off to a great start this year. They are learning all of our routines and procedures for working in the classroom and interacting around our school. We have focused on our PBIS rules to help the children do this and they recently reviewed them with Mrs. Reese and Mrs. Gunoskey while enjoying a special snack in the cafeteria. P-Prepare R-Respect I-Inspire D-Demonstrate E-Excel We are focusing a lot on showing Respect for our teachers by using good listening skills and Respect for friends, keeping hands and feet to themselves. We read the story David Goes to School! by David Shannon and our class helped David remember the rules.
A few reminders...
We really made the most of our extra week of make-up days. The children have been having so much fun reviewing our Kindergarten skills on our different theme days and we had time for some crafts and treats too! Throughout the week, the children enjoyed working on our survey and graph papers. They first asked their friends questions related to our themes. Have you ever built a sandcastle? Do you like chocolate or vanilla ice cream better? They tallied and graphed the results and discussed what they learned, reviewing more and fewer. They also wrote number sentences about their graphs on the board and their papers. They loved getting up, moving, and interacting with friends as they used all of these math skills. A Day Full of Bubbles! The children had so much fun blowing bubbles and completing this Math activity. They learned so much this year. The hardest part was actually blowing the bubbles! Bubble photos using our green screen app (DoInk Green Screen), a short video, and a silly book (Bubble Trouble by Margaret Mahy) inspired our creative writing assignment on Bubble Day. After watching a bubble adventure short movie, the children did a wonderful job writing about what they might see if they could hop on (or in) a bubble. Here is one example: Many of our activities this week revolved around a sandcastle and beach theme. The children loved the story The Sandcastle Contest by Robert Munsch. This author has been a favorite as the children can easily relate to the characters and the stories are so comical. They loved writing their own beach stories and designing their own sandcastles after listening to the story The children listened to a non-fiction book, Ice Cream by Gail Gibbons, on Ice Cream and Popsicles Day. They reviewed the difference between fact and fiction and learned all about how ice cream is made. They loved lusing puffy paint to create their own ice cream cones. I called our final themed day Cookies and Coding. We tied some coding activities to the story If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff. The children practiced their coding skills on the playground first. They were introduced to some computer science terms. The children followed commands to complete their algorithm, taking them from start to finish. Next, they came up with an algorithm, one command at a time, to take a mouse to the cookies on this game board. We even found a bug in our first attempt and had to debug it by changing one command. Success! Finally, the children put their new coding skills to use on a code.org lesson. I had recently been to a computer science training and the children really enjoyed helping me try out one of the lessons.
In addition to our coding, the children also did a lot of cookie counting, writing and snacking! They did a wonderful job collaborating on a story modeled on If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. They first worked together in a whole group to come up with their story. Next they, individually or with a partner, wrote and illustrated a part of the story to create a class book. You can see it on Seesaw! On Friday, the children attended a Memory Book Autograph Activity. They had so much fun. On Monday, the children will create their own personal Memory Book. We will work on any unfinished work and projects. They children will also be working in small groups on all of the Math and Literacy games that go with each of last week's themes. We'll also be working on a special summer art project and read a summer story. The PTO has also offered to provide us with Blizzards for DQ!!! We'll celebrate our summer birthdays as we enjoy this treat. Monday is a full day of school. On Tuesday we have a special end of year story and some last day activities to wrap up our year. The children will have one last chance to play with their friends before they are sorted into a new class next year. We'll make sure all of the children's belongings are packed up and they will receive their report cards on the last day of school. Make sure Library books are returned or fees are paid. Check lunch accounts on Skyward as well so your child may receive their report cards Tuesday. Tuesday is an early dismissal for JSC. Walkers will leave at 11:45 and Buses will be dismissed at noon. Dismissal will go quickly on Monday and Tuesday as we won't have to wait for buses to return from their Middle and High school routes. Please be at the bus stop early. My computer will be collected this coming week so this will be my last post for the 2018-2019 school year. We had a great year and will miss our class when they move on. I know they are so excited to move on to first grade and will do well. Enjoy your summer vacation!!! Mrs. Bubnis We hope you enjoyed our Kindergarten Show and your Memorial Day Weekend.
We are winding down to the end of the year but we are not wasting any time! Our last week of school will be filled with learning in fun ways. We'll be reviewing many Math, Reading and Writing skills as we work and play. We started last week with a picnic theme. The children worked on berry, watermelon and ant-themed learning games, papers, and stories. We started a new video project using adjectives, descriptive language and our imaginations based on the story Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg (author of The Polar Express and Jumanji) Keep an eye on Seesaw next week; we'll be adding our videos as we complete them. It may take all week, but it's worth it! The children are learning to plan, use appropriate vocabulary, practice their speaking skills and to reflect on a story and a perspective other than their own. The finished product looks fun, and it is, but it's also quite a challenge for Kindergarten students. Next week our learning activities will revolve around the following themes: Bubbles Ice Cream and Popsicles Sandcastles The Beach We will also do a day of Cookies and Coding. Our "smart cookies" will try out some computer science coding skills with a cookie twist. Stay tuned. On Monday, all red ticket winners from the 2nd and 3rd marking period will participate in a special Red Ticket BINGO activity. Remember sneakers for Gym class Tuesday and any nice, outdoor recess days. On Friday, June 7th, the children will receive their Memory Books. They will attend a special event to meet up with Kindergarten friends to sign each other's memory books. Monday, June 10th, is a full day of school at JSC. Tuesday, the last day of school for JSC students, will be an early dismissal. Walkers will be dismissed at 11:45 and Buses at noon.
We are definitely ready for summer! The children have been creating projects, listening to stories, and singing songs related to our Beach Fun show! We are so excited to perform for you this week. Don't forget, our class performs at 1:45 on Thursday and the doors usually open around 1:30. It takes place in the JSC Cafeteria.
We have wrapped up our core Math Curriculum for the year and the children did an excellent job on their final test on shapes. We will continue to review numbers, addition, subtraction, graphing and other Kindergarten Math Skills through the end of the year. We will also do some Step-Up First Grade preview pages as well. We are finishing up our last unit in Superkids. This unit covers the letter Zz and is also a review of letters, words, and skills learned throughout the year. Afterward, we will complete our end of year testing. We will also review short vowels and introduce long vowels which will be taught in 1st grade. ********************************************************************************** We have been exploring the ocean and beach. I hope you've had a chance to view your child's Shark Facts video on Seesaw. We created these with the Chatterpix app on our iPads. Here is a sample:
Dominic did a great job with his shark facts project!
The children listened to some fiction stories about the sea too. They loved The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister and the lesson about the importance of sharing and being kind to friends. You can see their Rainbow Fish videos created with the Do Ink Green Screen app on Seesaw. Here are samples of some other rainbow fish projects they made.
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I hope you were able to enjoy the PTO Basket Auction and the PASD Art Show. The children loved the Art Show. Here is a picture of some of our class entries in case you missed it: It's not too late to stop in at the auction. The children had fun checking out the prizes. The PTO provided them with a free ticket so they each have a chance to win a prize. Good Luck to all families who attended and thank you for supporting our school! Enjoy your weekend! This past week in Reading, we finished up another Superkids workbook. It included the letters Kk, Qq, and Jj. We will review these sounds on Monday and test the children on these units. The class was very excited to hear we will be starting our last workbook of the year next week. This one will include the letters Xx, Yy, Zz and an alphabet review. We have been working with both solid and flat shapes in Math class. They used pattern blocks and tangram puzzle pictures, naming and describing their flat shapes as they worked. They also used their iPads to draw and describe shapes learned. The children also used wooden shape blocks to describe flat surfaces of solid shapes and observe how they can be manipulated (slide, roll, stack). We should finish up this Math Topic and test on Wednesday. Our Science theme this past week was plants. The children made diagrams using photos of real plants they investigated and the PicCollage Kids app. They also planted some beautiful flowers for Mother's Day and learned a bit about how to care for them. Next week is our last week of practice for our Kindergarten Show. The children will learn about the ocean and ocean animals in PSSA class and our room, making some projects related to our Beach Show theme. The children are also looking forward to previewing the JSC PTO Basket Auction at the end of the week. Each child will receive one ticket they can use at the auction during school hours. Don;t forget, anyone who donated a prize can pick up their free sheet of tickets when they arrive at the auction! We have settled into our new room and everything has been going smoothly for the K5 Kids. We have continued on with our Reading and Math programs without disruption and the children have also been enjoying our Kindergarten Show practices.
You will be able to attend the Kindergarten Show on Thursday, May 23rd at 1:45 pm. The doors usually open at 1:30. They will do a dress rehearsal for the other grades at JSC on Tuesday 2/21 to prepare. The children will perform many beach and summertime themed songs. Our class song is Surfin' USA so Hawaiian shirts, beach/ocean prints or even red, white and blue attire would all be appropriate. Dress code does apply. I recommend that children wear short sleeves and shorts or skirts with shorts beneath as it gets very warm on stage during the show. In Reading class, the children will study the letter Jj this week. They will be spelling words and listening for individual sounds in words. We will review rhymes, practice story sequencing skills and introduce the memory word "said". Topic 16 in Math is our last Topic for the year. The children will review flat and solid shapes using worksheets and hands-on activities. They will learn that more complex shapes can be made using the simpler shapes they have already learned. In addition to naming shapes, they should now be able to identify how many sides, faces and vertices (corners) the shapes have. We have begun a study of plants in Science class. Plant life cycles and parts have been covered. Look for diagrams of plant parts created by your children on Seesaw soon. We will study plant needs and growth as well. Reminders:
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Mrs. BubnisKindergarten teacher at John S Clarke Elementary. Categories |