Literacy Centers & Studio in the School

Happy February families! It's been quite chilly outside! Remember to send your child to school in warm clothing!

This month, we started literacy centers. Now that we have assessed each child for their reading level, every day students will meet in a variety of centers that support their reading including working with Ms. Rebecca, Ms. Darrell or I.

Reading with Ms. Darrell

Working with Ms. Rebecca

Reading in the classroom library

Working on the iPad

Writing Center

Listening Center

Today, we also started our Studio in the School art program. Ms. Monika, our resident artist will be coming in on certain Fridays to work with the students on art. Today, they explored different lines. They learned about straight lines, thick lines, dark/light lines, zig zag and curvy and spiky lines.

Viewing lines in art

The children were excited and super engaged in their art work! I can't wait to see what they create!

Website move

I've moved the class website to: Http://www.msesthersclass.com 

:)

Martin Luther King Jr

Reminder that Monday there is no school in observance of Martin Luther King Jr Day. Here are some websites to help you learn more about this important man:

http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/photos/gallery/martin-luther-king-jr/

http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collection.jsp?id=149

rhyming

We've been learning a lot about rhyming recently in school! We played this rhyming game on the SMARTboard together. Try it out and see if you find some rhyming words:

http://pbskids.org/sesame/elmo.html#/games

and here are even more rhyming games:
http://www.onlinemathlearning.com/rhyming-games.html

Welcome 2011!

I hope everyone had a relaxing break! I was so excited to see everyone in school today ready to learn new and wonderful things for 2011. I got to hear everyone's stories about what they did during the big snow storm!

Today, I also received the December reading log from a couple of students. Congratulations to those students on winning a certificate for a free one-topping personal pizza from pizza hut. Check out this website for more details about the importance of reading with your child: http://www.bookitprogram.com/Parents/index.asp

Today, we read Do Like Kyla by Angela Johnson.
We are starting to write personal narratives, which is a story about ourselves and takes place in 1 day! Do Like Kyla is a personal narrative about a girl who copies her big sister, Kyla.

In reading today, we worked on not only making predictions but also checking them to see if our prediction was right or wrong after we finished the story! Try this at home when you are reading:
-Stop in the middle of the book
-Make a prediction "What will happen next?"
-When you finish the story, ask youself if the prediction was right or wrong
-Why was it right/wrong?

Here is a website to help with making predictions:
http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/i/makingpredp1st.cfm

Happy Holidays!

Dear Families!

I want to wish everyone a happy and wonderful holiday break! Today, I sent home with each child an updated word wall with words we have learned, a book for your child to keep and a DVD with photos taken from our class and a short video of your child's story. We hope you enjoy it! Remember to continue reading with your child every night! :) Also check out Ms. Kim's website: http://sites.google.com/site/mskimonline/
for some fun and educational activities for your child to do while indoors.

I can't wait to see everyone in the new year!

Ms. Esther

Storytelling

Hi Families! I am so excited to announce that our class will be working on storytelling for the next two weeks! Today, we started by telling partners a story from our lives. I was so excited listening to stories about the children going to the playground, going to Target, playing, decorating Christmas trees and more! We will be recording the stories at the end of the unit through voice recorders.

I also want to connect this with an art project in creating a diorama. Please bring in any spare shoeboxes you may have! :)

Also, this Friday is our concert. The students will be singing! Please come join us as we celebrate the season through song!

Parent Teacher Conferences

Hi everyone! I can't believe it's almost the end of October. The kindergartners have been super busy learning so much! I will update with a new post soon. But I want to remind everyone that today I will be sending home the note to make an appointment for parent teacher conferences! Please send these back as soon as possible! I can't wait to meet with everyone!

September-We're all different and special!

I can't believe we've all been in school for a month already. We have done some exciting things this last month! We have been working on learning each others' names and learning all about our classroom and school.

One thing we did was to draw self-portraits. We noticed how we're all different because we all look different but we are also similar because we all have a nose, two eyes, a mouth! Check out our art work:


We've also been writing stories about things that are important and special to us. We learned we all have unique experiences!


In math, we also looked for things that are the same and things that are different. We even added the words to our math word wall.


Practice using the words same and different at home!

Welcome to our classroom!

our classroom!

one of our morning meeting greetings

dramatic play center
our classroom library

First Days of School

Hi everyone! I was super excited to meet everyone on Wednesday and I can't wait for our first full week of school! I loved learning everyone's names. On Wednesday, we learned some important things about being school. On Monday, we'll be learning more about what we need to do at school and creating our classroom rules. We're also going to start learning more about each others' names! I can't wait!

Getting Ready

I can't believe school is starting soon! I am so excited to meet all the new faces coming to our classroom!! I am incredibly excited about all the learning and exploring we are going to be doing this year!

I will be sending out detailed supply lists on the first day of school! If you have any extra empty boxes such as cereal boxes or any other food type boxes, please save them and donate them to our classroom! We will be using them in our dramatic play center.

Remember, the first day of school is September 8th 2010!! While, you're waiting--work on the alphabet with your child! www.starfall.com offers some really good alphabet practice!!

If you have any questions, please email me at esthertales@gmail.com

Taking care of animals

Hi everyone! Sorry its been awhile since I have updated the blog! I can't believe its almost June!! We have been working hard in getting ready for first grade! A couple of updates:

-Today, we went on a trip to the Green Meadows Farm! Everyone saw animals up close such as chickens, a pig, rabbits, mice, peacocks, and we even got to ride a pony. It got me thinking more about how we need to take good care of animals because they are living things too and have feelings! Check out this website to learn more about how to take care of animals: http://www.kindnews.org/

-Speaking of animals, we counted the money donated for Heifer and our class has raised up to $67!!! Thank you families of donating! Our class has voted and we decided on getting a share of a cow to give!

-For our end of year, kindergarten celebration our class will be singing two songs. We started practicing one of them---if you want a copy of the song-I can email it to you to have your child practice at home. On Tuesday, I will send home copies of the song!

Have a beautiful Memorial day weekend! :)

Plants!!

Thank you to all the families that came on Friday to celebrate mother's day with us! Our class always enjoys visitors! :) We hope all the moms/grandmas/aunts loved the roses! For anyone who would like a video of the song "My Mom" sung to the tune of the Temptations "My Girl," please email me and I will email it to you!

Do you know roses are plants? All flowers are plants! But there's more to plants than flowers! This month, we're learning all about plants! At the Queens County Farm, we all planted radish seeds! They're going tall and strong on our windowsill! We even started a plant journal to write about how much its changing! Later on this month, we will be growing other vegetables too!

Until then, watch this video from National Geographic for Kids about plants:
http://video.kids.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/kids/green-kids/plants-kids.html

Also when you go to the library, try looking in the nonfiction section for books about real things! They are great books to read and also to learn more about our world!

Mother's Day Celebration

All mothers are invited to join our class this Friday at 2:15 pm to come celebrate Mother's Day! Our class will be doing a little song followed by a slideshow and share from our class about what we have been doing and learning in school! We will have juice provided. If you want to bring any other healthy snacks, please feel free but remember to bring for our whole class to share! We're so excited! We hope to see you there!

Mothers Day Clipart by Mothers Day Central

Counting Money helps us buy things!

Exciting news! K-205 is proud to present our class MARKET!

From K205 2009-2010

From K205 2009-2010

From K205 2009-2010

We turned our dramatic play center into a market to help us practice using money!

Here are some websites we used to practice counting money:

Nickels: http://www.numbernut.com/advanced/activities/money_quiz_nickelcount.shtml

Dimes: http://alexandria-es10.lausd.k12.ca.us/Staff_pages/Henry_Anker/Mr_Anker_Tests_New/Math/Money/Coin_Counting/10_Coin_Counting.swf

Help Ed save money by putting it in his piggy bank! http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/games/ed_bank/index.html

Eating Healthy!

Hi families! Have you heard that our lunch room is now serving healthy food? :) We have been getting to try lots of new healthy recipes. One of them was black eyed peas! YUMMY!



Some of the healthiest foods we can get are vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, lentils, nuts and seeds! Try some new healthy food this month!

Also all this talk about eating healthy makes me think about what we will be learning this month: Planting! A lot of the healthy food we eat comes from healthy plants! When we went to the Queens County Farm, we saw a bit of the vegetables that they were growing!

April showers bring May flowers and now it's MAY! :D As we learn all about nonfiction books and how to write nonfiction writing-we will explore all about plants-the different parts, the different kinds--I am SO excited!! We also get to use some of the compost that our worms have been making to help our plants grow! Thank you to all the families that have been bringing in their leftovers to help feed our worms:

From K205 2009-2010

From K205 2009-2010

Composting!!

Hi families! Have you heard that our class has been learning all about chickens and worms and how they help our planet!!

Today, we learned about how to put together a compost bin to get it ready for our worms!!! We watched this video from a gardener who teaches us how to make a compost bin:

How to Make a Worm Bin -- powered by eHow.com



Ask your child what they learned about worms!

We will post photos of our worms soon!

Our visit to the farm

We went to the Queens County Farm last Friday and we saw lots of exciting things! Not only that but we got to try out some things that farmers do too!

Here are some things we saw:

From K205 2009-2010

Chickens running around!

From K205 2009-2010

Cows that we get milk from and sheeps we get wool from

From K205 2009-2010

Chicken coop!!

From K205 2009-2010

We were super excited to see chickens!

From K205 2009-2010

This farm used natural compost from WORMS to help their veggies grow! Check out the healthy beets, lettuce and other vegetables they are growing

To see more photos, check out the album I emailed to parents! :) There's lots of photos of us and everyone taking a turn to churn butter!


Listen and watch this story about the farm: http://www.shuifeng.net/Dic/LittleFox/LittleFoxShow.asp?id=702285481

What can you buy for 1 dollar?

Hi families! Thank you for coming out to our show and share! It was wonderful to see so many family members there! The class was so proud and happy to show off their musical talents! I mentioned to everyone during parent teacher meetings that our class is working on learning to use and exchange coins. Money is important because we can use it to buy things we need! Keep practicing at home how to exchange! Also below are some fun things that can help you practice how to use money:

http://arcytech.org/java/money/money.html

http://www.beaconlearningcenter.com/WebLessons/CoinsForCandy/money002a.htm

Reminder, tomorrow is our trip to the Queens County Farm. Dress for the weather! I will be taking photos and uploading it onto our class photo site. If any parent wants to view them, just email me at esther.tales@gmail.com and I will send you an invite! :)