Busy Week Coming Up!

      We have a really busy, but exciting week coming up in kindergarten. This post is mostly about some reminders just to make sure that you are aware of all the events and opportunities coming up. There will be many pictures to come from this week.

Monday: Author Visit - Mary Bleckwehl

Author Mary Bleckwehl will be visiting our school on Monday, February 11th.  She is the award winning author of Henry! You're Late Again! If you are interested in ordering a book to have autographed, there was an order form sent home or you can print it from this link: http://www.marybleckwehl.com/Henry_OrderForm.pdf

Tuesday:  The 100th Day of School! 

We will be celebrating everything we have learned in kindergarten all week long! Please make sure you send your child's 100th day number collection heart with 100 things attached to it by Tuesday.

Wednesday: Fancy Lunch

This week we will be learning about etiquette when it comes to eating and table manners before we have our fancy lunch on Wednesday. For lunch we will be having special appetizers, center pieces on the tables, and music will be played by Mrs. Hanson and Mrs. Bergene. If your child would like to dress up for the occasion, he/she can come to school in dresses, shirt and ties, etc. Please make sure they still have proper shoes for gym and clothing for recess. 

Thursday: Valentine's Day

We will be filling our Valentine's bags throughout the week, so  please make sure that you send your child's Valentine's to school sometime before Thursday. We have a new student coming on Monday, and her name is Alexis! Please make sure you add her to the list of names. We will be doing fun Valentine's activities throughout the day, so there will be pictures to come.

Friday: Last day to send in your change for Pennies for the Plunge!

Our goal this year is to raise $200 as a building to benefit the Salvation Army food shelf. Our class has already brought in over $35 for the cause. If our school raises $200, a few lucky teachers (I am one of them!) will be participating in the Polar Plunge at the Big Freeze at Edgewater Park on Saturday, February 16th. 

Fun with Math and Reading in Room 206!

    We have been so busy in room 206! We have been working with our data notebook assessments, picking "just right books," starting guided reading groups, and new math routines. It's so fun to see the kids using all of those skills that we have been working on so far this year and applying them as we push ourselves to learn and discover more. I see so many lightbulbs going off throughout the day, and it brings a smile to my face. 

   There are many pictures to look at from the past couple of weeks. I put some descriptions between each set of pictures so you can learn about what we have been doing.

Below, you will find pictures of the kids working on place value with rods and cubes (tens and ones). 

We did a math project using a snowman to show our number collections. Each student was a told a number that they needed to represent three different ways (one in each snowball). 

    We recently learned about choosing "just right books." In order to become lifelong readers and readers that enjoy reading books, we need to keep some things in mind as we choose a book to read, and we call this, "I Pick."               

       We took a big chunk of our morning to practice choosing just right books. We spread out all of our classroom library's books around the room, and we really got to take our time choosing books that were a perfect fit for us. It was so much fun seeing the pride that the kids had when they had found a book that they could read independently. 

January Fun in Room 206!

     This month has already been a whirlwind of fun! Last week and this week we have been learning about polar animals (penguins and polar bears). We read books about penguins, watched video clips on their lives, and we even made a penguin project that practiced our writing, reading, and math skills. We love penguins so much that we are even walking like penguins in the hallway, playing penguins at recess, and the kids are calling me, "Mama penguin." It's been fun! We are looking forward to learning more about polar bears this week.

     Another great thing happened this week: Mrs. Neibuhr, our media specialist, came to our room to introduce the iPod Touches! We are so excited to start using them to help us practice our math and reading skills in a fun and hands-on way. We practiced them in small groups today to get us ready for using them independently next week. 

Check out some pictures from last week and this week!