We will continue to read and study Eric Carle books. This week we will read  The Very Clumsy Click Beetle.

We are practicing reading and writing sight words.  We learned last week that masking on the forehead, not such a good idea!  Hope you heard about our hilarious Head Hunting Sight Word game!  We'll do that again and many other games to help us become more confident with sight words.

The Marvelous Me will be Zoe this week! We were a bit too busy with Mother's Day last Friday! 

We will study the letter Yy.  

The chant -

yodeling yak

yodeling yak y-y-y  (cup your hands over your mouth to yodel)

This will we will study our favorite community helper... Ms. Anne!  She is the owner of our custodial service here at Woodlawn.  This will be the week!  She's been super busy but we are on for this week! Also, we will begin preparing for our Kindergarten Graduation. 

It's a new month!  We will work on our May calendar.  Also, we will continue adding and subtracting numerals to 10.  What is the reason we have money and what are the values of each coin?  We will begin to explore how money works over the next two weeks.  A great idea?  Get out your wallet and show your child the coins you have.  Start practicing recognition at home. 

We are writing and observing our chickens every day!  Words you wouldn't hear in a typical Kindergarten class but happen daily here, "Oh, no fair!  I want a chicken to poop on me too!"  We write in our chicken observation journal almost daily. The chickens are growing exponentially! 

Would you like to chicken sit for just a night?  Just shoot me an email!  They can spend the night with you during the school week!

We will continue to read and study Eric Carle books. This week we will read Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me and The Very Clumsy Click Beetle.

We are practicing reading and writing sight words.  We learned last week that masking on the forehead, not such a good idea!  Hope you heard about our hilarious Head Hunting Sight Word game!  We'll do that again and many other games to help us become more confident with sight words.

The Marvelous Me will be Zoe this week! 

We will study the letter Xx.  The chant - 

x-ray x-ray

x-x-x  (cross arms to make an x in front of you)

This will we will study our favorite community helper... Ms. Anne!  She is the owner of our custodial service here at Woodlawn.  This will be the week!  She's been super busy but we are on for this week! 

It's a new month!  We will work on our May calendar.  Also, we will begin adding and subtracting numerals to 10. 

We are writing and observing our chickens every day!  Words you wouldn't hear in a typical Kindergarten class but happen daily here, "Oh, no fair!  I want a chicken to poop on me too!"  We write in our chicken observation journal almost daily. The chickens are growing exponentially! 

Would you like to chicken sit for just a night?  Just shoot me an email!  They can spend the night with you during the school week!

We will continue to read and study Eric Carle books. This week we will read The Very Quiet Cricket.

We will study the high frequency word busy.  Eric Carle uses this word a lot in his writing.  

The Marvelous Me will be Adara this week! 

We will study the letter Ww.  The chant - 

whistling whale

whistling whale

w-w-w

This will we will study our favorite community helper... Ms. Anne!  She is the owner of our custodial service here at Woodlawn.  

We are still working on discovering place value of 10's and 1's.  We are working on Eric Carle themed addition and subtraction problems.  We are learning how to use drawings to represent the problems.  It helps for us to see what we are adding and taking away. 

We are writing and observing our chickens every day!  Words you wouldn't hear in a typical Kindergarten class but happen daily here, "Oh, no fair!  I want a chicken to poop on me too!" 

We will continue to read and study Eric Carle books. This week we will read The Grouchy Ladybug.

We will study the high frequency word busy.  Eric Carle uses this word a lot in his writing.  

The Marvelous Me will be Gabriel this week! 

We will study the letter Vv.  The chant - 

vibrating vacuum

vibrating vacuum v-v-v  (pretend to move the vacuum back and forth)

This will we will study our favorite community helper... Ms. Anne!  She is the owner of our custodial service here at Woodlawn.  

We are still working on discovering place value of 10's and 1's.  We will also practice using standard measurement inches and centimeters, to measure our newest hatchlings.  

Yes!  We are the parents of chickens!  We have 10 little chicks now.  Watching them hatch was just priceless.  We will continue to study our chicks and watch as they develop every day!  

We will continue to read and study Eric Carle books. This week we will read From Head to Toe, The Very Lonely Firefly and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  

We will study the high frequency word very.  Eric Carle uses this word a lot in his writing.  

The Marvelous Me will be Asher this week! 

We will study the letter Uu.  The chant - which is my all time favorite!

Ugly underwear

Ugly underwear (u-u-u) wave hand in front of your nose

This will we will study our favorite community helper... Ms. Anne!  She is the owner of our custodial service here at Woodlawn.  

We are still working on discovering place value of 10's and 1's.  We will also practice using standard measurement inches and centimeters, to measure our newest hatchlings.  

This is the week where we all become parents!  Our chickens will hopefully hatch between Wednesday and Friday.  This is a very eggs-citing time but  also know it can be a sad one.  Not every chicken will survive the birthing process.  This is the culmination to our life cycle that we have been studying.  Privately without sharing this with our children, our upper and middle school science teachers will use the chicken fetus' that do not hatch to conduct their own experiments.  All of Woodlawn will benefit from our chicken project. They are good about keeping it a secret too.  

We will continue to use our chickens to learn all about writing, math, science and social studies.  This hands on learning is one that your child will hopefully always remember. 

We will continue to read and study Eric Carle books.  We're going to keep working with The Very Busy Spider this week and might have time to begin From Head to Toe.

We are going to study the high frequency word like.  It has a super "e"! Be sure to ask your child about that!

We will also study the high frequency word very.  Eric Carle uses this word a lot in his writing.  

The Marvelous Me will be Braden this week! 

We will study the letter Tt.  The chant:

Ticking timer

Ticking timer t-t-t  (move hands around like a clock)

We are continuing to study the community helpers around us and how much we rely on them.  Are you a community helper?  Or know of one that would like to speak to our class? Just let me know! 

We have some hidden Spring addition problems around our classroom for the kids to discover.  In our math books, we are exploring place value of ones and tens.  We still review our numerals to 100.  

We are in full swing with our 24 eggs in the incubator!  Wow!  That's the most chickens we have ever tried to have!  We have assigned students to be on Chicken Patrol and each day they have to record their observations of the eggs, check the temperature and humidity of the incubator and generally make sure we are on the right track.  

Our expected Hatch Date will be April 15th!  

We will continue to focus on punctuation as we read and write.  What would our voice sound like if we see a question mark? Exclamation point! Period.  

Our new author study is Eric Carle.  He continues to be an amazing influence in children's literature.  We will study his background and his works over the next  2 months.

This week we will finish working with his story Little Cloud and then we will beginThe Very Busy Spider.  

We are going to study the high frequency word like.  It has a super "e"! Be sure to ask your child about that!

The Marvelous Me will be Deven this week! 

We will study the letter Ss.  The chant:

Slithering snake

Slithering snake  s-s-s (move hands like a snake)

Who are the Community Helpers that make life easier for us every day?  We have already explored a few like the dentist and fire fighter.  We will go into more depth about the people in our neighborhood that help us out!  Are you a community helper?  Would you like to share with our class the things that you do?  Send me an email!

We are learning all about skip counting.  It's much easier to count to 100 by 10's than it is by 1's!  We are practicing skip counting by 2's, 3's, 5's and 10's.

This week we begin incubation!  We will learn all about the parts of an incubator and how it acts like the mommy chicken.  We will also study the life cycle of a chicken.

Our expected Hatch Date will be April 15th!  

We will continue to focus on punctuation as we read and write.  What would our voice sound like if we see a question mark? Exclamation point! Period.  

Our new author study is Eric Carle.  He continues to be an amazing influence in children's literature.  We will study his background and his works over the next  2 months.   

We will continue to discover capital letters at the beginning of sentences by playing the sentence scramble game. Hopefully we will begin to connect these skills as well as punctuation in our writing. The Marvelous Me will be Tucker this week! 

We will study the letter Rr.  The chant:

Roaring robot

Roaring robot r-r-r  (move arms like a robot)

Who are the Community Helpers that make life easier for us every day?  We have already explored a few like the dentist and fire fighter.  We will go into more depth about the people in our neighborhood that help us out!

We are exploring solid and flat shapes.  We are learning lots of new math vocabulary words such as triangular prism and cylinder.  We will read a wonderful story, The Shape of Things by Dayle Ann Dodds.  We will begin to see shapes all around us!

We are continuing to explore the difference between fiction and nonfiction stories.  

We're reading more honey bee stories (both fiction and nonfiction!) and we will read a very special love story between the letters Mr. Q and Miss U!  

This week, we will dive into the study of two very special letters!  Q and U!  We have many activities planned including -qu rhyming words and a -qu word hunt.  We will also study -ake words like cake, bake, rake.  We will continue our exploration of the the magic Ee!    We will use our story maps of our fictional bee story, to create a book to share with our friends! 

How do Honey Bees simulate our own social ability?  It's amazing how similar how this insect family correlates with our own.  

We will continue to read stories about dental health.  We also will begin to research the Honey Bee with many wonderful nonfiction stories to help us understand this very complex insect. We will also explore the different between fiction and nonfiction.  

Using the Honey Bee project, we will use bee words to help us understand ABC order, sentence structure, rhyming words, -st, -sp, -sl blends, and bee prewriting skills.  We will be looking at Real words vs. Nonsense words.  

How do Honey Bees simulate our own social ability?  It's amazing how similar how this insect family correlates with our own.  

We will continue to focus on punctuation as we read and write.  What would our voice sound like if we see a question mark? Exclamation point! Period.  

We'll begin to notice how words are spaced in books so that we can easily read each one.  And we will make that connection in our writing.  We are also going to be looking for -ing words.  We will also explore several stories about going to the dentist.  Dr. Kotis (Tucker's mom and community helper!) will be a guest speaker to share her love of dental health.  

Operation, operation

O-O-O  (point to your throat with your mouth open wide)

We will study the letter Oo

We will continue to discover capital letters at the beginning of sentences by playing the sentence scramble game. Hopefully we will begin to connect these skills as well as punctuation in our writing. We are also working on ABC order.  We will use dental health words this week!  We will study the spelling and sound of -ing words.  The Marvelous Me will finally be Sam! 

We will keep looking for funny facts about the Presidents and learn about our current President too.

Love is still in the air!  We will read a lot of very heart warming tales! 

We will also be reading some wonderful nonfiction books about different Presidents of the United States.

The letter Nn will be our study this week.  The chant is:

noisy nascar, noisy nascar

n-n-n  (move hand around in a circle like a race car)

In phonics, we will continue our work with blends including -st, -sp, -sl, -sh

We will study these not just at the beginning of words, but throughout the word.  See how many you can think of at home! 

Over the next week, we will be looking at the Presidents in honor of President's Day.  We will primarily focus on Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

We will explore what they are most famous for and maybe even learn a few funny facts about them too!

We will continue our study of the numeral 100.  I hope you heard some great stories from last week!  We accomplished a lot but still have more to do!

Love is in the air!  We will read a lot of very heart warming tales! 

On Wednesday,  we will read all of the couplets that you child has created!

We will finish up the Letter Mm and maybe even get to the letter Nn!

We are also finishing up studying the high frequency word and.  Did you know that you can make so many words using and?  See if you can come up with some.

In phonics, we will be working with blends including -st, -sp, -sl, -sh

We will study these not just at the beginning of words, but throughout the word.  See how many you can think of at home! 

Over the next week, we will be looking at the Presidents in honor of President's Day.  We will primarily focus on Abraham Lincoln and George Washington.

We will explore what they are most famous for and maybe even learn a few funny facts about them too!

We will continue our study of the numeral 100.  I hope you heard some great stories from Friday!  We accomplished a lot but still have more to do!

We are using RazKids in the classroom to help teach reading strategies.  It is really important that your child is reading a minimum of 3 stories each week.  I choose stories that your child has read to further their learning of phonics, inferencing, applications, grammar, etc.  So, it's really important that your child is reading RazKids at their current reading ability.  If your child is behind, be sure to help them catch up.   

We will study the letter Mm this week.  

Our chant:

Marshmallow, Marshmallow

m-m-m

(rub tummy while you make the sound)

Have you heard about Marvelous Me?  Be sure to ask your child! This week we will study Sam Watson!

We have also been studying punctuation.  Our favorite so far is the exclamation point!  We are learning as readers that these punctuation marks help us read out loud the author's purpose.  It's fun!  Try it at home! 

Where is Punxsutawney Pennsylvania?  We will find this out when we discover whether the groundhog predicts 6  more weeks of winter or an early spring.  We will discover map skills over the next few weeks.  

This week we will celebrate the 100th day of school!  We will explore this wonderful numeral by completing many different activities over the week.  

We are using RazKids in the classroom to help teach reading strategies.  It is really important that your child is reading a minimum of 3 stories each week.  I choose stories that your child has read to further their learning of phonics, inferencing, applications, grammar, etc.  So, it's really important that your child is reading RazKids at their current reading ability.  If your child is behind, be sure to help them catch up.   

We will study the letter Mm this week.  

Our chant:

Marshmallow, Marshmallow

m-m-m

(rub tummy while you make the sound)

Have you heard about Marvelous Me?  Be sure to ask your child! This week we will study Colin Cerminara!

We have also been studying punctuation.  Our favorite so far is the exclamation point!  We are learning as readers that these punctuation marks help us read out loud the author's purpose.  It's fun!  Try it at home! 

We will wrap up our study of Martin Luther King, Jr.  

We will continue our study of the greater than, less than and equal to symbols.  Also, we will begin studying numeral 11-20.  

This month we will really grow as readers.  I will be teaching your child many strategies to help them become more fluent and enjoy the independence of being able to read a book all by themselves!  Everyone has signed into Raz Kids.  I have received a ton of great feedback.  Remember that your child should read at least 3 different stories and get 3 checkmarks for each.  So far, that has not been a problem! I'm thrilled with the progress your child is making!  Keep up the great work.  

We will study the letter Kk this week.  

kicking kangaroo

kicking kangaroo

k-k-k (kick legs out to the side - Karefully!) :)

Have you heard about Marvelous Me?  Be sure to ask your child! We will be starting this wonderful project this week!

We are studying the short vowels.  We will practice hearing the sounds of CVC words. That means consonant-vowel-consonant words.  In centers, we will search for picture cards that have these CVC patterns.  Your child will need to write the correct spelling for each word.  

An at home idea?  Go over the short vowel sounds with your child.  We will be focusing on these skills over the next few weeks.  

This week we will be running an experiment based on Martin Luther King Jr's dream. Some children will be discriminated against.  Please know that we are only "acting" but your child might be very sad after this lesson.  My hope is that you all have wonderful conversations at home about the work of MLK and racism even today.  It's a very powerful lesson.  There are usually lots of tears.  But I hope it's something that is life changing for your child.  

We will practice how to read and recognize number words.  Also, we are going to learn about the greater than and less than symbol.  The chompy mouth always gobbles up the larger number.  The kids really enjoy making their own chompy mouths out of popsicle sticks to use in centers. We were able review our numeral formation studies.  Your child should be able to write the numerals 0-9 without any errors.   

This week, we will be introducing a reading program called RazKids!  Get ready for some awesome learning!  I will be sending information home about how to get started soon.  

We are going to spend some time reviewing our handwriting skills over the letters we have learned.  The letter Jj is our focus this week.  

The chant is:

juggling joker

juggling joker j-j-j

We will write in our journals about our holiday and all of the things we want to accomplish in the year 2015!

This week, I will be assigning a big project that you will complete with your child over the next several weeks.  Your child will be writing a Valentine couplet for each child. Be looking for information to come home soon.   

We are going to spend some time reviewing our numeral handwriting.  Also, we are going to learn all about the new year calendar! 

Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late will be our focus story this week.  We will complete many activities and projects.

Mo Willems has a website where you can play games with his book characters.  Be sure to check it out with your child!

http://www.mowillems.com/

The letter Ii is our focus this week.  This is a very important short vowel that is fundamental to learning how to spell 3 letter words. 

The chant is:

icky insect

icky insect i-i-i

In the morning, the students will continue to sign in with their last name. We will practice spelling and writing our last names.  Try this at home too!

We are beginning how to make combinations to equal a number.  For example, 2 onions and 2 more onions make 4.  We are discussing beginning addition strategies. Also, we are beginning to explore plain shapes in Geometry.  Be sure to ask your child what this word means!  Hope you all enjoyed your child's Geome-tree!

We are learning how to choose books that are on our reading level over the next couple of weeks.  Some kids are still only looking at the pictures to "tell" the story.  Some others are beginning to recognize some high frequency words.  We will continue to learn more strategies to help us be better readers.

Mo Willems has a website where you can play games with his book characters.  Be sure to check it out with your child!

http://www.mowillems.com/

The letter Hh is our focus this week.

The chant is:

heavy hippo

heavy hippo  h-h-h

In the morning, the students will be asked to sign in with their last name this month. We will practice spelling and writing our last names.  Try this at home too!

We are beginning how to make combinations to equal a number.  For example, 2 onions and 2 more onions make 4.  We are discussing beginning addition strategies. 

We are going to learn how to choose books that are on our reading level over the next couple of weeks.  Some kids are still only looking at the pictures to "tell" the story.  Some others are beginning to recognize some high frequency words.  We will continue to learn more strategies to help us be better readers.

We will also begin our brand new author study of Mo Willems.  He is a terribly funny children's book author and illustrator.  He writes for Sesame Street on PBS and most of his text uses high frequency words.  This makes his books a great transition for beginning readers!  If you do not own any of these books, please order some on scholastic.  They are not only hilarious to read but a great resource for your child.  

The letter Gg is our focus this week.  We will also review all of the letters we have learned so far.  In the morning, the students will be asked to sign in with their last name this month.  We will practice spelling and writing our last names.  Try this at home too!

A brand new calendar month provides tons of math opportunities for us this week! We will begin in our new math books with learning how to order things by size, length and weight.  

We will read our favorites again this week!

We will write in our journals about our favorite Thanksgiving traditions.

We will wrap up our unit on Plymouth Rock.  I can hardly wait for you to see our performance!

1 more and 1 less than are the next concepts we will tackle.

We're continuing our study of the pilgrims, native americans and Plymouth Rock!

Please keep working on those play lines at home!

We are creating a class book about all of the things we for which we are thankful.  We will share it during our play next week.

Over the next month, we will start a new unit of study.  We will be exploring Plymouth Plantation, the pilgrims, Mayflower and the Native Americans of MA.

Numerals 8 and 9 are the last ones to study!  Then every child should be able to create every numeral the correct way.  

It's the Letter Ff that we will study. Our chant is:

fighting feline, fighting feline, f-f-f

We'll also introduce the digraph, ph

We've also begun using the iPads to work on spelling words.  The kids will start off with just 2 letter words. As they move through the game, the words get harder!  

Over the next month, we will start a new unit of study.  We will be exploring Plymouth Plantation, the pilgrims, Mayflower and the Native Americans of MA.

We will finish up the numeral 7 and begin on numeral 8!  We're almost done with our first math book too!  A brand new calendar month provides tons of math opportunities for us this week!

It's the Letter Ee that we will study. Our chant is:

elephant echo, elephant echo e-e-e

This is a tricky letter.  It's a hard vowel to hear in writing.  We will practice this letter a bunch this week.  

Over the next month, we will start a new unit of study.  We will be exploring Plymouth Plantation, the pilgrims, Mayflower and the Native Americans of MA.

We are continuing in centers to learn about the numeral 6 as well as many math concepts in science like: circumference, perimeter, estimation, counting, and predictions.  A brand new calendar month provides tons of math opportunities for us this week!

It's the Letter Ee that we will study.  As a vowel, it's very confusing with the letter Ii.  We will talk about this letter a bunch this week.  

We are off to the Ronald McDonald House to deliver the pumpkins that we picked at Patterson Farms.  Thank you to everyone including our 9th grade buddies, that made this happen!  

We are continuing in centers to learn about the numeral 6 as well as many math concepts in science like: circumference, perimeter, estimation, counting, and predictions.    

We are off to study the letter Dd!  The chant is:

drumming drums

drumming drums

d-d-d

This week, we will learn the numeral 6.  Be sure to ask your child to make 0-5 this week.  If they are still doing it wrong, send me a quick email.  

We are off to study the letter Dd!  

How do we make the numeral 5?  This is a tricky one!  We will have lots of fun practice with this number.

We will be writing in our journal about autumn this week.  Also, we will continue to practice writing our name.  Due to the short week, we will just review A-C.  Every week, your child will complete a LOOK BOOK involving each letter of the alphabet.  We accomplish so many skills with this project.  Handwriting, letter sounds, sign language, 1:1, syllable counting, and reading strategies are just a few!

How do we make the numeral 5?  This is a tricky one!  We will have lots of fun practice with this number.

We will be writing in our journal about autumn this week.  Also, we will continue to practice writing our name.  The letter Cc will be our focus letter for handwriting. Every week, your child will complete a LOOK BOOK involving each letter of the alphabet.  We accomplish so many skills with this project.  Handwriting, letter sounds, sign language, 1:1, syllable counting, and reading strategies are just a few!

We will learn how to make the numerals 4.  We will read Pete the 
Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  This is a subtraction story.  We will continue developing our number sense by learning how to mentally take things away. Also, we will study the calendar in more depth by creating our very own October calendar! 

We will be writing in our journal about autumn this week.  Also, we will continue to practice writing our name.  The letter Bb will be our focus letter for handwriting. Every week, your child will complete a LOOK BOOK involving each letter of the alphabet.  We accomplish so many skills with this project.  Handwriting, letter sounds, sign language, 1:1, syllable counting, and reading strategies are just a few!

We will learn how to make the numerals 3 and 4.  We will read Pete the 
Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  This is a subtraction story.  We will continue developing our number sense by learning how to mentally take things away. 

How do people write?  When did writing begin?  How should we sit and hold the pencil?  Is it okay to write words we don't know how to spell - YES!  We will continue to explore the writing process.  The most important thing that we can do for our children is encourage them to write - WITHOUT worrying about spelling, grammar or proper phonics.  We want to take the fear out of writing.  Once they realize that mistakes are not only expected but ENCOURAGED, the spelling, the grammar and the phonics can be taught.  Please support me with this at home!

Our author study continues with Chicka Chicka 1,2,3  We'll learn more position words like right and left, etc.  We'll continue to learn the proper formation of numerals. We'll also explore many math concepts using apples for the next 2 weeks.