May

I cannot believe it is May 22 and there are only four weeks left of school!  Those weeks will fly by I am sure.

 Friday was the perfect day for the Arbor Day Celebration!  Students learned about how to plant a tree and then had an opportunity to plant their own in a pot to take home.  They also listened to Mrs. Desjardins from Merrill Memorial Library read some books about trees.  The children learned about good bugs and bad bugs and made their own antennas.

In reading the children are continuing to practice using a variety of strategies when they get stuck on words.  We have been reading lots of poetry to get ideas for writing poetry.  I have been reading individually with each student to assess their progress.  I am so proud of all my readers!

Last week math we played a game called Make My Design in which the children used positional language to recreate pattern block designs.  One student created a design with pattern blocks and without looking the partner had to make the same pattern by listening to the description.

Students also made classroom maps. This provided them an opportunity to create models of a real world situation.  They had to consider which objects were the most important to add to their maps as well as which shapes to draw to represent the objects realistically.  On Tuesday, they worked with a partner to create a 3D map using a variety of manipulatives.  On Wednesday, the students drew their own maps. These maps will be a part of the children's portfolios which you will get to see at the Student Led Portfolio Share on June 9.

We had two special guests to teach us about writing poetry.  Maisy's grandmother, Mair, and her dad ,Zach have published some poetry books.  They joined us Monday afternoon to read some poems from their books.  Mr. Lipman drew a picture based on the kid's ideas and then Mair helped us write a poem about it.

April

The Shining Shooting Stars have been learning a lot in room 104!

During Reader's Workshop our focus has been on fluency.  Students practiced and performed Reader's Theater for the class.  Sandra Sanford helped to record the children performing on SeeSaw. I hope you have had a chance to listen to them.  Readers have also been learning about punctuation particularly periods, exclamation points, and question marks.

Students completed their "All About" posters during Writer's Workshop.  They are hanging up outside our classroom.  If you are at Rowe be sure to take a peek.   We will be working on opinion writing until April vacation.   Then we will revisit small moments.  

Working on Her All About Poster

Hard at Work on Her All About Poster

  Last week we wrote two opinion pieces.  After reading Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lictenheld students wrote whether they thought the animal was a duck or rabbit and why.  After reading Hey Little Ant by Philip M. Hoose and Hannah Hoose writers wrote whether the little boy should or should not step on the ant.

During math mathematicians created a flower garden matching teen numbers, teen frames, and number sentences.  They played games to practice addition facts.   They learned more about subtraction with the help of Pete the Cat and his groovy buttons.   We played "Mystery Block" to practice identifying different attributes of blocks.

At home:
Ask your child for their opinions and have them explain why?

March 14

The big news is that the playground expansion has begun!  The children have enjoyed watching the construction at recess time.  It is scheduled to be complete by the end of March.

Our focus during math  time last was addition and subtraction.  The children played a variety of games to practice these skills. 

To start off the week they played Hiding Bears to practice finding combinations that add to 10.  Later they played "Growing and Disappearing Train"  to practice addition and subtraction using manipulatives  and "Frog Hop" to practice adding and subtracting using the number line.

We started Reader's Workshop last week reviewing the difference between fiction books and non-fiction books. The children cut pictures of books out of extra book orders and sorted them.  Then we shifted the focus to non-fiction books.  We filled in a graphic organizer about spiders after reading a book about them.  
We have also started learning about the features of non-fiction books.  So far we have focused on bold words and diagrams.  This week we will be learning about the table of contents and close ups.


In Writer's Workshop the children started writing All About books. We started the unit writing a class book, "All About Rowe School."  Then students started books of their own.  I have taught them that good writers learn from what they read.  I have encouraged them to include diagrams and bold words in their writing.

February

February has been a busy month with Valentine's Day and the 100th Day of School.

In math we have been done a variety of activities to help students understand the concept that the teen numbers are ten plus some more.  We played a Teen Frame spinner game and created teen paper chains.  Students also learned about the addition sign and equal sign.  We have played a variety of games to practice addition.

During Writer's Workshop we wrapped up our Small Moment stories.  Each student chose one book to revise and fancy up for their portfolios.  Now we are writing how-to books.

During Reader's Workshop readers have been practicing reading their snap word cards.  They all seem proud to have their own box of words they can read.  We have also revisited Stretchy Snake and have been practicing sounding out words with short vowel sounds.  So far we have practice a, o, and i.

Our theme has been winter.  Students made melted snowman out of shaving cream and glue and wrote about how they melted.  This are hanging on the bulletin board outside of our classroom.  Be sure to take a look the next time you are at Rowe.

Happy 100th Day of School

Today was the one hundredth of school.  We started the day with a community meeting where we counted one hundred students, sang 1-0-0, and counted how much money we have raised for the Rowe School playground.  Ms. Honan also read a book about the one hundredth day!

In our classroom we shared what we would eat 100 of, completed a 100 day puzzle, and made special crowns.  We also did the "100 Macarena" and 100 exercises.

January 18

The children came back from vacation well rested and ready to learn!

In math we have been learning about combinations of ten.  We have played a variety of games, including Spill the Beans and Bears on the Bus to practice this skill.  Knowing different combinations to make ten will help students as they practice addition and subtraction in kindergarten and beyond.

Bears on the Bus

We have also been focusing on shapes during math time.  Students looked for different shapes in pictures and made recording of these shapes.  They also created shape collages.   These collages are hanging on the hallway outside our classroom.

During Reader's Workshop the students were introduced to Chunky Monkey.  Chunky Monkey helps us decode words by finding chunks we know in words.  We have focused on at and an so far. The students also picked out new read to self spots.   

I have introduced twenty sight words to the students.  We call them snap words because they

are words we need to know in a snap when reading and writing.  Keep an eye out for the the kindergarten sight word lists coming home in backpacks this week.  

During Writer's Workshop, writers have been writing personal narratives called small moments. Writers have learned to plan a story before writing by touching each page and telling the story aloud. They are working on including  a beginning, a middle, and an end.

The students are beginning to add spaces between words.  Have your heard your child talk about spaghetti and meatballs?  Spaghetti spaces are small spaces between letters in words.  Meatball spaces are the bigger spaces between words.

The students love getting to fancy up their work on Fancy Fridays!

Upon returning from vacation the children were asked to write a small moment story independently.  It was exciting to see the children telling stories with pictures and words across pages.  I will share these stories with you during parent conferences in February.

 The kindergarten teachers had a release day to look at all the kindergarten writing prompts.  We were able to celebrate all the wonderful writing our students are doing.  We were also able to collaborate to decide what to teach next in writing.  We collected work samples to show a range of typical kindergarten writing for this time of year.

During the month of January there is a lot of assessing happening.  Students are assessed so we can share progress with you during conferences.  We also use the information to make sure all students are making progress.  If there are students who need extra support or enrichment we use the assessment data along with our knowledge of our students to create a plan.  There are a team of ed techs and support staff who help with the assessing so the classroom teachers can continue to teach.  Therefore your child may report that another staff member took them out of the classroom to complete some activities.

Do not worry!  We are also finding time to play outside and enjoy the snow!  Thank you for making sure your children are prepared to play outside each day.

Gingerbread Houses