This week was out of this world!

Yesterday all of the students in preschool, kindergarten and first grade had the opportunity to visit PNC's traveling planetarium. What a neat experience. Sesame Street characters, Big Bird and Elmo, led the students on an imagianary trip to the moon. The students learned about the stars and learned a bit about China, as well. Each student expressed how much they enjoyed the event and their cheers during the presentation displayed what a great time they had!

We are beginning to emphasize the ending sounds in words, now that we have beginning sound experts in class! This skill is a bit more difficult, but I know my munchkins will catch on quickly. In math, we are beginning to discuss teen numbers. Soon we will be writing the numbers 11-20. The students are amazing me with their counting skills. Many can count to 100, our end of the year goal!

Have a great weekend!

It's a new quarter!

Hello all! Today marks the end of the second quarter. It is incredible to me that the school year is half over. Due to the snow days, second quarter report cards will go home on Tuesday, February 1. If you have not paid your child's school fees, please do so as soon as possible. Fees are $40.00.

Due to the snow days, our next cultural arts classes will be this Thursday. Morning students' parents: please make sure your child wears sneakers for gym class.

We had our mid-year DIBELS benchmark assessments last week, and the students did a terrific job! Being a kindergarten teacher is so exciting, because I get to see such tremendous growth from the students throughout the school year. I am so proud of them for all of their hard work. Their efforts are paying off. I have no doubt that they will each bloom in first grade next year. I am looking forward to watching them achieve more great things during the second half of kindergarten.

I found some fantastic new beginning sound "centers" recently. The students are having a blast showing off their skills at identifying the beginning sounds in words. See the photo above. Learning is fun!

Friday 1-7-11

Happy New Year! I hope that 2011 is a wonderful year for each of you. Our kindergarteners are off to a fantastic start. They returned to school refreshed and ready to learn. The students have done a great job remembering our school rules and making good choices. The morning class has even earned their fourth set of cardinal cards! I am so proud of all of the students for making such great choices at school!

In math this week, we practiced comparing weight (heavier/lighter) using a pan balance. The students really enjoyed using the pan balance and making predictions about which object would be the heaviest.

In Read Well, students are striving to read fluently (correctly and quickly). As we progress through the units, the students must complete timed reading passages. Please have your child practice reading from their Read Well practice books so that they may build fluency.

The students will soon be writing sentences independently. We have been practicing as a class for months to use all of the conventions to make a good sentence. Students should be able to: use a capital letter at the beginning of a sentence, put space between words, write their sight words correctly, and use a period at the end of their sentence.

The end of the second quarter is drawing to a close. We will be completing quarterly assessments over the next two weeks and reviewing the skills that we have learned in the past few months.