Pumpkins, Spiders, & Halloween!

I hope you had a terrific weekend.  I can't wait to hear all about Eagle's Spooktacular from the children.  They were so very excited about this fun event!

Last week we began learning about pumpkins. Thank you to my parent volunteers who helped the children explore pumpkins.  We measured, counted, discovered that pumpkins float, and we even scooped out the seeds!  It was busy, fun, & messy.  This is how we learn best in our kindergarten room!  Last week we also met our 5th Grade Buddies.  They helped up work on a pumpkin craft activity and then read fall stories to us.  We will be working with our new 5th grade friends on most Friday afternoons.  Be sure to ask your child about it!

This week we will be busy reading, writing, and creating different projects to go along with some of our fun fall themes...pumpkins, spiders, and Halloween.  We will also focus on three new letters: Pp, Jj, & Kk.  Our 'letter experts' will help us remember the sounds and proper letter formation during writing activities.  The children love this important job!

Please note that Eagle's Silent Auction is coming up!  Our kindergarten classes are responsible for putting together a raffle basket filled with Gift Cards.  A yellow/golden colored note was sent home earlier in the month.  Please send in any gift cards or donations that can be put towards the purchase of gift cards by Wednesday of this week.  Thank you so much for your generosity and for supporting Eagle's Silent Auction.  It is a terrific fundraising event for our school! :)

November is quickly approaching and is filled with activities!  Kindergarten homework (optional) will begin in November.  Eagle's Silent Auction, the 50th Day of School, American Education Week, Eagle's Book Fair, and Thanksgiving all take place in November!  Please be sure to check the left sidebar of the blog for important dates to remember.  Parents are welcome to come into our Kindergarten classroom on November 20th to participate in a classroom activity.  A note will be sent home soon! The 50th Day of School is November 17th...We encourage the children to dress like children from the 1950s on this day!  A note will also be sent home about this activity, but I wanted to give families some dates to think about :)  Thank you so much for your support.

I am looking forward to another great week in our kindergarten classroom.  As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Eileen Browne

Fall Fun!

I hope you all enjoyed another fall weekend with family and friends.   Below are some highlights regarding our kindergarten learning.

Parent Conferences:  We will have a half day (11:45 dismissal) tomorrow (Monday) for Parent Teacher Conferences.  Thank you to those families that I have already met with.  I look forward to meeting with more families this week.

Literacy:  We are working hard in our classroom learning all about what readers and writers do.  As readers we have learned that we can read books in three different ways:  read the pictures, read the words, and/or retell the story.  We have also been practicing 'reading to someone' or 'partner reading'.  We sit side by side, elbow to elbow, knee to knee, book in the middle, so we can both can see!  We are doing a great job spending time with books each day.  As writers, we have begun working on our very own stories.  We are working hard on sticking to one idea and expressing our ideas across many pages

Math: This week we will continue counting, playing games, reading, writing, and comparing numbers 6-10.  We have been using dominoes, dice, beads, and pipe cleaners to explore numbers in different ways.  On Friday we were really excited because our friend Zero the Hero spent the day with us to celebrate the 30th day of school!  Be sure to ask your child about our friend. :)

Science:  We will continue to explore our Five Senses this week while also learning about leaves and pumpkins. We will use our sense of sight, touch, smell, taste, and listening while exploring real pumpkins in our classroom. *** I am looking for three parent volunteers to help us with a pumpkin carving experiment this week.  We will work on our project this Thursday at 2 pm.***  Please email me if you would like to help us out!  You will need to bring in one medium/large size pumpkin along with come pumpkin carving tools.  It will be a fun and messy activity that will help us explore our senses while using pumpkins :)  We will then donate our pumpkins to Eagle's Spooktacular event.

Spooktacular:  Eagle's Spooktacular will take place on Friday 6-8pm.  This is great time for children and families to share their Halloween costumes with their Eagle friends.  We do not wear costumes to school on Halloween, but we can have fun wearing orange and black or festive shirts to school.

Thank you for all of your support and have a great week!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne

All About Farms!

I hope you had a terrific weekend!

Last week we wrapped up our Apple Unit with apple tasting, graphing, and making applesauce.  We learned that our class liked the red, crunchy, sweet apples the best, but green and yellow apples were not far behind.  We had a lot of fun tasting our apples.  On Friday we made applesauce.  We peeled and cut apples, then added sugar, cinnamon, and water to a crock pot for cooking.  All day long our apples cooked in our classroom.  It smelled amazing.  At the end of the day, we were able to eat some homemade applesauce.  Yum!

This week we will be learning all about farms as we celebrate 'Farm to You Fest'.  Please see Eagle's homepage for more information.  This is  a great week to bring in healthy snacks that are grown in gardens and farms to help us with our learning.  Children are also encouraged to bring in fresh fruits and vegetables to help 'squash hunger' all week. 

As readers we will be learning about the letters Nn, Bb, and Ff this week.  We will also be learning more about reading to self and reading with partners each day.  We are working very hard on building our stamina and using whisper voices during reading time.  The children are doing a great job and are truly excited about reading each day.

During math we will talk about reading, writing, and comparing numbers.  Some of the vocabulary we are using is: more, fewer, greater, and least.  We are using dice and many other math manipulatives to help us show numbers in different ways each day.

Reminders:  

~Wednesday is Picture Day!  We will be taking our pictures early in the morning :)  

~Friday is our first Parent Teacher Conference Day.  The children will be dismissed at 11:45 on Friday.  Your child will not receive a report card at this time.  We will use this time to discuss how your child is transitioning both socially and academically and to address any concerns or questions that you may have. Please note that each conference will last approximately 15 - 20 minutes.  

~Our first Family Project will be sent home on Monday and is due Thursday, October 16th.  Have fun working with your family on this!

~Monday, October 13th:  No school due to Columbus Day  

Wishing you all a great week :)

Sincerely,

Eileen Browne