Newsletter: December 15

Next Week's Specials:

Monday - Music

Tuesday - Art

Wednesday - PE, Library

Thursday - STEAM

Friday - Music

Coming Up...

Next week is Holiday Spirit Week at Bauer!  Click here for details... Holiday Spirit Week

• Classroom Christmas Party: Thursday, December 21 from 12:15-1:15 p.m. (no gift exchange)  
• December 25-January 5: Holiday Break (School resumes on January 8)

Reading:

In Reading, we continue learning about different kinds of pattern books.  This week we learned that the repeating words in a pattern book make it easy to retell.  We practiced this with the book, I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.  We also learned that there is a growing pattern in this book because each item that the old lady swallowed got bigger and bigger.  We also read a book with a shrinking pattern, The Napping House.  One more type of pattern we talked about this week was a question and answer pattern.  We used Who Stole the Cookies From the Cookie Jar? and took turns using all of our classmates names to fill in the blank.  We had a lot of fun with this lesson!  

Writing:

In Writing, our focus is also on pattern books.  We have been taking our time writing a pattern booklet together about things we like about our playground.  We wrote a new page each day and focused on learning how to write the letters correctly and how to stay within the lines.  We finished this shared booklet and illustrated the pages.  Next week we will begin writing our own pattern books!  

Math: 

In Math, we learned about number partners.  Number partners are the numbers that can make up another number.  For example, partners of 5 are 3 + 2, 2 + 3, 4 + 1, 1 + 4, 5 + 0, or 0 + 5.  Students worked with partners to create number partners for 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.  They used pennies and popsicle sticks (break-apart sticks) to visually represent the number partners, and then wrote the expression (such as 2 + 3) underneath.  We also practiced writing teen numbers this week.  

  

  

 

Newsletter: December 8

Next Week's Specials:

Monday - STEAM

Tuesday - Music

Wednesday - Art, Library

Thursday - PE

Friday - STEAM

Coming Up...

• Marco's Pizza Night: Tuesday, December 12 (Don't forget to mention my name when ordering)
• Santa's Secret Shop: December 14 & 15 (Our class shops on Thursday, December 14 at 2:00pm.)  
• Classroom Christmas Party/Wear Red and Green Day: Thursday, December 21 from 12:15-1:15 p.m. (no gift exchange)  
• December 25-January 5: Holiday Break (School resumes on January 8)

Gingerbread House Party:

Thanks to all the parents and grandparents who came to the party!  Just look at all those cute gingerbread houses! :)

Reading:

This week, we began learning about pattern books.  We learned that pattern books have repeating words on every page and usually only one word changes on each page.  Sometimes that word is at the beginning of the sentence, sometimes it is at the end, and sometimes it is in the middle.  We also learned that many times pattern books have a surprise ending on the last page.  We practiced reading pattern books during our reading workshop time.  

Writing:

Our writing unit is all about pattern books too!  This week we began writing a pattern book together as a class.  Our pattern book is about the playground and the things that we like to do on the playground.  Each student has his/her own booklet, but we are writing the same sentence on each page.  We will finish this shared booklet next week, and then students will begin writing pattern books of their own.  

Math: 

This week we practiced subtraction with numbers less than 10.  We also focused on seeing teen numbers as ten and some extra ones.  The students worked with a partner and made equations such as...10 + 2 = 12, 10 + 5 = 15, and 10 + 8 = 18.  They used pennies to visually represent the numbers too.  

Newsletter: December 1

Next Week's Specials:

Monday - PE

Tuesday - STEAM

Wednesday - Music, Library

Thursday - Art

Friday - PE

Coming Up...

• Kindergarten Gingerbread House Party: Friday, December 8 @ 2:00pm
• Marco's Pizza Night: Tuesday, December 12 (Don't forget to mention my name when ordering)
• Santa's Secret Shop: December 14 & 15
• Classroom Christmas Party/Wear Red and/or Green Day: Thursday, December 21 from 12:15-1:15 p.m. (no gift exchange)
• December 25-January 5: Holiday Break (School resumes on January 8)

Gingerbread House Party:

On Friday, December 8, our Kindergarten class will be having a special event!  Each child will make a small gingerbread house.  I am asking for your child to have an adult with him/her from 2:00-2:50pm.  This can be a mom, dad, grandparent, aunt, uncle, or family friend.  (Please make other arrangements for younger siblings). Together, the adult and your child will use a milk carton, graham crackers, frosting, and candy to make a gingerbread house.  Please consider donating an item or two for our party.  Click on the following link to sign-up: 
Gingerbread House Party Donation List

Writing:

The kids are really enjoying writing like scientists!  They have been working so diligently and quietly during writing workshop, and they are doing an amazing job with spelling, spacing, punctuation, etc...  By mid-week, most of them had finished writing about all of the objects in their bins, so we decided to take a nature walk outside to look for some more fall items to write about!  We will begin a new unit on pattern books next week.  

Reading:

In December, our Reading and Writing units will line up perfectly!  At the same time we are working on writing pattern books, we will be reading pattern books too.  This week, I read aloud some books that have repeating patterns, like Pete the Cat Saves Christmas, and we began looking for patterns in the books that we are reading in our book bins.  Throughout the unit, we will learn about all the different types of patterns that books can have.

Math:

In Math, we began Unit 3.  The big focus of Unit 3 is on teen numbers.  We learned how to count to 20 on our fingers using the "finger freeze."  For example, to count 11, we flash ten fingers, then freeze, then show 1 finger.   

We also worked on counting objects (more than 10) and on addition number sentences (with addends that are 5 or less, such as 4 + 3 = 7).