Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Monday, April 20, 2015
Saturday, April 11, 2015
School Family Update 4.13
Welcome back from Spring Break! I hope every child enjoyed their vacation. Monday is the field trip to Cagle Dairy Farm. See the previous post for details. I'm sad to share Sammy moved over Spring Break and will no longer be in our class. We will be receiving a new student, Isaac, next week. We are excited to have him join our school family! See below for more details on what studetns will be learning.
Reading
In whole group, students will be hearing homophone stories and share homophone examples. Homophones are two words that sound the same but mean different things. For example, son and sun. There is son like a child and sun like in the sky. By the end of the week students will be expected to illustrate a pair of homophones and give a definition or use the words in a sentence. I will assess their knowledge on Friday.
Students will visit literacy centers. Instead of pulling small groups, I will begin the final GKIDS assessment where I assess some standards from this quarter as well as revisit any standard a student didn't meet previosly. GKIDS will be ongoing through May 1st.
Writing
We will be revisiting the narrative genre this week. Students will be challenged to write a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Students should also include details such as who they are with, where they are, and what they are doing. These sentences should have spaces, capitalziation, and punctuation in addition to phonetically spelled words. Their final writing piece on Friday will be kept in their assessment portfolio and be passed onto their teacher next year. We will go through the writing process: brainstorming, rough draft, editing/revising (they love the red pens!), and a final draft. The topic this week is fun with friends. What do you like to do with friends? Pick one time you had fun with your friends and write all about it. This is a very kindergarten friendly topic!
Science
Our parent/offspring unit will continue. Students will match parents with baby animals and identify similaries/differences between them. I will assess their knowledge this week. We will also participate in shared research to find information to answer what students wanted to learn in our KWL a few weeks ago. Many of their W-want to learn responses were about baby animals. We will also research how to care for baby chicks/eggs since ours will be arriving soon!
Math
Students will be learning more about tens and ones this week. There are 2 parts of this topic. 1) Students will need to take a teen number (or more) and decide how many groups of ten there are and how many ones. 2) Students will use base ten blocks (ten sticks/towers and ones cubes) to make a teen number. For example, if I say 17 the student would use one ten stick and 7 ones. Students will practice these skills by playing memory, using the tens blocks in small groups, and completing worksheets. These skills will build on our work with tens frames before the break. This can be a hard concept for kinders which is why we left it until the end of the year. With their addition knowledge, it may be easier to understand 1 group of ten plus seven ones is 17 like 10+7=17.
Other
- Field Trip on Monday
- Tuesday morning students will have an extra Art class due to earning 80 stepping stones!
- May 8th Mother's Day celebration at 8am.
Reading
In whole group, students will be hearing homophone stories and share homophone examples. Homophones are two words that sound the same but mean different things. For example, son and sun. There is son like a child and sun like in the sky. By the end of the week students will be expected to illustrate a pair of homophones and give a definition or use the words in a sentence. I will assess their knowledge on Friday.
Students will visit literacy centers. Instead of pulling small groups, I will begin the final GKIDS assessment where I assess some standards from this quarter as well as revisit any standard a student didn't meet previosly. GKIDS will be ongoing through May 1st.
Writing
We will be revisiting the narrative genre this week. Students will be challenged to write a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Students should also include details such as who they are with, where they are, and what they are doing. These sentences should have spaces, capitalziation, and punctuation in addition to phonetically spelled words. Their final writing piece on Friday will be kept in their assessment portfolio and be passed onto their teacher next year. We will go through the writing process: brainstorming, rough draft, editing/revising (they love the red pens!), and a final draft. The topic this week is fun with friends. What do you like to do with friends? Pick one time you had fun with your friends and write all about it. This is a very kindergarten friendly topic!
Science
Our parent/offspring unit will continue. Students will match parents with baby animals and identify similaries/differences between them. I will assess their knowledge this week. We will also participate in shared research to find information to answer what students wanted to learn in our KWL a few weeks ago. Many of their W-want to learn responses were about baby animals. We will also research how to care for baby chicks/eggs since ours will be arriving soon!
Math
Students will be learning more about tens and ones this week. There are 2 parts of this topic. 1) Students will need to take a teen number (or more) and decide how many groups of ten there are and how many ones. 2) Students will use base ten blocks (ten sticks/towers and ones cubes) to make a teen number. For example, if I say 17 the student would use one ten stick and 7 ones. Students will practice these skills by playing memory, using the tens blocks in small groups, and completing worksheets. These skills will build on our work with tens frames before the break. This can be a hard concept for kinders which is why we left it until the end of the year. With their addition knowledge, it may be easier to understand 1 group of ten plus seven ones is 17 like 10+7=17.
Other
- Field Trip on Monday
- Tuesday morning students will have an extra Art class due to earning 80 stepping stones!
- May 8th Mother's Day celebration at 8am.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Standardized Testing & Your Kindergartner
Kindergarten does not have a standardized test. Grades 3-5 does have testing, and I will be pulled to proctor in a 3rd grade class this year. Therefore, on testing days from 8-11ish I will not be in the classroom. I will return as soon as the third graders finish so some days it may be earlier. Ms. Jackson will be implementing my plans during that time. There will be no book in a bags going home. Please make sure your child arrives on time each day. It is important they are in the room prior to 7:40am. No visitors are permitted during the testing period. This means no lunch visitors and no early dismissal. Therefore, please don't schedule any appoinments in the morning in April. I will only be pulled five days but various grades will be testing throughout April so our specials schedule is CRAZY. Seriously, I printed out three different schedules and worked on it for about 30 minutes before I could put it on the specials calendar. Please refer to it each day or pack tennis shoes in your child's bag. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.
Bullet point version:
- No lunch visitors on testing days.
- Mrs. Daugherty will not be in the classroom on testing day mornings.
- Thursday, April 16th
- Monday, April 20th
- Wednesday, April 22nd
- Friday, April 24th
-Tuesday, April 28th
- Arrive to school on time and no early dismissal until after testing finishes each day.
- Check specials calendar often or pack tennis shoes.
Bullet point version:
- No lunch visitors on testing days.
- Mrs. Daugherty will not be in the classroom on testing day mornings.
- Thursday, April 16th
- Monday, April 20th
- Wednesday, April 22nd
- Friday, April 24th
-Tuesday, April 28th
- Arrive to school on time and no early dismissal until after testing finishes each day.
- Check specials calendar often or pack tennis shoes.
Cagle Farm Field Trip
Our field trip is fast approaching! It will be the Monday we return from Spring Break. Please make sure your child arrives on time for school (7:40am or earlier). Students will begin using the restroom and prepping for the trip after announcements. The goal is to be on the bus and departing 8:30-8:45ish. We will spend 1 1/2 hours at the farm. I have never been but have heard great things. We will see cows, possibly taste some milk, and go on a hay ride.
This trip connects to our animals and parents/offspring unit. It also connects to our project based learning activity. Each grade level has a project they are working on from March-May. Each PBL begins with a driving question. Our question is "How do animals and plants live?". This field trip will provide us with more information.
We will be eating lunch in the classroom when we return. A yogurt pack is one of the options for lunch. Lunch will be much later than we are used too. Students will eat around 12 depending on when we leave the farm. This is an hour past our regular time, and students will not be having a snack on the trip. Please make sure they have a filling breakfast (I know it will be hard to get up!). After lunch, students will have specials and then write in their journal about the field trip. Special thanks to Marla and Juanita for volunteering to go with us!
Reminders
- Wear long pants (It's best for the hayride.)
- Wear tennis shoes.
- Apply sunscreen before arriving to school if desired.
- Eat a big breakfast.
See everyone Monday!
~Mrs. Daugherty
This trip connects to our animals and parents/offspring unit. It also connects to our project based learning activity. Each grade level has a project they are working on from March-May. Each PBL begins with a driving question. Our question is "How do animals and plants live?". This field trip will provide us with more information.
We will be eating lunch in the classroom when we return. A yogurt pack is one of the options for lunch. Lunch will be much later than we are used too. Students will eat around 12 depending on when we leave the farm. This is an hour past our regular time, and students will not be having a snack on the trip. Please make sure they have a filling breakfast (I know it will be hard to get up!). After lunch, students will have specials and then write in their journal about the field trip. Special thanks to Marla and Juanita for volunteering to go with us!
Reminders
- Wear long pants (It's best for the hayride.)
- Wear tennis shoes.
- Apply sunscreen before arriving to school if desired.
- Eat a big breakfast.
See everyone Monday!
~Mrs. Daugherty
Author Party 2015
Last week, we had a publishing party to celebrate the students completing their books. First, they wrote about their favorite things. Then, we passed those papers onto Ms. Tejada who scanned them into the computer and printed out the words on labels and stuck them into the books. The books were returned to class, and students illustrated their books. They also designed the cover and dedicated their book. This was a great way for students to learn about the writing process, grammar, parts of a book, and matching pictures to text. PTA also helps make this project possible. Students K-2 get to make a book. We were excited to have some special guests that came to hear our stories. If you weren't able to make it, I hope you have been able to look at their books at home. I would also like to thank Ms. Hart for supplying snacks and drinks for the party.
Art Day 2015
On Friday, March 27th students particpated in Art Day (afternoon 12-2). Ms. Arrington designs activities for each grade level. This year she tied the activity into social studies standards. We learned about Africa and then made cloths. Students listened to a story and then made a spider. Anansi the spider was the main character. Below are some pictures!
STEM Day-April
The April STEM challenge was to find a way to keep bunnies from eating vegetables from a garden. Students used yarn, glue, tape, popsicle sticks, notecards, cubes, foil, and various other materials. We researched fences and compared heights and styles of the ones we saw. Students recorded each step of the engineering process in their stemfolio. We only have one more STEM day left in May. The challenge will be state wide! More info. to come. I forgot to take pictures on this STEM day because we had a visitor in our room from a Gwinnett County school who is looking to implement stem next year. The kids are pro's at making designs and implementing them now. I love that they don't get frustrated when they are not successful at first.
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