It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas!

So far this week.....

We read A boy, a dog, and a frog by Mercer Mayer

This is a picture book. We had a great time doing a picture walk and making up our own story! The story the kids came up with is below!

We also read Mooseltoe by Margie Palatini

After reading this book, we discussed the 5 W's: Who, What, Where, When, and Why

We had a great time talking about the different things Moose did to get ready for Christmas and then the kids had the opportunity to discuss what they do to get ready for Christmas!

Today we read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bell by Lucille Colandro

After reading this adorable book, we completed our story map! The kids did a great job retelling the story!

We have read several books like this one. For example, we have read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly, There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat, and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Leaves. We used our Text to Text Connections chart to compare two of the books.

We completed a brainstorming chart about Christmas! For the next few weeks, my students will be writing sentences about these specific topics!

We now have a Smart Board!!! I am sooooo excited about this new piece of technology! Below is an example of how I am going to do attendance for the month of December using the Smart Board!

Here are some of our centers this week:

{Students will sort light bulbs by size}

{I have several Christmas puzzles for the kids to do}

{Christmas Pattern Block Mats that I got from here}

{Students will practice re-reading our Shared Reading for the week....Christmas Lights and they will practice reading their color words}

{Pinch the correct number...Students will count the objects and pinch the correct number}

All of my other center ideas came from 2 Teaching Mommies blog!

Here is a peak at our Christmas tree!! We had so much fun today listening to Christmas music and making our Fruit Loop garland!

So sorry for the very long post, but I had a lot of catching up to do!!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,

The Burgins

Parent Night Correction

Parents, I noticed on my last newsletter that I had the date for Parent Night as November 25. It is November 29th! I hope to see you all there and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving!!

November 18th Newsletter

Mrs. Burgin’s Kindergarten News

Literacy Focus for Next Week:
· Illustrations match words in a book
· Elements in a story-characters, setting, and events
· Pictures vs. text
Writing:
· Starting sentences with a capital letter
· Writing complete sentences
· Stretching words to hear sounds
Phonics:
· Letter Tt
Sight Words:
· to, the
Math Focus for Next Week:
· Counting to 50
· Comparing numbers 11-17
· Comparing objects in a line
Upcoming Events and Dates:
· Thanksgiving Feast- We will have our annual Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast on Friday November 18th at 2:15.
· Thanksgiving Break – We will be dismissed from school for Thanksgiving break November 21-25.
· Kindergarten Parent Night is Tuesday, November 25th from 6:00-7:00 p.m. in the Cafeteria.
· I am sending home book orders today! These will make great Christmas gifts!!

Thanks for all you do and I hope you have a great Thanksgiving!

A Plump and Perky Turkey

Yesterday we read A Plump and Perky Turkey. My kids loved it!

{We discussed some other words to use besides plump}

{We discussed the 5 W questions: Who, What, Where, When, and Why to retell the story}

{Today the students practiced sorting picture cards by their beginning sounds...so proud of how well they can do this!}

And here is a little glimpse of what you will see Friday for our Thanksgiving Feast!

I hope to see you at our Feast!

Monday Update

Today we read Turkey Trouble by Wendi Silvano. Such a cute book!!

The turkey disguises himself as different animals so he doesn't get eaten for Thanksgiving! Before we read the end of the book, I had my students predict the last thing he disguised himself as. Here are some of their predictions:

I love to see how well they are writing and how much it improves each day!

Here are our centers for this week {Which came from Kindergarten Crayons and Confessions of A Homeschooler Blogs}:

{At this center they will work on sorting short and long vowels}

{Here they will practice reading the word on the flower and then writing the word on the marker board.}

{This week they will listen to If you Take a Mouse to School}

{They will practice reading ordinal numbers and look for rhyming words}

{Here they will practice graphing and reading the graph to determine which is more or less}

{At this center they can practice sounding out 3 letter words}

{At this center, they will practice reading number words}

I am excited about this fun and exciting week we have planned!!

All of my center ideas came from here and here!

November 10th Newsletter

Mrs. Burgin’s Kindergarten News

Welcome Parents!

Literacy Focus for Next Week:
Reading:
· Illustrations match words in a book
· Elements in a story-characters, setting, and events
· Having conversations about topics from a book
Writing:
· Starting sentences with a capital letter
· Writing complete sentences
· Stretching words to hear sounds
Phonics:
· Letter s
Sight Words:
· he, we, she
Math Focus for Next Week:
3 Dimensional Shapes
· Describe and identify shapes
· Positional terms with 3D shapes (The sphere is above the tree, the cube is behind my book, etc.)
· Identify shapes regardless of size or orientation (upside down, sideways, tilted, etc.)
Upcoming Events:
· Thanksgiving Feast – We will have our annual Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast on Friday, November 18th at 2:15 p.m. Please refer to the note in your child’s folder for more details.
· Thanksgiving Break – We will be dismissed from school for Thanksgiving November 21-25.
· Kindergarten Parent Night is Tuesday, November 29th from 6:00-7:00 p.m. in the Cafeteria. Remember, we ask that siblings do not attend this special night.

Thank you for everything you do!

All About Indians

This week we are spending a couple of days discussing Indians! Yesterday we read The Legend of the Bluebonnet by Tomie DePaola and then practiced retelling the story. My students did a great job at retelling this story!

{This is what we did as a whole group. I had several students tell the class what happened in the beginning, the middle, and the end and then they had the opportunity to illustrate it for the class.}

After completing the whole group activity, they created their own beginning, middle, and end (BME) pictures. Here are some examples:

I was very impressed with how well each student did on this assignment! I am not sure if you have ever read this book, but it is a tough one to comprehend, especially for Kindergarteners! My students really impressed me!

{Each student chose their own Indian names!}

Today we read and studied the poem Indian, Indian, What Do you See?

Before I showed them my lovely illustrations (ha) I had all of my students close their eyes and imagine in their heads what the story would look like. I read the poem and then had them go back to their seats to illustrate something for the poem. We discussed that good readers make mental images! They were so creative! I had them share what they drew a picture of and why with a partner. Here are all of their pictures below:

It is amazing to see how much these kiddos are learning each day!

Story Retelling and Long Vowels

Pinterest is a great website for teachers!! It has given me so many wonderful ideas for my classroom! Here are some new charts I made...of course the ideas came from Pinterest!

This week at school, I am going to spend a lot of time focusing on retelling stories and comparing different texts:

I will also be introducing Long vowels

{Obviously I still have 3 more charts to do}

Oh and below is another new addition to my classroom! My sweet friend Kristy gave me this adorable owl!