A Rainy Tuesday

We were able to beat the rain and get outside this morning.  This morning after morning meeting we watched a video about bees to learn more about pollination.  Also, during Reader's Workshop I read The Bumblebee Queen by April Pulley Sayre.  Kindergarteners had lots of questions about bees and tomorrow we will be looking at a diagram to look at the different body parts.  All insects have 6 legs, 2 antenna and 3 body parts: head, thorax and abdomen. 

During Math we used teddy bears to work on solving subtraction problems with the numbers 9 and 10. 

Welcome Back!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful April break and had a chance to enjoy the warmer weather! Students were excited to be back at school and reconnect with their classmates.  There was also LOTS of excitement around the growth of our pea plants!  These will soon be transplanted to our raised garden bed outside.  We also observed growth with our Lima Beans.  Students have been able to observe how a seed grows over time.

This afternoon I read the book Brilliant Bees by Linda Glaser and Kindergarten learned a BIG word: pollination!  Students were very interested in learning that bees in addition to making honey, bees are responsible for helping many of the fruits we enjoy grow.

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.