Kinder-Whale Tales Dear Kinder-Whale Families, I hope you are having a great weekend so far and a very happy start to the month of October! There is already a buzz in our classroom about costumes and what we all will dress up as for Halloween! With the beginning of October, we also made some new changes, including the way that we do our daily calendar. Please read below for more details! This week, we have also started doing our letter a week lessons, which will allow students to go deeper into learning the letter and mastering everything about it from learning how to write it to saying its sound and identifying it whenever we hear it in a word. Featured above in this week's news is a video of the students singing the letter Ss song that they learned (second take--pretty good!). This past week, the students started a few projects; however, some of the students are still not done with the projects, so we will save the pictures of their amazing artwork for next week's news! Thank you for your patience and understanding! Enjoy reading the weekly news! Reading/Language Arts This week, the Kinder-Whales wrapped up our unit on Johnny Appleseed. The Kinder-Whales were very excited to show what they have learned after reading, re-reading, and digging deeper in to the book, Johnny Appleseed, by Jodie Shepherd. They were even more eager to act out the events in the story. As a class, we listed out all of the characters in the story, including Johnny Appleseed, his sister Elizabeth, his mom, his ten stepbrothers and stepsisters, the animals that kept him company, and the settlers and friends that he made along his travels.We also listed the setting, or different places in the book, including Johnny Appleseed's house, the area outside his house by the river, the apple orchards, sleeping outside underneath the stars, and the places that Johnny visited as he traveled west. The students had so much fun taking turns playing the different parts and acting out the story in order. Throughout the week, each student was assessed on their ability to sequence the events from story of Johnny Appleseed and to retell the story using their own words and including details from the beginning, middle, and end. At the end of the week, we completed a circle map with all of the details and facts that we remember about Johnny Appleseed. Centers: Letter of the Week: Ss Our centers this week were all about the letter Ss! We started the week with a morning Chit Chat. After the letter of the week was revealed, we reviewed the sound it makes. Then students turned and worked with a partner (chit chat!) to come up with as many words as they could think of that begin with the letter Ss. At one of the stations, the students looked at pictures of objects and decided if they begin with the letter Ss or not, Then the students completed a tree map and placed all of the pictures that start with Ss on one side and all of the pictures that don't start with Ss on the other side. The other stations included activities where they had to find the uppercase and lowercase letter Ss and they also had to complete a book with things that begin with letter Ss. Students especially enjoyed using the chrome books to review the letter Ss on Starfall! Build Your Name! The Kinder-Whales had a lot of fun building their names using our linking cubes! They did a wonderful job forming the letters! Soon, we will start using the linking cubes to build high frequency words! Writing/Handwriting In addition to knowing how to sound out the letter Ss, the students also practiced the correct way to form the letter Ss. They started at the top for the uppercase S, and then they curved around and curved around. For the lowercase s, the students started at the dotted line and curved around and curved around. They especially enjoyed using our white board sentence strips and Expo markers to practice! Also for writing this week, each student wrote a sentence about Ms. Waslif for her birthday on Tuesday, September 29th. Please look on the right side to see their work! Math The Kinder-Whales are continuing to review numbers 0-9, including identifying, writing, and showing different ways to make the numbers using drawings, holding up their fingers, or using manipulatives such as counters, dice, and cards. This week, the Kinder-Whales learned math vocabulary: more vs. less, and they practiced using it in complete sentences. A few students were given some pencils. As a class, we counted the pencils and then determined who had more and who had less. We used complete sentences and said, "Marissa has more" or "Norah has less." We also looked at how many more pencils each child would need to have the same amount. The students worked with a partner to do some comparing math activities. Each pair was given a set of numeral cards, a set of dot cards, and some counters. Students worked together to match the cards to the counters, which helps them with number recognition and counting on a one-to-one correspondence. We discussed how to get an accurate count by making sure we are carefully counting out the items and not counting them twice or skipping any. Towards the end of the week, we focused more on pairing with a one-to-one correspondence. We looked at a large picture of the three blind mice and discussed how many chairs, clocks, umbrellas, sunglasses, cheese slices, etc. that we would need to make sure that each mouse had a fair share. Then we discussed how each student in our classroom has a chair, crayons, pencil, etc. Students also discussed how many more chairs we would need if more students were added to our class, and how many chairs we could take away if one of our friends was absent or went into another class. Calendar Thank you so much to everyone for sending in a binder for your child to use during calendar time! The students were very excited to have their own calendar to work on as we go through our daily calendar routine. Each month, students will be introduced to new math concepts. For this month, students will be working on graphing (birthdays and weather), ordinal numbers (what number comes before and what number comes after), tally marks, patterning, ten frames, dominoes, dice, how to write the digital date (month, day, year format), and place value (hundreds, tens, and ones) to keep track of the number of days we have been in school. We have had a tough and somewhat frustrating two days learning how to complete the new calendar, but the students are committed, patient, and slowly starting to get the hang of it! By the end of the month, they will be pros! Rainy Song During Calendar! We finally got some rain this past week! While doing the calendar, our helpers led the class in singing our weather song. Please see below: | Reminders & Updates Next Week:
Announcement: A letter will be sent home next week with more information about the Pumpkin Patch Day. As a heads up, it says that the cost of a pumpkin is $3.50. However, I did not get this information until this past Friday! As a result, I will be covering the additional 50 cents for each child. October Events:
RECAP Spangler Dollars The Kinder-Whales were super excited to see the Spangler dollars that they have earned so far! As a reminder, students can earn up to $2.00 Spangler dollars for completing their entire homework packet on time! Students may also receive $1.00 Spangler dollar for exceptional behavior, being an outstanding friend, or getting on a pink day. The next day that the Spangler Store will be open is on Friday, October 23rd. Students will get to decide if they would like to spend their Spangler dollars or save their money! Happy Birthday, Ms. Waslif! On Tuesday, September 29th, we wished Ms. Waslif a very happy birthday! We all discussed how Ms. Waslif is special and wrote all of our responses on the board. Then each student created a page to put in Ms. Waslif's birthday book! Rainy Day Recess: GoNoodle! We finally got some rain this week! As a result, we had indoor recess and indoor lunch for the first time this year. The Kinder-Whales were introduced to GoNoodle, an interactive website that allows students to dance, move around, sing, or calm down using relaxing breathing videos. The website allows our class to select a mascot (avatar). The more we use GoNoodle, the more strength our avatar receives and the bigger he will grow! Stay tuned for more updates about this exciting program! Starfish of the Week: Christian Christian did a FANTASTIC job with helping to make sure that the class stayed focused and completed their work. Any time the class volume got a little too loud, he would say, "Waterfall!" to remind the class to work quietly. He was a tremendous help to the teacher! Christian also graciously offered to help pass out papers, supplies, and materials without me even asking him to! He just came right up and asked if he could help out because he is the Starfish of the Week :). The Kinder-Whales really enjoyed listening to Christian's favorite book, The Night Before Christmas. It made us even more excited for Christmas (even though we only just started October!). Christian's parents wrote a very sweet letter about how proud they are of him and his accomplishments, and how much they love his amazing personality. They shared stories about Christian's first trip to Disneyland, before he was even one year old! One of their fond memories is of how Christian was not afraid of a 20 foot bear character at Disneyland--rather than being afraid, he hugged the bear and even bit its nose! Christian showed his love for Disneyland when he brought in his special item, a Mickey Mouse in pajamas that he has had since he was a baby, making it very special to him. During the Starfish Talk Show, Christian also shared how much he loves finding the Disney characters and taking pictures with them. One of the students asked him what it was like at Disneyland because they had never been. Christian's response was, "Make sure you tell your mom and dad to save lots of money because you need a lot of money to go to Disneyland, so start saving now!" Christian also shared that he loves to draw shapes and he loves arts and crafts. He pointed out that his Mickey Mouse has a circle for a nose and two bigger circles for the ears. Someday, when Christian grows up, he would like to be a boss--with his personality and his tips on saving money, I'm sure he will make a great boss some day :). Awesome job, Christian! Next Week's Starfish: Shannon! Thank You! Thank you for another wonderful week! It has been such a pleasure teaching, learning, and just being with the Kinder-Whales each day! They are such sweethearts and their excitement to learn has been contagious! I am looking forward to getting to know them even better as the year unfolds! Throughout the year, as supplies run low, there will be times when I request for donations of items that we will need in the classroom. Currently, there are some items that it would be helpful to have if you are able and willing to donate! Our classroom has six headphones which the students use with our Chrome books during centers time. Our classroom also has six iPads. However, we do not have any additional headphones for the students to use. Our wish list will now also include another 6 headphones for our students to be able to use both the chrome books and the iPsds simultaneously. If you are able to donate a pair of headphones or gift cards, I would greatly appreciate it! Here is a link to the headphones we'd like to match the other ones in our classroom: HEADPHONES. Thank you so much for taking the time to read the weekly news! Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns! For this week, please leave a quick comment with your child's favorite SEASON and why (since we will be learning about that very soon!). Have a wonderful rest of your weekend! Best, Mrs. Lorenzana |
12 Comments
Stephanie Guthrie
10/4/2015 09:09:56 am
Marissa's favorite season is a tie between winter and fall. The hardest thing for her about moving to California was realizing we're not going to get snow here (in Milpitas, anyway). She loves fall because of all the falling leaves. She likes to gather them all while she's playing and then compare the size, shape, colors, etc..
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Monique Johnson
10/4/2015 09:49:55 am
Bruce prefers winter because his favorite holiday is Christmas and he likes the rainy weather.
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jayne
10/4/2015 02:50:33 pm
Brody loves winter because of the snow.
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Irina McGee
10/4/2015 03:19:03 pm
Brookie's favorite season is winter, because she can build a snow man.
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Mohamud
10/4/2015 09:09:58 pm
Ahmed loves the summer as he enjoys going to the water park
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Leon Li
10/4/2015 09:12:58 pm
Annie likes the snow in winter. But there is no snow. We could see snow in Tahoe.
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Jennifer
10/5/2015 10:30:23 am
Shannon's favorite season is Winter, because of the cold weather. She likes skiing & playing with snow.
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Emiliano
10/7/2015 10:01:13 pm
Christian's favorite season is winter, he loves to wear his rain boots and play in the rain. Also the fact that Christmas is during winter makes it exciting for him
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Sandra
10/8/2015 06:07:05 am
Anthony's favorite season is summer because he loves going to the beach, the boardwalk, and riding his bike at the park.
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cen
10/8/2015 08:39:08 pm
Kevin's favorite season is winter because he loves to play in the snow with his family.
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Rebecca Brackett
10/8/2015 09:58:22 pm
Mia's favorite season is winter because she thinks the snow looks pretty. She also said she would like to go skiing!
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Sonali Acharya
10/9/2015 05:40:51 pm
Aashni loves summer because she loves to go to the beach and she can go to the swimming pool with her friends.
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Mrs. LorenzanaKindergarten Teacher at Spangler Elementary Archives
June 2016
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