Ask Me About Tuesday, December 8, 2015

We have started the past couple days with short videos of seed germination and growth.  We watched a sunflower, mushroom and lima bean this week.  For some reason, the mushroom video is hysterical to those who are five and six years old.  I''ll post them at the bottom of our blog today so you can watch them if you wish!
We also reviewed parts of a plant and are learning about their life cycles.
We are working on retelling in reading.  We know the beginning of the story is how a fiction story "gets started," usually with a problem.  The middle part of a story is usually the biggest part of the story with the problem getting worked out or made clearer.  The ending is how it all worked out.  Yesterday we read The Biggest, Best Snowman, by Margery Cuyler.  Ask me to retell you this story with a very special lesson, especially for kindergarteners.  We read the book, but here's a video of the book to enjoy!  

Today we read Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!, by Candace Fleming.  This book is about a gardener who some unwanted guests in his garden dining on his produce.  We noticed both the gardener and the bunnies were very fluent thinkers; the gardener kept coming up with ideas of how to keep the bunnies out, and the bunnies kept coming up with ways to get in to the garden.  Ask me to tell you how the gardener tried to keep the bunnies out, and how the bunnies got in!
We are starting Words Their Way this week.  We will be on a two week cycle where we practice sorting pictures or words based on their sounds and/or letter patterns the first week at school, then it will be sent home to practice at school with suggested activities.  I met with a couple groups so far to do their sorts, and will be finishing the other groups later this week.  

We are starting to get postcards from our Postcard Project.  We will keep the postcards at school so we can sort them by states or countries, match them to where the state is on the rug map, and study the pictures on the postcards.  Thanks to everyone who helped out by sending out the postcards we sent home.  If you would like to send out more, let me know, and I'll send home some blank postcards.  All the postcards will be returned at the end of the project so your child can keep them.

Enjoy the videos!
Juliet