Winter Workshop

       Thanks to the efforts of many volunteer parents (and a really great group of kindergartners), a super time was had by all on Tuesday before the Winter Break.  Here are some pictures of students admiring the felt bookmarks they made. The bookmarks were one of several crafts including bird feeders, picture frames, and sachets that the children completed to take home in their giving bag. The workshop was a wonderful culmination of  December's sharing theme of "handmade and homemade"!  A warm thank you to all who helped make it happen.

Corduroy

Chrysanthamum

We've been talking about how "old favorite" books tell the stories that live in your head and your heart.  They are the ones that are so good you want to hear them again and again until you know them so well you can tell them from memory.  Knowing a book by heart introduces emergent readers to bigger words and longer texts- it's an important step in learning to read!

The Carrot Seed

We're getting ready for winter!

When we returned to school after Thanksgiving the entire class said they were excited for winter weather!  Jan Brett's The Mitten was just the book to get us thinking about fun in the snow and kick off the new Readers Workshop unit on "old favorites".  Here's a look at the class retelling the story using their paper mitten and animals.

Back in time

Another popular independent choice after literacy work this week has been to explore the props in our "old fashioned" dramatic play area.  With a little cardboard and paint we created a play area that looks much like the hearth in the Donald Hall's The Ox-Cart Man. The children can feel sheep's wool, shingles, a wooden bowl, bread loaf pans, a hand knit shawl and mittens - all items that were mentioned in the book!

Literacy Routines

       Each morning, after the children finish their two "have to's" they make choices according to the literacy choice chart.  Take a look at these two pictures of independent work with magnet letters.  In the first picture three kiddos are proudly displaying the alphabet and in the second two children have discovered the word "and" in both of their names!

Partner Reading!

Today was an important day in Readers Workshop.  We celebrated the progress we've made in "sounding like a teacher" when we read books using words and pictures.

200 years ago things were very different than they are today...

     Our current them of "Long Ago and Today" is sparking lots of great discussion.  We began thinking about how times have changed with the help of Virginia Lee Burton's classic, The Little House which depicts changes in transportation, communication, and life in the countryside through the perspective of a little house that remains the same as the world changes around her.  This led us to Donald Hall's The Ox-Cart Man which gave the children a closer view of how all the members of a family worked year round to make or grow almost all of what they needed.  Some members of the class thought they'd like to have lived the way the Ox-Cart Man's family did about 200 years ago while others thought, no- they liked things just the way they are now!  Despite the varying opinions, the whole class has enjoyed making candles, trying out some stitching samplers, playing with old fashioned props, and making butter.  Take a look!

Halloween, UNICEF, All-School Meeting and More...

As you know, our class presented at All-School Morning Meeting last Friday.  Together with our 5th grade buddies we put on a skit to show how easy and important it is to trick-or-treat for UNICEF.  We're hoping to break an Orchard School record this year with the funds that are collected.  Here are some pictures from the assembly, our Halloween party in the afternoon and math games with buddies in between.

Reader's Workshop- "Adding a Pinch of You"

Last week in Reader's Workshop I taught a lesson about how great readers often make a personal connection to a book- and they share that connection when they read the book to someone else. We talked about how sometimes, when you're reading, something in the book reminds you of something in your life. After the children had some time to look at a book on their own and place a sticky note on a page where they could "add a little pinch of you" (those were the words we used), they read their book to their partners and shared their personal connections. Here are pictures of two reading partners doing just that!  Can you tell that someone carved a pumpkin at home recently and someone's favorite color is orange like a tiger?

Today in Reader's Workshop...

Today in Reader's Workshop the teaching point was "when you reread a book, you begin to understand some new things about it. One thing you begin to see is that all of the pages of a book go together.  As you read the pages, it's important to put them together with your own words to learn as much as you can".  This was a continuation of the strategy we focused on last week which was "great readers go slowly and reread to look for things they may have missed and learn even more".  The class became familiar with the phrase When you're done, you've just begun as it relates to looking at a book the first time.  Today reading partners sat back to back and read privately- slowly, noticing lots of details.  They may have even looked at their book a second time!  Then they turned to sit knee-to-knee with their partners and read to one another in their own words using the phrase "and then..." to connect the ideas from page to page.

We had our first meeting with our 5th grade Buddies!

Due to illness, it's been a while since my last post.  Today our class met their fifth grade buddies from Dayle Wright's class for the first time!  We did puzzles together as a "get to know you activity" and we began planning for our joint presentation at next week's all school morning meeting about "Trick or Treat for UNICEF".  The children in both classes are learning what a BIG difference a small amount of money can make in the lives of children who lack clean water, enough food, medicine and school supplies.  Mr. Wright and I will be helping the classes to prepare a skit that informs the school how easy it is to collect change as you collect candy.  We are hoping it will be a record setting year for Orchard School's UNICEF collection.

Our Easel is Open!

Hi Families,

Something new in our classroom this week is the opening of the painting easel. I think it's great for children to have access to paint for their own creative expression and exploration. On most days the easel is a choice for those who are interested during Explore Time. And just for fun, I read the class a book about elephants who paint! If you are interested, there is a kid-friendly event in Burlington this weekend to raise awareness on the peril of elephants and rhinos due poaching for ivory. A parent let me know that...

...a 7-grade student from Charlotte has been working hard to help organize events in order to help protect elephants and rhinos, killed for their ivory. She has planned Vermont’s first March for Elephants, scheduled for October 4th at 11:00 at City Hall in Burlington.  It will be part of a Global March for Elephants that involves over 130 cities around the world.

Here is a picture of the book and a sample painting from our room

September 24, 2015

Here is a great photo of young artists at work.  

"Painting a memory from the orchard"...

Ordering Scholastic Books on line!

In case you missed in a newsletter how easy it is to do your book orders on line here's a refresher and a live link! I will send October's selections home in the first week of the month,

About Scholastic Book Orders:

•    Every book you buy earns FREE Books for our classroom library

•    You can choose from handpicked, grade- and reading-level-specific books for your child

•    You'll find the best values on a variety of formats

Each month, your child will bring home Reading Club flyers. Together you can choose from books hand-selected by teachers and experts, and then order online

•     VISIT scholastic.com/readingclub

•     ENTER One Class Activation Code: PBYQP

•     SHOP from a carefully curated selection of the best books and value packs

•     SUBMIT your order and earn FREE Books for our classroom

Week of 9-14-15

Hi Families, 
I'm excited to share some photos with you from two exciting lessons last week.  After a discussion about two kinds of books "story books" and "learn-about-the-world-books", the children explored baskets of "learn-about-the-world-books" to see what they could learn". Using the reading strategy- we can look, we can think, we can read, we can learn.  The children learned so many new facts!  Of course at this time in the year the children are mostly "reading" pictures, but by checking the facts with an adult reader or even in some cases checking with words and letters on the page, everyone was empowered by how much information books had to offer.

Partner Game In Math

In Math this week we played a partner game to reinforce combinations that total five. Throughout the year we will use games to practice newly introduced concepts but with this being our first partner game session, we took some time before pairing off to talk about fair turn taking, careful use of materials, and being a good sport.  Here's a look at the game "Spill Five Dots".

Hi Families-

If you missed the paper copy of the newsletter in the folder, I've included it here. Also you can find the lastest copy of the The Core, Mr. T's newsletter linked to the Orchard site. Enjoy the long weekend!

September 4, 2015

Dear Room 35 Families,

It was a pleasure talking with many of you last night at Curriculum Night.  For those of you who weren’t able to make it, the packet we went over is in folders and I also enclosed the “parent suggestion” page that was accidentally left   This week we’ve continued to be mindful of our classroom rules- have a calm body, treat others with kindness and take care of our school.  The children are especially enjoying the morning movement breaks we do to get up and stretch after our meeting.  You can try asking your child about “winning the bronze medal” (aka motivated running in place) or “Super Scooper with Maximo” (slow and controlled breathing with big arm movements).  One thing you can do to assist your child with organization is ask them to explain their check-in routine to you.  It should include:

1. take their lunch/snack pack out of their backpack for easy access and place both in their cubby.
2. identify that they are here by placing their name tag by the appropriate lunch choice (home, main menu, sandwich, or salad bar)
3. understand the morning message and complete the job
4. find a table activity.

Literacy Learning

This week we completed our first class made book- a re-write of the traditional story/song “Down By The Bay”.  The children worked in pairs to come up with a rhyme that they could illustrate to make a page in the book.  We continued to work on our “All About Me” books which I think you will really enjoy reading when they come home.  Thursday’s page asked the children to identify something they didn’t know how to do when they were a baby, something they are really good at now, and what they imagine themselves doing when they are a grown-up,  Have I peaked your interest?  We’ve also worked on using handwriting lines, writing names with the first letter upper case and the rest lower, sequencing pictures, and had lots of fun with the story Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  Be sure to look for the little paper book Farm Friends that your child put together and practiced reading.  Another one to save at home for rereading!

Math Matters

Predicting and creating patterns, identifying characteristics for sorting writing numbers to ten, and accurate counting were all skills that we worked on in math this week.  The first 10-15 minutes of math each day consists of a routine called Number Corner in which we make pattern predictions using the calendar, keep track of the days in school, visualize quantities on five and ten frames and practice forward and backward counting.  You might try asking your child “now that you’ve been in school for nine days, how many more dots do you need to fill the ten frame?”.  When you think about it, there’s a lot of computation going on in a very visual and relavent way!

Important Reminders

1. Please help your child complete the homework from last week- the collage page for our class book.
2. If  you haven’t yet signed up to be listed in the school directory, visit the PTO website and click on the directory form tab to do so.
3. There is no school on Monday for Labor Day.  
4. Homework this week is an upper and lower case letter match page.  Do not expect your child to know them all! We are working on it. Just talking about the fact that there is an upper and lowercase way to write every letter is helpful.  

Have a great weekend,

Newletter 8/28/15

In case you didn't catch the hard copy of the first newsletter here it is on the blog.

8/28/15

Dear Room 35 Families,

It’s been an amazing first week in Kindergarten!   We are enjoying getting to know each other through name games, structured activities and open ended play times.  As you know, the first six weeks of school are largely about establishing routines, learning to use materials and getting comfortable with the group. To those ends we spent some time at the end of the week collaboratively creating our “Rainbow Rule”. That’s what we are calling our overarching rule that covers all expectations for classroom behavior.  Rather than saying specifics such as “no grabbing” or “no yelling”, we decided to say “in Kindergarten we have calm bodies, treat each other with kindness and take care of our school”. (This is not-so-coincidentally a reflection of Orchard School’s core values: respect yourself, others and the environment).  The children worked on a rainbow mural that with display our rule all year long.  Surrounding the rainbow are individual clouds on which each child stated his or her hope for the year.  Deep thoughts for the first few days of school!

 

Literacy Learning

One item to come home in the folder today is a paper version of Eric Carle and Bill Martin Jr.’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?.  It is the first of many “made books” to make it’s way home from the classroom and I cannot stress enough how valuable these predictable texts with high frequency words are in the life of a beginning reader. I strongly encourage you to save them in a shoebox or other accessible container for your child’s frequent re-reading.  Other literacy ideas we focused on this week include rhyming, the concept of uppercase/lowercase and of course what it looks like to be a good listener!  You can try asking your child what it means to “give me five” in the classroom.  (1. Eyes on the speaker 2. Ears listening 3. Voice off 4. Sitting flat 5. Hands in lap).

Math Matters

This week I introduced the children to the basics of Number Corner which is what we call our daily practice that incorporates calendar skills, pattern predicting, counting, and computation into a predictable routine.  You can try asking your child how many links are in the “days in school chain”.  The class has explored open ended math materials such as pattern blocks, unifix cubes, polydrons and geoboards.  It’s been exciting to see the different ways in which the children design and create.  We have discussed what makes a pattern (a discussion that will continue) and done several whole group activities that focus on sorting according to a particular attribute.

Important Info and Reminders

1. If you haven’t returned beginning of the year paperwork, please do so!
2. Reminder to please send a LABELED change of clothes to keep in your child’s cubby- just in case!
3. A word about recycling...often you will find a drawing that your child has made come home on the back of a recycled paper.  This is just one small way we can demonstrate the importance of reusing while at the same time allowing children access to LOTS of paper for drawing, writing and more!
4. If you have any old children’s magazines at home that you can donate to our class for various activities, I’d be grateful!

Homework

Most weeks I do assign homework- usually in the form of activities for you to do with your child.  I have found that this is one way for you to see the progress your child is making, stay informed about our themes, and model great homework habits such as reading the directions, making sure to make time, and handing things in on time.  The homework will always come home on Fridays and you can feel free to send it in ANY day the following week (Monday-Friday).  This week, the blank piece of cardstock stapled to this letter is for the homework!   Please work with your child to create a collage all about themselves. It can include family photos, magazine clippings, drawings, stickers that show your child’s unique interests, words, and anything else that may help the class get to know your child and their life outside of school.  These pages will be laminated and turned into a classroom book so please be sure any photos you include are okay to remain in the classroom all year.

Thank you so much for all you’ve done to welcome me to Orchard School and to insure that your child had a smooth start to Kindergarten!  

Have a great weekend,

Curriculum Night

Tonight is curriculum night! 

For Kindergarten families it's from 6-6:30 right in the classroom.  Hope to see you there