Welcome Back!

I am really excited to see all these smiling faces this week! This blog will be updated every 2 weeks with what we are working on and what's to be expected in the near future.

These first 2 weeks will definitely be busy.  We are learning rules and routines.  The children are doing great already with getting ready first thing in the morning.  Packing up is another thing. LOL!
Please practice zipping backpacks and jackets as we will be wearing jackets sooner than later.

We start phonics on Monday.  If your child is part time, please go over the sounds as they come home.  We do a new sound EVERYDAY and we review all previous sounds.  We will also be starting letter formations for Aa and Bb.  Our first story for Happily Ever After will be Little Red RidingHood, which will also start Monday.

In Math, we will be assessing students to see where the class as a whole is.  We will be working on basic numbers 1-5 including 1:1 correspondence, and formation.

If you have not yet picked a Wednesday morning to sign up for Scientist of the Week, please send me 2 choice dates.  We need to try to get all students involved in this process.  I have a big binder of ideas, so no need to fret!!

Finally, I appreciate the help thus far.  Most of you have signed up for BLOOMZ and I am hoping your are enjoying it! I will post some pictures on here as well as we get more into the year.  If you have any questions, feel free to email or contact me on BLOOMZ

TB :)

The Final Countdown

Wow, the year has flown by.  I can't believe how much my little friends have grown.  I am really so proud and honored to have been their teacher!  Here is a breakdown of what's left. 

Week of May 18-

• We will finish our alphabet and our last story Peter and the Wolf.  We will continue with Jolly Phonics through June 2.  I am trying to do as many sounds as we can before summer.  Please continue practicing those sounds randomly in summer.  They LOVE them.  I have been sending home 6 sound packets at a time.  
• We will be doing our last STAR assessments
• We will be practicing for our upcoming Mass on 5/27
• Talent Show is 5/21 @ 1:30 and 7
• No school on 5/22 or 5/25

Week of 5/26

• Practice for Mass 5/27
• Work on finishing up any assessments and final projects 
• Bedding will come home and stay home, no rest this week

Week of 6/1

• Practice for our celebration
• Send home all work
• Celebration on 6/3

Stay tuned for emails from the office regarding the celebration.  I will tie up the year with one more post after the celebration.  Be sure to check back!

Tanya

May in Review

We are down to our final 10 days of school.  We have been busy getting in our last bits of learning.  We are been doing so many awesome things.  Let's just take a look at some great pictures to sum it all up. 

A cool idea is "write around the room".  If you have seen random words come home, your child did the write around the room center.  It's simple.  Give them a clipboard with paper and send them on a word hunt anywhere in the house! They love it.

Kick off to the community unit.  We did so many things.  We revolved our subjects around the Community theme. 

We made a map with a key.

We discussed and went in to depth on several Community helpers/  See below.

We learned about all the vehicles in our community that are important. Obviously, this all lead up to community night which was a success. 

Our music unit was so fun.  The children listened to all kinds of music and we discussed beat, rhythm and instruments. A member of the CSO came out before the field trip to have some fun.  The performance was such an experience.  I hope you heard all about it.  Maybe you heard all about the GIANT.  He was a favorite of many. 

We did a plant unit.  The children learned about the parts of the plant.  They learned about photosynthesis.  Ask them about it.  Every day we observed the plants change and took care of them for the day.  I believe all students had at least a mini sprout by the time they went home on Thursday!

To understand how water come up through the roots, we did the celery in water experiment.  Then after a few days I dissected it and even pulled the veins so they could see. 

Tinker/Maker time.  This is a new center.  It started with community and construction workers.  I decided to bring in real tools for the children to create different things.  They have no direction on this, just figure out something and go with it.  It is a HUGE success! During our Maker time, I bring out the building blocks above with gears and these awesome slotto construction blocks.  Give them 15 minutes and they will come up with not only a creation, but a purpose and explanation for WHY they built it. 

Friend of the Week VT

Friend of the week LM

counting down the days!

Artist of the Month:  Van Gogh

Dental health with BW.  Are you filling out your brushing your teeth chart?

25 days and counting!

Well, April has been quite the ride thus far.  Unfortunately we have had a bunch of viruses rattling their way through the room.  PLEASE talk to your child again about germies and how to NOT share.  This is one time we don't allow sharing. LOL!

On a happier note, we finally had our adventure downtown to the Chicago Symphony Center.  The children saw Jack and the Beanstalk that was accompanied by a harp, bassoon, viola and flute.  There was a story teller and the children were able to sing and dance.  I highly recommend seeing one of their family productions.  They are quite fun!

We continue to work on community helpers and vehicles.  This unit will bring us right up to community night.  Please be sure to attend that evening, May 12.  That will be the parade of vehicles by the 4's and kindergarten.  PLUS the rest of the school will have their awesome community projects displayed as well.

In Reading we are finishing up our tale: TUG OF WAR.  Be sure to ask your child all about the silly turtle.  The children have really taken a liking to Jolly Phonics.  We are learning a sound and a tune a day.  I surely hope you are hearing some of these at home.  You should have received 1 set of sounds and this week you will receive the next 6.  I hope to make it through all 42, so we may have to double a couple of days.

Math we have returned to patterns.  We are adding on making more complex patterns as well as continuing to develop our addition skills.

IF YOU HAVE NOT SIGNED UP FOR SCIENTIST OF THE WEEK WITH YOUR CHILD, THERE ARE ONLY A FEW DATES LEFT! EMAIL ME!

Below are the biggie dates coming up.  Please be sure to mark them down.
May 5 Cinco De Mayo Lunch
May 6 May Crowning and 2 pm dismissal
May 12 Community Night
May 21 TALENT SHOW...yes, we are doing an act with all the prek 4 kids
NO SCHOOL May 22 and 25

JUNE 4 Prek Program in am.  TIME is TBD very soon.

Man... the next time I blog with pictures it will be MAY!!! I can't believe what an amazing time I have had.
Let's make those final 25 count!

TB

It's April? WHAT??? It's catch up time.

We have been such busy little "Whos"! Here are some bullet points on some amazing March moments.

• We learned all about St. Patrick and St. Joseph.  On St. Patrick's Day, we all backed some delish Irish Soda Bread and even made our own butter. 
  
   
  • We learned about Georges Seurat and Pointillism. They looked at his art near and far to see how his style of using "dots" actually created complete pictures.
    
    
    
    
    
    • LM was our scientist of the week.  He tested acids and bases in order to to see which combination created the best volcanic "erruption".
  
  
   
• We read Mouse Paint and learned about primary and secondary colors.  From that point we created color mixing bags.  They predicted what color they would get based on the color mixing chart on the board. 
  
  
  
   
  
  
  •  For 2 weeks, we talked about all kinds of weather and weather words. One week, they even experiences 3/4 seasons! LOL.  They even wrote these amazing weather books without assistance.  I have not sent them home yet as I am showing them off! Look for them soon.
    

    

    windy

    
    
    
    
    

    

    Wind with bubbles

    

    rain and water cycle

    
    

    

    the Sun's role in our weather

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

    
    

  •  In Math we worked a lot with whole and part and sorting.  You can do this at home with a simple pair of dice or even just one die and a segmented plate.  Roll the die or dice and put one group in one part, the other die in the other part then put together in the whole section.  It's best to use legos, or rocks or some other small countable objects.
  
  
  

  

  Using simple links to create patterns and to sort.

  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  
  • We created new word and letter centers out of simple everyday things from my home! K-cups are now alphabet and number cups that students can put in order. Easter eggs have word families on them that they have to find and rhyme.  I also took 10 and put numbers on 1 half and dots on the other.  The students need to match! Get them while they are so cheap!
    
    
  
  
  
  

  

  Practicing word families

  
  

  
  

  • In Religion we specialized in Lent and Easter.  We did talk about all the events that led up to Jesus dying and rising again.  One day there was sadness in the classroom.  We talked about how it was ok to be sad because it was a sad event for Jesus and his family and friends.  We then focused on how it would become joyful and happy when Jesus rises.  Our next focus is really going to be on prayer.  They will be learning an echo version of the Our Father, so you may start to hear it!
  
  
  • We had 2 friends of the week since my last update! 

    

    MR

    
    

    

    JC

  • Just enjoying some new dress up fun stuff!
    
    
    
    
  
  So What's COMING UP?? (Some Math and Reading will vary among students)
  
  1. Two week study on music in preparation for our field trip to the CSP
  2. Two week study on Community and Community vehicles.  (Have you started the project with your child?)
  3. Some 1:1 assessments in sounds and rhyme
  4. Focus on drawing 2D shapes and more identification of 2D vs. 3D shapes
  5. writing number words
  6. Most exciting for me... I will be introducing Jolly Phonics.  This program teaches the 42 SOUNDS in the English language. Your child will learn 1 sound a day.  You will get a little packet at the end of every 6th sound so you know how to help them at home too.  Again, this will be accompanied cute little songs.  
   
 

Well, is that enough for awhile? PHEW! 

I will see you all soon!

TB

Some SEUSSTASTIC fun! (So many books, so little time)

Fox In Sox

We learned about NONSTANDARD measurement.  They loved that. 

I believe someone said their friend was 61 poker chips long!

The Cat in the Hat

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

We put goldfish in the bag and did an estimation.  The actual total was 160!

Green Eggs and Ham.  First we did the recipe.

Next we went to the kitchen and cooked eggs together.  We were going to have ham but ummmm it was naturally green if you know what I mean.  We had to skip ham.

They loved them so much, we made a second batch but asked to make them blue!

They made their own "green eggs" and we wrote what they did not like.  They were interesting!

The Foot Book speared our discussions on opposites.  They are doing quite well with them!

 

We graphed our favorite Seuss Book. One Fish was the winner

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We watched The Lorax and tied it into our lesson on giving and taking in Religion.  It was a cool connection they made. 

With Horton Hears a Who we talked about being a great friend even when it is hard.  Every year it is always so tough to narrow down the week, but we have to.  I hope that your children came home and told you not just about the story, but about Seuss himself.  We started with a kids biography about Seuss where they learned he was NOT actually a doctor.  They were very confused. LOL.

Keep working with rhyming at home.  Keep asking them to measure using things like cans and markers and anything else you can think of.

TB :)