March is Reading Month Family Project

This week you will be recieving a note home regarding the March Family Project.  This is a story map your child will be completeing with your guidance.  A letter detailing the directions will be coming home later this week.  Below I have a picture of an example book I did and a completed story map that you can use as a reference.



Today we celebrated Valentine's Day with all of our friends in class.  We got together with our Boulan Buddies and did some fun crafts and Valentine's games with them.  We each got a box of conversation hearts and practiced our counting and graphing skills.  Then we got to eat some of our treats when we were finished!  The boys and girls listened to stories about friendship and did some partner reading during Reading Workshop.   In the afternoon we decorated cookies and passed out our Valentine's during rest.  We also did some measuring with Hershey Kisses, YUM! We watched a movie about Valentines Day and ended our day by looking over all of our Valentine Cards.  What a fun day!

Happy 100th Day of School!

We have been in Kindergarten for 100 Days!  We are officially 100 days smarter than we were when we started school!  We have been counting up to this special day for a long time and were very excited to celebrate!  In the morning we read stories about the 100th Day, did 100th Day literacy stations and decorated a banner telling about things we have learned in our 100 days of Kindergarten.  In the afternoon celebrated with Mrs. Summers class by having a big party!  There were lots of activities in both of the classrooms.  Children used mini-bagels and pretzal rods to make the number 100 and eat it.  We built things with 100 legos, stamped 100 fingerprints, made a cowboy hat with 100 stamps, and strung 100 fruit loops on a necklace.  We also put paper plates with the numbers 1-100 printed on them in order and tried to see how many jumping jacks we could do in 100 seconds.  The boys and girls enjoyed playing a penny race game with a partner with 100 pennies as well as decorated 100's Day glasses.  We had a very busy and fun filled afternoon!  We are so proud of how much each of the kiddos has grown in the past 100 days and can't wait to continue to help them learn! :)

Mystery Readers!!!!!!!

Today was a VERY exciting day because we had our first mystery readers.  The kids could hardly contain themselves after I had explained about it in the morning.  The readers weren't coming until the very end of the day and so all day long they kept asking when it was going to be the end of the day! The mystery reader is kept secret until I open the classroom door and revealed.  They  asked me for clues as to who the mystery reader was going to be.  I only told them one was a parent and the other owas sibling.  It is so fun to hear their conversations guessing who the mystery reader may be.  If you would like to be a mystery reader in our class please feel complete the sheet I sent home last week or send me an email.  I prefer mystery readers to come at the beginning or end of the day, but we can try to fit your schedule if that doesn't work.  Their little faces just light up when they realize the mystery reader has come for them.  Today our mystery readers were Mrs. Tovar, Ayla's mom and George, Justine's brother who was in my class last year. 

Math Fun

Today we had a lot of fun during our morning centers.  We read a book called The Tangram Magician.  We learned that tangrams is an ancient puzzle invented by the Chinese.  We also did many tangram puzzles on the Smartboard.  They can be tricky!  They each made their own sets of tangrams and they will be coming home today along with an note for explanation on how to make different pictures at home.  The class also enjoyed reading their fortunes in their fortune cookies at snack time.  This morning we also used the pan balance scales to figure which object was heavier than the other.  We had quite a math morning.  Below are just a few pictures to give you a glimpse of it!