May 20-24

HAVE FUN summer dress up day count down:
Tuesday, May 28- Hat day or crazy hair day
Wednesday, May 29- dress like an Animal or bring in your favorite stuffed animal
Thursday, May 30- dress like you’re going on a Vacation
Friday, May 31- Enjoy yourself--dress in something you love
Monday, June 3- dress like a character from a Fairy tale
Tuesday, June 4- dress actively for field day (there will be many Unique activities!)
Wednesday, June 5- NDLC wear or Neon day!

5/21: Family Night
5/24 & 5/27: NO SCHOOL
6/5: 1/2 day LAST day :(  11:30 Dismissal

Reading: Kindergartners will be starting book clubs this week! These book clubs help us to learn more about characters and what is happening in the story. Kindergartners explore characters and stories by acting out. Here are the most important parts to remember when acting out books:

Make your reading sound smooth (not. choppy. like. a. robot.)

Check how your character is feeling!

Make your voice match the character's voice

Make your face and body match the character's

"Pop out" important parts of the book

Writing: This week, writers will learn about different ways to elaborate when writing true stories.  We will be studying a mentor author, Mo Willems, to find ways to make our stories the best they can be.  One way to elaborate is to make their characters talk back and forth in speech bubbles. Writers also show and tell the way the character felt in the story, especially at the end. We will use a checklist to make sure our writing has a beginning, ending, speech bubbles, feelings, and setting and we will also make sure our writing is continuing to be easy for others to read.

Math: This week, the mathematicians will practice composing and decomposing 2D shapes, comparing numbers using greater than and less than, and creating teen numbers by circling a group of ten and then counting the extras. We will also discuss measurement; specifically, length, width, height, weight and capacity.

Science: Now that we've had a chance to really explore and understand inclined planes, we will be challenging ourselves to use our knowledge of gravity and force to change direction of  things headed down an inclined plane.  We will also have a chance to create our own simple machine inventions to make a job we have a bit easier.

May 13-17

It is crazy to think this is our last full week of school!!!  It has gone SO fast! 
Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!  We hope you felt extra loved this weekend!  You deserve it!

HAVE FUN summer dress up day count down:
Tuesday, May 28- Hat day or crazy hair day
Wednesday, May 29- dress like an Animal or bring in your favorite stuffed animal
Thursday, May 30- dress like you’re going on a Vacation
Friday, May 31- Enjoy yourself--dress in something you love
Monday, June 3- dress like a character from a Fairy tale
Tuesday, June 4- dress actively for field day (there will be many Unique activities!)
Wednesday, June 5- NDLC wear or Neon day!

5/21: Family Night
5/24 & 5/27: NO SCHOOL
6/5: 1/2 day LAST day :(  11:30 Dismissal

Reading:We will start a new unit on characters this week! We will start to learn the ways you can ‘meet’ the characters in our books. Some ways to do this are to pay attention to the title, cover, and setting. We will also take picture walks and think about the feelings our characters have. By the end of the week, we will be focusing on the changes in character feelings and being able retell the stories we read!

Writing: This week we will learn that writers can ask themselves the same questions readers do!  We will focus on rereading our writing to ask ourselves: Does it make sense? (words and pictures match), Does it sound right (the way we hear others talk) and Does it look right (have snap words spelled correctly and letters facing the same way).  We will also have a mini celebration where we will gift a one of our books to someone else in our class!!

Math:This week in math our focus will switch back to comparing quantities and noticing similarities and differences in how groups of objects are arranged to show a number.  This helps us to be flexible as we look to find partners of numbers 6,7,8,9, 10.  We will also work on making two unequal groups equal and to really focus on what needs to be added to make them equal.

Science: After visiting the Building for Kids and thinking about how force can make simple machines work, we will dive in to a study on incline planes. We will watch videos to build our knowledge and then rotate through the following centers:

• We will watch videos and look at pictures of balls and ramps. Then we will draw blue prints for when we make ramps. 
• We will use paper tubes, wood, and bouncy balls to observe and explore.
• Scientists will be given Marble Works materials to build, observe, and take notes on what we notice.

May 6-10

Our field trip is Friday!  Remember that students and chaperones need a bag lunch and drink (no lunch boxes) unless you preordered a bag lunch from school!

Upcoming Events
5/10: Building for Kids Field Trip

HAVE FUN summer dress up day count down:
Tuesday, May 28- Hat day or crazy hair day
Wednesday, May 29- dress like an Animal or bring in your favorite stuffed animal
Thursday, May 30- dress like you’re going on a Vacation
Friday, May 31- Enjoy yourself--dress in something you love
Monday, June 3- dress like a character from a Fairy tale
Tuesday, June 4- dress actively for field day (there will be many Unique activities!)
Wednesday, June 5- NDLC wear or Neon day!

5/21: Family Night

Reading: Readers reread for many reasons! We will use the following tool to learn about how/why we reread and make plans for rereading with a partner.

Your reader will be creating a video to show you how they use rereading in their books! Check out the videos on Seesaw on Thursday!

Writing: After creating some AMAZING all about books, the writers are ready to tackle true stories! During read alouds in the classroom, we have used the following chart to keep track of story elements in our books.

This week, we will use the chart to help us plan our true stories. Writers need to make sure that their pictures and words show who, where, and what happened on every page. Students will also learn that they need to make sure their story has a beginning, middle, and end. We can't wait to get started on this new genre of writing. 

Math: This week in math we will continue to study the ways numbers to work together (part, part, whole) to form numbers 6-10.  We will practice this by playing the missing partner game and a game called Pigs in a Pen.
To play Pigs in a Pen, students put 10 objects in 2 rows of 5.  One student closes his/her eyes and another student removes part of the group.  The other student then has to use how many they see to determine how many have been removed.

As students play they say this rhyme....

"Oink, Oink 3 pigs in the pen, tell me what is the partner of 10."

The students then say both quantities together "3 and 7 are partners of 10."

This game helps with both subitizing work and counting on from a number which is an important addition strategy. This would be a great to work with math at home!

Science:  This week, we will start to learn about simple machines and how they can help to do work. The scientists will become inventors and will be asked to think about how a machine could help with a chore—or better yet, do the chore for them. Students will draw a machine that could help them and then use materials in the room to build it! We are so excited to finish up the week at the Building for Kids to further explore simple machines! 

April 29-May 3

Please remember to send back the permission slip for our field trip to the Building for Kids if you have not done so yet. Thank you!

Upcoming Events
5/10: Building for Kids Field Trip
5/21: Family Night

Reading: As the readers dig in to more challenging books, they will encounter words that are tricky to solve! This week, students will learn that when they get stuck on an unknown word, there are a few things they can do. Readers can...

• Try all of the strategies they know, don't try just one! 
• Set a goal of strategies to try
• Go back to the beginning of the page and reread to try to solve it
• If you've tried everything and still can't solve the word, mark it to solve it with your partner and move on! 
• Get help from your partner, be like a coach! 

Writing: It is our last week of writing all about books. The students will learn to add introductions and conclusions to their books. We will make their books the best they can be by adding using all of the charts and checklists we have created throughout the unit. The writers will be sure to add more details and fix up all conventions such as uppercase at the beginning of each sentence and including punctuation. We are excited to share our all about books with our 4th grade buddies!

Math: Here are a few highlights of what students will be doing in math this week:

• Telling, retelling, and writing equations for addition and subtraction stories
• building partners of 10 in many different ways to build fluency
• Practicing showing partners for 7-9
• Building numbers 1-20 with different tools and looking for patterns within the model

Science: This week, students will learn a key idea about forces: how pushes can change the direction and speed of an object’s movement. We will learn how some mountain towns in danger of landslides can build structures to protect themselves from falling rocks. Students will design and test their own solutions to re-direct falling boulders away from their town and toward a waiting dump truck.

April 15- 26

Hopefully it will start to feel more like spring soon.  In the meantime, we want to thank you for helping your child to come to school dressed for the weather so they are comfortable at recess times.  

As the year comes to a close, there are a few supplies we could replenish in our classroom.  If you would like to donate, please send items to school with your child:

• black dry erase markers
• rolls of scotch tape 

Also, PSC is looking for some items as well.  Here is the link.

On Monday NDLC students will participate in an egg crack off!  Each student should bring one hard boiled egg to school on Monday.  The eggs need to to be plain (no stickers, color or film).  All Kindergarten students should also wear orange on this day.

Important Dates and Reminders:
4/15: Egg Crack Off- Wear Orange and bring a hard boiled egg!
4/15: Family Night 5:30 pm
4/17: 1/2 Day 11:30 Dismissal
5/10: Building for Kids Field Trip

Reading:We are continuing to work on being resourceful readers and to use all we know to tackle tricky parts in our books.   This week and next readers will learn to be especially flexible as they try one strategy, then another and so on, until their reading makes sense, sounds right and looks right.  One way we readers can make this become more automatic is to make plan prior to reading for the strategies they will use by rereading charts they have in their book bin or see around the classroom.   We will also learn about the importance and reasons for rereading.  The big reasons we want students to reread is to make sure they are understanding what is read and to make sure their reading sounds smooth and fluent (not like a robot :)).

Writing: This week we will focus on elaboration: ways to add more to our writing.   We will be using text features like diagrams, captions and definitions, comparisons and examples like we have seen authors try in the books we have read.  We will also begin to make sure we not only give information on each page, but say WHY that information is important.

Math:Mathematicians will practice their non-pattern facts this week. The non-pattern equations are 3+2, 2+3, 2+2, 5-4, 5-3, 5-2, 4-3, 4-2, and 3-2.

We will practice using a variety of strategies including:

A game called subtraction smash that looks like this:


Drawings and math mountains



Using tools such as bead racks, math manipulatives or number lines





Using cut out hands to show the equations


These are great ways to practice any equations that your child may be working on!

Science: This week we will continue our science unit about forces. Our key idea is that by playing with and thinking about forces, people can accomplish surprisingly big things. For example, this week we will solve the mystery, “How can you knock down a wall made of concrete?”  Your child will do an activity where they investigate what happened to a “wall” made of cups when they changed the strength and direction of a paper wrecking ball.

April 8-12

Here is the link for the April school newsletter.


Upcoming Events: 
April 15: Family Night- please return forms by Monday
April 17: 1/2 day 11:30 dimissal
April 18-22: NO SCHOOL
May 10: Building for Kids Field Trip- more info to come

Check out what's happening in the super room this week!

Reading: Readers will begin to ask themselves these questions:

• What strategies have I tried to solve these unknown words?
• Did it work?
• What else could I try? 

By reflecting on what they have tried, the readers will begin to discover when different strategies work best and become more efficient when choosing strategies. Here is a chart of some of the main strategies readers rely on:


Writing: There will be a strong connection between reading from last week and writing this week! As nonfiction readers, students learned that they can ask questions while reading and even try to answer them! Since we are writing nonfiction books, we can use this to add more to our books.  This chart shows the questions we can ask:

 First, writers will read through their books, asking themselves if they answered questions readers might have on each page. Then students will sit with their reading partners, read the books they wrote, and allow their partners to stop and ask questions--just like we did in reading! The partners will work together to try to answer the questions to add more to their piece of writing.

Math:  We are just beginning our LAST math unit of the year...holy cow!!  This unit is called Consolidation of Concepts and will focus on all of the important skills students need to attain in Kindergarten in order to have a solid grasp of mathematical concepts to build on in 1st grade.  All of these topics are repetitive and you might find me to a be a broken record when keeping you in the loop!  Please know that this is by design...our curriculum Math Expressions, is a spiral curriculum, meaning concepts are taught over and over across the year in various ways, taking students' development into consideration and giving them ample opportunity to master and deeply understand concepts!


Science: We will began our science unit about forces:  the pushes, pulls, and other actions that we do whenever we do work. Scientists will learn that before we had machines, we had to do lots of work by hand. We will talk about how machines are not magical; rather they just seem that way because there are often moving parts hidden inside. Encourage your child’s curiosity by asking them to go on a “machine walk” around the house: invite your child to identify machines around your home.(examples include things like a washing machine or dryer, a dishwasher, a hair dryer, an electric toothbrush, a car).

April 1-5

Here is the link to the April lunch menu.

KAT DRESS UP DAYS April 1-Alien Day or wear green
April 2-Dress like a "star" (movie star OR star in the sky)
April 3-Dress Unique
April 4-We are out of this world with SMARTS-Dress like a KAT question or cat
April 5-Galaxy Day-each grade can dress like a color from the sky
             K: blue

April 5: KAT celebration dance

Check out what's happening in the super room this week!

Reading: As nonfiction readers, we have learned how to identify the main topic of our books and retell key details by pointing to text evidence in the book! This week, we will transfer that learning by teaching others about our topics and writing about them. Students will also compare and contrast books about the same topics.  books and read aloud (just like a teacher!) to share their books and learn with peers. We will celebrate our nonfiction unit on Friday by creating posters about our favorite main topics.

Writing: This week we are starting to write All About books. The goal is for students to write an entire book that teaches about one topic. Students will begin by brainstorming ideas; they will put each idea on a book cover so that it is ready to go when they are ready to start a new piece. We will discuss thinking about and planning out how we can teach our readers the important facts about our topics. Writers will learn that they can plan out books using their fingers to keep track of their ideas. Help your writer think of different things he/she could teach others about! What is your child an expert on?

Math:  We are nearing the end of our math unit!  This week we will review the concepts of 3D shapes and practice identifying cones, spheres, cylinders and cubes. We will also start to build fluency with subtraction. Mathematicians will discover that they can use the same strategies for subtracting as they did for adding. These strategies include:

• Using their fingers
• Drawing a picture
• Building it with tools
• Telling a math story
• Visualizing a math story
• Using a bead rack

These are all great ways to start when working toward fluency!  We will also continue to review and practice the subtraction patterns we have learned: -1, -0 and take away all (3-3).

Social Studies: It was so much fun learning about how each one of us is unique! As a culminating activity for our self study, students will be asked to post a video on seesaw about what makes them special. Be sure to watch for those videos at the end of the week!