January 19th

I hope you all had a terrific weekend and enjoyed the extra day off from school.  

Last week we spent time reading and listening to different snowy stories, and comparing and contrasting some of these stories.  We learned about Venn Diagrams to help us organize our thinking after reading two different versions of The Mitten.  The children did a terrific job sharing what they remembered from the stories. 

During math, we have been working hard on subtraction numbers. We are using pictures and manipulatives to help us with our learning. We read a fun story, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons, to help us begin this unit.  We will continue working on adding and subtracting numbers each day.

During writing, the children are learning all about revising and editing their true stories. We are trying so hard to make our personal narratives (true stories) easy to read. The children are growing so much as beginning writers!

Our Word Wall is also growing. Each week we continue to add three new words to our classroom wall. We also practice reading and writing words in the same word family.  Ex: at is on our wall. We are reading and writing bat, cat, hat, sat...  Try doing this at home too! You can use white boards, chalk, markers…

This week we will begin learning all about penguins. We will read fiction and nonfiction stories. We will also create some fun penguin projects to go along with our penguin theme.  Be sure to ask your children all about penguins!

Report Cards will be uploaded to Aspen at the beginning of February.  I have sent home a yellow note regarding conference times. Please return the note and I will schedule conference times according to the responses I receive.

We will be going on a Class Trip to see some of Eric Carle’s stories performed at The Egg.  Please return the permission form if you have not already done so.  We are so excited to be able to see this performance!

*We will celebrate our 100^th Day of School on Thursday, February 12^th.  We will celebrate Friendship and Valentine's Day on February 13th at 12:00 in our classroom.  Additional notes will be sent home with more information, but I wanted to make you aware of the dates. 

Thank you so much for your support.

Sincerely,

Eileen Browne :)

Welcome 2015!

Happy New Year!  I hope you all had a wonderful break and were able to spend quality time with your family and friends.  I am looking forward to seeing my kindergarten friends again this week!  

This week we will spend time gently easing back into the routines of our kindergarten day. We will practice our reading, writing, math, and listening skills as we read stories about snowy weather.   We will read Lois Ehlert's Snowballs and Ezra Jack Keats' The Snowy Day.  We will also begin reading Jan Brett's  The Hat and The Mitten.  We will talk about main characters, settings, problems, solutions, as well as the beginning, middle, and end of stories.  We will also work on some fun snowy projects to go along with our reading!

Please check your child's folder for our January Family Project.  The children love sharing their work with their classmates.  All projects will be displayed in our kindergarten hallway for our school to enjoy.  Also, please return reading calendars each week.  New reading calendars will be sent home each Monday.  Thank you for your support with our monthly projects and with all of our kindergarten learning!

I am looking forward to a fun week in our kindergarten classroom!

Sincerely,
Eileen Browne