Today we read an informational text about spring.  We focused on learning about spring weather, animals in spring and plants in spring.  We noticed the text features, specifically the headings, content page, information boxes, bold print words and labels.  We know authors use these text features to help the reader understand and organize the content better.  We wrote about spring, using a heading, labels, and bold print words.  Ask me what I learned about spring! 
In honor of Women's History Month, and as part of our science unit about habitats, we read The Tree Lady - The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Lady Changed a City Forever, by H. Joseph Hopkins.  This is the true story of Katherine Olivia Sessions, who loved trees but moved to San Diego when there were no trees in the late 1800's.  She began researching trees and plants that would thrive in the desert climate of San Diego and changed the city park later known as Balboa Park from a place people grazed cows and threw their trash in to a beautiful oasis of plants and trees.  

I hope everyone had fun in the snow!
Miss Wolfe

Big news!  The eagles The Earth Conservation Corps monitors have an eaglet.  I understand it hatched yesterday.  We watched today and saw it being fed tiny bites of fish.  The eaglet looks really good, and very good at eating.  The second egg in the nest is pipping, so it's cracked now and we watched it wobbling around quite a bit.  The other eaglet will probably come all the way out very soon.  I feel like a traitor going to this site, but here's the address:  http://www.eaglecam.org/ Liberty and Justice are very good parents, and we had a great time watching them feed their little baby.  I haven't given up on the First Lady and Mr. President, but there is a lot of drama at their nest with a sub-adult coming to the nest and being run out by Mr. President and the First Lady.  

We worked quite a bit this afternoon trying to find all the ways of decomposing numbers.  We wrote number sentences to show what we found.  The kids have figured out that when they find out 1 and 8 make 9, they can turn that around and 8 and 1 also make 9.  We also worked on looking at a number sentence and finding out if it was true or false.  So I wrote a sentence such as 5 = 3 + 3 and they would write T or F.  If the sentence was false, they wrote how to change one number to make the sentence correct.

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

We used the Chromebooks this morning.  The kids LOVED one game in particular.  This game is a counting game and has choices of counting by 1's or skip counting by other numbers.  The character is like Indiana Jones, so it's very motivating.  You can find this game on our homework page.  We also practiced decomposing the number 9 and representing how we did it with a number bond and an equation.
We continued to talk about the external features of animals.  We sorted animal cards by different features, coverings, and other categories we came up with after reading on the back of the card.  This set of cards has facts on the back, and the children became really interesting in reading from the back to determine how they were going to sort them.  Although that was not my original intention for them, they were really interested in the facts they were learning.  They did an amazing job of working together to sort as a group.  They were cooperative and able to come up with a sort without arguing, knowing they could do another sort.  
Ask me to tell you about something new I learned about animals today.

Have a great weekend!
​Miss Wolfe

Today we had an assembly most of our morning.  We went to the fifth grade plays.  These plays were written and performed by each fifth grade class.  The children thoroughly enjoyed the plays, and I enjoyed trying to recognize my former kinders!  The kids really liked one joke in particular, and I'm letting you know in case you have Alexa at home.  One of the performers has Alexa call 9-1-1 but instead Alexa calls 1-1-9.  I don't have Alexa and don't know how it works, but I know several of my friends talked about this ALL afternoon, so I'm guessing you will hear it too!  Hopefully Alexa won't call 9-1-1!  There was lots of humor in the plays, but most of it went over the kinders heads, but they still loved it! 
Yesterday and today we continued to work with decomposing numbers.  We talked about finding all the different ways to break a number apart and how to write it as an equation.  So kids are writing 9=5+4 to show one way to make 9.  They are encouraged to use their fingers, counters or other manipulatives we have in the classroom.  They are not expected to learn those basic facts, however we will be working on the basic facts within 5.  So, kindergarten students will be practicing adding and subtracting numbers that equal 5. 
We read What Pet Should I Get, by Dr. Seuss.  We talked about what we need to think about when making choices such as that, and what we need to consider.  We talked about other choices, such as what to buy at the grocery story, picking out shoes, getting a hair cut, etc.  We also talked about want and need, and the financial part of these choices.  
We continued to work on a book we are working on to learn how to use text features in an informational book. We know putting headings on pages helps the reader know what information to expect which helps them to organize this information.  We also practiced making a few important words to the topic on the page in bold print. This class really loves information books, so writing their own book has been a lot of fun!
Today during recess the kids had a practice Lockdown Drill.  The students need to know what to do if the school goes into Lockdown and they are outside.  We talked with the kids before recess about always listening for the whistle outside and to look at the paraeducators when they hear the whistle.  I emphasize "quick, quiet and listen" when we have any kind of drill.  This drill required them to line up and walk along the edge of the property and up the hill close to Georgetown Hill.  Obviously, if it were a real lockdown they would be taken on to a more secure area, but for the drill they went as far as the hill.  The paraeducators said they did pretty well, but some children were leisurely, and when they got to the hill they cheered going up it.  I'm sure they were encouraging each other, and I could hear it in the classroom, but we have to emphasize quick and quiet.  We also had one little friend picking flowers along the way!  They have no idea why we are doing this, and when someone asked I just said once I was in a school that the sprinkler accidentally went off so we had to leave the building quickly so we didn't get wet.  We don't want to frighten the children, but we are going to have a school wide Lockdown Drill again soon to be sure they know what to do.  You can help us with this by talking with your child about listening to all adults in the building.  At times, our students do not listen immediately to substitute teachers and sometimes to our paraeducators.  We emphasize they are also teachers and that any adult that works in our building needs to be listened to immediately.  

We are still checking in on the eagles from time to time.  I'm starting to worry, but we have our backup eagle nest we can watch if Mr. President and the First Lady don't have eggs this year.

Have a nice evening!
Miss Wolfe

We had a great assembly today!  We went to a planetarium in the gym!  The kids really enjoyed looking at the stars and a few planets.  They also got to see the solar eclipse from this past summer.  Ask me to tell you about the planetarium!

We started our day studying photographs of animals who were called "ugly" because of some of prominent external features.  Ask me to tell you what external features are and give an example.  We know type of external features animals have help them to survive.
We had a great Read Across America Day!  We watched a short video about Dr. Seuss.  We learned that he wrote books to help children learn to read and to love reading.  We know his books are full of rhyming words, so we worked with rhyming words today.  We also know many of his longer books were written to teach children lessons.  We watched the video of The Sneetches.  This book is about excluding others.  We know that when we have empathy and think of how others feel, we will make good choices and not exclude others on purpose.  We also talked about how greedy the man who was putting stars on the sneetches and taking them off was!
Mrs. Kanter visited today and did a lesson about the consequences of the choices we make.  Ask me to tell you about the book she read!  

Have a nice evening!
Miss Wolfe