Happy Reformation Day and Happy Halloween! We had fun celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation today. We began with a special chapel and we learned how it was so important that the church discovered again the importance of the Gospel that was there all along in God's Word. How beautiful it is that we have God's Word today and we can with joy share it with others. We had fun singing "This Little Gospel Light of Mine" to close out our special day as we looked at the light shining through the cross in our little pumpkin on the altar. I tried several times to upload the video of the kids singing, but the file is too large even if I compress it.. I will see if there is another way to share part of it. If any of you have suggestions, please let me know. The students had fun with their pumpkin parade as they walked from class to class. Our party was a lot of fun for the students. Kids were able to go pumpkin bowling and made a special snack mix. They had fun with a variety of games and puzzles. They pretended to print the Good News that Jesus loves them with a miniature "printing press" to simulate one used during the time of Martin Luther. They each had fun trying to write their name with a feather pen. How hard it must have been to get the Word out back then. We have no excuse today with all of our technology. We need to joyfully share that God loves us so much that He sent Jesus to be our Savior. It was also fun for them to pretend to "nail" the 95 theses on the castle church doors. We learned about how God gave His people the city of Jericho. It was fun to watch a video that retold the Bible event. During a literacy mini lesson the students learned about key features of nonfiction text. It was fun to look for some of these features in nonfiction books today. The new literacy centers provide extra practice with initial sounds in a sorting activity. Students also learn more about poetry and match words to an apple poem in a pocket chart. They are learning about alphabetical order as they search for words to enter in a mini picture dictionary. Finally they play a couple spinner games which help to reinforce some sight words and some initial sounds. In Math we are learning to break apart a whole train of unifix cubes into 2 parts. We are learning part to whole relationships. It is important to manipulate a set of objects into 2 parts and then to put it back together again. We also learned about 2 famous astronauts today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. We watched a movie to help us learn about day and night sky. It also taught us about comets, meteors, and the phases of the moon. I was so happy to see so many kindergarten students at the concert last night. I am also just thrilled with how hard the kindergarten students worked in class to memorize all the words for the songs. I was so proud to see the kindergarten class have it memorized so well and they were the youngest kids in the group. Way to go kindergarten!!! Attached below are a couple of video files that a parent emailed me from the concert.
Here are some photos of the class at the concert. They worked so hard to sing and to sit throughout the event. Obviously the busy weekend wore some of them out a bit as you can tell by a few closed eyes. Below are some photos from day 51 of kindergarten.
We were very busy and there really wasn't much time to take photos. Every free moment that I had was spent assessing students for first trimester report cards. All students have been tested on the sight words for the first trimester. I will try to give students that could not read all of them one more chance before reports are made out. Over half of the class was able to read all of the sight words already! Way to go! Ask your child how he or she did. If your child has not been able to read them, the best advice I have is to make time to practice daily. One of the students says that he practices the words before school and right before bedtime every day. That makes all the difference in the world.
Parent/teacher conferences for kindergarten will be held on Tues., Wed., & Thurs., (Nov. 14-16). In the Friday Folders you will find a date and time assigned for your meeting with me to discuss the first trimester report card. If the time does not work for you, there will be a spot on the form to note what family you would like to coordinate a possibility to switch times. The kindergarten students are looking forward to sharing the song with you at the concert on Sunday. Please have your kindergarten student meet me in the kindergarten room by no later than 6:15p.m. this Sunday, Oct. 29. Thanks! All students should wear clothing appropriate for church. I was very proud of the kindergarten students today. We had our first practice in the sanctuary for the song that K-4 will sing for the special concert on Sunday. They have all of the words memorized and sang so well. You would have been very proud to see and hear them. Please do not forget to come and have your child in the kindergarten room at 6:15p.m. this Sunday evening. Thanks so much! We continued our literacy centers that are focusing on onsets and rimes, individual sounds, sequencing, writing cards, and matching upper and lowercase letters. The thematic centers include making a book to illustrate the growth cycle of a pumpkin, along with a couple of sight word books about pizza and Halloween. The students are writing pumpkin stories in their journals and I am really happy to see more students writing stories that contain a beginning, middle, and end. It is a joy to hear them ask me if they can turn the page and write more. Why would I want to say no to that? In Math the students are playing games and using manipulatives to make sets of ten. They are using ten frames and using special Math talk. "I have ___. I need ____ more to make 10." Our number system is based off of 10 and this is an important foundation concept for future Math concepts. Please watch for upcoming papers when your child brings them home and use the Math talk on the page as you discuss it with your child. Have your child talk about it with you. This will help to reinforce the concept. Next week we will move further into part+part=whole relationships. In Science we are finally able to make better connections to the season of fall as the weather feels more like fall. We are studying the second unit of Earth Science which focuses on weather and seasons. Outside some of the students noticed the beautiful red leaves on the burning bushes next to our building. We discussed how the name of those plants reminds us of the story of Moses and the burning bush. Mrs. Andrews came into our class today and helped the students finish the kindergarten donation for the All Saints' Fest. They have a wonderful project that will just warm your heart and provide inside entertainment on those cold winter days. They also helped make something that will be wonderful to eat on a cold winter day or night. If you have not made plans to come to the All Saints' Fest to bid on this project or others, please get your tickets soon. It is not too late! Finally, if you have not sent in your class donation yet in the envelope that was placed in the Friday Folder on Oct. 13, please send it in as soon as you are able. Thanks so very much! We welcomed everyone back after a wonderful fall break. This week the students are learning more about the Reformation, especially since it is the 500th anniversary. They started to color in a "Reformation A-Z" book. Today we learned how Jesus died for all and how much Martin Luther wanted people to know that. A is for all. B is for Bible. 500 years ago not many people could have afforded a Bible of their own and even if they could have, they probably could not have read it because it was not written in their language. Martin Luther thought that was important and he translated the Bible into German, the language of the people where he lived.
We began a new set of literacy centers today. Students are making cards and learning to write letters. They are practicing sequencing how to make a cake. At another center the students match uppercase and lowercase letters. At the phonemic awareness center the students are breaking words apart into individual sounds. This is tricky for many as it is a common mistake to combine sounds. At the word work center the students are playing a game to help break a word into the onset and rime. Then they substitute the onset with another sound. For instance, the students are given the word bat. They use a little turkey to cover up the b. (They cover the onset.) What is left is the rime chunk -at. Then they spin the spinner to replace b with another letter such as m. Then they read the new word mat. We are beginning a thematic unit on pumpkins. We will do a number of activities with pumpkins throughout the week and beginning of next week. In addition to this theme the students will practice the sound of /p/ and learn to print Pp in correct form. During the afternoon the students listened to a variety of books about the life cycle of a pumpkin. We sequenced its growth. It was also fun to watch some videos about the growth of pumpkins. This morning we enjoyed making "flipped out" pumpkins. You will have to come see these creations in the hallway to the right of our classroom door. These creative pumpkins are a special way to show both negative and positive space. We continue to work on numbers in the teens. Today we focused on number 14. It is important to know that numbers in the teens are a set of ten and so many more ones. I had the students tell me how many places to move ahead from 10 to get to certain numbers in the teens. Tomorrow we will play another game to help us practice building numbers in the teens. Today we had a great time wishing Mrs. Burris a very happy birthday!!! We especially thank Mrs. Steinback and Mrs. Andrews for helping to coordinate such a wonderful celebration. The kids made her cards and we all enjoyed some delicious treats. Thanks to everyone for helping her have a special day!
Later we learned about the Luther seal and it's meaning. We colored the cross black to remind us that Jesus took our sins to the cross to save us. He was punished in our place. We colored the heart red because He did this because He loved us so much He shed His blood for us. We left the rose white because it reminds us of new life and we are washed clean. The blue reminds us of the hope we have of heaven. Finally the gold circle reminds us that God's love never ends and that we look forward to spending eternal life in heaven. We worked more on rhyming, surveys, identifying words by first sounds, stamping words, etc. during literacy centers. Later we continued our thematic centers as we made fall fun pictures, fall leaf sight word books, leaf stories, etc. In the afternoon we worked more in our calendar books. It's hard to believe that we are already on our 44th day of school. The students have learned that it is a shortcut to use numbers to write the date. We sing a special song as we count the months of the year and determine that October is the 10th month. In Math we are working on numbers in the teens. We are trying to be very careful as we count these larger numbers. It is important to use a count and check method and count more than once to see if we get the same number twice. Finally we learned about fire safety through a special newspaper and video. We look forward to the smokehouse safety trailer in the morning tomorrow and the field trip in the afternoon. The students are enjoying our leaf thematic centers this week. Not only are they learning about leaves, but the centers incorporate Reading, Math, Science, Art, and many more standards into the fun fall topic. At the blue table the students are having fun designing a fall tree as they trace their hand and arm to make a tree. Then they strengthen fine motor skills as they decorate the trees with tissue paper that they pinch and crush with their fingers. By gluing the little pieces they are working on eye and hand coordination. They add their own creative touch as they decide how they are going to glue the leaves around their photo. You will have to look for these in the hallway. At the green table the students are making a sight word book to go with fall leaves. The yellow table gives a review of number words as the students make a special leaf book. It is fun for them to use rubbing crayons to make a leaf for the cover. They decorate the pages with the number of leaves needed to match the number words. Throughout the book there are leaf rubbings, stamps, tracings & cutouts, stickers, drawings, etc. At the red table the students are practicing the correct formation of Ll, printing a sentence with proper spacing and form, making an L picture dictionary, and writing stories about leaves. Later in the afternoon the students designed a leaf memory match game to help them be aware of various leaf shapes such as: oak, maple, hickory, birch, tulip, etc. They will need to finish the game at home by cutting it out. We played it as a whole group and they are anxious to play it at home with you. Keep in mind that you are matching the shape of the leaves, not the color.
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