Kinder-Whale Tales Dear Kinder-Whale Families, I hope you are having a wonderful weekend so far, and a fantastic Halloween!!! I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge and heartfelt THANK YOU to Ms. Rebecca (Mia's mom), Ms. Sonali (Aashni's mom), Ms. Stephanie (Marissa's mom), and Ms. Sandra (Anthony's mom) for being such a tremendous help to our classroom this week! The Kinder-Whales really enjoyed working with you during the centers and were already asking when the parents will be back! Thank you so much for volunteering your time! The Kinder-Whales had an extremely busy week filled with many Halloween activities! The students worked hard all week and completed many of our center activities. It was so much fun seeing the Kinder-Whales dressed up in their Halloween costumes on Friday. Pictures of them in their costumes are featured above in this week's news! Please feel free to share any pictures that you took as well! * IMPORTANT: Please sign up for Parent Teacher Conferences by clicking on the link to the right. Writing Assessment At the beginning of this week, the students took a writing assessment. Students heard a story called Knuffle Bunny, a story about a kid who loses his special stuffed animal. Then the students turned and had a collaborative conversation where they took turns to share about a special item they had when they were younger and a time when something happened to it. Afterwards, the students wrote about what they shared with the class. Letter of the Week: Bb Centers The Kinder-Whales have been doing an amazing job with our center rotations. This week's letter is Bb. Continuing on with our SEAL strategies, the students had a collaborative conversation to come up with as many words that begin with the letter Bb as possible. Then the students shared with the whole class words that they came up with in their collaborative conversation pairs. The Kinder-Whales came up with many words and they were very excited to add to our growing list throughout the week. Then the Kinder-Whales worked on sorting pictures of words that begin with Bb vs. Tt and they also worked on practicing the correct letter formation of uppercase B and lowercase b in our letter of the week centers. The Kinder-Whales also practiced writing sentences using the sight words that we've learned so far, including I, see, my, and like. Students are being encouraged to use more of their best guess spelling when writing. Pumpkin & Halloween Centers This week, the Kinder-Whales wrapped up our pumpkin unit with some fun pumpkin centers. We recited our pumpkin chant to help us remember the pumpkin life cycle and the parts of a pumpkin. Throughout the week, the students created pumpkin life cycle headbands, 3-D life cycle pumpkins, and a pumpkin book called, "I See a Pumpkin," where students were also able to practice reading the sight word, "see". The Kinder-Whales also created booklets called Jack-O-Faces, where they looked at different faces /emotions of jack-o-lanterns and matched sentences to describe them. In the book, there was Jack-O-Happy, Jack-O-Sleepy, Jack-O-Sad, Jack-O-Mad, Jack-O-In Pieces, and Jack in pumpkin pie. The Kinder-Whales also had lots of fun making the pages to go into their Halloween Story book: Jack-o-lantern, jack-o-lantern, what do you see? I see a white ghost looking at me. White ghost, white ghost, what do you see? etc. Once they finished making their book, the Kinder-Whales had fun reading the story to as many other students as possible. Halloween Centers Continued! Spider Sentences To go along with our Halloween activities for the week, the Kinder-Whales also used their handprint to make black spiders. We reviewed all the things that spiders can have, including that spiders have 8 legs and spiders can have 2, 4, 6, or 8 eyes. Then the students chose how many eyes they wanted to put on their spider. Afterwards, each student was given a sentence strip: I see a black spider. Students cut the strip up into words and we practiced making silly sentences. For instance, instead of "I see a black spider", students came up with "spider I a see black." They practiced making silly sentences and reading their sentences out loud with their table mates. Then at the end, the students fixed the sentence so that it made sense again. With this activity, we reviewed that every sentence has a special mark at the end (period, question mark, exclamation point). We also reviewed that every sentence has spaces in between their words. Check out their adorable spider projects below! There's a spider on my... At another center, the students drew themselves and decorated their clothing. Then the students put a spider sticker somewhere on their body to complete the sentence: There's a spider on my... Many students chose their tummy, a number of students chose their head/hair, some students chose their arm, and others chose their leg, foot, hand, etc. When students finished, they read their sentence to an elbow buddy (person sitting next to them) or a nose body (person sitting across from them). Math The Kinder-Whales started chapter four of our Singapore Math in Focus program. However, because we had so much going on with all of our Halloween and pumpkin activities, we will continue on with chapter four next week. This week, the students practiced making numbers using smaller numbers. The students worked in collaborative pairs to make numbers. For instance, to make five, one person would hold up a few fingers (2) and then their partner would hold up how many more to make five (3). We did a number of rounds to make 1 (0 and 1), 2 (1 and 1 or 2 and 0), 3 (1 and 2, 2 and 1, or 3 and 0), 4 (3 and 1, 1 and 3, 2 and 2, and 4 and 0), etc. Next week, the students will use other math manipulatives to help them make numbers up to 10, as we gradually introduce them to the math concept of addition and subtraction. Science: Pumpkin Investigation The Kinder-Whales were very eager to do our pumpkin investigation! First, we took a close look at the outside of the pumpkin. All of the students had a chance to feel the outside shell and to describe it. Students used words such as bumpy, smooth on one side, rough on the other, orange, lines, heavy, dirty, medium-sized, etc. Next, we measured the height of the pumpkin using linking cubes, and found that our pumpkin is 9 cubes tall. We also estimated or made a smart guess about how many lines the pumpkin has. Their guesses ranged from 15 to 100. Then we remembered from a previous math lesson that when counting something, we should mark where we start so that we don't accidentally re-count the same number of lines. After carefully counting the lines, we found that our pumpkin has 40 lines! Then before making a prediction about how many seeds are inside the pumpkin, we reviewed how with every line on the pumpkin, there is a line of seeds on the inside. Students' guesses ranged from 49 to 160. Next, students took turns counting the seeds and putting them into a bowl. The Kinder-Whales were very excited to reach their hand into the pumpkin! They described the inside as gooey, sticky, slippery, slimy, soft, smelly, delicate, etc. And when they felt the seeds go through their hands, they remembered our pumpkin chant: "slippery white seeds on the inside!" We added the descriptive words to our Pumpkin Investigation poster, and we also added the descriptive words to our Draw and Label pumpkin parts poster. Finally, we carved our class pumpkin into a smiley jack-o-lantern! As a heads up, next week, we will be starting our first SEAL unit on COMMUNITY HELPERS! The Kinder-Whales will be learning all about helpers in our community, such as doctors, postal workers, police officers, etc. Please keep an eye out for an informative letter, which will be sent home this upcoming week! | Reminders & Updates Next Week:
IMPORTANT: PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES! Please sign up for a parent teacher conference below as soon as possible, and by no later than Friday, November 6th! The sooner you can sign up, the better, so that we can make sure we get everyone scheduled in for our conferences. Also, if you have any younger/older siblings, you may want to check in with the other teacher to see if you can schedule their conferences on the same day. Thank you! TO SIGN UP, CLICK HERE! RECAP Halloween Festivities We had a very busy day on the Friday before Halloween, starting with our Halloween parade and including lots of arts and crafts activities, some Halloween stories, and a Halloween movie: Spookley the Square Pumpkin! Check out the Halloween festivities below! Halloween Faces We read a few Halloween stories throughout the week and then the Kinder-Whales made Halloween faces, including a jack-o-lanterns, a ghost, and Frankenstein's monster. This activity helped students practice following directions to make Frankenstein's monster's face. We also reviewed how to make simple shapes, such as triangles and squares, and students used the shapes to make the faces of their jack-o-lantern and ghost. Ghost Family We also read a cute story called, The Ghost's Dinner. In the story, the ghosts are having dinner and they turn into the same color as what they eat. When the ghosts eat pumpkin soup, they turn orange! When the ghosts eat salad, they turn green, and when the ghosts eat cheese, they turn yellow. After reading the story, the Kinder-Whales discussed what they would eat if they were the ghosts in the story, and they came up with pizza, chocolate cake, strawberries, etc.! Afterwards, the Kinder-Whales created their own ghost family and used colored pieces of paper to make a tie, a necklace, a hat, and a bow to dress their ghosts. Check them out below! Batman Beginning Consonants Are you familiar with the Batman theme song? The students drew what they would look like if they were Batman or Batwoman. Then we used the first sound in their name to make their own theme song! Videos will be shared next week! Look at me! I will be... It was so much fun seeing all of the students in their Halloween costumes on Friday! The students drew themselves in their costume and tried to include as many details as possible. A few of them took a close look at their masks to make sure that they captured the details of their costume. They did an incredible job! Starfish of the Week: Ahmed! Ahmed did a fantastic job as our starfish of the week! The Kinder-Whales really loved listening to Ahmed's favorite book, How Do Dinosaurs Say I'm Mad? by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague. They especially loved all of the silly things that a dinosaur might do if it is mad, such as flinging a coffee cup at the cat! The students also enjoyed hearing all about Ahmed's special item, a flying ant that Ahmed built all on his own from the Lego Ant Man pack. Ahmed was very proud to share that even though the pack is meant for 6-12 year olds, he was able to build the item all on his own. The students oohed and ahhed as Ahmed took apart and put back together the Lego Ant Man. Ahmed's mom and dad wrote a sweet, thoughtful, and heartfelt letter, sharing lots of wonderful stories about Ahmed! His parents shared that Ahmed is a special, caring, funny, considerate, creative, talented, and smart student, who has the gift of making everyone around him laugh. We certainly see his one-of-a-kind personality in class--he always has a funny story to share! Ahmed finds joy in the simple things, such as taking a stroll and telling a joke. Ahmed's parents also shared how proud they are of Ahmed's ability to build Lego sets that are meant for 7-12 year olds. They are constantly amazed by the beautiful things that he has built. The students were able to make that connection when they listened to and asked questions about Ahmed's special Ant Man toy. At home, Ahmed is a great help, always helping his younger brother and sister. He is always willing to share his toys with his friends and younger siblings--and he continues to love Ayah and Adam, even when they break his toys. At that moment, Ahmed shared that he knows his younger sister and brother are still growing up and he is there to help them. His parents also shared all of the fun places that he has been, including Great America, Gilroy Gardens, Oakland Zoo, San Francisco Zoo, San Diego Zoo, Disneyland, and Legoland. After seeing Ahmed's special item and hearing about Ahmed's impressive ability to construct difficult Lego sets, it was no surprise when Ahmed shared that some day, he would like to be a builder or construction worker when he grows up. The Kinder-Whales especially loved looking at Ahmed's baby picture and pictures of him doing a few of his favorite things, including reading, playing soccer, going swimming, bike riding, and helping out with cooking at home. Ahmed shared that he is really good at building and fixing things, and that he likes to take things apart so that he can figure out how they work and then put them back together. Ahmed also shared that he would like to visit Kenya and to go on a Safari tour so that he can see all of the animals! We have thoroughly enjoyed learning more about Ahmed this week! He is a very unique kid, and he definitely makes our Kindergarten class a happy and brighter place to be! Amazing job, Ahmed, and thank you for all of the laughs! Next Week's Starfish: Marissa! We Thank You! As always, thank you so much for all of your endless support and for taking the time to read through all of the mid-week reminders and the weekly news! I am learning so much as a new teacher at Spangler, and I have truly enjoyed being your child's teacher! I cannot believe that it is already almost November, and that the students have been in school for 55 days! We are making so many memories together, and I am looking forward to making even more over our remaining 125 days of school together! As we celebrate Halloween, I would also like to say THANK YOU to Aashni and her family, Marissa and her family, Anthony and his family, and U'ilani and her family for making Halloween treats to share with the class, and making our Halloween celebration that much more special! For this week's news, please leave a quick comment about a fear your child would like to overcome! Have a HAPPY safe, fun, and spooky Halloween! Love, Mrs. Lorenzana |
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Mrs. LorenzanaKindergarten Teacher at Spangler Elementary Archives
June 2016
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