Good morning JK friends!

We have been exploring Penguins in great detail and are now moving onto our friendship and Valentine's Day theme.  We are filling each other's buckets and finding new ways to be leaders in our classroom each day!

Language Arts:

While we continue our work on improving our writing skills with correct formation of upper and lower case letters, we are also developing inventive spelling as the students are able to determine how the sounds fit together to make words and sentences.  I am introducing letter blends to the whole class ("ch", "sp" etc) and working on finding those sounds in stories as a part of our guided reading groups. The children are playing games to increase their familiarity with popcorn words, and enjoy using those when writing collaborative stories during center time.  We also worked on Valentine journals and practiced writing words about friendship.

We have read some wonderful stories this week, including:  Bring a Friend, It's Valentine's, Valentine's Day, Penguin Love, and A Story of Friendship.  By including non-fiction in the collection, the students learned about the history of Valentine's Day and both traditions still celebrated today along with those celebrated long ago.  They were laughing at the practice from England where the first boy a girl saw on Valentin's Day would be the person they would marry.  I gave some examples and filled in various names from the class and they thought it was the funniest thing they had ever heard.  "For instance, if you awakened on Valentine's Day and walked outside your house, and Mason was the first boy you saw, you and Mason would get married!".

Math:

We are all practicing our numbers through one to one correspondence counting games and are writing those as we count to 30.  It's fairly common to still hear "twenty eleven, twenty twelve..." as the students practice progressing to the next group of tens.  I encourage you to practice with them starting from 11 and pointing to numbers you write as they count.  Give them a pad and pencil and ask for their help in making tally marks for how many shoes are in their closet or books are on a shelf.  Any occasion they have to write their numbers and link the name with the number as they write is great practice.  They can wrote count but applying meaning to each individual number is also important.

Science:

We continue to make predictions and test those in our classroom.  Our most recent was focused on the Super Bowl.  We will chart the results on Monday.  We also use everyday art activities to talk about materials changing and primary colors mixing to create secondary colors.  The light table has provided another center to experiment with color changes when layering Legos.  The interdisciplinary nature of our classroom includes science with art and math and literacy and each activity builds on multiple skills.  We also discussed shadows- see below for our Groundhog Day activity.

Fine Motor:

We created Valentine people with accordion arms and legs, allowing the students to strengthen their small muscles through folding, cutting, gluing and coloring.  This activity also required them to follow three step directions to complete their project in stages.  The children also practiced their scissor skills when they made fringe on the grass for their ground hog's homes, colored and cut out their furry friends and glued it all together.  We included a shadow exercise to model the ground hog's excursion out of his hole, as we sang a Groundhog Day poem.

Reminders:

Be sure to sign up for a parent teacher conference time if you haven't already done so. There will be no school on Friday, February 17th to allow for conferences.  Also, be putting together your 100 items for our "100 Days" museum this Friday.  And, be on the lookout for a shoe box at home for our V-Day mailboxes.  Please cover in white paper and bring to school anytime this week or next Monday.

Valentine's Day:

We will have a classroom party to celebrate on Valentine's Day.  We won't have parents or guests- just games and activities between our classroom and Pre-K.  Feel free to drop anything off if you want to add a treat to share.  Each child will make a Valentine's Day mailbox so please send in a shoebox covered in white paper anytime this week.  We have 15 children (4 boys and 11 girls) so please bring a valentine for each child in a plastic Ziploc bag next Tuesday, February 14.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday!  I'm pretty neutral with the teams playing so I'll be more interested in watching a good game, the puppy bowl, and some great commercials!

Mrs. Massey

Good morning JK families and friends!

We are steadily making our way through the alphabet as we have different letter concentrations each week.  We are now on letter Jj and looking for things that make the "j" sound around our room and school.

Follow this link for an excellent article on how children learn letter sounds:

http://fcrr.org/news/news_compton_hub.html

We have constructed igloos from either marshmallows or sugar cubes, paying attention to how we can construct things with the most success.  They each estimated the number they believed necessary to cover their entire igloo, and then tested their prediction after the construction.  Each step required counting each cube or marshmallow as we added sets of 20 at a time.  We watched a video of an igloo being built by an Inuit family.  The first time a son or daughter is able to help it is a milestone and memorable experience, and is celebrated as they learn through careful observation but also in making mistakes (much like we learn-and grow-as through correcting and modifying errors provides the greatest opportunities to understand/learn).

The children are using their new vocabulary words about winter to create stories in small groups, and then illustrate a mural based on the characters and experiences.  This small group activities develops their oral language as they work with classmates to practice using and recognizing high frequency word.  They are able to use their imaginations to create relevant stories to their lives.  Researchers have found that vocabulary knowledge is an important predictor of beginning reading success (Roth, Speece, & Cooper, 2002).  Please come in to view our poster boards when you are in the classroom next.  They love sharing their stories and discussing their involvement in the creation.

I have begun assessing the class as we approach our second round parent teacher conferences in February.  When assessing oral language, we look at each child's ability to: speak clearly in complete sentences, respond to questions, initiate conversations, take turns, ask questions, participate in discussions, sing songs and recite finger plays, and tell about experiences.  All of our daily morning meetings encourage these skills.  It's amazing how intentional the JK curriculum is.  Each activity is building upon their confidence, literacy, math and science skills, language arts, fine and gross motor and social emotional.  The children are only aware of the fun they are having while learning these critical skills.  Roycemore and the academics we introduce provides an amazing foundation for success throughout the school years and beyond.  I am extremely happy with where we are in their learning for the school year.  The social-emotional element of this class has risen to an advanced level and will be incredibly evident against their peers as they enter Kindergarten.

We are working on one to one correspondence and simple addition and subtraction in our math center as we use games, dice and different manipulatives to tell stories as we practice our number recognition and writing.  The children need practice in recognizing and writing their numbers from 11-30, as most have mastered 1-10.  Please start at 11 and work your way up if your child seems to be comfortable with 1-10.  By skipping what they already know you can build on their familiarity and replace 1-10 comfort level with the higher numbers.

Each month we have the class paint a self portrait which I am compiling for their final portfolio.  The details they are adding in comparison to the beginning of the year is outstanding.  They are moving to the next developmental stage.  It's very exciting to watch it unfold.

The sensory table has been filled with moon sand, penguins and icebergs.  We have been experimenting with blubber and how the penguins are insulated from the cold, icy waters with their blubber layer.  They were apprehensive to stick their hand in a plastic glove surrounded by Crisco, but loved comparing the temperature difference while putting themselves into the mindset of a penguin!  Everyone finished their Penguin hats this week, and had fun wearing them and pretending to be their favorite kind of penguin.  They can name a few; be sure to ask them their favorite.

Spanish time has been used to teach the children about each child's family and the people who live in their house. Tenemos diferente casas (we have different houses).  Some of us have a mom/madre, a dad/padre, a brother/hermano, a sister/hermana, and some houses have pets.  They have also lelarned about extended family/familia.  Some families also have an aut/tia, and uncle/tio, a grandpa/abuelo, a grandma/abuela.  They learned about the snowy own/Buho Nevado and been playing a matching game with con animales/with animals.

Have a wonderful week, and please let me know if you would like to be our special guest to come read or lead/assist/whatever your comfort level is- an activity for the class.  They love having visitors and enjoy getting to know their friend's family's.

Mrs. Massey

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