Dec 16-20

I hope you have a wonderful break full of family, friends, rest, and laughs.

See you next year!

Important Updates:

December 16: Culver's Night

December 16: Celebrating a 1/2 Birthday!

December 17: Celebrating a 1/2 Birthday!

December 20: Celebrating a 1/2 Birthday!

December 20: PJ and stuffed animal day

December 23-January 2: No School

Here's what's happening in K this week: 

Reading: As I have been meeting with readers this past week, I am amazed at how they are able to figure out their patterns and solve unknown words--they really are turning into readers! As their books become less patterned, they will need to amp up some of their strategies! Readers will learn to go back to fix up their reading if it doesn't make sense. They can search the entire picture to figure out tricky words and rely on snap words--even when they have endings! We call these snap words in disguise! Search through the books your child brings home for snap words in disguise. For example, seeing, looked,.

Writing: Writers will celebrate the end of writing true stories next week. They will use checklists to make sure their writing includes all the ways we learned about elaborating and revising their books. Students will get time to "fancy up", or illustrate, their pieces, and they will share their story with a partner from the other kindergarten classroom. 

Snap words: I would encourage students to keep practicing their snap words so that they can read and write them automatically. Dry erase markers, with a spoon in the snow, or with paint and a Q-tip are fun ways to practice writing these words! Here are the words we have learned so far: 

the, I, to, a, is, my, go, me, like, on, in, so, we, up, and, it, at, see, he, do, you, an, can, no, am 

Math: We will work on teen numbers this week. As mathematicians, the most efficient way to see teen numbers is to see the group of ten and the extras. We will create teen number books to practice building ten and the extras. We will also work on finding the partners of the numbers 2-6. This letter explains how we introduce and use partners in Kindergarten. Finally, mathematicians will use math tools to solve both addition and subtraction problems within 5.

Researcher's Workshop: To wrap up our Holiday study, Kindergartners will chose a holiday to study and create a poster to share their learning. Ask your child about a holiday we learned about! You could encourage them to use their hand, putting the main topic (holiday) on their palm and sharing key details (the things they learned) on each finger. This is a fun way to organize our thinking about nonfiction!

Dec 9-14

QUINNEY/NDLC DECEMBER CARING PROJECT

This year our NDLC and Quinney Council members have chosen to help out military personnel deployed overseas in honor of Adam Hall.  Adam is the husband of Amber Hall, an educational assistant for NDLC and Quinney School.  He is also the father of Oliver, a fourth grade student at Quinney, and Lilah, a second grade student at Quinney School.  Adam’s troop was recently deployed and will be gone for 12-14 months. We are looking for our Quinney and NDLC families to donate personal care items, snacks, or money.  The monetary donations will be used to cover the cost of shipping and to purchase extra supplies. All items should be new and in original packaging. Thank you in advance for your help in supporting our troops. For item suggestions and to sign up, go to Sign Up Genius: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/5080A48A8A823A3FD0-real

After signing up for items, please send them to school with your child by December 20, 2019

Important Updates:

December 16: Culver's Night

December 16 Classroom 1/2 Birthday Celebration

December 17 Classroom 1/2 Birthday Celebration

December 20: PJ and stuffed animal day

December 23-January 2: No School

Here's what's happening in K this week: 

 Math: We begin Unit 3 this week, which focuses on identifying 10 groups in teen  numbers, finding partners of a number (i.e. partners of 5 are 3+2 and 4+1), and addition and subtraction. When working on teen numbers, we want students to understand that a teen number is made up of a group of ten and extras. These are fun teen number puzzles to work on identifying the digit and quantity it represents. You could also work with teen numbers with toys at the house using this as a guide. Here is an easy way to practice working on partners of a number.

Reading: Kindergarteners will work on making predictions, rereading, and using book talk power to become stronger readers. All of these skills help readers to really think about what is happening in the story; developing deeper comprehension. Please remember to send book bags back each day so that your reader can bring new books home each night!

Writing: Writers have learned about so many ways to make their true stories easy to read. We will work with partners and use the following chart to make our writing the very best it can be!

Researcher's Workshop: We will begin a new inquiry unit into holidays.  This week we will use a calendar to notice the many holidays that are celebrated across a year and will then identify holidays we already know about and those we'd like to learn more about.  Overall, we will be choosing 8 total holidays to study from now until winter break.  Stay tuned to hear the holidays we choose!

Dec 2-6

Important Updates:

December 16: Culver's Night

December 20: PJ and stuffed animal day

December 23-January 2: No School

Here's what's happening in K this week: 

 Math: This will be our last week working in Unit 2.  We will be working in math centers this week to better finalize and consolidate the concepts we have learned while working in this unit.  Our math centers will be:

• Nearby Numbers: using forward and backward number sequence to fill in a series of missing numbers. This will help us to count on from a given number which is an early addition strategy. 
• Break Apart Sticks and Chips: representing a quantity using math chips and then placing a break apart stick to create 2 groups and recognizing how they work together as partners to make a number and then writing an equation to match
• +1/-1 dice game: using a dice, game piece and 1-10 number parade to practice automaticity with +1 and -1 equations and to better understand the connection these equations have to forward and backward counting.
• 5 frame subtraction:  filling a 5 frame with 5 dots/circles. rolling a die and then crossing out to show subtraction and writing an equation to match.  This will help us with our subtraction fluency within 5. 

If you are looking for some great at home activities to support the Kindergarten math standards we will focus on all year.  Here is a fantastic resource.  As always, let us know if you have questions or need specific feedback

Reading: This week we will kick off a new unit called: Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles.  This unit builds perfectly off of Super Powers unit!  This week we will learn to use a reading mat to organize our books from easy to more challenging and will then make a plan for the reading powers we will need to use to tackle our more challenging books.  We will rely on using patterns that books give us, snap words, beginning sounds and picture support to continue growing as readers. Please remember to send book bags back each day so that your reader can bring new books home each night!

Writing:We have been working SO hard to make sure we are getting one WHOLE story written each day in writer's workshop!  Here is a chart we created to help us make our writing more readable:

This week we will reread our books as we write to make sure we are writing everything we can to tell WHO is in our story, WHERE they are and WHAT happened.  We will also learn to add more vowel sounds to our writing to make it easier to read and will also challenge ourselves to write snap words correctly every time.

Researcher's Workshop: This week, students will plant radish seeds in the light and the dark to discover that sunlight is necessary for plants to grow. They plant the seeds in cups, and each student will decide if they want to place their cups in the sun or in a dark container. Three days later, we will compare the seedlings and then watch what happens when all are placed in the sun.