Reading Skills Pyramid

Thank you Claire from http//kindergartenteacherclaire.wordpress.com for posting this very helpful reading skills pyramid.

Making Connections When We Read

As we move into the third quarter of school, our class is focusing on making connections with read aloud books.  "Making Connections" essentially means that students connect their personal knowledge or background experience to the text that is read.  Research has shown that readers comprehend significantly better when they are actively engaged in thinking about their own experiences and how it may relate to the topic of the book.

To better help your child develop and use this reading comprehension strategy, make sure you ask the following questions when your read with your child:

What does this book remind you of?
What do you know about this topic?
Does this book remind you of another book that we have read?

Your child should be very familiar with the concept of making personal connections to stories.  Please continue to read with your child at home and make connections together.

Temples and Tombs

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Congratulations to our friends in Mrs. Lister's second grade class (our book buddy friends) for their performance in "Temples and Tombs". 

Math Objectives for Kindergarten

These are some of the concepts that parents can help reinforce at home for this quarter.

• counting by 5s
• counting by 10s
• counting by 2s
• counting to 100
• identifying 2 digit numbers (1-100)
• writing 2 digit numbers (1-100)
• identifying pennies, nickles, dimes, and quarters
• identifying coin values (pennies, nickles, dimes, and quarters)
• practice measuring different things using a ruler

What Are You Wondering About Kindergarten?

I recently enabled google analytics to our website to see how many visitors we have and what everyone is interested in reading.   One of our most popular posts is about "The Daily Five" which surprised me because this post was just a very brief overview on what we do in class.  In the next month I will be posting more pictures and details about how we utilize Daily Five in our kindergarten classroom. 

What else are you interested in learning about our classroom, our daily activities, or anything related to our class?  I would love to have some new ideas on what to put in our website.  Leave a comment with any suggestions....

P.S. Anyone can leave a comment- if you do not have a profile in google or another blog, simply choose "Anonymous" to leave a comment.  All comments are reviewed by me before being post on our site, so your comment will not appear automatically.  Thanks!

Reading Rainbow Stills Captivates Five Year Olds

This picture just says it all about our love and excitement for Reading Rainbow in our class.  I always remembered watching Reading Rainbow when I was in kindergarten.  I loved it!  When I found our school library had some old VHS tapes (yes VHS) of Reading Rainbow I was so excited.  After finding one of the last VCRs in the entire school, our class was able to watch two different episodes- the first was "Murfaro's Beautiful Daughters" which featured an African danced troupe and helped us learn more about African-American History.  The second episode which we watched today was "Jack, the Seal, and the Sea" which explored pollution and different ways to keep our Earth clean.  This helped our class better understand the importance of recycling, pollution, and conservation (all science SOLS).  Even though some of these episodes are from the late eighties, they still have the magic blend to captivate five year olds with fiction book, a nonfictiontopics, and a virtual field trip to a new location.  Do you have any memories of Reading Rainbow?  Leave a comment if you like...

Reading Rockets: E-Cards

Check out these cute e-cards you can send your child to encourage reading

Reading Rockets: E-Cards

Birthday Wishes!

Usually I try to leave personal information off of my blog, but today is my 31st birthday and my students were so excited!  I had many homemade cards from my kiddos plus lots of birthday hugs.  It was an exciting day and we even had a little time for short dance party to get out our wiggles!  Many thanks to my wonderful room mothers and my wonderful assistants- Mrs. Greene and Mrs. Gabriel for making this day so much fun!

A Visit from a Dentist

Today we had a visit from Dr. Blanscet who helped us learn how to take care of our teeth.  He also taught us the importance of flossing. Thanks for a great lesson Dr. Blanscet!

Happy Valentine's Day

Thank You!

Dear Parents,
Thank you so much for all of our classroom donations!  We really appreciate the support and all the help to make our classroom be the best.  Thanks again and happy Valentine's Day!

Second Grade Hearts

Many thanks to Mrs. Lister's second grade class for helping us to make rainbow hearts.  The second graders explained the project and helped each kindergarten individually to create the rainbow heart.  What a special treat for Valentine's Day!

Wii Yoga and Tae Bo

" I like the YOGA!" 
"It was so fun when we were doing kickboxing and it was so easy.  Yoga was hard.  The kickboxing was so easy"

Learning About our Teeth

February is Healthy Teeth month!  Today in our morning class we had a dental hygienist explain the importance of brushing your teeth.  Thanks for a great lesson!

Celebrating Black History Month

February is black history month and today we watched the bookflix Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman.  We also have the book in our class so the students can reread the story.  Some other stories we will be reading for black history month are below.

Report Cards

Report cards will be sent home Thursday, February 11th.

Great Job Collecting 100 Cans of Food!

We did it!  We collected 106 cans to donate to celebrate the 100th day.  Many thanks to my husband and brother-in-law for coming to haul away the cans last Friday before the snowstorm.  That night the cans were delivered to the Food Bank of Virginia.  Thank you so much parents for all your support!

Five Senses Science Lab

Little Gulls is Rescheduled

John B. Dey Elementary  “Little Gulls” Preschool Outreach Program

Rescheduled for 2/11/106:00-7:30PM
R.S.V.P. 648-2440 extension 51323

Snow Day Updates

Here are some updates on our schedule:

1. Science Lab is still on!  If you are a schedule volunteer- please come at the scheduled time.
2. Please use the same word sort from last week for this week's homework.
3. The "Little Gulls" preschool outreach program (first meeting was Tuesday night) has been postponed until further notice. 
4. I'm not sure when report cards will be issued.  I will update as soon as I find out.

Happy Snow Day!

This post is for all my loyal website visitors from all over the country (thank you for your continued support).  Something very unusual happened- it snowed!   In the past, school has been cancelled with the threat of snow and I think it even snowed about half an inch one year (I think).  However, this weekend we got about 4-6 inches!  This is so exciting for kindergarteners and for myself- we will finally be able to mark snow on our weather graph!  This is my fifth year teaching kindergarten and I always tell my kiddos to wear the pajamas inside out the night before it is suppose to snow and hopefully this supersitition will make it snow.  It has never worked and this past Friday was such a hectic day (it was a half day) that I forgot to remind the kiddos to wear their jammies inside out. Anyways stay tuned for all the exciting events we will be doing this week in relation with snow- writer's workshop, reading snow books, creating snow number stories:)