Despite the misty weather, we had a great time at the zoo. It must have been perfect weather for wolverines because they were very active. Thanks to all the parents who came along. It was fun to share the day with you and it was so much fun to see Anna and her family!

Both kindergarten classes practiced singing/signing songs for our end of year celebration and then we had music class together. We're still jumping rope at recess and students are getting so much better! In the afternoon, students who are not in sign club spent some time in Mrs. Paulson's first grade classroom while I helped Mrs. Wheeler with the sign club show. The students did a great job and I hope that they will join sign club again next year.

We go to the zoo tomorrow. Please make sure your child wears comfortable walking shoes and sunscreen, has a lunch and a water bottle, and is ready to have fun.

Preparation for Zoo Field Trip

Things to send to school on Friday:
lunch
water bottle

Things to think about beforehand:
apply sunscreen
pack a light jacket with a hood (in case of rain)

Does anyone have a large wagon that we could borrow? I'd like to drag along the discarded jackets and water bottles, as well as have snacks along with us. In years past, I've left all of that stuff in a basket at the front gate, but it's not handy when you need it. For the past 2 years in a row, I've had someone wet their pants, so if one of the parents coming along could bring an extra pair of sweatpants that would fit anyone, that would be very much appreciated. If I think of anything else, I'll post it. Will you let me know if I've forgotten anything? Thanks!

Field day was super fun. Classes rotated through stations. Our first station was a water relay in which students pulled a big sponge out of a bucket of water and held it under their chin until they passed it to their next teammate, so rightaway, they were drenched. Our last station was tug of war--boys against girls. The girls won!! (They had 2 extra people, but they were still totally awesome pullers!)

Tomorrow at 1:15 is the sign club performance in the gym. We already performed for the student body on Earth Day, so this one's just for you parents. I went to the zoo after school and paid our admission for Friday's trip. I had money for most of the students and only one parent. If you are coming along with us and didn't already give me your money for admission, you will need to pay at the gate when we arrive. I also found out that families who have season passes may not use them for group trips. Apparently it's too difficult to keep track of with large numbers of visitors during school trips.

We were fortunate enough to watch the 3rd graders perform their musical after sign language. At recess, I tied one end of a long jump rope to the fence and swung the rope for students. They are catching on quickly, well enough that we will learn some jump rope rhymes. (We tried, at first, to have a student swing the other end, but they don't know how to adjust the speed to the person who is jumping.) We learned subtraction in the afternoon and I was surprised by how quickly students caught on. During afternoon centers, the 2nd graders presented very informative dinosaur reports. After school, we had our last sign club meeting, at which we practiced for Thursday's show.

Tomorrow is Field Day!!

Students learned to use calculators in math today. They added a series of numbers, wrote the total, and compared their answer with the answer their partner got. We stayed in for morning and afternoon recess, but they went out for a little while after lunch. At the end of the day, we went to the gym to watch the first graders perform Frog and Toad plays. Just think, next year these guys will be the ones performing the plays! I can't believe I only have one more week with them.

This is a busy week! We will review long vowel sounds and subtraction, as well as sight words. Wednesday is Field Day. From 9 to 10:30, students will be outside, rotating from station to station. Students need to be dressed for the weather. They WILL get wet, so no white or see-through shirts. Flip flops are okay if it's warm enough. On Thursday at 1:15, the students in sign club will perform for parents. On Friday, both kindergarten classes go to the zoo. The bus picks us up at 10:30, so parents coming with us need to be at school by 10:15. Be prepared to drive yourself because we might have more people than space on the bus. The plan for the zoo is that we will arrive around 10:45, sit at the tables in the entrance area to eat our sack lunches, and then tour the zoo. We will go as a group, starting at the farm area and making the loop. We will end at the playground area and stay there until the bus arrives at 1pm to take us back to school.

We have big plans for an end-of-year celebration on the last day of school. At 11am in the gym, both kindergarten classes will perform for you, Mrs. Hanson and I will present awards, and we will enjoy refreshments. If you would be willing to bake cookies, serve punch, or help to set up for this event, please let me know. I have a video presentation for you that I will most likely share with you in my classroom before or after the combined celebration. (I haven’t figured out how to do this, because it doesn’t involve the other class.)

Izaak brought some yummy cookies as his birthday treat. Thanks, Izaak! We watched a Magic School Bus video about the life cycle of a butterfly, then students made a paper representation of the cycle. They glued a grain of rice to represent the butterfly egg, a spiral noodle as the caterpillar, a small shell as the chrysalis, and a bow tie noodle as the butterfly. We used cups of the same pasta shapes for a sorting and counting activity in math. Students counted the number of noodles in each group and recorded their answers. On Monday, we will learn how to punch those numbers into a calculator to find the total. Next week, our schedule is very busy with watching performances by other grades. Can you believe that next Friday is our trip to the zoo?! Have a great weekend.

The little astronauts ate their space food today. They had to drink their pudding through a straw so it wouldn't float away in our zero gravity classroom. Their food was 1/4 C milk and 1 Tbsp instant pudding mix. They could choose from chocolate or vanilla. The majority chose chocolate, but a few of them thought it was really yucky! Both kindergarten classes had music together today outside. We have been working on addition, but only with objects until today when we learned how to add pennies. The only difference was to show the cents sign. We read a story called The Magic Finger. See if your child can retell the story to you. It was about a girl who is friends with a family of hunters, but she is very against hunting. She had learned earlier that when she gets really angry, she can point her magic finger at the person who has upset her and cause things to happen to them. She was upset with her friends for hunting ducks, so she pointed her magic finger at them and that night the people turned into ducks and the ducks turned into hunters. When the ducks, armed with guns, came after the humans, the humans had to agree to smash their guns to bits to avoid being hunted.

We re-read Zoom! Zoom! I'm Off to the Moon! and then reviewed action words. Many of the action words in the book had the ing ending, so it was a great teaching opportunity. Afterward, students made adorable space helmets, which I hung in the hallway--sorry kids, they were too cute not to share! Nick and Courtney read a non-fiction book about the moon in their reading group.

After lunch, students ate birthday cake-flavored ice cream cups for their "good behavior celebration." Since it's Izaak's VIP week, he got to choose the Scholastic video that we watched while we ate. He chose a Harold and the Purple Crayon video.

Library Books

Please return library books as soon as possible. Mrs. Waples is in the process of taking inventory and needs all the books back in the library. Thanks.

We had a great day! The Bugz musical was a success and it was great to see so many parents there. I think students did an even better job at the afternoon performance for the student body. Even with changes to our schedule, students were so well behaved that they earned the last two points they needed in order to have an ice cream party, so we will celebrate tomorrow.

We're talking a lot about astronauts, the space shuttle, and zero gravity. We watched a 3 minute video that showed astronauts eating, drinking, and playing in zero gravity. Tomorrow we are making an astronaut snack: 1 T pudding mix and 1/4 C milk mixed in a Ziplock baggie and sipped through a straw.

Our mentor text of the week is about a boy who travelled to the moon, so in writing today, I asked students to write about going to the moon, They were pretty creative, writing stories about meeting aliens and exploding rockets.

This Week's Newsletter

Happy birthday (yesterday) to Izaak. This is Izaak’s VIP week. We will be reviewing short vowel sounds, action words, sequencing, and adding.

We are planning a field trip to Zoo Montana on Friday, May 28th from 10:30-1:00. At the zoo, we will eat lunch and walk around the zoo observing animals in their natural habitats. By tomorrow, your child will need to bring back to school their purple permission form, a yellow sack lunch form (ONLY if you don’t want to pack a lunch for your child), and $3.25 (children and adults who plan to go with us).

Tomorrow at 9am there is a K-2 music performance for parents in the gym. I hope you are able to attend. Have a great week!

Happy birthday, Izaak!!!

Today we started a science unit on the life cycle of a butterfly. We learned a lot about the difference between butterflies and moths--ask your child to tell you the differences. We played some relay games as review today. The first was an alphabet game. Students were divided into two lines. The first person in each line wrote a letter of the alphabet on the white board, passed the marker to the person behind them, who wrote the next letter, etc. until they had all 26 letters -- in order!! The first team to get to z was the winner. Next, we played a similar relay for the first team to write the numbers 1 to 20. We also reviewed the shapes cone, cube, sphere, and cylinder by keeping a pattern going with those shapes.

Have a great weekend and enjoy the warm weather.

We were so happy to get outside to play today! I think the weather is supposed to be even warmer tomorrow. Both kindergarten classes voted on more songs to sing at our end of year celebration. We used the teddy bears we made yesterday to practice subject/verb agreement. For example, One teddy bear was walking. versus Two teddy bears were walking. We also learned this poem:
Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, show your shoe.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, I love you!
The teddy bears completed the movements beautifully.

Zoo Trip Reminder

I forgot to mention in the newsletter that each student would need to pay $3.25 for the field trip to the zoo. I would like to have the money by next Tuesday, May 18th, when the purple permission slip is due. If your child wants a sack lunch from the school, they also need to return the yellow form by next Tuesday. If no yellow form is returned, I will assume that your child is bringing a cold lunch from home. The actual field trip takes place on May 28th. More reminders will be sent home as the time gets closer. Thanks!

We have been reviewing the story of Corduroy, the teddy bear, this week. Today, we made and stuffed a paper bag teddy bear, which will be used in a language activity tomorrow. Also based on Corduroy, we used the concept of losing something to make "Lost" posters. I asked the students to pretend that they lost a pet or a special item. They could either cut a picture out of a magazine or draw their lost item. They even included a (fake) phone number to call if the item is found.

Mrs. Hanson and I decided that, rather than each having our own end-of-year celebration, we will combine classes for an end-of-year celebration. On the last day of school at 11am in the gym, we will put on a performance for families, hand out certificates, and enjoy refreshments.

I made up an alphabet relay game and the students were willing to try it. It didn't work quite as well as I envisioned it, but I think the students had fun and got some practice with alphabetizing. In math, I gave each student a few paper clips. They were to find a partner, join paper clips, and write a number sentence. Everyone did very well.

Happy Mother's Day!!! This week's newsletter has been posted to the bottom of the class web page. See you tomorrow!

Snowman in May!

Teacher Appreciation week was AWESOME! Thanks to the PTA for all the pampering! Thanks, Mrs. M-H, for watching the class while I enjoyed my 10 minute massage! It was snowing during morning recess, and the snow was the perfect consistency for building a snowman. Without any adult leadership, a large group of students worked together to build a snowman. It was so fun to watch them work together. Students did a "salmon swimming upstream" art project that I found online, which turned out really cute! We watched the 5th and 6th graders perform their Beatles Revue in the afternoon. Our performance, Bugz, is o Tuesday, May 18th at 9am. No school tomorrow! Have a great weekend, and happy Mother's Day to all of you!

I said in my newsletter that book orders would be due on Friday, but I forgot that we are not at school on Friday, so they need to be returned tomorrow morning. Sorry for the mix up.

As of today we have a class "Grandma." Her name is Grandma Helen and she is married to Clyde, one of the lunchroom aides. Grandma Helen will be in our classroom Monday through Friday, from 8:15 until 10am, helping students with their morning work, handwriting, or flash cards.

Special Show and Tell--Baby Otis

Don't be surprised if your child suddenly wants a new lunchbox. One of our stories this week is about a boy who wants a lunchbox. He is too young to go to school, but as their father buys his sister a new lunchbox to start school, the younger brother wants one, too. We also read about a dragon who discovered a use for his fire breath--popping corn! We put some new words onto the word wall today. I need to post a new list for you. My main focus right now is getting every one's reading score as high as I possibly can. By the end of the year, students should be at a level 4, but students lose a lot of ground over the summer and we want them to begin first grade at a level 4. Please don't stop reading to your child over the summer. They are learning so much and will need lots of reinforcement over the summer in order to maintain their skills.

Don't' forget to return library books tomorrow!

The May 3rd newsletter has been posted to the bottom of the class web site.