Conferences, Poetry & More!

We had a short but busy week here in Kindergarten! We worked hard and had lots of fun. The students worked hard in Literacy Lab, began working on Poetry, prepared portfolios for conferences and shared them with our Preschool Reading Buddies. Take a look below for more details.

In the listening area, students listened to the story Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss and drew about their favorite part.

 They also worked hard on their iReady lessons!

Ms. Roland worked with students on rhyming words and guided reading.

 Mrs. Arnold worked with students on upper/lowercase letters, letter sounds and beginning sounds.

 I worked with students on guided reading. We read the story "Ice Cream".

 Students made a connection to the story and wrote about where they like to eat ice cream. 

"I like ice cream at my mom's house."

"I like ice cream at the ice cream store."

"I like ice cream at the table."

We also learned about the vocabulary word place. We defined it as space or spot and they wrote, "A house is a place." & "My favorite place is school.".

 We worked on sounding out CVC words and writing the each letter as we said it.

We also began learning about poetry this week. Our class will be publishing our very own Poetry book using the company Student Treasures. You will have the opportunity to buy a copy too if you would like. Here are the books from the last 3 years classes. I shared these with the class and they were very inspired to learn about poetry! This week we learned to write three types of poems: All About Me, -ing, and list poems. They have enjoyed poetry so far and I can't wait to see what else they come up with!

Tayden wrote his -ing poem about his mom.

Here are Amaiya's All About Me poem & Gage's list poem about colors.

We got the student's portfolios ready for conferences. In order to get ready to share their work with their families at conferences, they shared their portfolios with their Preschool Reading Buddies!

I sent home a Spring Break Homework packet to keep the students busy over break. If your child wants to bring it back completed after break, they can choose a prize from the treasure box.

 Thank you to everyone who came to meet with me for conferences. I enjoyed sharing with you all. For those of you that I talked to, I explained that we will be taking a field trip on Tuesday, April 17th to the Montgomery County Environmental Learning Center at the Recycling Center. We are having lunch in our classroom that day since we are leaving right after lunch so I will need the yellow form returned with your child's lunch choice (packing a lunch or buying a turkey sandwich) so I can let the food department know a count of how many will be buying a lunch.

The purple sheet is for volunteers for our field trip. If you would like to volunteer, please return the bottom portion of the paper to school.

I also shared our upcoming events for the rest of the school year. 

Please look them over and add them to your calendar!

Even with a snow day and a day off for conferences, the students still met their iReady goal of passing 125 lessons over two weeks! We will be having a Show & Tell when we get back on Tuesday, April 3rd. I will send a reminder home the day before. 

Thanks for checking in. Have a wonderful and safe Spring Break! 

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant

St. Patrick's Day, Irish Dancers & More!

 It was another fun filled week full of learning and fun activities! The students worked hard in Literacy Lab, wrote and read about topics related to St. Patrick's Day, graphed the marshmallows in lucky charms and enjoyed them as a snack, had a popsicle party, did a directed drawing of a leprechaun, updated the student's data folders, learned about dragons from Mrs. Myers class, and watched a performance of Irish dancers. Take a look below for more details on our exciting week! 

 As always, the students worked very hard in Literacy Lab! In the listening area, the students listened to the story Ben's Trumpet and then wrote about their favorite part.

 They also worked hard on their iReady lessons!

Mrs. Arnold worked with students on letters, letter sounds, sounding out words, and beginning/ending sounds.

Mrs. Roland worked with students on rhyming words and guided reading.

 Students worked with me on guided reading, story comprehension & vocabulary. 

We read the story "Can I Make a Kite?", worked on making a connection to the story and wrote about that connection. Below this student wrote, "This story made me think about when I seen a kite in the sky when I went to my friends house."

The vocabulary word that we discussed this week was 'every'. Synonyms are each and all.

The students below wrote "Every day I put on my clothes" & "Every day I come to school".

For writing this week, the students wrote about what they wanted to do for Spring Break and what they would do if they found a pot of gold.

We also read and colored a book about 3-D shapes.

The students loved this Peek-A-Book Leprechaun book that we did. We read it together, the students colored it and then filled in the last page with where they would hide if they were a peek-a-boo leprechaun. They had some very creative answers! Below you will see some examples.

 I would hide "in my closet".

 I would hide "in a hat".

 I would hide "in the bushes".

 I would hide "behind a monkey".

 I would hide "in a cabinet".

 On Tuesday, we had our popsicle party that the students earned for meeting our iReady lesson goal. It was freezing outside and even snowed, but still the students wanted popsicles! 

They really enjoyed them and they were very yummy!

 On Wednesday while I worked with students on updating their data folders, Mrs. Rawlins came and worked with the class. The students love working with her, she is so sweet. She did a leprechaun directed drawing with the students and they did an awesome job at following her directions. Their pictures turned out so great!

 Mrs. Myers class learned about dragons and they wanted to share their work with our class. First we watched a video of the dragon dance that takes place in China.

 Then Mrs. Myers class put on their own dragon dance complete with a dragon head they made, drums, and dancers.

 Then students shared their writing and clay dragons with us.

We also got to go in and observe their dragon lair with dragon eggs and gold.

The students loved seeing their beautiful work and we thanked them for sharing with us! 

Students completed this rainbow paper where they colored a part of the rainbow for different things related to them such as their favorite color, eye color, hair color, etc. They also drew a picture of themselves.

Students had lucky charms for a snack on Friday. They sorted the marshmallows and graphed how many they had of each type. After they finished graphing the marshmallows, they got to eat them.

On Friday, the Richens/Timm Irish Dance Association performed for the school and the students really enjoyed it! They were amazing!

Last week, I sent home a paper to confirm conference times with you. Thank you to those of you who sent them back! I am still missing a few so please send those back by Tuesday so I can confirm my conference schedule. Thanks!

Thanks for checking in. Stop back next week to see what fun things we are up to next!

Have a great week and I will see you all for conferences Wednesday evening, Thursday evening or Friday!

Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant