Report Cards & Carpenter Scholastic Book Fair!

Greetings Families!
I hope you had a fun and restful holiday.  We are getting right back to work here! :)

Today, your child's first semester Report Card comes home.  Please look over it carefully and contact me with any questions or concerns.  If you child is marked "D" on any skills, that means he/she is still developing and needs further practice with that skill in order to demonstrate mastery.  Please support your child at home, if that is the case.
Please make sure you SIGN AND DATE THE ENVELOPE, next to the sticker for the First Semester.  The ENVELOPE needs to be RETURNED to school for future use, but YOU KEEP the REPORT CARD.  Please return the envelopes as soon as possible so they do not get misplaced.  Thanks!

CARPENTER SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR
The school is hosting a book fair this week!  This helps raise money for our school and gets exciting books into the hands of your child.  Today, we previewed the fair and your child wrote a "Wish List" to take home and show you.  If you are interested in purchasing, these are the ways you can do that:
1.  Come to the Family Night TONIGHT from 6:30-8:00 pm in the Multipurpose Room.
2.  Send the money for the book(s) plus tax in a clearly marked envelope with the name of the books for purchase to school.  On Wednesday or Thursday, your child can purchase during lunch.
3.  Visit the Book Fair after school on Wednesday or Thursday (I believe it is open until about 5:00.

We also have a Classroom Wish List basket with some great books for donation to our classroom.  Ask the helpers at the Book Fair about it!

Enjoy!

Cc Alphabet Project

Hello Families!

Great work on the Bb Alphabet Project this weekend!  Today, two pieces of homework were sent home:  an alphabet ordering page and the Cc Alphabet Project.  Please complete the alphabet ordering page this evening and you can save the Cc project for the long weekend.
I wanted to make sure everyone got what they needed before our break.

Thank you!

What Have We Been Up To?

In math, we have been working hard on our sense of numbers!

Take a look:

This Math Work Station is called "Race to Ten!"  Each partner rolls a dot dice and puts that amount of bears on their ten frame.  Each time, we add a new amount of bears and count how many there are all together.  We also think about which partner has more.  We can also think about how many more we need to make ten.  This is a great precursor game to addition!

This Math Work Station game is "Pumpkin Counting."  We take turns rolling a dot dice and placing that many pumpkins on our counting mat.  Here we are working on one-to-one counting skills up to 20!

Now that we are becoming comfortable with representations of numbers 0-10, we have begun to look at the Tricky Teens!  The big idea we want Kindergartners to understand about teens is that they are ten with some more.  The tricky part about teen numbers is that they don't always look like they sound (i.e. 11, 12) and when they do sound like a "teen" (i.e. 16, 17, 18), we say the "teen" second.  However when writing the number, the "teen" is the 1 in the tens place (worth ten).  This can cause young children to write teens backwards.

We have worked on ordering teen numbers, representing them in ten frames, and even using base ten blocks to model them:

This week, we have explored an important new math tool:  DOMINOS!

Dominos get students thinking about parts and wholes.  This is also a precursor to addition.

 We have played "Domino Concentration," in which we try to match dominos with the whole number they are worth.

We played "Domino Parking Lot," where we count the whole number the domino is showing and "park" it under the number.  This is a great game for seeing different representations of a number.  For instance, parked under the number 5 students may see 5 & 0, 1 & 4, or 3 & 2.

We also worked on labeling a domino in our Math Journals:

In Phonics, we have been working hard on linking letters with sounds.  We have been listening for the beginning sounds in words, and I am sure you have seen our daily sound sorts coming home!

 In this task, we sort the pictures and try to write the words.  EVERYONE can write the first letter because that is how we are sorting! :)  But some students are ready to hear more of the sounds in the word and have been stretching out words slowly!

To reinforce this work, we have also been using laminated sound sorts independently during Work Stations.  When finished sorting between FOUR different letters, we draw and/or write a new word we learned that begins with that letter.

(This is my example.)

When your child's work comes home, ask your child to tell you about it and read it to you! :)

The work we are doing in the classroom is helping to prepare your child for our weekend homework project, which we started last week.  Generating multiple words that begin with a letter can be a tough task, but the work you do together will help your child build that knowledge.

 Here are some great examples from last week:

 I know this project takes some time, but I encourage you to help your child put his/her best effort forward.  It is a great learning experience.  If your child is drawing pictures, add color!  And remember, I have magazines that I can send home for your use - just send me a note!

By the end of this project, your child will have an alphabet book that I plan to bound.  It can really be a piece to be proud of! :)

Bb comes home tomorrow!

And last but not least, our classroom is in need of a few supplies.  We appreciate any support that can be given!

* TISSUES (wow we have been flying through these!)

* Homemade play-doh for classroom use.  This is a fun project to do with your child!

Click here and here and here for example recipes.

Thank you!

Alphabet Project

Throughout the school year, your child will be creating an alphabet project via weekend homework assignments.  This project is designed to enhance your child's understanding of letter sounds, vocabulary, and writing.  The letter Aa was sent home this weekend!  The direction page outlines the different parts of the assignment, but here are some examples from past students:

Pictures can be found from magazines or online, or your child can draw his/her own pictures.  If you would like some magazines for this project, I have some I can send home - just let me know! :)
The writing should be done by your child - you may choose to write it on another piece of paper first and have your child copy it.

The projects will go home each Thursday or Friday and should be returned to school the following Monday.  We do share them on Monday morning, so please do complete them on time.

Looking forward to seeing your child's hard work!  Happy hunting!

Veteran's Day

We are learning about Veteran's Day, celebrated on Sunday, November 11th.  Today, we learned about the military and learned that Veteran's Day is a day to thank the people who have served and are serving in the military.

We discussed that people in our lives may be a veteran or currently serving in the military.  Did your child come home and ask you about it? :)  If your child knows someone in this position, I encourage you to talk with them about it!  If there is anyone who might like to make a classroom visit in their uniform, please let me know.

We also learned a poem:

American Soldier,

America Solder,

You are brave,

You are brave.

You keep our country safe,

You keep our country safe.

We thank you,

We thank you!

Here are a couple ideas for you to celebrate Veteran's Day at home this weekend AND a great family writing activity:

1.  You and your child can work together to write an electronic letter to a soldier.  Click and visit Letterstosoliders.org.

2.  Help your child illustrate and draw a letter.  Drop it off or send it by visiting A Million Thanks.

3.  Adopt a Soldier.  This is a long-term commitment.

Happy Election Day!

Yesterday, we learned about the voting process.

We made our own Voter's Card.

We posed a question, "Would you want to be president?"

Each child considered that question for themselves.

 Then we filled out a secret ballot.

And cast our vote in the ballot box!

Then we counted the results:

And made our own "I Voted" bracelet!

What Fun! :)

Important Dates this Week

Did you remember Daylight Savings today?  Remember it is "Fall Back," so set your clocks back one hour!

Tomorrow is our last evening of conferences.  Just as a reminder, I will be meeting with these families:

Monday, November 5th

4:00 - 4:15  Abigail Kerfoot

4:20 - 4:35  

4:40 - 4:55  Angelo Morales

5:00 - 5:15  Jaron Garner

5:20 - 5:35  Deven Obungu-Clark

5:40 - 5:55  K'Lyn Taylor-Neely

6:00 - 6:15  Caleb Baird

6:20 - 6:35  Elaina Sammour - Dad

6:40 - 6:55  Solana Peralta

And Tuesday, November 6th is Election Day.  There is NO SCHOOL for students!  We will be talking about the voting process Monday at school.  If you can, try to take your child with you to vote - it's a great experience for them to see!

Scholastic has put together a website on this topic:  Click here to visit and explore with your child.

Bushel of Fun!

We did a lot of learning with APPLES and PUMPKINS this week!

This week, our shared reading was about apples!

This predictable chart helped us learn the work like and our color words!

 Then we completed our own version of the chart to practice writing the word like and practice reading!

 Whenever charts like these come home, have your child read it to you with his/her reading finger.  Keep it to read often!

Then we made homemade applesauce with our apples from the orchard!

We peeled, cored, and cut the apples, mixing it together with water, cinnamon, and brown sugar.  It cooked most of the day in a crock-pot and then YUM! :)

Each child completed a sequencing activity about the process:

We read some non-fiction texts about pumpkins:

 Again, whenever texts like these come home, read them together! 

This text was a great introduction to beginning sound sorts, a phonics activity will we continue to work on this month.  We sorted words that begin with P and words that begin with N.

We thought of words to describe pumpkins:

We also did a lot of MATH activities with our apples and pumpkins:
* We tasted red, yellow, and green apples and graphed which one we liked most!
* We measured how tall our apples and pumpkins were with unifix cubes!

* We weighed our apples!
* We sorted our pumpkins by size and graphed our results:

We also learned about how pumpkins grow - the pumpkin life cycle!
We read these books:

Then each student completed their own life cycle chart!

We also explored the parts of a pumpkin: shell, stem, flesh, pulp, and seeds.  And we got a little messy:

Sorry if your child came home with a little pumpkin on their costume!

Last but not least, here are some pictures from our field trip!

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