If you are volunteering in our classroom please make sure that you sign in with our security staff or with the office, and get a visitors sticker. Please make sure our classroom is your only destination.
Tomorrow is Dress As Your Favorite Story Book Character Day! No face paint or hair paint. We will make their character part of our writing time tomorrow. This costume/dress up does NOT need to be over the top. Kids friendly. Your child can help you put it together. Simple and fun! If you need easy ideas google and Pintrest are sure fire sites for DIY. Thanks so much for making learning fun!
Today we started our unit on shadows. We activated our schema and shared what we already thought we knew, and then we put on our scientist hats and explored shadows. We went on a shadow race today. Ask your child who won, shadow or them.
I hope everyone enjoyed their day off. On Wednesday your child will be bringing home a Chili's bookmark! When your students read 4 books, they write the titles on the bookmark and earn a free kids meal at Chili's. Who doesn't love free??? You will save the book mark and redeem it either upon their completion or.... we'll be having a cashola night at Chili's on Tuesday, February 24th. Kingston will get a % of the check from each Kingston family. Today was filled with planning and construction. I am excited to enter quarter 3. I can't believe it is quarter 3! We will be learning about shadows, measurement (coins, time, measuring with non-standard units), extending our sentences, and retelling, retelling, and more retelling, and reading fluency. Our class is really lucky to be getting a new white board!!! I am over the moon. This will be an interactive word wall white board! The folks came in today and began construction. It looks a little messy right now, but man will it be sparkling when it is up! Enjoy your day off tomorrow, and I can't wait to see my kindergarten friends on Wednesday! Parents here are some helpful ideas to encourage reading fluency at home.
How can we foster reading fluency?
Parents can help their child develop reading fluency through a few simple and fun activities.
Paired or "Buddy" Reading
The easiest and best way to help your child develop fluency is to sit with your child and read! Read together every day, which is often called paired or buddy reading. To use paired reading, simply take turns reading aloud. You go first, as your reading provides a model of what good fluent reading sounds like. Then, ask your child to re-read the same page you just read. You'll notice that your child's reading will start to sound more and more like yours. Do this for several pages. Once your child is comfortable enough, and familiar enough with the book, take turns reading page for page.
Reread Favorite Books
Another way parents can help develop fluency is to build a tall stack of books that your child can read quickly and easily. Encourage your child to reread favorite books over and over again. With each reading, you may notice your child reading a bit easier, a bit faster, and with a bit more confidence and expression.
Record It
Another fun way to practice reading and build fluency is to have your child create her own audio books. This can be done simply with a tape recorder or audio recording feature or app (like Audioboo) on your phone. Or, use something more sophisticated like StoryKit, where a user can create an electronic storybook and record audio to accompany it. Regardless of the method you choose, your child will be practicing what they want to record and that reading practice is critical. Sharing your audio recordings with family and friends is a great motivator too! These activities are easy and require very few materials. Doing these activities with your child will help build fluency — a skill that will last a lifetime.
This extended, rainy weekend would be a great time to log onto IXLMATH. Some of my kindergarten friends have answered over 100 questions correctly! WOW! Way to go!!! This weekend visit c.10 Tally Marks Comparing G.1-G.5 Please feel free to visit other areas as well. In math we are going to be working on adding, and counting by 5s,10s over the next few weeks along with adding up sums of money and we will continue to explore tallies, and graphs. Parents, Please monitor your child's progress. They should be practicing "just right" games. :)
Here are some of our songs that we enjoy singing in school!
Many parents have asked about just right readers. This is a great site to download your own paper books. I also highly suggest using RAZKIDS. If your child is on a level where they are taking quizzes their performance on those quizzes is a great indicator of their ability to comprehend what has been read aloud and independently. If they don't have quizzes yet, sit next to them and pause the story and discuss connections, who, what, when, where. :) http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/printable_booklets.html
Oh happy day! So many of our kindergarten friends have met their January goals! Each day this week we have celebrated their accomplishments. During the next few weeks we will continue to review decomposing numbers, adding up numbers to ten, and data collection using tallies and graphing. Please set aside time as often as possible time for your child to log onto www.ixl.com The following game are perfect review for what is being learned during the school day I.1-I.4,I.6-I.9,O.1, and O.2
Today the children completed their last quarter two writing assessment. Their rubrics and writing will be coming home on Friday. Please celebrate their work by having them read it to you.
Our focus has been reading non-fiction text over the last two weeks. Here is some helpful information for you as you are reading non-fiction text with your child at home. Our class seems to truly enjoy non-fiction text selections. If you need non-fiction text titles to use when reading at home let me know. I will be happy to share!
How to Read Nonfiction Text
By: Reading Rockets
Many kids love to read about science and nature as well as real people, places, and events. Nonfiction books present information in engaging and interesting ways. Find out how you can help your child learn to navigate all the parts of a nonfiction book — from the table of contents to the diagrams, captions, glossary, and index.
Kids love to read about real people, places, and events. Nonfiction books present real information in engaging and interesting ways. However, most kids read a lot more fiction than nonfiction, so spend some extra time helping your reader learn how to navigate a nonfiction book.
Talk about nonfiction
Begin by explaining that the book you're about to share is nonfiction. That means that the book will give us information that is true. The book will be organized around a specific topic or idea, and we may learn new facts through reading. Some kids even enjoy sorting their home libraries into fiction and nonfiction books. This simple categorization task helps your child understand the difference between fiction and nonfiction.
Look at the parts
Most good nonfiction books will have helpful features that are not a part of most fiction books. These parts include a table of contents, an index, a glossary, photographs and charts with captions, and a list of sources. Share the purpose of the features with your reader.
Table of Contents
Located at the front of a book, the table of contents displays a list of the big ideas within the book and where to find them.
Index
An index is an alphabetical list of almost everything covered within the book, with page numbers. Readers can use the index to look up specific terms or concepts and go right to the specific information they're looking for.
Glossary
Located at the back of the book, a glossary contains key words that are related to the topic and their definitions. These definitions provide more information about new vocabulary words.
Captions
Captions are usually right under photographs, figures, maps, and charts. Captions give a quick summary of what information is presented in the graphic.
Photos/Charts
A lot of information can be found by "reading" the charts and photos found within nonfiction text. Readers will first need to figure out what information is presented. Then they'll need to discover how to navigate the information. Some charts use clear labels, others require more careful examination. Help your reader learn more about the different ways information can be displayed.
Be the reading boss
Nonfiction books do not have to be read from cover to cover. Readers can use the table of contents and index to jump right to the information they are most interested in. In that way, they are the "reading boss" of that book! However, if your reader wants to read from cover to cover, encourage him to use the table of contents to understand how the book is organized. "First we will learn about the different types of frogs. Then we'll learn where they can live, what they eat, and how they survive." Passages from the book can be reread as often as necessary until your child understands what is written. You can refer to pictures, charts and tables over and over again as well. As natural learners, young readers are drawn to books that give information about something or explain something they've always wondered about. With a little help and guidance about reading nonfiction, you can feel good about introducing your child to a new world of information.
RAZKIDS and IXLMATH should be part of each child's daily at home review time. I see that some of my friends have not logged on to IXLMATH in weeks or not at all. Both of these sites are great for reviewing what is being taught at school. Thanks for helping your child to log on!
During our reading time and computer lab time today we learned more about non-fiction text features and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The children are learning to identify photographs, headings, bold print, and titles. They will have a non-fiction assessment tomorrow. They explored non-fiction books with a partner. Every time they came across a text feature they attached a sticky-note to the feature. Some children were so excited to find the features they even read them aloud.
Were are focusing on finding facts in our non-fiction read a louds. Today, Mr. Kern shared with the children an online encyclopedia called PebbleGO. Our class has used this tool before. Today, they read about Dr. King using this tool. We shared aloud facts about this man, and then they created a page all about him. Please ask your child to share what he or she remembers about MLK.
They will be writing about him later this week.
In math we continued to work on gathering and discussing data. The children also decomposed numbers today. Give them a number and ask them to show you how to decompose.
Our week was filled with learning. It was really neat to see how well the children jumped right back into their daily routines after being off for two weeks. The children were well rested and ready for learning. This week the nurse and her staff of nurses that float from school to school had to finish up screenings (every kindergarten student in the city does this). I was so happy when one of the nurses came into our room to tell me, "This group of children is by far the most polite group of students I has ever worked with." I was beaming!!! I know this. I see them everyday. They are my shining stars, yet to have a stranger say this. WOW! Here is a peek at our week!
Today the children took their assessment on "1 more" "1 less." The graded assessment will come home tomorrow We continued to learn about the attributes of a non-fiction text- headings, title, bold words, contents, and photographs. Ask your child to tell you about these parts of a non-fiction book. We read about bears today as we learned about these non-fiction text features and discussed living things, the habitats for bears, and what makes a bear a mammal. Ask your child to share with you a fact about a bear. They could even write and illustrate for you a bear fact! Please remember, tomorrow all memory objects need to be in. :)
Today during our small group math time our focus was on the introduction of the REKENREK. We are currently learning about decomposing and composing numbers and this tool was a hit to help support our learning. Check out this site to learn more! http://therekenrek.com/about_the_rekenrek.html
There are two great APPs called Number Rack and Mental Math that we are using as well. If you are interested in downloading the apps for practice at home. Mrs. Widman worked with the children on data collection today and writing numbers 0-30. Please call out numbers at home for your child to write to see how they are progressing with this skill. Tomorrow we are having our one more than and one less than assessment. On Tuesday your child came home with their new January goal. Please begin working on that goal at home as often as possible. For my friends who has the goal of learning high frequency words, no matter what lost they have they can use the following to help them to learn them: play bingo roll them out in Play-Doh tape them around the house and play "Find the word" be a word detective and find them in your books build the words with magnets speed read them for fluency practice make another copy and play memory write them in a letter to a friend rainbow write them
If your child is going home a different way, it must be in writing. No last minute changes will be honored. Please help us in keeping our classroom safe and organized by putting into writing any changes in transportation. Thank so much!
Help, help! Let's swap some books!
Kingston
PTA
13th
Annual Book Swap
January
20– 22, 2015 (revised dates)
START
GOING THROUGH YOUR BOOKS
2
donated books = 1 "new" book
·Only elementary and middle school level
books will be accepted. (No adult books, preschool board books, religious books
or restaurant giveaway books)
·Drop off books in the lobby on Monday, January 12th, Tuesday, January 13th,
and Wednesday, January 14th between
8:15 and 8:45 and during lunch on the cafeteria stage on Wednesday, January
14th, (11:00-1:00)
·Students must have a signed permission
slip to drop off books.
·All books remaining after the swap will be
donated.
Important “Swap” Dates:
Tuesday, January 20th- Book Swap for grades 1, 4, 5 and pm
Kindergarten, during lunch on the cafeteria
stage.
Wednesday, January 21st-
Book Swap for grades 2, 3, and am
Kindergarten, during lunch on the cafeteria
stage. ODC students will be
able to purchase books during lunch.
Thursday, January 22nd- ALL students are welcome to purchase
remaining books for $0.50 each during
lunch on the cafeteria stage.
****
Students-Before you swap you must eat lunch and clean up your space. Then get permission from the cafeteria
monitor or parent volunteer to go to the stage. ****
Questions???
Contact Sara Tucker at shchesney@yahoo.com or Melissa Garrison at
bmgarrison@cox.net
Today we read and discussed our text to self connections, asked questions, and shared our memories through pictures and words in regulations to the story The Relatives Came.
Parents, Yesterday a letter went home to each family requesting each child to bring in one of the following: something that brings a warm memory something that is as precious as gold something that make you feel sad something that makes you laugh something from long ago If your child can't be without this item feel free to send in a picture of the item. We will begin writing about these items on Friday. Thanks!
