The Countdown

Hello Families,
     We started our Last 10 Days of Kindergarten today....here is a photo of our countdown envelopes.  Each day the teacher assistant will open the envelope for the day to see what special something is happening that day.  Today was our walk down to the Ilsley Library for our movie trip that we won during the Readathon.

 

Here we are trimming our Grassapillars...

  

Working together on a math activity...


And working on a Mystery Picture math challenge...


Tomorrow is our School Picnic...if you are joining us, we eat at 11:00 and we will gather right outside our back classroom door.  Thursday, June 6th,  is our last All School Morning Meeting...all the grades are assigned a color to wear that day so that we look like a rainbow sitting in the gym!  We are supposed to wear red.  Next week is Spirit Week...I will send home a reminder about what special theme we have for each day. 

Still Having Fun in Kindergarten

Hello Families,
     I am keeping my fingers crossed for more days of sun as we move into the final weeks of school.  First, I wanted to tell you that I mentioned the wrong date for the School Picnic in my last post.  It is on June 4th.  Families are welcome to join us on that day at 11:00 to eat lunch with your child and his or her classmates.  We gather on the little playground area right outside our back door. 
     This week we will be walking to the Ilsley Library for story fun and exploring the library more with Tricia.  She will be chatting with the kids about the summer reading program that happens through the library.  More info to come about that.
     The Kindergartners had an opportunity to be leaders of the school at the whole school Morning Meeting last week.  Here is a picture of them leading the school in one of our classic songs, Icky Sticky Bubblegum!


     We have been talking about Spring and plants and the needs of plants.  We watched a Mystery Doug video about how flowers bloom.  Then we tried out an experiment with paper flowers and water.  Here are some pictures of students being observers.
 

     And I think I forgot to post the video of the class singing about Earth Day...here it is!

The Month of May

Hello Families,
     Here we are on the last stretch of Kindergarten...it is hard to believe we have 29 days of school left together!  Within those 29 days, we will be finishing up the "How We Express Ourselves" unit, having our last 2 yoga visits, visiting Tricia at the library, attending Spring Into the Arts at Middlebury College, taking a field trip to Shelburne Farms, enjoying our School Picnic on June 10th and meeting the first grade teachers before our last day on June 14th.  All this while still working on our literacy and math skills, visiting our specials classes, listening to stories together, questioning and investigating the ocean book area in the classroom and building our social skills through play and choice time.  Kindergarten is busy!
     Our Shelburne Farms trip is on June 5th and this is a great trip for parents who want to join us.  I would ask that you meet us there, as the bus can't accommodate all the parents who wish to go.  Mrs. Sommer's class will be going the same day.  A permission slip will be coming home within the next couple of weeks. 
     We have an Early Release Day on Tuesday, May 7th.  After the students go home, the Kindergarten teachers will be welcoming the incoming Kindergarten students as they have a visitation.  Some of the students were remembering this day for them last year!  It is always a joy to meet the "new crew" and realizing how far these current Kindergartners have grown over the past year! 


Biking in P.E.


Role playing with Mr. Lester...how do you handle disappointment?


Practicing quick recall of our key words with a fun game!

 
Exploring the new ocean books with a Book Circle


With our ocean books, we have been discussing living and nonliving things and fiction vs. nonfiction.

April showers....

Hello Families,
     Last month we learned about the saying, "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb".  At the end of the month we counted up our lamb and lion days we recorded as we checked the weather each day and found that it was about even...9 lamb days and 10 lion days.  Now we have moved on to, "April showers bring May flowers."  Our bulletin board in the hallway is full of Kindergarten-made flowers as we hope to help bring Spring to Middlebury!
     An important part of our learning together in Kindergarten is practicing ways to calm our bodies and redirect our attention.  As I have taught the children several ways to practice different ways to breathe to calm your body and mind, the children have also taught me several different ways.  Then we get to teach others in our community, like Mr. Lester and Mrs. Urban.  We have the opportunity to learn some yoga, too, in the next few weeks.  Prem Prakash from Green Mountain Yoga will be visiting our Kindergarten classes to lead the children through a half hour of yoga.  It will be a great connection to what we have been discussing around ways to calm and settle our bodies.
     I look forward to seeing you at parent conference time in the next couple of weeks.  If you are unable to attend for any reason, please let me know with a note or a phone call and we can reschedule.  My number at school is 382-1458.  There is an Early Release Day this week on Wednesday the 10th.  Our trip to the Flynn Theater is Monday, April 15th and Spring Vacation is the week of April 22-26. 


Friends enjoy building together in B-3.


The latest Art project with Ms. S...texture crowns.


Looking at different places in our community as we get ready to explore jobs and what we want to be when we grow up.



Our Who We Are projects are hanging up in the classroom - we have learned so much about each other and what makes us who we are.  I hope you have a chance to look at them when you come in for parent conference time. 

April showers bring May flowers.....

Stuffy Day Fun

Hello Families,
     Stuffy Day was a big hit in B-3!  I have included some photos of a few of the activities we did with our Stuffies on that day.  I sent home parent conference schedules for everyone in the red folder.  If you haven't yet sent in the sign up paper, please do so promptly so that we can schedule a conference.  There is a new assignment for the Mystery Bag.  It connects to our "Who We Are" unit and directions are in the bag.  Have fun with it!  The students don't have school on Friday, March 29th as it is a teacher work day.  Enjoy the sun this weekend and get out and enjoy some Vermont maple at a local sugarhouse!

 
Reading to our stuffies and building structures for our stuffies.....so fun!

 
Drawing and writing about our stuffies...I loved hearing what they were all named!

 
Helping friends learn more about their animals and making crowns for stuffies....very serious work!


Sorting the stuffies by different attributes....

Fox in Socks

Hello Families,
     We have been practicing our rhyming skills a bunch lately as we read many Dr. Seuss books over the past week.  Today the students responded to the writing prompt:  What did you learn about building bridges?  Mr. Flint enjoys reading what the children take away from the engineering unit.  I am collecting some of my recycling at home so we can have a Bridge Building Extension with different materials and tests.  Tricia came from the Ilsley Library today and read a book about leprechauns, luck and magic.  Then the children used their fine motor skills to make a wee leprechaun to take home.  We all enjoyed sharing our stories about how we got our names!  The children are working on a Who We Are poster to explore more about community, values and traits we have.  Here are a few pictures from our rhyme time fun!

  
Our classroom door is decorated and we practiced identifying real versus nonsense words.

 
The green eggs and ham was a hit!

Lions and Lambs

Hello Families,
     We have a short week of school coming up with the March 7th Early Release Day and no school on March 8th.  With March upon us, we will be be weather watchers as part of our daily calendar.  We talked about the old saying, "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb" and what that means.  Our calendar helper for the day will be the weather watcher and tell us if it is a Lion weather day or a Lamb weather day.  We will count and graph our results and practice our comparison language as we go through the month.
     The trip to Middlebury College to see the Ragamala Dance Company was exciting!  The musicians from India were amazing and there was so much to see and hear during the performance.  The Kindergartners were able to discuss what they liked the most, some expressing it was hard to sit for the 45 minutes, but everyone had positive reflections, as well.  One of the reasons I love teaching Kindergarten is having opportunities to experience with them something new that the students have never experienced before. 
     Our last day of bridge building with Mr. Flint will be this week, along with our first all school Morning Meeting assembly on Monday and Wacky Wednesday.  I have included some pictures from our 100th day of school celebration and our bridge building.  You will see the children stacking 100 cups, making the 100th day snack mix, predicting and observing what 100 drops of water looks like, dancing and counting to 100, building bridges in Mr. Flint's room and experimenting with bridge building in the classroom.  Enjoy the week!