A Garden Begins to Grow...

Last Friday we were visited from Christine Gall who works for the Burlington School Garden Network.  Christine read a book One Bean by Anne Rockwell and we learned how bean seeds grow!  Students then split up into two groups one to grow a lima bean seed in a plastic bag to watch the process from seed to 'plant' and the other to plant a pea seed which will later be transplanted outdoors to our school garden.  This morning we observed the first growth of our plants!

A Busy Week

Our student teacher, Ms. Gunnarsson, has been taking the lead this week and will again next week as she prepares to complete her student teaching and graduate in May.  We went to the woods on Tuesday of this week instead of today.  Students were excited to enjoy the sun and observe insects and birds coming back to the woods.

Students have been working to write books using the sentence starter "I like..." in Writer's Workshop focusing on putting spaces between their words and adding a period at the end of a sentence.  We continue to work on subtraction in Math and today students acted out the book Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons.  Some students worked with me to play the subtraction game Splash! and really enjoyed using pom poms to take away from one side of the board to another.

It Feels Like Spring!

Many thanks to the staff and students at Rock Point for extending the Maple Sugaring Season and teaching us more about the process of how Maple Syrup is made last Friday!  It was a busy, wet day but Kindergarten enjoyed this opportunity.

Today we started talking about subtraction in Math and students discussed that subtraction is taking away or minusing things.  We will continue to work on subtraction over the coming weeks.

During Reader's Workshop Ms. Gunnarsson read another community helpers book Let's Meet a Doctor by Bridgette Heos and students are working on demonstrating what they have learned by drawing a picture and writing about a community helper of their choosing.

Visit from Author Jason Chin

Author Jason Chin visited CP Smith today and Kindergarten was very excited to meet a published author!  It was a wonderful experience and we are very grateful to Ms. Beth and the PTO for arranging this.

We were also able to get to the woods for a little while before the rain came!  This afternoon we worked to s-t-r-e-t-c-h out our words and write the sounds we heard.  Kindergarteners chose four words they wanted to write, drew a picture and labeled it.

A New Math Program!

Kindergarten was excited to use a new math program at the computer lab today: www.zearn.org.  Zearn is a free, common core aligned website that allows students to progress through over 150 digital practice activities.  It is designed for Kindergarten students to practice number sense concepts, such as counting and composing/decomposing numbers up to 20.  Once students successfully complete activities they automatically progress to more challenging work.  Tomorrow or Friday students will come home with login information so that they can use this resource at home (if you wish) on a computer, tablet or phone. 

 

  

Spring Showers Bring Summer Flowers!

While we all enjoyed the sun yesterday, it looks like a rainy rest of the week.  Yesterday we read our Chicken Soup with Rice Poem for April:

This morning we did a fun art project.  Students used watercolor paints to paint an umbrella and then used the 'fan fold' taught by Ms. Hawkes in Art class to turn it into an umbrella.  Ms. Gunnarsson created a beautiful bulletin board in the hall displaying the Kindergarteners art work!

Fifth Grade students have been coming into the classroom to read the 2016-2017 Red Clover Books, Vermont's Picture Book Award Winners.  Yesterday we listened to a student read Raindrops Roll by April Pulley Sayre.

Happy April!

Kindergarten has been very excited to check the weather each morning.  We even brought out a thermometer last week to check the temperature last.  Kindergarten has been working hard to make predictions that make sense knowing that 32 degrees is when water freezes and about 70 degrees is room temperature.

In Math today we read the book If You Were a Plus Sign and discussed some important math vocabulary: sum, total, more than, part and whole.  After reading the book Kindergarten worked to create their own story problems which are on display in the hallway.