Kinder-Whale Tales Dear Kinder-Whale Families, HAPPY DECEMBER! I especially LOVE this time of year! Featured above in this week's news are two holiday themed projects that the students completed this week. The first featured project was a sequencing activity. The students had a collaborative conversation about how they would build a snowman as well as what tools they might need. Then we build OLAF (from the movie, Frozen). Each Olaf is different and that's what made it so much fun! The students build Olaf holding his head up high, standing on one foot, or laying on the ground. Then we drew a background for where Olaf might be in our snow globe. Many students thought about drawing Olaf at the beach because he loves summer time, even though he would melt! The Kinder-Whales also drew Olaf drinking hot chocolate because he loves hot things--what a silly snowman, they said! After building their Olaf, the students wrote about how they would build a snowman, using the words, First, Next, Then, and Last. They shared their sequencing writing activity with a friend. Our second holiday themed project was stringing stockings using yarn and construction paper. The students repeated the steps, under, over, under, over as they were stringing their stockings. Then we put on a white strip of paper for the trim of the stocking and wrote our names with glitter glue. All of their stockings are hanging in our classroom on a pseudo brick chimney/fireplace. Check it out in the featured slideshows above! To connect the holidays with our current SEAL unit on community helpers, we read a fun book called, Snowmen At Work by Caralyn Buehner. The students loved identifying all of the community helpers found in the story, including teachers, mechanics, factory workers, firefighters, and construction workers. Take a look at some of the adorable pictures below! NEW: Classroom Helpers! The Kinder-Whales have been doing a wonderful job of learning all about Community Helpers! To tie it all together and to connect it to their real life, we now have CLASSROOM HELPERS! Each student will be assigned a new classroom job each week, and the jobs will rotate, so that every student has the opportunity to do each job. The jobs include:
The students have also been on the lookout for new community helpers. I love the fact that students are taking what we are learning in the classroom and applying it out in the real world! One of our Kinder-Whales created her own community helpers book, using pictures printed out from the internet, clippings from books and magazines, and she wrote her own descriptions of each community helper. We enjoyed reading it aloud to the class. Students are encouraged to create Community Helpers books of their own, and we will read them aloud to the class. Community Helper: Librarian This week, the students learned all about librarians and their roles and responsibilities in helping out our community. First, we did a circle map to share what we know about librarians. Some of the things they said were that a librarian helps people to find books at the library. The librarian reads books aloud to kids during story time, and the librarian gives you a library card. We kept adding to this list as we learned more about librarians from reading books and from our first field trip this year to the Milpitas Library (field trip pictures are to the right side of the weekly news). After our field trip, the students added that librarians put on puppet shows, they recommend books for us to read, such as Elephant and Piggie, the librarian looks up information, the librarian gives you tours of the library and looks up information. The librarian also helps you to use the computer--there is a section of the library that has computers that can only be used by kids ages 15 and under. When we left the library, each child received a library card (if they didn't have one already). We made library kits, complete with a bookmark/door hanger, a reading wand/pointer, a pencil, and of course, their library card. Please look for a little note that gives directions for how to access the pin of your child's library card. Centers: Letter Cc Our letter of the week is the letter Cc. All throughout the week, the students kept coming up with words that begin with the letter C or that have the /c/ sound. Math Using Calendar Our Calendar Captain this week was Marissa, and she did a marvelous job in leading us in our calendar routine and activities. She led us in singing our new month song and days of the week song, in counting the number of days we've had in December and in counting the number of days we've had in the school year. So far, we have been in school for 76 days! Before we know it, it will be the 100th day of school! We are continuing to use our daily calendar to introduce the students to new and upcoming math concepts. Please see a few of the pages below! So far, the students have practiced counting and writing numbers up to 76. They have also practiced counting by 10's beginning from any number by looking at the hundreds chart. Our goal is for them to be able to do that mentally, without looking at a chart. A few of them are already able to do that! We have also used the 100's chart for skip counting by 10's up to 100, 5's up to 30, and 2's up to 30. This month, the students are continuing to add using the term, making numbers. This week, they used different amounts to make 1, 2, 3, and 4. For instance, to make 4, they can have 1+3, 2+2, 3+1, 0+4, or 4+0. The students draw in dots to help them keep track of how many they need to make each number. This month, the students were introduced to the concept of NUMBER BONDS. On the number bonds page, the students use a different way to make the same numbers. Please see picture below! For this month, we will make numbers (or add) up to 18, the last day before our winter break. In January, we will make up to 31. December Calendar Check out the front cover of our December calendar below! The words to our December song are also shown below. I encourage you to ask your child to sing it for you! While you're at it, please also have them sing the rest of the month songs for you! Each song is used to help your child learn how to spell each month. A video of the December song will be uploaded next week, once the students have learned the words. | Reminders & Updates Next Week:
RECAP Field Trip to the Library! The Kinder-Whales had so much fun on our field trip to the library. All six Kindergarten classes lined up and walked to the library. It was a lovely walk! I loved hearing the students identifying and counting all of the fire hydrants along the way to the library. We counted 13 fire hydrants total! We learned about firefighters last month during the second week of November, and the students are still excited to talk about them! It was also wonderful to hear the students pointing out other community helpers, such as the roofers, who were fixing the roof of an apartment building, the police officers who were driving by the library in their police car, and the postal worker who drove by in a mail truck. We will be learning about postal workers next week! On our field trip, we had story time. The librarian explained that she had to go through elementary school, middle school, high school, college to get her Bachelor's degree, and graduate school to get her Master's degree. Then she read aloud some fun stories about jungle animals, including a hippo who couldn't get rid of its hiccups. The librarian acted out a book called Elephant and Piggie and discussed how students can read and re-read stories. Just because you've read a book once, that doesn't mean you can't read it again and enjoy it many more times. We walked by the computer lab area for kids only with filtered sites, and we also had time to explore the Beginning Readers section of the library. The students sat down and got comfortable with a book and read together. Then on our walk back to school, we looked for more community helpers and holiday decorations. THANK YOU SO MUCH TO MS. STEPHANIE for chaperoning on our first field trip and helping to keep the kids safe on our walk to and from the library! Making Elves with our Buddies! On Friday, the Kinder-Whales met with their fifth grade buddies to make ELVES! They shared what they did over the Thanksgiving break and any upcoming plans that they have for the winter break. Then they worked together to create their elves. Finished products of their elves projects will be posted next week! Meet Sparkle the Elf! This week, our class received a special delivery from the North Pole! There was a mysterious knock on our door and the distant jingling of some bells. Our line ender/door monitor, U'ilani opened the door to see who was there, but all she found was a wrapped gift outside the door! We brought in the gift and read the address label... inside was a letter from Santa himself! Have you ever wondered how Santa is able to keep track of all of the kids in the world? Well, Santa sent our class a little elf friend to keep an eye on our class and to report back to him about everything that he sees and hears! Every night, our little elf will fly back to the North Pole to give him his report. The elves help Santa to make his naughty or nice list. In Santa's letter, he warned the class not to touch our elf friend, or else he may lose his magic and won't be able to fly back to the North Pole! We read aloud the book that came with Santa's elf, and we gave our elf a special name: SPARKLE! The students took turns introducing themselves to Sparkle and welcomed him to our classroom. All throughout the morning, Sparkle didn't move or make a sound--he was busy listening to our class. Then, after lunch, we found that Sparkle was on the loose! The students quickly followed the trail of wrapping paper, and found him UPSIDE DOWN in Mrs. Lorenzana's stocking! We were careful not to touch him. Please see a few of the students' reactions below! On Monday, the students will find Sparkle in a different place in the classroom! Starfish of the Week: Dennis! Dennis did a fantastic job as our Starfish of the Week. He was very excited to share all about his favorite things and the class loved learning some new things about Dennis! On Tuesday, we read one of Dennis's favorite books, which happened to be a book checked out from the Milpitas Library. The book was the picture book version of the popular movie, Big Hero 6. The Kinder-Whales were very excited to look at the pictures and to compare it to the movie--many of them had seen it in theaters. The Kinder-Whales had fun sharing all about their favorite characters in the book/movie, especially Baymax. Dennis also shared his special item, which he has had since he was a little kid. Dennis brought out his Ironman toy and showed us all of its cool features, including the different stances and the phrases that Ironman says. On Friday, Dennis had his Starfish Talk Show, where he presented his All About Me poster. Dennis shared that he is six years old, and he introduced his family members, including his mom, Karma, his dad, Bill, his sister, Ebony (whom we all know, thanks to her help in the classroom on Wednesdays), and his little brother. Someday, Dennis would like to be a pro football player for the Raiders, his family's favorite team. Dennis is really good at sports, including baseball. The class got excited when Dennis mentioned that he would like to visit Disneyland, "the happiest place on Earth." His favorite things include superheroes and monster trucks. Dennis did a wonderful job of answering questions that the students had about his poster, including what was his favorite picture. Dennis loves the picture of him wearing a large turtle shell--the class commented that it actually looks like he is a turtle! We all loved the picture. Dennis's parents wrote a special letter to him to share some fond and hilarious memories with the class. One of the funniest memories they shared was when Dennis was 8 or 9 months old. They would fill up two baby bottles complete to the top and leave one with him. A minute later, they would hear an empty bottle slam against the wall, and Dennis would be screaming his head off, as he waited for his second bottle. The Kinder-Whales smiled and laughed as they listened to the story. His mom and dad shared how proud they are of Dennis and the amazing boy that he has become--he is respectful, kind, patient, obedient, hardworking, and hilarious, and they love him so much! They can't wait for him to become an NFL player so that he can finally buy them their own house!!! :) AWESOME JOB, DENNIS! Next Week's Starfish: Kevin! Thank You! Because the holidays are near, we will be doing some fun holiday activities in our classroom. For the next two weeks, we will begin learning about different holiday traditions celebrated all over the world, including Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Las Posadas, the Legend of the Poinsettias, and Christmas. If you are interested and/or able to teach the class about some of your holiday traditions or how you and your family celebrate the holidays, please email me to let me know! For this week, please leave a quick comment with how your child is a community helper at home/favorite chore. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your weekend! Warm wishes, Mrs. Lorenzana |
10 Comments
Monique Johnson
12/5/2015 07:38:01 pm
Bruce's loves to help out with anything that he can but his favorite chores are helping to make dinner or helping to make our bed.
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Stephanie Guthrie
12/5/2015 09:25:10 pm
Marissa is not really a fan of chores, but she likes to feed our dog and clear the table.
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Sonali Acharya
12/5/2015 11:26:00 pm
Aashni loves to help me in cleaning her room and she also likes to help me in cooking..
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Jayne/Brody
12/6/2015 05:40:00 am
Brody helps in all kinds of chores like vacuuming, picking up toys, cleaning his room. He's loves to help around the house and is a busy body.
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Josh Wells
12/6/2015 07:38:12 am
U'ilani is a very good helper at home. She helps cook, clean the bathroom, do laundry, clean her room, and is especially helpful with her baby sister!
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Mohamud
12/6/2015 01:39:53 pm
Ahmed helps around during clean up, and is always assisting his little sister
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Jennifer Yeoh
12/6/2015 01:56:39 pm
Shannon's favorite chores is to do laundry, helping me to set up the table and clean up after play.
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Rebecca Brackett
12/7/2015 12:17:22 am
Mia helps her brothers put away the dishes by putting away the silverware. She works very carefully to ensure the silverware is put away properly. She has also began putting away her own clothes and making her bed.
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Gloria Kao
12/8/2015 04:56:53 am
Austin is very good at cleaning up such as picking up toys and wiping the floor and also help with his younger brother.
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Juda
12/8/2015 10:55:03 pm
Munisa is a very special helper to me at home. She helps to me with cook, clean her room with her sister, and is especially helpful with her baby sister:)
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Mrs. LorenzanaKindergarten Teacher at Spangler Elementary Archives
June 2016
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