What a fun week in room 135! Valentine’s Day was filled with much excitement and the class couldn’t wait to exchange their cards.  

Remember that Thursday is the 100th day of school! We will be doing many fun activities at school and look forward to seeing the t-shirts you have made!

~In language arts, we learned about the “th” digraph.  We generated a list of words that begin and end with “th” and then wrote some of them down. We read a funny story title, That’s Good, That’s Bad. We we enjoyed watching the main character think things were good, but they turned out bad! We then drew and labeled things from our own experience that was good…then bad! We also read another hilarious book titled, What if I Had Animal Teeth.  The students then got to pick what kind of animal teeth they would like to have. We created our new self-portraits and wrote about why we picked those teeth. In our literacy centers we wrote thank you notes to people, made a hidden message, and completed a valentine rhyme.

~In math, we continue to have our daily warm up question that get our brains thinking. We also practiced our tens and ones with our tens rods and ones cubes, and on Valentine’s Day we had a special BINGO with numbers up to 100! Next week it will be all about the number 100!!

~In social studies we had fun learning about Valentine’s Day and making crafts for our families.  Next week we will learn about George Washington!

Have a wonderful weekend!
~Meredith

TGIF!  Please remember to send in your Valentine’s Day cards and box/bag on the 14th.  A class list was sent home a few weeks ago.  If you need another one just let me know. If your child is planning to exchange cards, they must have a card for every child in the room.

We also have another very special day coming up.  On Thursday, February 21st will be the 100th day of school!  We are asking each child to decorate a plain t-shirt with 100 items on it. Information went home in orange folders today, but here is a picture of what it could look like.

Reminder!

• February 11-15 Coat Drive for Caring Clothes Closet RVA: This campaign is sponsored by our KES community service club. Please send in gently used children’s coats to help support those in need for warm winter items.   

• February 11-15 Children’s Hospital Foundations’ Change for Children Campaign: This campaign is sponsored by our KES SCA. 100% of the collection stay here in Richmond to support patients that are receiving services from Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU. Bring in any spare change for classroom change jars

~In language arts, we learned about the “sh” digraph.  We generated a list of words that begin and end with “sh” and then wrote some of them down.  We also read a book titled Shark Problem. We discussed what the problem was in the story and then came up with our own ideas on how to solve it. We also listened to everyone’s favorite song…Baby Shark. 🙂 In our literacy centers we did a digraph word sort, read parts for our readers’ theater, practiced our sentence writing, and looked for real vs nonsense words.  Next week, we will focus on the “th” digraph.

~In math, we continue to work on building and taking apart numbers.  We have been working in our number packet, building with ten rods and ones, and trying brain stretcher word problems.  The class always wants me to give them the “hardest problem ever.” 🙂

~In social studies we learned about Abraham Lincoln.  We read many books, watched a Brain Pop Jr., and research some facts on Pebble Go.  This class is so fascinated with learning about our famous Americans. They get so excited when I pull out another book to read and enjoy telling me all that they have learned.  Next week we will focus on having some Valentine fun!

Have a wonderful weekend!
~Meredith

We have officially made to the halfway mark of kindergarten!  It is always amazing to think back to September and realize how much they have grown academically, socially, and physically!  This is a great group of kids, and I look forward to seeing even more growth the second half of the year.

From Mrs. Patterson-

World Read Aloud Day is Friday, February 1st.  KES coyotes will be making Global Connections Through Reading during an assembly on that day and then in their classrooms throughout the month of February.  To prepare for our assembly, I am asking each and every KES family to share ONE picture of your family reading together and send that picture to your child(ren)’s teacher by Monday, January 28th.   The pictures will be used in a slide show that will be shared during our assembly. Our goal is to have every child in every classroom represented in the slide show.  Please help us show how much our coyotes love to read at KES!

Language Arts-

We have finished learning all the letters and sounds.  We will continuously review them throughout the year. Students have also been taught how to form all the letters.  This is a work in progress, but I remind the class daily about how important it is to make letters correctly. We will now move on to digraphs, beginning with “ch” next week.

Math-

We continue to “play” with numbers and this week we went all the way to 50.  We even looked at some 1st grade word problems! Those really stretched our brain, but we were up to the challenge. We ended out week with some fun math centers.  Next week, we will be working on numbers all the way to 100!

Social Studies-

We learned all about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this week. We read books, watched a Brain Pop, and wrote what our dream was.  Today we painted our own peace symbols. Next week, we will learn about shadows during science!

Have a great weekend!

~Meredith

It was a fun Friday in room 135 today!  We had a visit from Mr. C, our technology teacher, and he showed us how to do a Flipgrid!  We were very lucky to be the first K-1 class on chromebooks and logging in using our very own QR code!  Mr. C taught us how to make a video using Filpgrid to show what we learned about penguins and polar bears!  We had an awesome time listening to everyone’s facts. Mr. C is in the process of getting a shareable link for parents.  I’ll send it out as soon as I get it!

Reminder from Mrs. Patterson

World Read Aloud Day is Friday, February 1st.  KES coyotes will be making Global Connections Through Reading during an assembly on that day and then in their classrooms throughout the month of February.  To prepare for our assembly, We are asking each and every KES family to share ONE picture of your family reading together and send that picture to your child(ren)’s teacher.  The pictures will be used in a slide show that will be shared during our assembly. Our goal is to have every child in every classroom represented in the slide show.  Please help us showcase how much we love reading, and especially reading aloud, at KES!

Language Arts- Our focus this week was on the letter Uu.  We did sorts with the short Uu sound, made short Uu word families, and wrote sentences.  We also read a fun story called Sneezy the Snowman. It is a silly story about a snowman that can’t get warm, because he always starts to melt! We then made our own sneezy snowman and wrote what made our snowman melt.  We also dove into non fiction texts and discussed how they are different from fiction. We read many non fiction books this week and realized that we read non fiction books differently than fiction. Next week we will focus on the short Ee sound.

Math- In math we continue to work on number sense.  We specifically worked on counting objects up to 20 and then writing the corresponding number.  We also extended our activities with numbers well into the hundreds and even learned a little bit about place value.

Science- We finished up our research on penguins and polar bears today with our lesson from Mr. C. Earlier in the week, students chose which animal they were most interested in learning about.  When then used books from the library and pebblego on the ipads to collect our facts. Next week we will learn about Martin Luther King Jr.

Have a great weekend!

~Meredith

A full five days this week! We are definitely working on our stamina to keep focused for five days in a row.  Looking at the weather reports, we may have a short week again!  This has been a crazy winter.

Language Arts-

We finished up the short Oo sound and enjoyed Opposite Day today!  We had a lot of fun reading books from end to beginning, writing our name backwards, and just being silly has we talked to each other.  We all hope everyone has a bad weekend!  Next week, we will focus on the short Uu sound as well as researching with non-fiction books.

Math-

We finished up our unit on more and less.  We played lots of hands on games and played with numbers in our head to figure out what was one more and one less. Next week, we will be working on counting sets with numbers up to 20.

Science-

Today was a great day to talk about the winter season because it was so cold!  We also put the months of the year in order and filled out a January calendar.  See if your child knows the days of the week and what days come before and after.  We work on this skill every day in calendar, but would love for it to be reinforced at home too!  Next week, we will research animals in the winter.

Have a great weekend!

~Meredith

Welcome back! It was wonderful to see the students after our break. I think some of them grew during those 2 weeks!  It was nice ease our way back into school routines with a two day week. 🙂

In language arts, our focus was on the short Oo sound and working on our sight words.  We drew pictures and wrote about our winter break, read books about the New Year’s Resolutions, and wrote what our goal was for 2019. We got back into the swing of things with our literacy centers and learned a new poem.  Next week, we will continue to work on short Oo and word families. I will also be administering mid-year PALS.

In math, we have started to compare numbered sets.  We are using words like greater than, less than, and equal to describe a given set.  We also have been stretching our brains by having me give them an answer and they have to think of the question.  As we figured out, there can be more than one correct question!  We will continue with comparing numbers next week.

In science, we focused on the season winter and how it is different from other seasons. We did comparison charts, watched a Brain Pop Jr., used our senses to describe winter.  Next week, we will continue with learning about winter as well as months of the year.

SAVE THE DATE:  Thursday, January 31st; 5:30-7:00 PM, Kaechele’s Annual International Festival
We are asking families to sponsor a “booth” to share their personal connections and/or interests in a country from around our globe.  Help our KES coyotes become Global Citizens and become active participants in a larger society by building global awareness and demonstrating respect for fellow community members.   If interested in hosting a booth or volunteering in some aspect during this event, then please contact Ramnita Sandu ramnita_sandhu@yahoo.com or Parnita Singh parnitasingh123@gmail.com

Have a wonderful weekend! My daughter turns 13 tomorrow! I don’t think I am ready to have a teenager in the house.  Five and six year olds are more my speed. 🙂

Meredith

Hope you all had a nice winter break part 1 this week!  During the past two day we have been working on the short Ii sound.  To remember the sound short Ii makes, we pretend like we are itching our arm.  We did our reading centers today, and I was able to meet with all the groups. Your child has a new book coming home tonight, if they have brought back their old one.  Looking forward to next week with our spirit days, Jack Frost Jam, and winter party!

Spirit Days:

Monday- Tacky Holiday Sweater

Tuesday- Jack Frost (wear blue and white)

Wednesday- Pajama Day

Have a nice weekend!

~Meredith

Could you hear the screams of joy as the first snowflakes of the season fell this week?!  We were lucky enough to be outside when the snow started and see the kids reactions.

We had a busy, busy week in room 135.  We are working hard while still sneaking in some extra fun as we get closer to the winter break.  I enjoyed listening to the students present their Holiday Tradition project today.  They were very excited and proud to share about their holiday.

Our Winter Party will be on 12/18 from 12:45-1:45!  Be on the lookout for a sign up on myschoolanywhere for volunteering or sending in supplies for the party!  Thank you to Mrs. Huntley for organizing this fun event for our class!

Please remember to read the Coyote Courier every week to keep on top of school wide events and news!

Highlights from the week:

~In language arts, our focus was on short Aa sound and working on our sight words.  Our literacy centers had some extra fun rotations! Using our sight words, we made candy canes and used QR codes to listen to stories.  Next week, our focus will be on the short Ii sound!

~In math, we continued with number sense with a focus on tens and ones. Using the ten rods and one cubes students had to figure out what number was being built.  We also began discussion about part-part-whole.  This is when we break a number down by parts to make the whole. We will continue our number sense unit next week.

In social studies and science, we learned about needs and wants.  This is always a highly debated discussion on what is a need and what is want.  I always enjoy hearing the opinions as the students try and state their case of why something is a need or want.  They all agreed that a smartphone is a need for an adult, but not for a kid!

Have a great weekend!

~Meredith

It is hard to believe we made it to December!  We settled right back into our routines after our Thanksgiving break.  We are already very excited about the upcoming holidays and winter break.  It’s hard to believe it is only 2 ½  weeks away!

Just a reminder that I will be placing an order for Scholastic Book Club on Monday.  If you are interested in new books before the break, please go to https://clubs.scholastic.com/ and enter our class code J8JV4. Thanks to those that have already placed an order!

All students will have a bag of books that we have been working on in our small groups. Students are keeping the books in their desk, but can also take them home.  If they bring them home, just make sure it makes its way back into the backpack.

From Ed Krauss (music teacher):

Celebrate the holidays and upcoming winter break by attending the KES Winter Music Fest, Thursday, December 13^th @ 6:30pm in our gym! Enjoy an evening of song and merriment as our talented musicians, singers and dancers in grades 3-5 perform songs from the great American holiday songs collection, which you can be certain will warm your heart and put a smile on your face. That’s Thursday, December 13^th @ 6:30pm in our gym and dress for the party!

Highlights from the week:

~In language arts, our focus was on the letters Bb and Mm, sight words, and writing prompts!  We made reindeer by listening to step by step directions and then wrote about where our reindeer would like to go.  The reindeer are hanging up and turned out super cute. One of my favorite things to see are these budding writers put pen to paper.  They get so excited to see their ideas on paper.

~In math, we finished up our unit on graphs. We had a lot of fun this week making our own graphs, collecting data, putting our graph together, and then analyzing the data.  Today we did a few graphs using tally marks.  It was great practice for counting by 5’s! Next week we will start our unit on number sense.

In science, we learned about magnets and the terms repel and attract. We started off the week with an awesome lesson from the Young Scientists! We also discussed that magnets have a north and south pole.  We learned that when you put the opposite sides together they attract and that the same sides repel. We thought it was really neat to feel the same sides of the magnets pushing apart. We used our magnets to find things in the room that our magnet was attracted too.  Some favorites were the trash can, chair legs, and scissors.

Have a great weekend!
~Meredith

It was so nice to finally see the sun today! We had another productive week in room 135 and enjoyed learning about Thanksgiving.  I hope everyone has a wonderful few days off next week and can enjoy some time with family and friends.  I am thankful to work with your sweet kiddos every day!

Highlights from the week

~In language arts, our focus was on the letter Q and ending sounds.  We also had some fun Thanksgiving activities. One story we read was called Turkey Trouble. It was a fun story about how one turkey had many disguises so the farmer wouldn’t find him.  The students then had to come up with a disguise for the turkey.  There were many creative ideas! Today we made some turkey necklaces with a fun poem on back.  The kids are excited to show these off on Thanksgiving Day! The best part about today was the QU wedding!!! We had a blast!  Check out the pictures under the photos tab!

~In math, we started our unit on graphs and collecting data. We learned about the different parts of a graph, watched a Brainpop Jr. about pictographs, and learned about tally marks. We also made lots of different types of graphs from types of shoes to Thanksgiving items.  When the graphs are complete we had a fun time analyzing the data to see what has the most and least. Some students even use their choice time to make their own graphs! We will continue our unit on graphs for the next couple weeks.

In social studies and science, we learned about the first Thanksgiving and why we celebrate it today. We also discussed our own Thanksgiving traditions. The class was nice enough to tell me how to cook a turkey. Wow! I never know there were so many different ways to cook a turkey. Please enjoy your child’s directions coming home in the orange folder.

Have a great weekend and a wonderful Thanksgiving!

~Meredith