Good afternoon JK parents and friends.

This past week we began studying Penguins and learned many facts about our flipper-winged friends. We made life-size penguins and labeled their parts.  We also wrote journal pages and illustrated them, detailing  what we would do if we were penguins.  The class constructed calendars for the new year featuring Martin Luther King Junior pictures.

We had an upper school math teacher visit and were able to show her all of the different ways we can sort, count, write numbers, and know the meaning of more, less, etc.

Our reading buddies came to read with us and everyone was able to meet a new third grade friend as we reassigned everyone to a new buddy.  The children are excited to show their older friends how they are able to locate letters and words in the stories.

We also practiced Star Wars yoga at rest time!  The children loved listening to the stories as they increased their core body strength and gross motor skills.  They also earned their second pajama party and shared which activities they are excited to do during our celebration.

We are looking forward to more winter fun this week as we learn more about penguins and begin building igloos and learning more about the different people who live in ice and snow houses as a part of their culture and lives.

Mrs. Massey

Happy New Year from Junior Kindergarten!

We had such an amazing holiday season, full of surprises and fun.  Our gingerbread people ran away and we had to go on a treasure hunt around the school to find them!  We finally caught up with them after following clues back to out classroom, where we decorated them, played pin the carrot nose on the snowman, holiday bingo, decorated snow globes with our families, and laughed with our friends.  Thank you to everyone for your help, and for the amazing holiday gifts and caring through the year!  

We have been busy in the classroom sorting, counting, writing, telling and acting out stories and learning more about our friends and how to fill their buckets by helping and caring.  Social and Emotional learning is an integral part of Junior Kindergarten, and is a part of our daily learning.  The reading groups are all working on sight words, beginning sounds of letters, and blends of letter sounds as more complex ideas are made possible through their development.  

Our narrative writing continues as we complete journal pages based on our interests and experiences.  Each child practices their sentences and the upper/lower case letters in sentence structure.  All of these foundations are critical as they develop at their own pace and grasp the idea of writing and stories.  

Elke Kenyon will be (formally) joining our classroom daily as an Assistant Teacher.  She has been with us for the past month regularly but we have made it official beginning January 2.  She is also an alumni of Roycemore school so has a long history here both as a student, a parent, and a great supporter.  I know you will love her as much as we all do.  She has her Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology and has been volunteering at Roycemore in the lower and middle school for various classrooms this year.  She has two children at Roycemore, Ella (3rd Grade) and Kai (8th Grade).  Please join me in welcoming Elke.  We are thrilled to have her, as an amazing resource and teacher.  

I am excited to jump into part two of this school year, as we begin our Winter and Penguin unit of study.  Look for more information on our science experiments, math progression, language arts learning, and fine and gross motor skills development.  

Happy New Year!!  

Mrs. Massey

Good afternoon JK Parents and Friends!

We enjoyed meeting grandparents and special friends before our Thanksgiving break.  Who knew we had a magician, and so many other sweet and talented family members.  The children have been learning their 3D shapes, including the sphere, cylinder, cube and cone.  Their minds are expanding as we try to picture what things look like from all sides.  This is a fun exercise to try to recognize cylinders around the house, or cones as you are driving around town.

Everyone enjoyed our field trip to the Apollo Theater in Lincoln Park to watch Diary of a Worm, Spider and Fly.  They loved the fact that worm kept eating his homework and was a little bit shy at the beginning of the play only to blossom and become the great dancer and performer.  Each student wrote a journal page about their favorite character and illustrated it for our class book.

Music class is always lots of fun, when we get to march, dance, sing and play instruments with Mrs. N!  

We have begun recognizing sight words and looking for those words in our books and other places around the school.  Our introduction to the Gingerbread Man has begun as we are reading stories and looking for "G's"and "G" words.  We are talking about the sequence of events and what comes first, second, third, last, etc.  We are building our confidence as we continue to act out stories and identify the characters and settings in stories.  We are learning about different holidays around the world and reading about all of the different ways children celebrate.  If there are any special traditions you have in your homes, we would love to have you share them with the class!

In Spanish the past two weeks, the JK students worked in three different groups building on their knowledge of clothing (ropa), counting numbers(contando numeros) 1-10, animals (anamales) and family members. We played BINGO con animales (BINGO with animals). We also dressed up for winter (invierno) in mittons (mittones), hats (sombreros), pants (pantalones), jackets (chaquetas), and boots (botas). We played a matching mittons game with numbers and snowflakes! Lastly the students drew a picture of their house (casa) and family (familia). Each student identified the members of their family in Spanish. 

Following is a link to a youtube channel with classic nursery rhymes and songs in Spanish.  https://www.youtube.com/user/ToobysSpanish

We performed our song, "Let's Make it Shine" for the Pre-K.  We then broke into buddies and the JK were able to read to their Pre-K buddy.  It was a chance for them to be the big kids and show the little kids what they are learning.  It was fun to hear all of the stories they were "reading".

Please take a peek at extra clothes in the restroom to be sure they are winter appropriate and still fit in the instance of accidents.  Also, be sure you are sending snow pants and boots each day.  Sometimes the snow is gone but our playground is still wet.  I look forward to seeing some of you at the Gingerbread celebration next Friday.  I will be sending out a sign up sheet for a few materials and volunteers for the actual party.  It will take place from 10-11 am in our classroom after a hunt around the school to find our escaped cookies.  It's a surprise, so don't let them know yet.

Please, as always, feel free to come visit, read, chat, call, email or text anytime.  I love sharing what we are doing in class and how your children are growing this year.

Susie Massey

Good afternoon JK friends and family!

We had a wonderful week preparing our classroom for Thanksgiving and Grandparent's and Special Friends Day.  In our writing center we practiced our lower and upper case "E" and made a list of "E" items, and read a story while identifying all of the "E's".  We made posters classifying items from long ago and items from present day.  It was interesting to hear about what the students thought the pilgrim children played and how they spent their time.

What a difference in how children play today. The children were also surprised to hear of all of the chores for which pilgrim children were responsible.  We talked about how they made their bread from scratch, using items they harvested. We made bread in the bread machine, using the same ingredients. It filled our room with smells like Thanksgiving morning at my Grandmother's house.  I also heard about all of the different kinds of bread the children have tried.  The most common types were blueberry, cranberry, and apple bread.

In our visual arts and fine motor skills center, we completed observation drawings of Indian Corn. Our science experiment has shown us that corn sprouts when put in water, even though it looks like it is not capable of growth.  The turkeys the children disguised are decorating our classroom and are amazing!  What a great job everyone did ensuring they will be hidden for Thanksgiving!  We also worked with water colors this week, experimenting with different colors which combine to make beautiful new colors.

The children made Thanksgiving books for you, practicing their writing on words used during the holiday. Their illustrations even included cornucopias!  What little artists and authors. We are beginning to introduce "popcorn" or "sight" words and encourage you to search for them at home when you are reading and in the community as you travel around the city.

We are looking forward to a fun performance tomorrow, and cannot wait to meet everyone.  Have a healthy and happy holiday weekend!  Gobble Gobble!!

Susie Massey

November!

What a wonderful November.  I cannot believe that Thanksgiving is next week!

We have had a busy week discussing and holding our own election.  We voted on our favorite zoo animal, favorite bird and favorite wild animal.  Giraffe, flamingo and fox won for the class favorites! We learned about our first and sixteenth presidents, and how old you have to be to run for president as well as vote.  Some guesses for the ages you need to be were 105, 16, 155, and 64.  I also interviewed each child to ask them what they would do if they were president.

"I would get paid lots of money helping people do their chores!  I am already making lots of money helping my brother do his!"  They all said they would help people and give people money and food. They also said they would be the ruler of the world!

We played a math number game while counting turkey feathers and writing them with dry erase markers.  We also practiced our teen and 20's numbers by creating a number line with Pilgrim Hats. The class began writing journal pages this week as well, and illustrated them.

This week in Spanish the class learned a color song in both Spanish and Sign Language about los colores de los arcoiris, the colors of the rainbow. We created un arbor de gracias, a tree of thanks. Each student determined what they were were thankful for having in their life, (odos los estudiantes). All the students said (in Spanish) what they were thankful for and added them to our leaves to make a classroom tree.  

We began reading about the pilgrims and watched a short video about the journey from England to America, from the perspective of the Mayflower Mouse!

Our reading buddies came to read and color pictures with us, and helped us think of things for which we are thankful.  The children ask daily when our reading buddies are coming, so I know they are really enjoying making friends in third grade!

Our "D" words were also a big topic of conversation, as we learned our "D" chant and hunted for items around the classroom and school that begin with the letter "D".

We are beginning our Thankful theme and will be talking about how we can be leaders in helping those we care about.  Filling buckets by being kind to everyone, and helping out even when it might not be our mess to clean up.

We worked on writing numbers with our dry erase markers while playing a turkey feather counting game, and used a Pilgrim Hat number line to practice our teen and 10 numbers.  We also began writing journal pages and illustrating them.

Our science experiment with Indian Corn is just beginning to show signs of change.  We made a hypothesis about what would happen when submerged in water, and will record the results in our classroom journal.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Massey

Hi JK Parents and Friends!

This week we went upstairs to the science lab to experience "ooey gooey" science experiments.  The children were able to observe the interaction of chemicals that make glowsticks illuminate.  They also made their own slime and then watched a pumpkin explode, as a result of the breaking of a triple bond in a molecule of acetylene.  I am not sure they will remember the substances used, but they loved hearing that the pumpkin might have had too much Halloween candy!

This week in Spanish we celebrated Dia de los Muertos. We decorated skull cookies and shared our lanterns. The children were excited to wear their salt skull necklaces around Roycemore for everyone to see. We watched a video about Dia de los Muertos and discussed the significance of the celebrations and customs.

 "Dicen Feliz Dia de los Muertos!"  (Happy Day of the Dead)

 We painted our self portraits, paying special attention to our individual skin tones, hair color and eye color.  It is a great way to document the progression over the school year and observe the many ways our young artists are developing.

At the sensory table, we spent the closing of Halloween Day with sorting of bugs and centipedes, noting the similarities in texture, color, size and type of insect, counting each as we grouped them.

The short week flew by, as the class continued their practice of songs for Grandparent's Day in Music class, made November calendars decorated with pumpkin pie pieces (small, medium and large), and worked in small groups to then join our paper chains for one group art project.  Working collectively, making different patterns, using our fine motor skills, and collaborating on the best way to join each link to the class chain were all processes they worked through in this collective project.

We are studying the election this week and discussing ways we can be leaders in our own school, classroom, homes and communities.  Help our young citizens recognize ways they can be leaders and please feel free to share when you notice these efforts.

I am including an article on the importance and positive results of reading non-fiction books and would love to hear of any favorites your children have read.  Our themes are election and giving thanks this week and next, but we can find a way to incorporate their interests at any time.

Have a great week!

Why is nonfiction reading important for kids?
On average, kids today spend less than 4 minutes a day reading nonfiction1. Yes, 4 minutes. What can you actually read in 4 little minutes? How much can you truly understand and feel comfortable talking about later?

It is common knowledge that how much a child reads is important. Kids who read more will perform better, acquire a greater vocabulary and develop better critical thinking skills. However, what a child reads is also important. Statistics show that kids actually read an average of 25 minutes a day (which is very low compared to the 4 hours and 29 minutes a day they spend watching TV). Of those 25 minutes, just 4 are spent on nonfiction. But is that enough? How can reading nonfiction really help?

A study by Marzano underlined that nonfiction reading helps kids develop background knowledge. You might be thinking, “So what?” Well, that same study shows that background knowledge actually accounts for 33% of the variance in student achievement.

Educators now commonly assert that reading more nonfiction early on tremendously helps children reach the appropriate reading levels in later grade. An interesting report from ACT in 2006, Reading Between the Lines: What the ACT Reveals About College Readiness in Reading, states that “the clearest differentiator in reading between students who are college ready and students who are not is the ability to comprehend complex texts.” According to experts, nonfiction is a great way for kids to develop critical thinking and analytical skills and, you guessed it, the ability to read and understand complex texts.

Common Core State Standards are now addressing the growing importance of school curricula across the United States by increasing the amount of nonfiction texts in classroom reading lessons. In the past, 80% of the texts read in class were fiction. Now, the Common Core Standards aim for reading materials to be 50% fiction and 50% nonfiction. While it could take some time for this significant change to be fully implemented at school, the shift in what children read can also come from home!

Kids have to read nonfiction!
Of course, there’s no need to lock your child’s monster stories in a closet and replace them with boring textbooks! Work with them to learn what they’re interested in — whether it’s sports, science, or history — and look together for fun and interesting texts! Nonfiction is everywhere. The challenge is to find nonfiction texts that are engaging and age-appropriate for your little ones! Remember, the objective is to get them to read nonfiction daily and actually enjoy it! And while reading fiction is a great way to develop children's imaginations and creativity, it’s nonfiction that sparks their curiosity and opens their minds to the world!

JK Happenings!

Good evening JK parents!

Our week was full of activity with miming stories the children dictated to me and then acted out as we all recited together.  It's a great exercise to encourage collaboration and imagination, along with music and movement.  Our Halloween theme allowed us to discuss our bones and skeletal system and make skeletons from our names, along with completing our upper and lower case "B" word lists and hunting for B's in all of our stories we read and places we walked around the school.

 Making lanterns to decorate for the season!  

 Spanish class had the children painting and talking about celebrations in Mexico and their significance to practices today.

 Our reading buddies came to our classroom again and read to their JK buddies and then all of the groups made pictures together.  Their conversations became more relaxed as they worked on creating something together.  

We ended the week with the festivities of our class party with centers of art projects and making paper chains and witch pictures, designing our own snacks, creating from cinnamon play doh, throwing balls to score in bozo buckets, and drinking a special punch (witch's brew) with dry ice. The older kids entertained us and were so wonderful as the class enjoyed games and activities upstairs for Carnival.

Thank you for all of your help and contributions to our party and for your time spent assisting the kids with their costumes and fun. The month of November will bring our theme of giving thanks as we jump into a season of talking about what we can do to make someone else's day happier. We are filling buckets each day with our actions and words.

Have a great week!