The book order has been placed. We should have the books the week we return to school.

Students started the day with a math worksheet on which they had to fill in missing numbers of a 100s chart. It took them quite a while, but they earned a prize for completing it. They read their "Happy Easter" books to each other and then we took the pinata outside during recess to break it open!! Students formed a line and took turns hitting the pinata lightly the first time through the line, and progressively harder each time they had a turn. Miss Jaelyn's quite the hitter! It was great fun and there were no injuries, other than the sugar rush that followed. Students played a money game with partner. They put a bunch of change between them, in the "bank," and rolled two dice, added the total, and took that much change out of the bank. As they played, they exchanged coins to have the fewest coins possible in their piles (exchange 10 pennies for a dime). With more practice, they will get really good at counting money. Have a wonderful Spring Break! See you on April 5th!

After a morning of our typical work, students were treated to an educational video and popcorn for having such good behavior. During centers, I worked with small groups of students to complete their paper mache egg by adding a cute chick. (see photo) I've just finished today's conferences, so I wanted to thank you all for coming to discuss your child's progress. I am very pleased with how well students are doing. We're right on target.

This morning each student was given an animal picture to color. They sorted the animals into 3 categories: those with fur, those with scales, and those with feathers. They moved to music like their animal. Each student made a construction paper goose to go along with our story of the week: Honk! Honk! We learned 3 new vocabulary words from the story Make Way for Ducklings: amazing, responsibility, and courteous. Students put decorative edging on their eggs today. They should be able to bring them home tomorrow. The best news is that the students earned the last point needed in order to get a popcorn or ice cream party, so we will celebrate tomorrow!!

Students put brightly colored tissue paper squares onto their paper mache eggs today. I made a major mistake in forgetting to cover the tables with paper. Thanks to Mrs. Ross and Mrs. Webber for helping me clean the goop off of the tables!!

Both kindergarten classes learned the signs for our shared reading: Happy Easter. See if they remember the signs for Easter, chocolate, basket, and dye (as in, dye the eggs).

Don't forget that we get out at noon tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday. See you at your conference!

Here's the scoop on removing Elmer's glue from clothing...

We put another layer of newspaper on our paper mache eggs today. I found that I was almost out of flour, which I had been using to make the paste, so I thinned out Elmer's glue. I have to search the internet tonight to find out how to get Elmer's off of clothing, so I'll let you know when I find out. We'll do the last step tomorrow and I've made myself a note to bring flour.

Greetings! This week's newsletter has been posted to the class web page. See you tomorrow!

There was chaos this morning as students discovered that all of the tables had been covered with colored paper. The reason for the covering was our paper mache project! Students are making a fancy egg. They applied the first layer of newspaper today and will add another on Monday. It was an ooey, gooey project, but thankfully, not as messy as it could have been. While they worked on their egg, I put another layer on our pinata. I still don't think it's thick enough to hold all of the goodies that were sent to school. Three biiggg containers of snacks have been brought in--thank you! I'm posting the conference schedule by using student initials (see sidebar). Have a great weekend, everyone!

Mrs. Webber read The Little Duck Sikihpsis to the class. It was about a duck who wants to be a Plains Cree dancer, and decides to dress up like one and walks into the Cree camp. When he sees he does not fit in, the lonely duck returns to his pond and finds acceptance from the other ducks. He becomes content with who he is and his life as a duck. Students made paper bag ducks afterward, and decorated them with colorful feathers. (see photos) We watched the school talent show and returned to the room after dismissal time. Needless to say, we had to clean the room very quickly, hence the reason why we were so late getting outside today. My apologies! Remember, we will be doing a paper mache project tomorrow. If you have a jar lid we could borrow, that would be great. We will use it to set the balloon on to keep it from rolling off the table.

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Students had Lucky Charms for snack today, but first they sorted, counted, and graphed the marshmallows. We read some more David Shannon stories and used them as a model for original stories. It was amazing how a quick review of story elements and a model text helped the students write engaging stories. I was so impressed! I introduced the quarter today. We reviewed each coin, compared real coins to plastic, play money, and learned how to count change when you have more than one type of coin (start with the highest coin). Again, the students amazed me by how quickly they caught on. To reinforce coin recognition, I told students that if they wanted to play with bubbles at recess they had to pay me a nickel (a plastic one)--it was pretty motivational!

Tomorrow we will watch the school talent show. On Friday, we start a paper mache project so please don't send your child to school in their best clothes on Friday.

I introduced the dime today and students added a real dime to their film canister that contains the coins they've learned so far. Students learned the signs for penny, nickel, and dime and we practiced saying the poems. In their journals, students wrote a solution to the problem they wrote about yesterday. We had time for almost everyone to share their writing with the class! In the afternoon, we played a game in which we passed around a big paper cut-out of a dime. We counted by 10s to 100 and the person who said 100 had to sit down.

We are focusing on learning to recognize number words this week. We read a poem about shamrocks (Look at one shamrock. Look at two shamrocks...). We read the story Five Little Ducks. Our writing lesson was about identifying the problem in a story. Students chose a problem, real or fictional, to write about in their journals. We introduced the nickel in math today. I gave each student a penny and nickel and they did rubbings in their journals. I am posting the poems we use to remember coins so you and your child can recite them at home. We played a game in which we passed around a penny and counted by ones until we got to 10 and the tenth person had to sit down. Next, we passed around a nickel and counted by 5s to 30. The person who said 30 had to sit down.

If you want to order Scholastic books online, go to the link on the class web page. The user/class name is dewskinder and the password is bookorders.

Good morning! I just found a stack of book order forms that I meant to send out today, but forgot to include the information in the newsletter. There are four catalogs from which to order. Orders are due by Friday, March 26, which means you can drop off your order when you come in for your conference. I also forgot to mention in the newsletter that we are almost out of snacks. The large, Costco-sized containers last for quite a while, but the small boxes last for only one or two days.

Hopefully you remembered to "spring forward." This week's newsletter is now posted to the class web page. See you tomorrow!

We had a very artsy day! Each student made two squares for a St. Patrick's Day quilt. First, they traced a shamrock and then sponge-painted inside the lines. Next. they made a rainbow and pot of gold with thumbprints. Each student also added several handprints to a giant rainbow that is now displayed in the hall. Students played a penny game for math, and during afternoon centers, I called one set of partners at a time to the reading table to work on our pinata. See the photos...

I need to pass along a couple of announcements. First, the Student Council is selling bags of Texas Roadhouse peanuts after school today, tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday. As a bonus for purchasing the peanuts, there is a coupon for a free appetizer on the back of the bag. Proceeds go to Haiti relief. Second, there is a free music event put on by the Billings Symphony this Saturday in and around the Alberta Bair Theater starting at 9:00 a.m.

One of our counselors, Ms. McSweyn, taught a lesson on tattling versus telling today. Your child was given a sheet of paper that lists the three times when you should tell an adult. They are: 1. If a person or animal is hurt. 2. If you are being hurt. 3. If property is being destroyed or damaged. Students are learning to handle their own minor problems. If they are having problems with a classmate at recess, they can walk away, find someone else to play with, or tell the person how the situation makes them feel.

Mrs. Webber introduced the money unit today. Students examined a penny, learned its worth, and learned the cents sign. They counted pennies and wrote about pennies in their math journals. Tomorrow we will learn about the nickel. If your family sold any of the butter braids for the school fundraiser, you need to turn in the order forms and money tomorrow. Have a great evening.

Welcome back, Reef! We had a fun day. Our Second Step lesson today was on noticing differences, mostly in facial expressions, but we played a game in which a classmate would go into the hall, change one thing about their appearance (remove a headband, roll up sleeves, etc.), and see if the rest of the class noticed. We reviewed this week's vocabulary from Caps For Sale, and then students tried balancing notebooks on their heads, like the vendor in the story, and walking across the room without upsetting the notebooks. Students created their own clock "concentration" game, matching analog clocks to written time and then played with a partner. We received two additional computers for students to use at center time. I think everyone is happy about this!

Happy birthday, Jaelyn!! Thanks to Kim Dwyer for the most amazing cupcakes I've ever seen (or tasted)! I wish I had taken a picture of the polar bear and penguin cupcakes that Jaelyn shared with the class. Both kindergarten classes are learning signs for the Louis Armstrong song Wonderful World, which we will perform at the end of the year sign language program. We read another book by Mem Fox today and also watched a video about her. See if your child can remember where Mem Fox lives (Australia) or name some Australian animals or foods.

Happy VIP week to Jaelyn! What a beautiful day. We had a busy day and read a lot of books, but I'm having trouble remembering details right now. Let's see...we did a little handwriting practice of our letter of the week, k, and practiced spelling sight words. We read Caps For Sale about a vendor who carried his wares around town on top of his head. The man sold caps and wore them stacked on his head, walking carefully so as to not disturb them. As he slept under a tree, monkeys removed his caps. He awoke to find the caps missing, discovered the monkeys had the caps, and tried to convince the monkeys to give them back. The monkeys merely imitated the man, who got so frustrated that he threw down his own cap, causing the monkeys to throw down their caps. It was an effective technique! I introduced a new math game for centers in which students read a written time and must match a clock with the same time. The first partner to cover all their clocks wins.

The teachers meet tomorrow afternoon to set conference schedules, so if you still haven't returned your green conference form, I will assume you are willing to accept whatever times are not yet taken. In a couple of days you will get your conference time, which you may of course change if you need to.

Happy Sunday! After a lovely walk along the rims, I posted this week's newsletter to the class web page.

It was another great day in kindergarten! We started the day off with a leprechaun craft. Students read their mini-book We Can Give to 3 classmates and got their autographs. After lunch we went through the 3rd lesson in Second Step. It talked about how people can do the same thing and have a totally different reaction to it. One person might think snow is great, and another person might hate it. We read a book that reiterated the point. Students did their 1-minute speed reading and then they played with shaving cream. I asked them to use their finger to make different shapes in the shaving cream. It worked as an informal assessment because I was able to see who needs a mini-lesson on the 4 basic shapes. We worked on the concept of time and how long it takes to do certain things. I went to the online stopwatch web site and let students watch the time as we compared how long it took for the whole class to line up (7 seconds) to how long it took someone to wash their hands (28 seconds). Tables competed to see how quickly they could stack their chairs.

If you haven't already returned the green conference form (for requesting your conference time) please do so on Monday. Have a great weekend!

Today was fun, fun, fun! We learned the signs to this week's shared reading along with the other kindergarten class. It contains the words here and there, so we played a game to reinforce the difference in spelling and to emphasize the difference in meaning. For Text Talk, we learned the next 3 vocabulary words: steep, frigid, and thumped. We reviewed vocabulary words from past stories. I handed each student an index card with a word. They acted out the word and the rest of the class guessed it. They did such a great job! We made a life-sized clock in math. Twelve students held number cards and positioned themselves just like the numbers on an analog clock. Two others were the minute and hour hands. We briefly talked about how the minute hand counts by 5s and we started to learn time to the half hour. These are difficult concepts to teach and to grasp, but keep talking to your child about them and they will get it eventually. I showed them a digital clock and we learned that the two zeros after the : means "o'clock." There was a fire drill at 2pm, and everyone got out quickly and safely. Please check out the new vocabulary word list to the right and let me know when your child uses the new words.

We're loving this weather! It sounds like it will be this nice the rest of the week. It was a little cool in the morning, so I told students to wear a light jacket, but by lunch recess, they really didn't need any jacket. Students sorted words by their ending sound or chunk (__ick or __ock). In social studies we talked about where trash goes after we put it in the garbage can and the importance of reusing and recycling. I showed students a picture of a girl wading in a river in India, who was almost hidden by all the garbage in the water. Yuck! We reviewed what nouns are and in their journals, students could either draw pictures or cut pictures out of a magazine and label a person, a place, and a thing. Students drew a face onto a paper plate so that they will remember that the number part of a clock is called the face. We added hands and some students went so far as to add the numbers, so I quickly had to show them where the numbers belong. We're still only working on telling time to the hour, as that's all that's required in kindergarten. If the majority of students seem ready, we will also learn telling time to the half-hour. We put together a telling time Bingo game and played it in the afternoon. It was a great day!

I'm back! (I felt lost not posting to the blog last night.) If you've looked in your child's backpack, we've found the Monday envelope. Yes, I know it's Tuesday, but I guess the substitute was overwhelmed yesterday. My apologies for being late. In the envelope is a green form on which you'll request the best time to meet for your child's conference. Please return it as soon as possible to ensure that you get the date and time you want. There was also a packet of papers with a bunch of stars on the cover. This was our old speed reading test. You can keep it or throw it away--we have a new one in class. I sent it home because I know some of the students will want to do 1-minute timings at home.

The three vocabulary words introduced today were: embarrassed, concerned, and warn. Two of them went right along with our social skills lesson, in which we learned to read facial cues for the emotions surprised, scared, and disgusted. Although it was Dr. Seuss's birthday, we continued to read books by author/illustrator Nancy Carlson. Students noticed similarities between several books.