Mystery Reader in Mrs. O's Room

 

Mrs. Combs came by last week and read Mrs. O's class an amazing book entitled Santa is coming to Missouri.

 

 

The student's loved the story and were so respectful and responsible while listening.

Thank you so much for taking time to come and spread some Christmas Cheer at school!  You were amazing and we enjoyed the story so much.

 

First round of pictures from the pumpkin patch

We have been learning about the life cycle of pumpkins in science.  It was amazing to see the students identify each sequence in the cycle and properly identify them while at the pumpkin patch today!  They were so excited to see the cycle "live" in the garden.  This make learning so meaningful and they will remember this experience forever.  It is our hope that they can transfer this knowledge to other life cycles they will learn about during their education.

 

Bloom

 

Green pumpkin

Mature pumpkin

Bud

Green pumpkin on the vine

Investigating pumpkins in the garden

Leaves

Bloom

Vines

Leaves

 

They also loved the turtles.  Some of the kids could not get enough of these little guys!  They had so much fun investigating these little creatures.  They wanted to adopt them as class pets!

 

Large mature orange pumpkin

Beans

Corn

Exploring the texture of the beans (and corn) with our feet

 

Seeds

The straw maze was a source of fun and fright for our students!  Some of the kids could not get enough of the maze after successfully navigating the dark maze.  It was very interesting watching the kids support each other when they were afraid and encouraging each other to try the maze.  They were actively engaged in problem solving and oral language skills as they talked about their experience, shared how to get through the maze, and comforted their friends that were scared.

Tractor

Toes

Curly vines on the pumpkin

Turtle studying us!

Exit of the straw maze.

 

We had a great day!  Thank you to all of the parents who gave up their time to spend time with their kids to support their education.  As teachers we can not thank you enough for volunteering your time to help us today.  Your help with the kids, loading and unloading the lunches, tying shoes, transporting our loot for our curriculum, helping to kill bees at lunch, interacting with all of the students and helping with snack made our jobs so easy today.  We are so lucky to have such supportive and involved families.  We look forward to many more fun times together this year.  Be sure to check back soon for more pictures. 

 

More Mystery Reader fun! How Full Is Your Bucket?

Ms. O's class had a special Mystery Reader who taught us all about how to be a bucket filler!  She read this book, How Full Is Your Bucket to the class.  We learned all about our invisible buckets and how we each have one and everyone around us has one too.  We can either fill our buckets and the buckets of others or dip from them depending on how we act and what we say.  Part of the Kindergarten Experince is learning what kind of people we want to become.  Do we want to be positive, helpful and kind?  Do we want to become bullies and be mean?  We explore how those decisions make us and those around us feel.  We learn that we impact the world around us and we can make a difference in our own lives and the lives of others.  Remember the poem All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten?  This book teaches in to that poem.  Character Education is an important part of our Curriculum at Peine Ridge and we thank you, our parents, families and friends for helping us develop the next generation of leaders.  Thank you so much for volunteering your time and helping the kids develop a love for reading AND their positive outlook on life.  We couldn't do it without you.  Have a great weekend and thank you again for giving some of your time to helping all of our students develop a life-long love for reading.  There is a video at the end of this post to help support the concepts taught in this book.  Please play it at home with your child to help them learn the concepts of bucket filling and bucket dipping.  How full is your bucket today?

 



 

Mrs.Clauss teaches us about how to fill a bucket.

Mrs. Clauss reading the story to us.

 



Mrs.Clauss shows us our "bucket" and teaches us about filling and dipping our buckets.

 

Mystery Reader Pigeon Style!

This week Ms. De Stephano's class had a special guest.  Pigeon from the books by Mo Willams!  The kids were thrilled when Pigeon (actually it was special parent reader Jill Sutton) came in during Reading Workshop.  Thank you so much for making reading so memorable and special for the children.  We have been learning that reading is exciting and you certainly made sure reading the book Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus and exciting adventure.  Being involved in your child's early education makes learning so much more meaningful for your child.  We can't thank you enough for taking your time to volunteer in the classroom during the year.  Enjoy this special picture of this special parent sharing a special book.  Thank you to all of our Mystery Readers.  We look forward to sharing more pictures of our volunteers on the blog this year.

 

Week of September 9th Newsletter and Updates

We are introducing the letter Oo and the color Blue this next week.  Our first popcorn (sight word) is AND. We will be adding new videos to support your child's learning at home on our video pages.  You can find those at the top of the home page of our blog.  These are great resources to help your child master letter recognition and letter sounds.  These are the foundations of decoding and reading words so your support at home is critical to develop reading skills for your child.  Please make sure to review the Letter Oo poem and the Color Blue poem in your child's Kindergarten Binder at home at least three times a week.  Also, please have your child practice their popcorn words each day.  These are words they need to memorize because they cannot be sounded out and these words are found in most of the early reader books they will be exposed to this year.

The nurse is in need of clothing donations for Kindergarten size pants and underwear.  If you have any clothing your child has outgrown, or if you like to garage sale please keep this in mind.  The nurse thanks you in advance for any donations you may send in.

We were lucky enough to receive 500 books per classroom to support our reading units.  All of the books have to be marked and labeled with stickers and this is a REALLY BIG PROJECT!  All of the teachers could use volunteers to help us with this project.  If you are interested please contact your child's teacher if you have a few moments to spare to help us with this project.  We really want to get those books into the hands of our young readers but need to have them labeled first so any volunteers would be greatly appreciated.  We are also looking for parents who would like to head up our Fall Parties and those who could give a little time each week to make copies for the following week or help cut out materials for learning games and activities.  We thank you in advance for supporting your child's education (and us as teachers) for donating a little time to help us with these projects.  If you cannot come in, but could do something at home for us (like cutting or stapling booklets together) please let us know and we will organize and send those projects home.  Your involvement helps us enrich our program for all of the children.  Thank you for considering giving a little of your time.

Don't forget to send your child in appropriate shoes on PE days.  Also, snacks are due on Mondays and Kindergarten Binders are due on Fridays.  Thank you to all of our Mystery Readers and those who are sending in Letter of the Week bags.  The students are LOVING these special activities that support literacy.

We all hope you have a great weekend.  You can help your child as we start assessments this week by having them count to 25, practice writing their name (first letter upper case and the rest in lower case) and reviewing their letters and letter sounds.  Please read 20 minutes a day with your child.  Here is some important information to show you how important reading with your child each day is for literacy development.

Enjoy your weekend!

Team Kindergarten

Mystery Readers have arrived!

We just wanted to take a small moment and thank all of the Mystery Readers who came to our rooms to read on Friday.  Our Mystery Readers are such an important part of our reading curriculum and they make reading so much fun for our young readers.  It always amazes us how hard our parent readers work to make this time exciting and meaningful for the students.  We appreciate all you do to support Peine Ridge and us as teachers.  We are looking forward to many more parents reading in our classrooms this year.  Please make sure you have filled out your Volunteer information and have had your criminal record check done so you can spend time in the classroom.  If you have any questions just contact Mrs. Reese or Mrs. Force in the office.  They can tell you if all of your paper work has cleared. 

We are almost ready for Room Parents, Copy Parents and other Parent Volunteers to start.  We will be contacting you soon if you offered to help.  Believe it or not party time will be here before you know it and we would love to have some parent volunteers put together these classroom celebrations.  The students are so excited to see their parents and families spend these special times with them during the school year.  Every one of the teachers appreciate your time, expertise and willingness to help with these projects! 

Our Field Trip to Pumpkins Galore will be coming up in October and we will send more information to you as soon as we have the final conformation.  We have already done our Bus Safety lesson (on the actual buses) with the children to get them ready for this great adventure.

We leave you with a picture of one of our parent volunteers acting as a Mystery Reader in Ms. Arrendale's class.  He read from the Frog and Toad book and used great character voices (complete with an English accent for both Frog and Toad).  We are learning how reading is an adventure and all of our Mystery Readers made reading a special adventure for the students on Friday.  Enjoy the rest of your Labor Day Weekend, stay cool, and as always, read at least 20 minutes a day with your child.  We will see all the students again on Wednesday.  Make sure you go through the new Kindergarten Binder that came home with your child on Friday while on break.