Miss Hutchison's Class Blog

OUR LEARNING:

Popcorn Words – Our popcorn words this week were “am,” “are,” and “little.” We practice writing, reading, and building sentences with these popcorn words during literacy centers each week! 

 

Math – In math this week, we spent lots of time practicing writing numbers 6-10 in order. We’ve also been looking at patterns in simple addition and subtraction, such as 5+1, 6+1, 7+1. Additionally, we learned all about triangles this week! 

 

Writing – This week, we continued Writing like Scientists! We looked at lots of nonfiction books (written by scientists!) to see the ways they teach readers about something. Then, we wrote our own books, just like scientists! Your kindergartener was so proud to write their name on the “author” line. We added a new detail to each page of our books describing the given object. We wrote two books this week: one about a mini-eraser (dog, cat, apple, or star) and one about a gourd. They were so excited to bring their 2 books home to read with you!!

 

Reading – In reader’s workshop this week, we focused on two things: FEELINGS & FOCUS. First, we learned how to stop and think about how characters might be feeling in a story. Each student got a sticky note to stick on a part of the story where they noticed a character’s feelings. Then, they shared these findings with their reading buddies. We also are working on staying focused and reading independently during reader’s workshop each day. So far, we have made it to 8 minutes of reading!  

 

Social Studies: We started a new social studies unit this week: Wants & Needs. After watching a little video about wants and needs, we began by making a big chart and sorting the different things we want vs. the things we need in order to live. Then, throughout the whole week, we did multiple different coloring and sorting activities to practice recognizing the difference between wants and needs. (We WANT a tablet or a toy, but we NEED a winter coat and boots).

 

Winter Routines: Now that the snow has arrived, we’re learning how to take care of our winter clothing! We practiced hanging up our snow pants & coats and putting away our gloves, hats, and boots. Our kinders have been doing a great job of bundling up before recesses – on Friday it only took us 8 minutes to get ready for recess! 🙂  

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CELEBRATIONS:

Top Frog – We loved having Nathan as our Top Frog this week. Next week’s top frog is Kendrick! Your child will have a chance to be our top frog soon, too. 

Mystery Reader: On Wednesday, Colton’s grandma surprised our class as our mystery reader! She read two books to us, and she even brought a copy of Wacky Wednesday for our class to keep. Thanks for reading to our class! 

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Notes for Parents:

• Our Thanksgiving Centers will be held on Tuesday, November 20 from 2-3 pm. Interested in helping lead a center? Please follow this link to sign up! 
• Our Stone Soup day will be this Friday, November 16. We will be making stone soup as a class. A note will be coming home with your kindergartener later this week with more details about what to send in for our soup-making morning!  
• Thank you so much for coming to Parent-Teacher Conferences last week. It was so wonderful to get to share your child’s progress with you! I truly LOVE my job and I feel so lucky to get to teach your child every day. 🙂  

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Upcoming Dates:

• Monday, November 12 – P.E.
• Tuesday, November 13 – Art, Library
• Wednesday, November 14 – STEAM
• Thursday, November 15 – Music
• Friday, November 16 – P.E., Stone Soup day (send vegetable in a plastic baggie).
• Tuesday, November 20 – Thanksgiving Centers 2-3 pm

With the weather forecast, it looks like winter is about to begin…as soon as tomorrow possibly!

Just a few reminders:

•  The kids go outside at every recess.   We only keep them inside if the wind chill is below zero.  If no boots are worn then kindergarteners will need to stay on the pavement to keep shoes dry.
• WINTER CLOTHING is a must.  Boots, hats, mittens/gloves, snow pants. Write your last name on all pieces of clothing.  This helps with those missing items that like to go missing!
• Be prepared to hang up the winter clothing to air out and dry each night.  

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And, finally…get ready to hear about the new recess celebrations and concerns.  The SNOW is so much fun on the playground.  And, like most schools we have rules (I know… way to ruin the fun, right?!)  The rules are basic:

•  NO SNOWBALLS.  WHY?  Because we have had our fair share of eye injuries, head injuries, bruising etc. when these snowballs hit people in the face.  I always tell kids that if their parents let them have snowball fights at home, do it at home.  But we can’t do it at school.
• NO ICE SLIDING.  WHY?  We have kids break their wrist or arm sliding on ice.  We have also had kids fall and get a concussion.
• FORTS…build at your own risk.  Our playgrounds are shared by nearly 600 kids. If you build a fort during one recess, another group might come out the next recess and change your fort — put on an addition or take off the front porch or destroy it for a new subdivision. So…build away…but know it might be changed.

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Our priority will be to have the kids dress appropriately for the snow,  have fun in the snow and be safe in the snow! Thanks for your preparation and support. 

OUR LEARNING:

Popcorn Words – Our popcorn words this week were “in” and “all.” We practice writing, reading, and building sentences with these popcorn words during literacy centers each week! We also celebrated learning all of our color words with a Rainbow Day. On this day, students were introduced to “Rainbow Words.” These are word lists that go in rainbow-color-order. Once students master reading the words on the red list, they’ll get the orange, and so on…until they’ve read across the whole rainbow! Students keep these word lists in a dry-erase pocket here at school. 

Math – In math this week, we spent lots of time practicing writing numbers 6-10 in order. We’ve also been working on connect-the-dots pictures to help us practice counting and thinking in number order from 1 to 10. 

 

Writing – This week, we started a whole new writing unit: Writing Like a Scientist! We began by brainstorming ideas about what scientists do. Then, we each got a magnifying glass to look really closely at the things around us so we could describe them to others through our writing. One day, we drew a picture and wrote a descriptive sentence about our shoes. Another day, we picked a leaf from outside and sketched & described the leaf. (This dips our feet into the world of informational writing!)

Reading – In reader’s workshop this week, we focused on two things: FEELINGS & FOCUS. First, we learned how to stop and think about how characters might be feeling in a story. We also are working on staying focused and reading independently during reader’s workshop each day. So far, we have made it to 7 minutes of reading! Students also got a special surprise to add to their book boxes: a Poetry Binder! This binder has printed versions of our class songs, charts, and more. Students love pointing and reading the songs and poems in their binders! 

Show & Tell: On Friday, we celebrated our latest 10 star reward with a Show & Tell Party! Students loved telling the class all about their favorite things from home. Keep up those kind & smart choices, kindergarteners! I’m so proud of you. 🙂

     

Autumn House: This week, your child brought home his/her autumn house from school! This autumn house is filled with three color-coordinated games to help practice some literacy skills at home. Red = blending sounds to make a word, Tan = rhyming words, Yellow = letters and sounds. Please use these games to practice fundamental literacy skills at home! 

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CELEBRATIONS:

Top Frog – We loved having Eline as our Top Frog this week. Next week’s top frog is Nathan! Your child will have a chance to be our top frog soon, too. 

Bucket-Filler Spotlight: We have SO many kindergarteners that “fill buckets” of their friends, teachers, and others by doing kind things for them! I wanted to have a space where I could share some of these thoughtful and wonderful choices with you!

This week, Quinn & Eline wanted to be bucket-fillers for Mrs. Straub (our school’s recess supervisor) and Mr. Rob (our custodian). During one recess every day, they carefully and meticulously clean all of the wood chips off of the sidewalks, saving friends from tripping and keeping our playground clean! Thanks so much for being great helpers, girls. 🙂 

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Notes for Parents:

• Our Thanksgiving Centers will be held on Tuesday, November 20 from 2-3 pm. Interested in helping lead a center? Please follow this link to sign up! 
• Pumpkin Characters turned out AMAZING! Parents, you will be taking these home with you when you come to conferences this week. 
• Headphones: If you haven’t already sent in a pair of headphones for STEAM class, please do so this week. The kindergarteners love using the computers to practice letter recognition and typing! 
• Parent-teacher conferences are this week Monday and Wednesday! I will be sharing your child’s report card and other progress notes with you during this time. I cannot wait to show you how much your child has already learned this year! I’m the luckiest teacher ever to get to work with our class every day. 🙂 
• Please keep your child’s library book in the labeled plastic bag when returning it to school. Once we check out our books at the library, all of the books get placed into one basket, so the labeled bag is the only way we know whose book is whose. Thanks so much for your help! 🙂 

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Upcoming Dates:

• Monday, November 5 – Music, P/T Conference
• Tuesday, November 6 – P.E., Library
• Wednesday, November 7 – Art, P/T Conferences, Book Fair Shopping Day (If you would like your child to shop at the book fair, please send him/her with a labeled envelope/bag containing payment!)
• Thursday, November 8 – STEAM
• Friday, November 9 – Music
• Tuesday, November 20 – Thanksgiving Centers

We had so much fun at our fall party on Wednesday. To all of those who volunteered, sent in supplies, or came to watch our parade, THANK YOU, thank you for your help! Here are some pictures from the fun events!

Parade:

     

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Snack:

 

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Pumpkin Ring Toss: 

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Apple Painting: 

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Pumpkin Bowling:

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Bobbing for Donuts:

 

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Fall Bingo:

 

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Also, thank you to those of you who sent in a decorated pumpkin character with your child! Here are the pictures of these AWESOME creations!!! Parents, you will get to bring these home with you when you come to conferences this week. 

     

Now that the costume and fall party fun have passed, we have even more fun planned for tomorrow, Friday, November 2!

Early Release Day: Students will be dismissed at 12:15 pm. If you would like your child to order a sack lunch, please send me a note to let me know!

Rainbow Day: Since we’ve finished learning all of our color words, we are going to celebrate a rainbow day! Students may wear rainbow colors, or they can wear their favorite color. 🙂

Show & Tell: Our class earned another 10 star reward, and this time we’ll be having a Show & Tell party. Your child may bring in ONE small item for show and tell tomorrow (something that will fit in their backpack). We can’t wait to share our show and tell items with each other! 

Our fall party is tomorrow, October 31! Here is a little Q&A with all of the details about tomorrow’s plans. 

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Q: What is the schedule for our fall party?

A: We will be having a kindergarten costume parade at 10:15 am, followed by our fall party games in the classroom at 10:30 am. You are welcome to come watch us in the parade at 10:15 (inside the school)!

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Q: What do I do with my child’s costume?

A: Your child may come to school in his/her costume, or you may pack it for them to put over their clothes before our party! We will not have enough time for every child to completely change into their costume during school. 

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Q: Is my child allowed to wear masks or bring weapons to school as part of their costume?

A: Your child can wear a mask during our parade and party, but toy or pretend weapons of any kind need to stay at home. 

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Q: Do I need to send a morning snack tomorrow?

A: NO! A morning snack is provided as part of our party. Please pack one afternoon snack for your child. 

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Thanks to all of our parents and families who are helping with our party tomorrow! We can’t wait for a fun-filled day. 🙂 

These season is VERY busy and full of learning here at school (and at home, I’m sure!), so this post is longer than usual. Please take a moment to read through it, especially the “Notes for Parents” section! Many thanks. 🙂 

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OUR LEARNING:

Popcorn Words – Our popcorn words this week were “here” and “like.” Our color word was “brown.” We read books with brown characters (like Three Billy Goats Gruff and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, wrote a class book about brown (wait ’til conferences to see it!), and made brown bear sequencing hat to celebrate our color of the week! 

Math – We are working our way through unit 2 in math by being “five finders.”When counting bigger numbers (6-10), we look for a group of 5 first then, we can count on to find the bigger number. We’re also working on counting from 1-100 and writing our numbers 1-10. On Friday, we had “fall-themed” math games: estimating pumpkin seeds, candy corn counting, pumpkin dice-roll, and spooky count & color! 

   

Writing – We are writing and tracing full sentences below our pictures! We are learning how letters, words, and punctuation all go together to make a sentence. This was our last week writing with traceable words underneath our pictures! Next week, we’ll be starting a new type of writing. 🙂 

Reading – Our readers are learning how to become expert storybook readers! Storybooks are books that we love SO much that we read them over and over until they’re practically memorized. 🙂 This week, we learned that storybook readers use words to join the pages together (such as AND, THEN, or NEXT), and readers find and point to the words as they read. 

Handwriting: We continued learning how to write our lowercase letters this week with the Counterclockwise Family. We practiced writing the letters o, u on whiteboards, in the air, and in our handwriting books. We also started the clockwise family by writing the letters h, r, n. 

Literacy Centers – Week 2 of literacy centers went very well! Students work independently in small groups on literacy-related tasks that are “just right” for their level. During this time, Mrs. Straub (our teacher aide) and I can work with small groups of students on specific skills. This week, we made letters/words with wikki sticks, read books with popcorn words, made candy corn puzzles, read on our Raz-kids app, and used do-a-dots! 

Leaf Hunt: On Monday, we went on a leaf hunt to do a little science activity in our classroom. We talked about why leaves fall from trees, and then each kindergartener got to pick a special leaf to investigate in the classroom! We described the leaf’s color, texture, size, and shape. Our class loved getting the chance to go leaf-hunting this fall!

 

Super Improvers: We started a new goal system in our classroom this week: Super Improvers! Students earn “super improver” stickers for trying their best, working hard, helping a friend, or making green choices. When a student fills up their super improver chart, they get to “level up” to the next color chart on the list, and they get to bring a positive note home to you! Please encourage these “super” choices at home, too. 🙂

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CELEBRATIONS:

Top Frog – We loved having Dominic as our Top Frog this week. Next week’s top frog is Eline! Your child will have a chance to be our top frog soon, too. 

Mystery Readers – On Wednesday, Harper’s dad surprised our class and read us the book Just for You. Then, on Friday, Eline’s mom came to our room, too! She read Clark the Shark Loses a Tooth and another book about a dog & a rabbit! Thank you for sharing your love of reading with our classroom! 

Turkey Trot: If you were at the Turkey Trot earlier this week, I tried to snap a picture of your kindergartener out on the field! Our runners did a great job racing around the track. 🙂 

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Notes for Parents:

• Our Fall Party is this Wednesday, October 31 from 10:15-11:30 am. You are welcome to send your child to school in his/her costume, since our party will be in the morning. Also, you do not need to send in a morning snack with your child – we will have snacks as part of our party! If you’d like to join the fun and watch your kindergartener walk in our little parade, we will begin the parade at 10:15 am (we just walk through the hallways from the cafeteria to our classrooms). Thank you to all of our parents who have volunteered to help with our party in some way! 
• Pumpkin Characters turned out AMAZING! I will be making a separate blog post to share pictures, but thank you SO MUCH for making such a special memory with your child. 
• Headphones: If you haven’t already sent in a pair of headphones for STEAM class, please do so this week. The kindergarteners love using the computers to practice letter recognition and typing! 
• A parent-teacher conference appointment note came home with your kindergartener on Friday. Please take a moment to complete the bottom portion of this note and return it to school by this Friday, November 2. I’m looking forward to sharing your child’s progress with you!! 
• Please keep your child’s library book in the labeled plastic bag when returning it to school. Once we check out our books at the library, all of the books get placed into one basket, so the labeled bag is the only way we know whose book is whose. Thanks so much for your help! 🙂 

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Upcoming Dates:

• Monday, October 29 – Music
• Tuesday, October 30 – P.E., Library
• Wednesday, October 31 – Art, Fall Party @ 10:15-11:30 am
• Thursday, November 1 – STEAM
• Friday, November 2 – Art, Rainbow Day (to celebrate all of the colors we’ve learned this year!), Early Release @ 12:15 (if your child needs to order a sack lunch on Friday, please send me a note.)
• Monday, November 5 – P/T Conference
• Wednesday, November 7 – P/T Conferences, Book Fair Shopping Day (If you would like your child to shop at the book fair, please send him/her with a labeled envelope/bag containing payment!)

Tomorrow, Friday, October 26, your kindergartener has two choices for color celebrations (if they’d like to join in the fun!). 

Option 1: Wear BROWN to celebrate our color of the week. 

Option 2: Wear BLUE & GOLD to celebrate our Hudsonville Eagles football team, who are headed to the playoffs tomorrow night!

I can’t wait to see our brown / blue / gold outfits tomorrow!! 🙂 

Our STEAM teacher, Mrs. Totten, is asking that each kindergartener bring  a pair of headphones to use during STEAM class. We will keep these at school for the rest of the school year and then will send them home at the end of the school year. We will start using them next week. If you could please send these in a zip-lock bag and label them, that would be helpful. Thank you!