Birdhouses

Hello everyone,

This past week was filled with beautiful weather and a lot of great learning opportunities. On Friday we had guest Sam Davison come in with 26 bird house kits, nails and a drill. Students were wonderful about bringing in their own hammers and we were able to build all 26 birdhouses to support our learning of habitats as well as living & non-living things. Students were great listeners and very carefully built their birdhouse with the help of myself and parent volunteer Doug Hartwell.

This was such a great day for us, students were able to mix in and work together with the other kindergarten class and learn / utilize some great skills we have been learning throughout the year. We measured, discussed angles and applied much of our math learning to this project. Students greatly enjoyed the independence and result, which they got to take home! We will be referencing this project over the next couple of weeks to remind students that their learning in the classroom is applicable in real life. We even completed the project sans injury with as many as 12 kindergarteners hammering at once!

While half of the K classes were completing the project, Ms. Leggett took the remaining students birding in our school forest. Students identified many different types of birds and were excited to see some of the creatures that could be living in their birdhouses soon!

Please help students hang these somewhere at home so they can watch their work and learning extend even further. It would be so cool if some of these became inhabited before the school year ended and we could share reports. Thank you!

Welcome Back!

Greetings,

It is so wonderful to be back and to be surrounded by all of the positive energy your children have brought back from break. We enjoyed the milder weather at snack this morning by eating together outside. We will try to do this daily to soak in the sun and fresh air when we have it. Students were excited to be back today and we continue our research unit in writing as well as our study of living and non-living things.

A focus this week is on habitats and homes, we are examining where different animals live and how we can help to support a safe home for everyone. At the end of the week we will be welcoming a special guest to build birdhouses with us so that we can take an active step towards creating homes for our local wildlife.

As the school year winds down students are gaining more direct responsibility for their own learning. This means being more independently organized and developing strategies to stay on task and complete work on time. Today we went for a book shopping excursion where students visited the book room and chose all of their own independent reading books for the week within their reading level. It is so wonderful to see the growth each student has made towards becoming an independent and thoughtful learner.

Living and Non-living

Hello everyone,

Last week we began our science studies unit on the concept of living and non-living organisms. The students and I have been discussing examples of living things and investigating whether something is living or non-living and why.  More specifically, students have begun a science journal in which they illustrate an example of their research topic animal performing one of the seven characteristics of living things. This helps to reinforce the meaning of the seven characteristics and allows students to document researched proof of their animal being a living thing. Students are enjoying the connection between our writing unit and science study. It is wonderful to hear their observations and connections.

Research and Reporting

Greetings,

This week we are beginning our research and report writing unit. The students and I had a rich discussion today where we talked about the difference between a fact and an opinion. Students then posed the fabulous question of 'why'. Students wondered aloud why we need to know how to be good reporters and researchers. We discussed the best form of expressing our thinking, we talked about how we would rather know than guess. I provided students with an example of an opinion that was researched and one that was simply 'because.' I asked students which one helped to jump-start their thinking, students unanimously chose the one that had more elaborate reasoning. This prompted a deeper discussion on the power of knowledge and what it means for us. Students came to the conclusion that the more they know the more they can do for the world, I could not have come to a better conclusion myself!

Students spent time perusing non-fiction books on four different animals and had to give a specific reason as to their first choice for their research paper and what they would study. One student said "I would like to research fish because I want to know about the different places in the world they live." Students chose from sharks, fish, Panda Bears and horses. Please ask students how their projects are coming or feel free to help them collect information from home. We will be exploring text, articles and digital means of research.

National Poetry Month

Hello everyone,

Throughout the year we have been reading a variety of poetry from authors such as Eugene Fields, E.E. Cummings, Shel Silverstein, Basho Matsuo, Kobayashi Isa and many more! We have spent lots of time studying the words of these authors and what they mean to us. The month of April is national poetry month where there is a special emphasis put on this wonderful form of written word. Students have been enjoying listening to extra poems this month and later in the month we will be writing our own. Today I am sending home the three most requested Shel Silverstein poems and in the coming weeks you will be receiving more. Please take the time to read these with your child, many students have memorized stanzas so reading them together would be great.

Autobiographies

Greetings,

When you all came for conferences we looked at the tremendous growth there has been in writing this year. We recently finished our narrative writing unit where we wrote auto-biographies. Students worked very hard on this unit and completed a first draft for each of their entries. Students used an editing process known as "Check Up On It" where they reviewed both independently and in small groups to edit their own and one another's writing. Students are now quite familiar with editing writing and know to look for capitalization, punctuation, logical illustration and spacing between words. Students also continue work in evaluating the positive aspects of ones writing. We are strongly  emphasizing the importance in identifying something kind or something we connect to through our and each other's writing. I have added clips of students reading aloud their work, enjoy!

Catching Up

Hello everyone,

I am sorry it has been so long since our last update; we have been hard at work! Since returning from vacation students have been working diligently to master basic addition and subtraction. We are examining the commonalities and differences that exist between these two operations. Students have enjoyed discovering the fact families such as 2+3=5, 5-3=2, 5-2=3, etc.

In literacy students continue to make great strides in their independent and group reading skills. We practice reading independently while applying phonics skills such as the “Hh Brothers” and having inquiry based reading discussions that require us to return to the text for evidence. This is helping to build stronger, thoughtful and aware reading habits.

Our opinion-writing unit began last week, students are excited to share their opinions on a range of topics through their writing. Striking up a conversation at home about opinions vs. facts would be a wonderful way to support our learning this week!

Last week we had a visit from Junk Man, a musician who literally creates instruments out of junk. It was inspiring to see so many creative ideas in how to use recycled materials. Students were thrilled by the performance and continue to make their own ‘classroom’ or ‘recess’ music using pencils, sticks, rocks, etc. It was a memorable day so be sure and ask your child about it if they have not already shared!