Cold weather news

Hello Families,
     Now that cold weather is upon us and students are bringing winter gear to school, there are some reminders to share.  Students should have shoes to change into if they wear their boots to school.  Some parents have their child leave a pair of sneakers at school during the winter months.  Please label your child's winter wear.  We often have several pair of black snow pants in the room and they can get mixed up easily!  Nurse Becky wants all families to know that the school can support your family with winter gear if needed. 
     We have an All School Meeting on Thursday this week and all students are invited to wear their Mary Hogan Hawk t-shirts.  Also, this Friday is Book Character Dress Up Day!  As we continue to celebrate reading this month through the Readathon, this is an event where we get to celebrate some of our favorite characters from books.  Please have your child bring the book to school that has his or her dress up character in it.  Julie Altemose takes a picture of everyone dressed up while holding the book.  I love seeing all the creative ideas that everyone comes up with for Character Dress Up Day!


Mrs. Kravitz was our Mystery Reader this week!


Sorting letters and numbers with a partner.


Making observations about our pumpkin quilt required us to be thinkers....the students noticed interesting patterns and designs in the quilt.

Firefighters, pumpkins and Readathon...oh my!

Hello Families,
     We had a busy, fun filled week with visits from the firefighters, a Fun Run, the Readathon Kick-Off,  Halloween anticipation and pumpkins.  Parent conferences are scheduled for this week.  If you cannot make the scheduled time or you need to reschedule, please call my school phone at 382-1458.  We have an Early Release Day on Wednesday, November 6th.  School will be dismissed around 12:50.  If your child has a different plan for dismissal that day, please send in a note.  Now for some info about the Readathon....
     Everyone brought home the yellow reading log in the red folder last week.  That is where you record your child's daily reading minutes.  Lots of reading counts.....someone reading to your child, listening to a story on a device, your child reading to you....any sort of reading outside of school counts.  It indicates what days on the log to return the log to school so our mighty minute counters can tally up everyone's weekly minutes.  The Kindergarten classes will have Mystery Readers come to our rooms to read to us once a week and we get to add those minutes to the reading logs.  That is a great way to get 100% participation so that we are all celebrating reading!  The money that is pledged to all the readers at Mary Hogan helps to build our classroom book collections and other classroom supplies for units, along with funding field trips and special programs.  Thanks for your support!

 
 




The children were super excited to climb through the fire truck and share what they know about fire safety.  With Halloween on everyone's mind, we worked on a counting and number writing activity called Write Around the Room, experimented with a pumpkin to see if it would sink or float (uncarved, then carved), and drew what Mrs. Schondube should be for Halloween.  Those always make me laugh!

Fall Hike

Some photos from our fabulous Fall Hike today in Battell Woods....it was gorgeous weather and the class had a great time exploring, climbing and collecting.  We have started our new IB unit "How the World Works" and our hike was a great opportunity to explore more about living and nonliving things.

 

 

 

 

Short Week of School

Hello Families,
     I wanted to remind everyone that there is no school on Friday, October 18th and Friday, November 1st.  I will be sending home the scheduled parent conference dates and times this week in the red folders.  I am holding conferences on Nov. 5, 7 and 8.  Please let me know as soon as possible if your scheduled time does not work for you and we can reschedule.  My classroom phone is 382-1458. 
     Here are some pics from Team B-3!


graphing goldfish!


cooperation and teamwork =  cool building


The 4 Kindergarten rooms swapped some choice time items
and the magna-tiles are very popular!


Independent work station during literacy


pattern building and recording at Math Workplaces


Number Rock song




Morning Greeting using key words


practicing 5 Little Pumpkins with a partner


Hearing a story with a great Big Buddy

All School Meeting Coming Up

Hello Families,
     Our next All School Morning Meeting is this Thursday, the 10th.  We invite all students to wear their Mary Hogan Hawks shirts on our Meeting days.  This meeting will be run by 6th graders....the Kindergartners will be excited to spot their Big Buddies up front leading the group!
     We are finishing up our first unit, How We Organize Ourselves, and the children have worked hard to create, understand, practice and explain our classroom agreements, our routines, our classroom organization and our community roles.  Our letter focus this week is o and g....so of course our key word this week is "go"!  The Kindergartners are working on combinations of 5, patterns and number formation at Math Workplaces.  Take a look at the kids in action last week!


Measuring the long cube train that was created during math workplaces


Playing Go Fish!


Partnering up to build letter puzzles


Each student created an apple family tree

 
Creative building with recycling and wooden blocks!

 
Kindergartners love their Big Buddy time!

Routines and Structure in B-3

Hello Families,
     We have had 22 days of Kindergarten and we continue to develop our routines and structure in our classroom to help guide our learning time in B-3.  Routines like, how to transition from one place in our school to another, how to organize our Choice Time items, how and where to store our Math Tools, practicing our classroom agreements and developing work time habits, all contribute to our overall positive structure for school.  If your child has mentioned GoNoodle, it is a fun and active part of our day that we use to take movement breaks and learn mindfulness techniques.  You can access it online and check it out home, too. 
     We have an Early Release Day this week.  Students are dismissed at 12:45 and busses run regular routes at the end of the day.  Mary Johnson Afterschool Program DOES NOT run on Early Release days, so please send in a note to let me know what your child will do after school instead.
     Now for some pictures from last week's learning:  letters a and c practice, apple taste test, combinations that make 5, being inquirers with a sink or float apple activity, and more! 

  

 

 

 

 

A Sunny Week.....

Hello Families,
     What a great week of sunny weather we had!  In Kindergarten, the students were practicing the letters m and n, releasing the last of our butterflies, investigating the pattern on the calendar, estimating how many cubes we collected in Number Corner, meeting Big Buddies for the first time and working to demonstrate the Learner Profile traits of "caring" and "risk taker".  We made another class book using our new sight word: is.  The Mystery Bag went home today for the first time with a Kindergartner.  It is a way to share something special from home in a guessing game format that the children love.  Look for the Mystery Bag to be coming to your house in the next couple weeks. 
     A reminder to send a water bottle to school with your child to use throughout the day and enjoy some photos from the week. 

The Learner Profile traits

Partners work to describe each other's shoes to the class

Tricia visited from the Ilsley Library, read a story and made boats with the kids.

Building numbers on the 5 frame

Playing Name Soup

More Name Soup!

Building puzzles together

Friday morning greeting:  Hello, Hello, Hello

Building a sentence to make a class book page

Our new class book will be B-3 Is Here!

Using our manipulatives to create tops