Writing Together: Family Writing Projects

I recently came across some great ideas for family writing projects.  These projects have multiple purposes.  By engaging in the writing process together with your child, you encourage and motivate your child to be a writer, you model the way writers think, you get your child thinking and talking about writing, and the list goes on and on!  Here are a few activities you might try this summer:

The Artifact Activity

1.  Each family member chooses a significant artifact.  This artifact may reveal something about the person's personality or identity.

2.  Have a sharing circle where each member explains the artifact and it's significance.  You may find that there is a particular story attached to the artifact.

3.  After sharing, write side-by-side with your child in journals for 5 minutes.  You might write down some words, ideas, or feelings that come to mind about the items or people who shared.  There is no structure or limitations!

4.  Take turns reading the writing aloud.

The Mapping Activity

1.  Children draw a map of their neighborhood, noting the places they find important: main streets, local stores, schools, playgrounds, a friend's house, etc.  Adults can draw a map showing where they lived when they were their children's age.

2.  Share and talk about the maps together.

3.  Write side-by-side with your child in journals for 5-10 minutes.

4.  Take turns reading the writing aloud.

The Photographic Activity

1.  Take pictures with your child around the town, neighborhood, or other significant places.  Capture scenes that are important or engaging.

2.  Share and talk about the photos.

3.  You  may write in journals about the photographs, write captions, and find things that the pictures have in common.

* Great idea for a summer vacation too!

The Letter-Writing Activity

1.  Parents write letters to their child/children as though the children will be receiving them 10 years from now.  Children write letters to themselves, also ten years in the future.

2.  Sharing the letters will highlight the thoughts, dreams, and wishes of both the parents and child.

3.  Put the letters in an envelope, addressed to your child.  Save the letters and give to your child 10 or more years from now.  High school graduation might be a great time to dig these letters out! :)

Let me know how it goes!

Sick of me yet?

I know, I know, it's summer vacation!  But as I said before, I will continue to post to this blog in hopes that I can give you some fun learning activities for the summer (and more pictures to come from the school year!).

I found a great article for parents at Imagination Soup about summer learning: Click here.
I love their suggestion of setting up a daily schedule for your child, that includes some reading & learning activities as well as free play time.  Don't forget to put some math activities in there too! :)


If you are looking for literacy activities, The Florida Center for Reading Research has all of their curriculum online, including center-based activities.  I encourage you to explore these and print a few.
For example, the first lesson of this unit would be great for our entering first graders to practice decoding new words by sound:  Click here.


Here are some sites for printable math games:
 Kindergarten Math Activities
Kelly's Kindergarten

Did you see your child's math journal?

This was a new routine that I tried this year and ended up LOVING it!  What a great record of your child's learning.  3 times a week you might give your child an activity to do in their math journal over the summer.  Look through it to get some ideas, but you can also find some ideas using the following links:

Ketchen's Kindergarten

Common Core Math

Pinterest

Krazee 4 Kindergarten

*download the free 25 at the bottom

Happy summer fun and learning!

NWEA MAP Reports & Graduation Pictures

Good Morning!

Along with your child's report card for this semester, you should also have seen his/her NWEA MAP Progress Report.  This is a record of your child's test scores from January and then May.  The goal is to make progress!  On average, a student might make 7 points in progress between those periods;  however this depends on how high the original score was.  For example, if your child originally scored high in areas, there may not be as much progress (as they were already scoring higher than average).

On the district's website, there is a great video explanation of the report:

http://www.aaps.k12.mi.us/ins.technology/nwea

Keep in mind that this is a computerized test, so it is just one resource for understanding where your child is.  For some students, taking a test on a computer presents challenges and this can affect scores.

If you see your child is low in an area, use that category title to do some online searching for activities for over the summer (so much is online now!).

Our graduation pictures came out so great!  I hope you noticed the copy I sent home the last day of school (in the front of your child's yellow clear folder).  But Charlotte Manning is willing to send you digital copies of your child's pictures (THANK YOU AGAIN!).  Simply email her: CharlotteManningPhotography@gmail.com

I also wanted to thank the Knudsen Family for hosting our end of the year party - we had so much FUN!  And thank you to all of the parents that attended to help out!

Reading Leveled Books over the Summer

Want to keep your child sharp and reading at his/her level over the summer?  

I found a few websites that have some free printable and leveled books.  Most students can be reading at Guided Reading Level B (independently) and Levels C and D (instructional) with some support from you. Reference your child's report card.

Use the following links to print these books for summer reading:

Loving2Learn
(use the conversion chart:   Level 2 = Level C)

DLTK

Hubbards Cupboard
(LOVE the Word Family Booklets!)

Making Learning Fun

Mrs. Meacham

Kizclub

Storybook & Classic Tales Pattern:  print story props for books you can check out & read together from the library
Level 1, 2, 3: Print for your child to read

Primary Success

Readingreadingbooks

Happy Summer!

Happy Father's Day and happy summer!  We had a great last day of school - take a look:

We made Grandma Walker a book to tell her thank you for all of her hard work!

I will be continuing to post pictures from the year over the next couple weeks and information for summer learning that I hope you will find helpful.  Enjoy your summer!

Wow-Wee!

Wow-wee!!!  So much fun today!  Pictures to come! :)

Who would believe we have reached our last day of Kindergarten?!

Remember, it's a half day, so dismissal is at 11:51 AM and there is no breakfast or lunch services.

We have MORE fun stuff planned for tomorrow.  Please make sure your child has his/her backpack AND folder, because important items are coming home.

Thank you!

Reminders for Party Tomorrow

First of all, THANK YOU to all of the families that attended our certificate ceremony today.  I could tell the kiddos LOVED being appreciated!  And thank you for bearing with me with the space and heat.  Again, special thank yous Mrs. Manning & Ms. Giaccardi for the hats, Mrs. Carlson for the AMAZING cupcakes, and Mrs. Manning for taking all of those pictures.

In all the hustle and bustle of today I forgot to remind the kids about tomorrow.
Your child needs to:
1.  Wear a bathing suit UNDER comfortable clothes (boys can just wear their shorts on bottom).  There will not be time/space for changing.
2.  Bring a towel.
3.  Wear comfortable walking shoes.
4. Wear sunscreen to school.


Please send any remaining supplies to school tomorrow for the party.  For parents that are attending, please arrive at school at 12:30 to walk over with us.

In the case that the weather is too poor, we will have to remain at school.  We can do some things in our classroom and then use the multi-purpose room after 2:00/2:30.

The kids have been talking about this every hour for a week, and I am looking forward to some fun!

P.S.  Anyone who is coming tomorrow have a wagon they can bring (so we can transport stuff)?  Let me know.  Thanks!

Kindergarten Writing

Today your child took home a yellow folder with some of his/her writing from the school year (personal narratives and poetry).  Don't let those little gems go to waste!  I encourage you to read over those together at home and take a look at your child's progress!  You can keep the folder for your child to keep writing in over the summer.

I love this poem! :)

We were the first class at Carpenter to return all of their library books - yahoo!  So we celebrated today with ice cream sandwiches from Mrs. B:

YUM!

We're Still Learning!

Today we read a fun summertime book There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shell.  We worked together to create a flow map of the story and we practiced our retelling skills:

In the story, the old lady swallows a bunch of beach items until she burps up a sandcastle!  So, we graphed whether or not we have ever built a sandcastle.  Here are our results:

Your child may enjoy listening to the story at home with you:

And today we got to choose our own math workstation to do:

 Roll, add, and cover.

 Tens & Ones Bingo

The $1.00 Game

REMINDERS for this week:

* Wednesday at 2:00 is our Certificate Ceremony - Families are welcome!

* Thursday is our party at the Knudsen's!  Please send in supplies and make sure your child wears his/her bathing suit that day under clothes and brings a towel.

* Friday is our last day and it is a half day!  Dismissal is at 11:51 AM.  There will be no school breakfast or lunch that day.

Over the next few days, your child will be bringing home lots of things.  Please make sure your child has his/her backpack and folder everyday.  Thank you!

Non-Fiction Report on Ocean Animals!

So now that we know how to go about reading non-fiction text, we dived into reading and learned some new facts about ocean animals!  Each Kindergartener made their own report to show what they learned:

We have come so far as writers this year, and I am one PROUD teacher!  Your child brought his/her report home today, so make sure you read it over together!

A few kiddos even added page numbers to match their Table of Contents!  LOVE IT!

PARTY SUPPLIES

Thank you for your support in bringing together all of our party items.  Today, a yellow note was sent home indicating what you can send (so as not to have too many repeats and to get everything covered). Thank you for your donations!

PERMISSION SLIP

As we are leaving school grounds for the party next Thursday afternoon, I do need permission slips and you will find a green-colored permission slip in your child's folder today.  Please return to school on Monday.  Thank you!

What is Non-Fiction?

Over the past few weeks, we have been exploring non-fiction text.  Here is a short article for you on How to Read Non-Fiction Text.  We read non-fiction text to learn about true topics, and non-fiction text has some special features (headings, photographs, captions, diagrams, table of contents, index, glossary, special types of print, etc.) that are important to pay attention to.  We have been learning about these features and their purposes.  You can model how to use the features of non-fiction text when reading at home!
On Friday, your child brought home his/her Convention Notebook with examples of these features.

Ask your child to share their notebook with you and use it to locate some of these features in your non-fiction books at home.

Now that we know more about how to read non-fiction text, we are using some non-fiction text about ocean animals to learn new information!  Yesterday, read a book about sharks and recorded some facts we learned about sharks:

Today we read a book about whales and recorded some facts about whales:

Each Kindergartener is making their own informational page for an oceans research book:

Very impressive!

I have also been using National Geographic KIDS videos to support our learning.  Use this website to search for interesting non-fiction videos on topics of interest to your child!  Building background knowledge will support your child in reading comprehension - check out this article for other ways to build background knowledge at home this summer.

OTHER NEWS OF IMPORTANCE

Wow, Kindergarten flew by!  Today some important notes went home about end of the school year events.

Wednesday, June 12th:  Kindergarten Certificate Ceremony

2:00 - 3:00 PM

On this day, families are invited to our classroom to celebrate our accomplishments! 

Thursday, June 13th:  Kindergarten Party

12:30-2:45 PM

* We will walk to the Knudsen house for an outdoor party

* Your child needs a bathing suit and towel

* Please reference and return today's note to let me know what you can help with or donate

Friday, June 14th:  Last day of Kindergarten!

8:45 - 11:51 AM (half-day!)

* Report cards go home

Book Packages:  There will be no more book packages for at home reading.  Please return your book package and all of the books by this Friday, June 6th.  Thank you!

Carpenter School Carnival!

One of the beloved school events at Carpenter is our Spring Carnival!  Games, food, and fun with our school community!  It sure did sneak right up on us:  THIS FRIDAY 5:30 to 8:00 PM!!

We are still looking for volunteers to help run activities and booths.  Click here to sign up!  I know that Mrs. Knudsen (Joey's mom) really needs help in the Kitchen - Multipurpose Room, so please do consider signing up for a shift.

Thank you!

Haisley Pen Pal Day!

On Thursday, we visited our Haisley Pen Pals at their school in the morning!  We paired up with our pen pal, introduced ourselves, and played some math games together!

On our way to meet our pen pals!

Then, our Haisley friends came over to Carpenter for lunch and literacy activities!  We had a lot of fun and got to know someone new.  What a great experience!