Special Visitor!

Thumper, Mrs. Watson's lop eared bunny, paid our class a special visit on Friday as a reward for working hard and good behavior.  They enjoyed his visit and are asking when he will return.  

Candling our eggs!

Today we candled our eggs to find out "what's inside of our eggs?"  It is a little hard to see in the pictures but the students could see well and became very excited about their "sneak peek."

Make way for ducklings!

We are so excited!  We have duck eggs in our incubator.  We are expecting our ducklings to hatch in 35 days.  We have been busy researching Muscovy ducks and how to take care of them.  We are keeping journals to document our journey to "parenthood."  We cannot wait until we can see our babies waddle!  We have been marking off the days on our class calendar so we will know when to expect our special arrivals.  Each student is helping care for the eggs by turning them twice a day and keeping water in the incubator.  What a great first hand experience to learn about ducks!  Check back to see our ducklings!  

Second grade weather teachers

We are so excited to have second grade students from Mrs. Hutchins class visit us today.  They are teaching us about weather.  What great teachers!  We learned a lot from their visit!  Thank you for taking time to teach us about what you have been learning!

Help at Home

Thank you parents for all of the extra support you give your child at home.  Parental involvement greatly influences a child's success in the classroom.  I have spoken to many of you in the past few weeks about how to improve areas of concern on the report cards and/or MAP tests.  We have shared several of these ideas in newsletters throughout the year but I wanted to remind you of some ways that you can help at home.  Remember to keep learning fun!  

·        Make flash cards with numerals 0-20, mix them up, have students identify numerals and put them in correct order.  Have students count objects (such as cereal) and write the corresponding number.  

·        Practice counting 1-100. 

·        Use counters (beans, pennies, etc.) to fill in the tens frame in your homework folder to represent numbers 0-20.  Write the number of counters.  How many groups of 10 and how many extras does it take to create that number? 

·        Count on from a number other than 1.  Ex. start counting at 6 and see how high you can count.

·        Practice filling in missing numbers between 0-10.  Ex.  1 2 3 ___ 5 6 ___  8 9  10

·        View & sing along to educational YouTube videos, such as Jack Hartmann numbers in the teens.  This video teaches students the numbers 11-19 and how to write the numerals.  There are numerous sight word and math videos that will be fun and educational. 

·        Use the provided Math Workbook to practice pages that are on the same topic we are teaching in class.  You can find the topic number on the top of the sheets we send home; the page in the workbook will match the topic number.   

 

• Choose an activity from your sight word sheet in your homework folder to review sight words.  Practice a different activity each night. 
• Practice writing your alphabet using capital letter and lowercase letters.  Remember when writing your name to use a capital at the beginning of your first and last name only.   Review letter sounds. 
• Visit OES website.  Click on Tumblebooks to hear stories read aloud. 
• Cut out a magazine picture or draw a picture.  Practice sounding out and writing a word to match.  For example, cut out a tree and write the sounds you hear (t-r-e).  It is fine if the word is not spelled correctly; we are looking for beginning, middle, and ending sounds, not accuracy at this point.  Try to write a sentence or story to go with the picture.  

 

Visit these sites:

 

http://curric.spartanburg2.k12.sc.us/clologin.aspx   Compass Odyssey –

username: first and last name (Ex: John Smith)          password: k

 

http://studyisland.com/readingeggs/          Reading Eggs – student logins were sent home

 

http://www-k6.thinkcentral.com/ePC/logout.do  Students login with their lunch number as their user name and password.

 

Home Coaching Tips

               *be your child’s home reading coach

               *use the 100 BC skill cards

               *provide the time and opportunity for your child to read every day

               *provide a relaxed comfortable setting for your child to read

               *listen to your child read and let them hold the book

               *help with pronunciation

 

                *Use the strategies in your child's homework folder (ex. Owl eyes)

               *sign your child’s log sheet after reading (they log, you sign)

               *visit the library

               *set a good example for your child by reading – if they see you read, they will read, too

               *Keep it fun!       

 

 

Christmas

     Shhh....Have you heard, we're on a top secret mission to save Christmas?  The students in our class are very excited about our secret mission delivered by our very own elf, Jingle.  Last Monday, we came into class and found a mysterious envelope labeled "Top Secret" on our board.  Upon opening the envelope, we learned that Santa had spilled hot chocolate on his laptop ruining ALL of his files.  He needed some hard working students to help him recreate his files while keeping his secret.  If others found out that his files were ruined they would be worried!  We have spent the last two weeks, traveling around the world learning about Christmas traditions in other countries.  Santa has to be sure he understands each country's traditions before visiting...he would be embarressed to leave shoes unfilled (instead of stockings) or hide a pickle in a tree where children do not understand the pickle tradition!  The students cannot wait each afternoon as we board our "plane" (Google Earth) and zoom over each country to investigate landmarks such as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.  We also read a daily letter left by our elf and view a flipchart that provides more information about our country.  After researching our country, the students complete a fact sheet that includes three facts and illustrations specific to that day's country and have their passports stamped. 
     We have also been asked to complete an assignment for Mrs. Claus.  Our elf, Jingle reported to to Mrs. Claus that our gingerbread cookies smelled better than hers while cooking.  He thought Santa would like to try them...but Mrs. Claus needs our recipe.  She sent our class an email and asked if we would write the recipe for her, that would also let her see how our writing skills have improved over the year.  Each student has written a "How to Make Gingerbread Men" cookbook providing step by step directions for Mrs. Claus.  They have been very excited to share their recipes with her!  The details and writing in their books have been amazing! 
     The students have really enjoyed their research and writing activities during this unit.  They have felt that their work was important and have been eager to complete each assignment.  They cannot wait to "send off" their completed work to the North Pole at the end of the week.  They may or may not have shared their excitement with you at home because part of the excitement was that it was a "top secret mission" from Santa.  In case they have not shared, I wanted you to be aware of how hard they have been working over the last two weeks!  We are very proud of their hard work!          

Clemson Carolina Challenge

Clemson won our Clemson Carolina Challenge; we were able to raise a lot of money to go towards our Relay for Life team.  Thank you all for your support!  Our class was in the lead for kindergarten until the last couple of days.  We were not able to catch back up with Ms. Garner's class in the final count, but we tried hard throughout the challenge.  At the final count, either Dr. Patterson (Clemson)  or Mrs. Skinner (Carolina) had promised to kiss a pig.  We raised enough money that Mrs. Ford decided to get in on the fun and kiss the pig too!  Here are Mrs. Skinner and Mrs. Ford in the moment the students had been waiting to see.