We started our very rainy day with a surprise video clip instead of a picture talk.
You might also enjoy it since we are looking at a couple more days of this!

Mrs. Park took some beautiful pictures as the children worked in Art today.  I'm passing them along to you.  We have not only great little artists, but very good workers too! 

We continued our study of characters by re-reading the story Excellent Ed, by Stacy McAnulty.   Ed is a dog who would like to be included in everything his family does, like sit on the couch, ride in the van, eat at the dinner table and even use the bathroom inside!  Ed thinks if he is excellent at something, the family will let him have those privileges.  But every time he thinks of something he is excellent at, someone in the family is excellent at the same thing. We made a chart to show what the characters in the story did.  In the end, Ed realizes he is excellent at many things that are important to the family.  Ask me to tell you about the things Ed is excellent at that no one else in the family is!  He is our chart we made today of the first part of the story. 

Have a nice evening!
Miss Wolfe

Today we analyzed another symbol of the United States.  We studied the eagle and looked for important parts, and noticed the similarities and differences in the feathers. 
We also reread Come On, Rain by Karen Hesse.  This book has beautiful language with descriptive words that make you feel like you are in the hot city, then part of the very welcomed rain.  We made a chart to record the senses the author used in her descriptions in the story.  Ask me to name the five senses. 
Today  your child is bringing home a Read to Me, Talk to Me book.  This book should be read to your child even if they can read the words.  The book has questions to guide a discussion.  Please do not write down the answers and return them to me.  The purpose of the questions is to guide your discussion, it's not a test.  It's great if you can read the book a couple times during the week, or if it's long break it up into two readings.  Children need to understand we read books several times or go back to the text to understand the story more deeply.  The back of the book also has an activity which is often some kind of art activity.  All our homework is optional, but we strongly encourage the reading and discussion.  We would love to see the project if you choose to do it so return it in the bag with the book.  Please return the bag each week and keep the book in the bag when it is not being read.
I hope you enjoy Read to Me, Talk to Me.  It's really a wonderful gift from the PTA and Mrs. Oglesby that we have been able to maintain a good supply of books to be used in this program.

Have a nice evening!
Miss Wolfe

Today we studied a photograph of The Statue of Liberty.  We analyzed the statue and identified important parts of the statue.  We listened to a story about how the Statue of Liberty was built.  We also watched a short video to learn what the important parts of the statue stand for.  Ask me to tell you about three important parts of The Statue of Liberty.  We drew, labeled and colored our own Statue of Liberty.  I will be hanging them in our hall to show them off, but so you can see now, I have scanned them and put them on the website in the Social Studies tab.  To find it, look under the curriculum tab.
Today we learned about subitizing.  We began by looking at a die.  We did a great job of identifying how many dots are on each side without counting them.  We will look at other dot formations too and become quick at telling how many.  To learn more about subitizing, please look under the curriculum tab on our website, scroll down to math and watch the short video.
Have a nice evening!
Miss Wolfe

Today we read a beautiful story called Come On, Rain!  This story, by Karen Hesse, is about a little girl in the city who is very hot because it has not rained for three weeks.  She tricks her mom into letting her put her bathing suit on.  Ask me to tell you how she tricks her mom.  We are learning about story elements, so we will be reading this story again and going deeper to understand the characters and why the setting is important.  This story has many sensory details as well, which we will be talking about more this week.

In Writing Workshop today, we talked about zooming in on just a part of a story, a "seed" to tell instead of writing a huge "watermelon" story.  The children are doing a good job using their stretchy snakes as tools to help them stretch out words to hear the sounds in the word, then using the alphabet strip to help them remember how to write the letters.

In Math today, we took a quick number check-up to see how students were doing writing their numbers.  We also looked at some number books because we will be making a number book this week.  

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

Today we read a book called Nobody's Perfect, by David Elliott.  This book is about a little boy who tells about people in his life who are not perfect, as he is learning that nobody is perfect.  He tells about his sister Gigi, his friend Jack and even his mom and how they are not perfect.  It might interest you to know that I stopped when the narrator said his mother was not perfect, and I asked the class if there mother was perfect.  Everyone in the class said their mother is perfect!  As we read on, the narrator felt his mother was not perfect because she put him in time-out for letting the dog sleep on his bed, and he felt the dog should have been in time-out instead.  Ask me to tell you about the characters and what they did that was not perfect.  I'll show you my Nobody's Perfect paper.  The story ends with the little boy saying nobody is perfect, but they come close, like when his mom listens to him, that's perfect enough!  We read this book to think more deeply about characters to find evidence in the story or illustrations that support our thinking.

We played a game today in math called Mind Reader.  This is a game that involves deductive reasoning as children get rid of items that don't follow the rule.  We used buttons and I gave clues that would eliminate buttons until one button was left.  

We had a visit from Mrs. Kanter today and learned more about the people at our school and their responsibilities.  We also talked about the responsibilities the children have at school.  Ask me to tell you about two people that work at our school and what their responsibilities are.

We had a fire drill today and did a great job watching where we were walking, and moving quickly to our spot.  We also received recognition on the announcements about our cafeteria behavior yesterday.  Our class was recognized for showing respect to the adults and other children in the cafeteria.

I have updated our website with more curriculum tabs as well as adding a new video on the ISFP, Interesting Stuff for Parents, about self-control.

Have a great weekend!
​Miss Wolfe

Today we read a poem about saying good-bye to summer as fall began today.  We made lists of things we were saying good-bye to for summer and hello to for fall.

This afternoon I was in a meeting all afternoon, so the children had a substitute teacher.  I came back to dismiss the students and came in to see them sitting so nicely listening to the teacher.  She had nothing but praise for how well the students listened, helped each other and worked.  The children also got a big compliment from the art teacher, Mrs. Park as well.  She told me it's hard to believe they are kindergarten students!  Thank-you so much for sending us such sweet kids who are ready to learn each day!  You make our job much easier!

This afternoon the children listened to a story about the American flag.  Ask me to tell you something I learned about the flag.

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

Today is the International Day of Peace.  This day, declared to be a Day of Peace by the United Nations, is a day to strengthen what we believe about peace.  We read the Todd Parr book The Peace Book to get an idea of what peace is to different people.  We will be talking about this ideal more the rest of the week, but we began to talk about what each of us can do to promote peace in our homes, community and even beyond.  We talked about the symbols that stand for peace, the peace sign, the two fingers peace sign and the dove.  
We made pinwheels today as a symbol of our participation in making the world a more peaceful place.  The Pinwheel Project was started by two teachers in Florida in 2005.  On this day, they had students make pinwheels and "plant them" somewhere outside to show others their commitment to peace in our world, and by the spinning of the wheel, spread the feelings of peace everywhere.  
You may want to plant your pinwheel somewhere to show others that peace is something your family values!  Our pinwheels don't spin very well, but maybe in the wind they will work better! 

We analyzed four pictures this morning.  We zoomed in on the sky and noticed how the pictures were the same and different.  We talked about what we noticed, especially with the clouds.  ASk me to tell you about the photographs.  We will be learning more about clouds this week and next.

Sorry for the late post.  We had some computer issues at school and not everything was working!
Today we played a fun game in math called Guess My Rule.  I called students to stand up, and children studied them to figure out why they all could be in the group.  This was a great chance to practice analyzing; we looked for a common attribute.  This got easier as the game went on, and I am pretty sure we have a couple mind readers in this class!
We had a class meeting today.  We passed the talking fish to share thank-yous and compliments, then checked in on how recess and lunch is going.  It seems everyone is happy!  We then had a quick discussion and simulation about self-control.  This is something we work on throughout the year in kindergarten!  Ask me to tell you what self-control means.  We listened to a very sweet story called Oh No, George by Chris Haughton.  This story is about a dog who wants to be good, but when left on his own, does some very naughty things.  Ask me to tell you about the trouble George gets into!   Sometimes it's hard to stop yourself from doing something you really want to do.  So we practiced with bubbles.  I have a very large bottle of "Self-Control Bubbles" that I spread over the children.  The rule was they could not touch or break the bubbles.  They couldn't even move their bodies to touch and break the bubbles.  Instead, they had to sit and watch the bubbles without breaking them.  This class was amazing!  They did not even touch the bubbles, even when they landed right in front of them!  It's the best I've ever seen a class do with this lesson!  Here's a peek at the book Oh No, George!
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Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe

Happy Monday!  We finally got to go back to P.E.  Mr. Romans was so complimentary about what good listeners we have in this class!  Ask me to tell you what we played in P.E.
Today we listened to a really great book for anyone who worries!  The book is called Jack's Worry, by Sam Zuppardi.  This book is about a boy who loves to play the trumpet and is getting ready to perform with his classmates.  He is so excited until the day of the performance.  He wakes up to find a huge Worry.  The Worry is actually on top of him!  Ask me to tell you what Jack does to get rid of his worry. Jack is worried if he doesn't play perfectly, his mom will not love him.  Jack doesn't share his worry with anyone, he can't eat, and he is miserable.  Finally, Jack faces his worry and finally tells his mom about his worry.  She reassures him that she will love even if he plays every note wrong, and that she just wants him to have fun.  Mrs. Kanter helped out with our lesson, and we talked about what we can do when we have a worry that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.  We each got our own worry, and as we talked about ways to help our worries get smaller, we tore off parts of our worry.  Here are some of the ways we found we could get rid of most of our worry:

We talked about this strategies, but will talk more about them tomorrow and throughout the year.  I will send this list home tomorrow.  
One strategy we talked about today was breathing.  In fact, we watched a short video clip about belly breathing.  

Have a nice evening!
Miss Wolfe 

Today we read a quick rhyme about bugs.  We used a Word Bird strategy to figure out the word "fond" that was in the poem.  We circled the word in the rhyme, then made a list of five things we are fond of on the back of our poem.  I was hoping to send that home today, but I was so busy testing today it didn't happen so look for the poem on Monday!

We are making good progress with the reading and KRA assessments I had to do.  I have more reading assessing to do, but most of it should be finished Monday.  I will do a little more later in the week with a couple of the students, but my goal is to start regular reading groups on Tuesday.  

Today the children are bringing home some pictures with words to show you at least three ways to sort the cards.  They did a great job following directions with this task.  They had multiple steps to follow, and independent sorting to do while I was testing, and I was very pleased that so many of them were able to remember and follow the directions independently!

Have a great weekend!
​Miss Wolfe