I hope you enjoyed your weekend. Below is a peek at some of our learning that will be taking place in our kindergarten classroom.
This week we will continue learning all about bears. As part of a reward for filling up our 'warm and fuzzy jar' we will be having Teddy Bear Week in our kindergarten classroom. Please send in a teddy bear that can fit inside your child's backpack. The bears will help us with various learning activities all week long. We will be reading, writing, and working on different math activities to go along with our bear unit. Some of the stories that we will read are Corduroy, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Bear Snores On (series). All teddy bears will go home on Friday. Thank you for your support!
During science, we will continue learning about our Five Senses. So far we learned about our sense of sight, touch, and smell. This week we will explore the senses of hearing and taste. The children have enjoyed reading nonfiction stories and working on experiments during our Five Senses activities. We will be wrapping up our actual unit this week, but we will continue to talk about our Five Senses throughout the year in all that we do.
Our December Family Project will be sent home this week. Please check your child's folder for instructions. Please send in completed projects any day before December 14th. We love sharing our family projects with our kindergarten friends. I hope that you enjoy working on them!
During the second and third weeks of December, we will begin reading, writing, and comparing different gingerbread stories. Please note that we will be building gingerbread houses with our fourth grade buddies during the school day. Families are invited to join us in our classroom to help decorate our gingerbread houses and to bring the houses home. This celebration will take place on Friday, December 21st at 1:45. Please join us! More information will follow, but I wanted to make you aware of the date and time. This will be a fun and messy way to celebrate our gingerbread unit before our December break.
Thank you for your ongoing support!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Sunday, November 25, 2012
I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving weekend with family and friends!
This week we will wrap up our unit on families. By the end of the week, we will begin a fun unit on hibernation and bears! We will read many different fiction and nonfiction stories. The nonfiction books will help us identify facts as we learn all about bears. The fiction stories will help us to identify the main characters, the setting, and the beginning, middle, and end of different stories. Some of the stories we will read are Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Bear Snores On, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, and the different versions of Goldilocks and The Three Bears. We also work on many different projects and activities to go along with this unit.
During math, we will finish our unit on patterns. We will then go back to working on numbers 11-20. We will practice reading, writing, and showing these numbers in many different ways. These skills will be worked on throughout the entire school year.
As readers and writers, we will continue working on our Daily Five activities. The children really look forward to choosing their literacy activities during the day. We are trying hard to build our independence during this time. We are also beginning to add sight words to our Word Wall. We have been practicing reading and writing sight words, but we will now add them to our Word Wall. We will call them 'heart words' because these are words that we should 'know by heart'. They are not words that should be stretched or sounded out. The first three words are I, a, and the. We will add two or three words each week until the end of the school year. Practice reading and writing these words at home too! :)
I am looking forward to another great week of kindergarten fun in our classroom!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne
This week we will wrap up our unit on families. By the end of the week, we will begin a fun unit on hibernation and bears! We will read many different fiction and nonfiction stories. The nonfiction books will help us identify facts as we learn all about bears. The fiction stories will help us to identify the main characters, the setting, and the beginning, middle, and end of different stories. Some of the stories we will read are Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Bear Snores On, Polar Bear, Polar Bear, and the different versions of Goldilocks and The Three Bears. We also work on many different projects and activities to go along with this unit.
During math, we will finish our unit on patterns. We will then go back to working on numbers 11-20. We will practice reading, writing, and showing these numbers in many different ways. These skills will be worked on throughout the entire school year.
As readers and writers, we will continue working on our Daily Five activities. The children really look forward to choosing their literacy activities during the day. We are trying hard to build our independence during this time. We are also beginning to add sight words to our Word Wall. We have been practicing reading and writing sight words, but we will now add them to our Word Wall. We will call them 'heart words' because these are words that we should 'know by heart'. They are not words that should be stretched or sounded out. The first three words are I, a, and the. We will add two or three words each week until the end of the school year. Practice reading and writing these words at home too! :)
I am looking forward to another great week of kindergarten fun in our classroom!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne
Saturday, November 17, 2012
50th Day of School, Thanksgiving Fun, and a New Friend!
50th Day of School! Since September, we have been counting the days of school in our kindergarten
classroom. Our friend, Zero the Hero, visits us each time we reach
a new group of ten. He visited on the 10th day, the 20th day, the 30th
day, and the 40th day. Zero the Hero will visit us on Monday and we will
also have a 50th Day of School Celebration. The kindergarten teachers will provide the
activities and the treats, but please help us by dressing your child in clothes
that celebrate the 1950s! Please do not buy anything new. Your
child can wear rolled up jeans, a white shirt, rolled down socks. Please see the letter that went home in your child's folder for some more ideas. Use
what you already have at home!
Parent Teacher Conference Days: Tuesday is a half day due to parent teacher conferences. Please note that the children will be dismissed at 11:45 on these days. We will still eat our morning snack, but lunch will be eaten at home. Please make sure that your child has a healthy morning snack on these three half days. Your child's report card will be on BC@HOME the day prior to your child's conference. Please review your child's report card prior to the conference. Feel free to contact me or the main office with any questions or concerns regarding this. Also, Wendesday is a full day of school. Please let me know if your child will be absent or if you plan on leaving early due to traveling for the long holiday weekend.
Parent Teacher Conference Days: Tuesday is a half day due to parent teacher conferences. Please note that the children will be dismissed at 11:45 on these days. We will still eat our morning snack, but lunch will be eaten at home. Please make sure that your child has a healthy morning snack on these three half days. Your child's report card will be on BC@HOME the day prior to your child's conference. Please review your child's report card prior to the conference. Feel free to contact me or the main office with any questions or concerns regarding this. Also, Wendesday is a full day of school. Please let me know if your child will be absent or if you plan on leaving early due to traveling for the long holiday weekend.
As a class, we have been working very hard on putting on our coats, zippering our coats, and putting on our own hats and mittens for recess and at the end of the school day. We are also practicing putting our gloves, mittens, and hats inside our coat sleeves after taking them off so that they do not get lost. Please note that the kindergarten children go to lunch after recess. Each day they take off their winter clothes in the cafeteria before sitting down to eat. Students should be putting hats and gloves in their sleeves so they don't get lost. Please also remember that students need sneakers to change into if they wear boots. Our goal is to keep our classroom neat and safe each day and to prevent clothing from entering the Lost and Found! Thank you so much for your support in this area. It is a huge help.
Mystery Readers: We had our very first Mystery Reader on Friday. The children loved hearing the clues about our reader and were very excited to meet Lily's grandmother! Thank you for sending back your clues to me. We can stretch this out during the next couple of months to ensure that every child's family has a chance to be a Mystery Reader. Please contact me with any questions or concerns. It's never to late to sign up to be a Mystery Reader! :)
I am looking forward to a busy three days with your children! :) I hope you all have a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne
Monday, November 12, 2012
Busy, Busy, Busy!
We have officially begun one of the busiest times of the school year. Please check this blog and the dates on the left sidebar each week. This will help you to keep track of everything that is going on. I am also using this blog entry to clarify some of the dates!
I want to begin by thanking you for your generous donations for our Dollar Dash. Our school raised approximately $2,000.00 during the week. The money is going directly to the families of Long Island and Staten Island. We are also beginning to collect school items to fill backpacks for some of the children who need to attend new schools and may have lost all of their original supplies. We are collecting items according to grade levels for this project. As a kindergarten team, we are in charge of collecting pencils, erasers, and primary notebooks to fill up these backpacks. We will have collection boxes in our classrooms. I am currently working with some teachers in Staten Island to assess some of the long term needs of children and families. Perhaps we can connect to another school as a year long project if some of you are interested? Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you so much for the support given so far.
Eagle's Silent Auction is coming soon! Each grade level is in charge of filling up a gift basket for this event. The kindergarten gift basket is all about books. Please consider sending in a favorite picture book to put into our kindergarten gift basket for this event. The items are due this Friday, November 16th.
American Education Week: Please join us in our classroom this Wednesday, November 14th at 2:15. We will be visiting the Book Fair and creating a project together in our classroom.
Turkeys are due! Please send in your Family Turkey Project. We love sharing them.
Family Picture: Please send in a picture of your family as soon as possible. The picture should be 4 x 6 inches. I would really love to have the pictures by Tuesday, November 13th!
50th Day of School~ We have been counting the days in our kindergarten classroom. Our friend, Zero the Hero, visits us each time we reach a new group of ten. He visited on the 10th day, the 20th day, the 30th day, and the 40th day. The 50th day of school will be on Monday, November 19th. Zero the Hero will visit us on this day AND we will also have a 50th Celebration. The kindergarten teachers will provide the activities and the treats, but please help us by dressing your child in clothes that celebrate the 1950s! Please do not buy anything new. Your child can wear rolled up jeans, a white shirt, rolled down socks... Use what you already have at home.
Report Cards: Parent Teacher Conference Days are approaching. Please note that the children will be dismissed at 11:45 on these days. Your child's report card will be on BC@HOME the day prior to your child's conference. Please contact me with any questions or concerns.
Thank you for your ongoing support during this busy time of the year!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne :)
I want to begin by thanking you for your generous donations for our Dollar Dash. Our school raised approximately $2,000.00 during the week. The money is going directly to the families of Long Island and Staten Island. We are also beginning to collect school items to fill backpacks for some of the children who need to attend new schools and may have lost all of their original supplies. We are collecting items according to grade levels for this project. As a kindergarten team, we are in charge of collecting pencils, erasers, and primary notebooks to fill up these backpacks. We will have collection boxes in our classrooms. I am currently working with some teachers in Staten Island to assess some of the long term needs of children and families. Perhaps we can connect to another school as a year long project if some of you are interested? Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you so much for the support given so far.
Eagle's Silent Auction is coming soon! Each grade level is in charge of filling up a gift basket for this event. The kindergarten gift basket is all about books. Please consider sending in a favorite picture book to put into our kindergarten gift basket for this event. The items are due this Friday, November 16th.
American Education Week: Please join us in our classroom this Wednesday, November 14th at 2:15. We will be visiting the Book Fair and creating a project together in our classroom.
Turkeys are due! Please send in your Family Turkey Project. We love sharing them.
Family Picture: Please send in a picture of your family as soon as possible. The picture should be 4 x 6 inches. I would really love to have the pictures by Tuesday, November 13th!
50th Day of School~ We have been counting the days in our kindergarten classroom. Our friend, Zero the Hero, visits us each time we reach a new group of ten. He visited on the 10th day, the 20th day, the 30th day, and the 40th day. The 50th day of school will be on Monday, November 19th. Zero the Hero will visit us on this day AND we will also have a 50th Celebration. The kindergarten teachers will provide the activities and the treats, but please help us by dressing your child in clothes that celebrate the 1950s! Please do not buy anything new. Your child can wear rolled up jeans, a white shirt, rolled down socks... Use what you already have at home.
Report Cards: Parent Teacher Conference Days are approaching. Please note that the children will be dismissed at 11:45 on these days. Your child's report card will be on BC@HOME the day prior to your child's conference. Please contact me with any questions or concerns.
Thank you for your ongoing support during this busy time of the year!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne :)
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Mrs. Wishy Washy, Five Senses, and The Dollar Dash
Below is a peek at some of our kindergarten learning for this week ~
We will be reading Mrs. Wishy Washy and learning all about farm animals. This is a fun rhyming story. We will use this story to learn about rhyming words, story sequencing, and retelling the different parts of a story. We will also create a few fun projects to go along with this story.
Our focus letters for this week will be Ii, Vv, and Zz. We will have three new 'letter experts' to help us learn about the letter sounds, the sentences, and the poems. The children have been creating pages for each letter as we learn about them. They are getting much better at drawing and labeling their pictures during these activities. This is something that can easily be worked on at home too! :) Encourage your child to stretch out letter sounds and to write the sounds they hear during writing activities. I am not concerned about perfect spelling for most children. The goal is to become more confident in writing and to take risks in writing even when it's hard! We will soon begin writing our own personal stories during Writing Workshop.
During math, we will continue our work with exploring numbers numbers to 20. We are showing numbers in different ways, exploring ten frames, and learning all about more, fewer, less, and equal. The teen numbers can be tricky for many children. We are using various materials and playing different math games to help us with our learning. The children love using cards and dominoes to identify numbers!
During science, we will dig a bit deeper into our Five Senses unit. We will be working with many different hands on materials while asking and answering questions. Our goals is to explore our five senses and to think, observe, and write like scientists!
This Friday, we will be having a Dollar Dash to raise money for families who were affected by Hurricane Sandy. Please think about sending in a donation for this very important fundraiser. As some of you may know, I am originally from Staten Island, NY. I spent this past weekend visiting with family and was overwhelmed by the destruction that took place. My family is very fortunate and are safe, but there are so many families in need. Please help our school to help others in need. Our goal is to ensure that all proceeds go directly to families in need. Thank you!
I am looking forward to a great week in our kindergarten classroom.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne
We will be reading Mrs. Wishy Washy and learning all about farm animals. This is a fun rhyming story. We will use this story to learn about rhyming words, story sequencing, and retelling the different parts of a story. We will also create a few fun projects to go along with this story.
Our focus letters for this week will be Ii, Vv, and Zz. We will have three new 'letter experts' to help us learn about the letter sounds, the sentences, and the poems. The children have been creating pages for each letter as we learn about them. They are getting much better at drawing and labeling their pictures during these activities. This is something that can easily be worked on at home too! :) Encourage your child to stretch out letter sounds and to write the sounds they hear during writing activities. I am not concerned about perfect spelling for most children. The goal is to become more confident in writing and to take risks in writing even when it's hard! We will soon begin writing our own personal stories during Writing Workshop.
During math, we will continue our work with exploring numbers numbers to 20. We are showing numbers in different ways, exploring ten frames, and learning all about more, fewer, less, and equal. The teen numbers can be tricky for many children. We are using various materials and playing different math games to help us with our learning. The children love using cards and dominoes to identify numbers!
During science, we will dig a bit deeper into our Five Senses unit. We will be working with many different hands on materials while asking and answering questions. Our goals is to explore our five senses and to think, observe, and write like scientists!
This Friday, we will be having a Dollar Dash to raise money for families who were affected by Hurricane Sandy. Please think about sending in a donation for this very important fundraiser. As some of you may know, I am originally from Staten Island, NY. I spent this past weekend visiting with family and was overwhelmed by the destruction that took place. My family is very fortunate and are safe, but there are so many families in need. Please help our school to help others in need. Our goal is to ensure that all proceeds go directly to families in need. Thank you!
I am looking forward to a great week in our kindergarten classroom.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne
Friday, October 26, 2012
Pumpkin Fun!
Thank you to my four parent volunteers...Megan's mom, Lauren's mom, Tucker's mom, and Amanda's mom! We had a lot of fun exploring pumpkins in our classroom this morning. We measured and weighed the pumpkins. We counted the ribs on the outside of the pumpkin. We even carved the pumpkins, scooped out the pulp and seeds, and named the pumpkins. It was messy, but we had fun and learned a lot too! I hope your child was able to tell you all about it.
This week we will be wrapping up our unit on pumpkins as well as some of our fall themes. We will, however, continue to explore our Five Senses during the month of November as part of our science curriculum. Working with leaves and pumpkins has certainly helped us to begin exploring our Five Senses.
During November we will also begin learning about families as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving. We will compare and contrast families of today and families of long ago. We will also spend time talking about our own families and what makes our families special. Please think about having a family photo available for an upcoming November family project! As part of our family unit, I would like to have a Mystery Reader from your family come in during the month of November or December. This person can be mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, an aunt, an uncle...you decide! The children love having visitors come in to read them a story. I will send home more information about this in your child's folder next week. I will also be sending home information about our November Family Project. I hope that you enjoy working on these projects as much as we enjoy sharing them.
During our literacy activities, we are continuing our work on the different parts of Daily Five. So far we have practiced: Reading to Self, Reading to Someone, Listening to Stories, and Writing. This is the time during the day where the children will eventually work in different literacy stations throughout the week while I meet with small groups of children. Right now we are working on building stamina and independence in these areas each day. We are also learning about more letter sounds, thanks to our Letter Experts each week. We have recently learned about the letters Cc and Pp. We will learn about the letters Oo, Ii, and Gg this week. During Word Wall activities we are also practicing reading sentences, stretching our letter sounds, and reading sight words (the, is, at..) to help us build our reading and writing skills. I am so proud of the children and their excitement about reading and writing!
During math, we continue to explore the numbers 6-10. We are learning about adding one more, two more, one fewer, and two fewer to make larger numbers. Please note that the math papers are just a small part of the math lessons and activities that we do each day. We work with math manipulatives, white boards, math vocabulary, whole group discussions, and small group activities to enrich our math lessons each day.
I hope this gives you a sneak peek at some of the learning that is taking place in our kindergarten classroom. We sure are busy! :)
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne
This week we will be wrapping up our unit on pumpkins as well as some of our fall themes. We will, however, continue to explore our Five Senses during the month of November as part of our science curriculum. Working with leaves and pumpkins has certainly helped us to begin exploring our Five Senses.
During November we will also begin learning about families as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving. We will compare and contrast families of today and families of long ago. We will also spend time talking about our own families and what makes our families special. Please think about having a family photo available for an upcoming November family project! As part of our family unit, I would like to have a Mystery Reader from your family come in during the month of November or December. This person can be mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, an aunt, an uncle...you decide! The children love having visitors come in to read them a story. I will send home more information about this in your child's folder next week. I will also be sending home information about our November Family Project. I hope that you enjoy working on these projects as much as we enjoy sharing them.
During our literacy activities, we are continuing our work on the different parts of Daily Five. So far we have practiced: Reading to Self, Reading to Someone, Listening to Stories, and Writing. This is the time during the day where the children will eventually work in different literacy stations throughout the week while I meet with small groups of children. Right now we are working on building stamina and independence in these areas each day. We are also learning about more letter sounds, thanks to our Letter Experts each week. We have recently learned about the letters Cc and Pp. We will learn about the letters Oo, Ii, and Gg this week. During Word Wall activities we are also practicing reading sentences, stretching our letter sounds, and reading sight words (the, is, at..) to help us build our reading and writing skills. I am so proud of the children and their excitement about reading and writing!
During math, we continue to explore the numbers 6-10. We are learning about adding one more, two more, one fewer, and two fewer to make larger numbers. Please note that the math papers are just a small part of the math lessons and activities that we do each day. We work with math manipulatives, white boards, math vocabulary, whole group discussions, and small group activities to enrich our math lessons each day.
I hope this gives you a sneak peek at some of the learning that is taking place in our kindergarten classroom. We sure are busy! :)
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne
Monday, October 22, 2012
Pumpkins, Spiders, & Fall Fun!
This week we will be busy reading all about pumpkins, spiders, and fall activities. We will be reading, writing, and working on several projects to go along with these fun themes. On Friday we will use our five senses to explore real pumpkins in our classroom. A special thank you to our four parent volunteers!
During literacy, we are reading many books by Donald Crews as part of an author study. We are very busy comparing and contrasting his different books. We love his pictures and how he uses labels throughout many of his stories. We also continue to work on our Daily Five activities each day. So far we have learned all about three parts: Read to Self (independent reading), Read to Someone (partner reading), and Listening to Stories (cd, computer, adult). You can do these activities at home too. A Reading Activity Log has been sent home in each child's folder. Please choose to do at least one reading activity each day at home. Your child should color in a smiley face after completing his/her reading choice for the day. Thank you for your support.
We have also been working on our Handwriting Without Tears program in our kindergarten classroom. We are working very hard on holding our pencils the correct way, 'stacking our blocks' when we are sitting, and starting our letters at the top! We often listen to 'writing music' to help us do our best work. Be sure to ask your child all about his/her orange handwriting books.
During math we are learning all about the numbers 6-10. We will practice using five frames, ten frames, and various math manipulatives to help us identify these numbers. We love using dominoes in our kindergarten classroom!
Please note that the Eagle Spooktacular is this Friday from 6-8 PM. This is a great time for students to show off their costumes with friends. Please note that costumes may not be worn to school on Halloween. Instead we can wear orange and black! Families are welcome to visit our classroom on Wednesday, October 31st at 2:30 PM. We will be making a pumpkin life cycle craft and having snack. We hope to see you!
Pancake Breakfast Reminder!
Please don't forget to order your tickets for the Pancake Breakfast on Saturday, November 17th at Applebee's. It is a fundraiser for our school. Please go to Eagle's homepage for more information!
As always, please feel free to contact me any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne :)
During literacy, we are reading many books by Donald Crews as part of an author study. We are very busy comparing and contrasting his different books. We love his pictures and how he uses labels throughout many of his stories. We also continue to work on our Daily Five activities each day. So far we have learned all about three parts: Read to Self (independent reading), Read to Someone (partner reading), and Listening to Stories (cd, computer, adult). You can do these activities at home too. A Reading Activity Log has been sent home in each child's folder. Please choose to do at least one reading activity each day at home. Your child should color in a smiley face after completing his/her reading choice for the day. Thank you for your support.
We have also been working on our Handwriting Without Tears program in our kindergarten classroom. We are working very hard on holding our pencils the correct way, 'stacking our blocks' when we are sitting, and starting our letters at the top! We often listen to 'writing music' to help us do our best work. Be sure to ask your child all about his/her orange handwriting books.
During math we are learning all about the numbers 6-10. We will practice using five frames, ten frames, and various math manipulatives to help us identify these numbers. We love using dominoes in our kindergarten classroom!
Please note that the Eagle Spooktacular is this Friday from 6-8 PM. This is a great time for students to show off their costumes with friends. Please note that costumes may not be worn to school on Halloween. Instead we can wear orange and black! Families are welcome to visit our classroom on Wednesday, October 31st at 2:30 PM. We will be making a pumpkin life cycle craft and having snack. We hope to see you!
Pancake Breakfast Reminder!
Please don't forget to order your tickets for the Pancake Breakfast on Saturday, November 17th at Applebee's. It is a fundraiser for our school. Please go to Eagle's homepage for more information!
As always, please feel free to contact me any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Eileen Browne :)
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