Current Happenings in 235
Week of November 4th
Upcoming Dates
11-11: cycle day 4
11-12: cycle day 5; library
11-13: cycle day 6
11-14: cycle day 7; return classroom book bags
11-15: cycle day 8; book bags
Gratitude Attitude
We read a variety of books throughout the week and made a gratitude attitude chart with some examples.
4th Grade Buddies
We got together with our fourth grade buddies this week, and they helped us create our thankful turkeys hanging on our lockers! You'll be able to check them out at conferences.
November Scrapbooks
Scholastic Order
If you order gifts that are intended to be gifts of any kind, please let me know and I will put them aside for when the order arrives to get to you.
What we learned
Take a look into our class
**I finished up the district assessments for progress reports. These will be shared on the 18th and we can discuss them at conferences as well.
- We read our first big book--The Enormous Watermelon. Big books were created to help children gain understanding of text features such as characters who are speaking, bolded words requiring intonation and more. In this story, Old Mother Hubbard had to call her friends to help her get her watermelon out of the ground; Humpty Dumpty; Jack and Jill; Little Miss Muffet and Wee Willy Winky worked as a team to pull the watermelon up from the ground and they all enjoyed a slice of watermelon together.
- Have you heard of our paper books? These books help us learn what it means to be a beginning reader and helps us practice our high frequency words. Before reading the book, kindergartners go for a picture walk to give clues about what the book is about, we identify the HFW and read 1:1. These are then placed in our book bins for the kids to practice on their own.
- A set of HFW will be in round trip folders today. Read the attached note to the Ziploc baggies and reach out with any questions. If you choose, these can become a part of your book bag routine and have proven to help immensely in mastering our most commonly read words!
Writing:
- The kindergartners have a paw wall they will use to see what kind of writer they are for the day. The goal for each day is to be a number four writer. A number four writer has neat spacing, beginning and ending sounds for each words and a period at the end.
- Forming letters "the school way" is something of great importance we are working on; being able to control letter sizes and writing letters at a quicker speed are goals we work on each day.
Poem/Phonics:
- Poem: Turkey Tom
- New HFW: is, of
- Beginning sounds--many of our activities surround this skill and will continue to do so in the weeks to come.
- **The turkeys that have come back to our room in disguises are AWESOME! The kindergartners are so proud to share their creations with their friends. Thanks for your extra work at home!
Math:
- The kindergartners shared a number writing assessment with me this week for progress reports. These will be shared with you at conferences.
- We practiced making numbers in multiple ways with our fingers. For example, you can make 4 with 4 + 0, 1 + 3 or 2 + 2.
Theme:
- We worked on our gratitude attitude and our different turkey projects.
- Kindergartners were able to explore the Makerspace in the media center for the first time this week! This is an area completely dedicated to creating and building that we will be visiting throughout the year. :)
- We celebrated the end of first quarter--quite a bit of work was done to get where we are today!
Newsletters
Kaitlin Wermerskirchen
Email: kwermers@shakopee.k12.mn.us
Phone: 952.496.5802
Twitter: @Kindersin235