K-C News
October 28, 2018
So, 2018 is pretty much over...
What you really need to know
We have been sailing through our fall studies and have almost finished all of our fall parent-teacher conferences. We have even changed our seating groups so everyone gets a chance to collaborate with a new group of friends! We also enjoyed our first cultural arts assembly with Sol Y Canto, a musical duo who shared Latin American music and dance with our enthusiastic K-2 audience.
Big fun is coming up this week, on October 31st. To make our day inclusive and enjoyable for all, we will have a fall themed craft party organized by our room parents! Thanks to parent volunteers who are coming in to help us paint and glue and play this Wednesday morning. As an added bonus, students are invited to
WEAR PAJAMAS TO SCHOOL ON WEDNESDAY, 10/31!
Please send a warm jacket and outdoor shoes/socks for recess. No slippers or stuffed toys please.
Thank you to our mystery readers this month: Eli's sister Naomi came down from second grade to read Fall Mixed Up, Stephanie Hawkins (Henry) shared The Book With No Pictures and Nicole Nasson (Joey) read The Pigeon Needs a Bath.
Happy Birthday to our newest six year olds Alex, Joey and Omar!
And here are some coupon codes for those who plan to order from Scholastic Books this month:
ALICE drills coming up this week
Officer O'Leary, from the Needham police department, visited with the kindergarten students last week to introduce our ALICE protocol. ALICE is our planned response in the highly unlikely event there is ever an intruder in the building. The kindergarten plan is to high-tail it out of the building ASAP. We are fortunate to have two easy-access exits from our classroom so we can evacuate safely and easily in a matter of seconds. This upcoming week the whole school will practice their ALICE response (ours will be evacuation) two times, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Students in PM KASE will practice the same response they have already learned in morning kindergarten.
At this age, less is definitely more when discussing this topic with children, so there is no need for you to bring it up with your child before the drill happens. We have it covered. When I speak with the children about any potential crises I emphasize that these things are very unlikely to ever happen, and our group will be able to stay safe under any circumstances by practicing a calm and organized response. I never offer scary scenarios or details, but instead, emphasize preparation, practice and empowerment to identify and move to a safe space. The most important takeaway for them is that their teachers have everything under control and will take good care of them. We already practiced our own mini-evacuation drill and we learned to:
STOP
LISTEN
STAY WITH OUR GROUP
FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS
Coming attractions
Wednesday, October 31
Kindergarten Fall celebration and PAJAMA DAY
Tuesday, November 6
NO MORNING KiNDERGARTEN, Delayed start for grades 1-5
Wednesday, November 7
November Scholastic book orders due. Flyers will come home tomorrow.
To order, visit https://clubs.scholastic.com. You will need our class code HVXFH, to create an account for your first order. See coupons codes above.
Monday, November 12
Veteran's Day
NO SCHOOL
Wednesday, November 21 - Friday, November 23
NO SCHOOL, Thanksgiving Break
Wednesday, November 28
NO AM KINDERGARTEN, PM KASE is in session with lunch at 11:00
All in a days work...
- In math, we have been counting collections, writing numbers through 7, and working with place value and ten frames. We are waaaaay ahead of the game in counting and operations this year!
- We learned lots of fun math games on our iPads on the website toy theater.com! We also learned to use RazKids to read just-right books online.
- Our guest caterpillars worked their magic and turned into painted lady butterflies! We set them free last week and wished them well before the oncoming noreaster came through. Our newest pet is a chinchilla, named "Chinchi" of course. Most students guessed he was a rabbit, so we had to do some research to find out the difference between chinchillas and rabbits. Do you know any differences or similarities?
- We talked about animal habitats and related that to people habitats like houses and the earth itself. We had our first crack at guessing the contents of our mystery box given a few key clues. What is blue, green, white, and brown, is shaped like a ball, and is home to people and animals?
- In literacy, we have begun to study our many sight words, have almost mastered color words, have read some fall poems, have practiced retelling stories with a beginning, middle and end, and have had book talks focusing on the difference between fiction and non-fiction and identifying characters in stories. Ask us to find the title page in any book. We can do it!
Links to explore
Visit our own web page to see the butterflies we made using Rocket Paint on our iPads
Choose your skill and Feed Freddy:
http://www.toytheater.com/feed-freddy.php
Learn about Tally charts and bar graphs with Moby
https://jr.brainpop.com/math/data/tallychartsandbargraphs/
Make your own jack o'lantern two ways!
http://www.abcya.com/make_a_pumpkin.htm
http://www.abcya.com/pumpkin_carving.htm
Spelling Challenge: spell 3 letter words to get the bus over the bridge!
(choose school bus spelling from the menu)
The things kids say. For real.
Student 1: It means colorful.
Mrs. Cohen: It can mean that something is colorful. What else could make a person unique?
Student 2: If they are rainbow colored?
Mrs. Cohen: You're close. But I've never seen a real-life rainbow colored person.
Student 3: Unique is when you're special just because you're not like anybody else.
Who's the teacher here, anyway?