Marvelous May

It's hard to believe these kiddos will soon be first graders, but they are so close to ready!  We are so excited for these last couple months of kindergarten as we synthesize the learning we have accomplished this year.  

Readers Ask Questions - To reinforce what we learned from Hootie the Owl, we paired up with reading buddies in Mrs. Leite's class.  Readers used post-it notes to mark pages where we had questions during reading.  We encourage families to keep practicing this comprehension strategy at home!

Practicing Addition and Subtraction - Kinder mathematicians continue to practice the abstract processes of addition and subtraction by using games and manipulatives to make it more concrete.  Some games we have played are:

• Decomposing Machine - Kinders split a set of beads on a pipe cleaner to "break apart" a number and record which numbers make up the larger number.  They try to find as many ways to decompose as they can.
• Subtraction Smash - Using a set of subtraction number sentence cards, kinders make play dough spheres for the number they begin with and "smash" how many they need to subtract.
• Piggy Bank Subtraction - We used REAL pennies for this one!  Kinders felt rich!  We told subtraction number stories about how much money we had in our piggy bank when we went to the store and how much we had left after we had to "pay" for something.  Kinders rolled two dice to determine which number to start with and which to take away.  This allowed them to practice remembering to always start with the bigger number.

Poetry Week - We hope you read some of the amazing poems your child brought home during poetry week before vacation.  Our team loved going on the search throughout the school for all six poetry stations and reading the featured poems.  

Iggy the Iguana - Our newest reading helper to teach comprehension strategies is Iggy!  Iggy the Iguana helps students remember to make inferences while they read.  On Friday, we learned the basics: that an inference is our schema (what we already know in our brain) plus clues from the book.  Teams 111 and 112 did some acting out and guessing (similar to charades) to practice this skill before we dive into books.  Can you guess what's happening in the pictures below?

Sentence Mechanics - Because our kinders have learned so much about sentence writing this year, we are working hard to make sure we use everything we know when we write a sentence.  That means:

• It starts with an uppercase letter.
• The rest of the letters are lowercase with the exception of names.
• The words have spaces between them.
• Passwords are spelled correctly.
• Each sentence has an ending mark.  

We practiced this by playing an old favorite, BOOM!  When a password was pulled, that child wrote that word in a sentence.  We are working to carry this skill over to writing throughout our day.

Weather Watchers - We loved revisiting our study of clouds by going outside on a warm day to draw and write about the clouds we saw.  Kinders used descriptive words and types of clouds to label their drawings.  Some descriptors included:

• puffy
• white
• cumulus
• stratus
• cirrus
• wispy
• like a blanket
• a sheet

Fort Day Friday - Fort Day Friday was a hit for Team 111!  What a great idea our class came up with for their most recent accomplishment of earning all their pom poms.  Many thanks to families for sending in flashlights and sheets to make our day complete!

Daily Reflections - Your child should have brought home their first daily reflection today.  We hope it offered you some ideas for conversation regarding their day in kindergarten.  Here are some things to remember regarding the daily reflections:

• keep them in red folders
• talk about choices from the day (we try to avoid terms such as good/bad - choices are either expected or unexpected)
• talk about how certain choices made others feel - if your child doesn't know, ask your child how they THINK it made others feel
• did your choices help or hurt the team
• if you have questions for me, please ask!

Reminders -

May 10th - Ignite the Night May 28th - Memorial Day - No School May 31st & June 1st - Kindergarten Screening - No School for Kindergarten students only June 1st - 4th Grade Concert, BHS Auditorium June 6th - Ed Fair June 19th - Spirit Day June 21st - Last Day of School (early release, 12:15)