Hello families and friends! For the month of March, we are going to find ways to reuse and recycle! For about a month, I have been saving up empty boxes from home--small, medium-sized, and even some bigger boxes--along with paper towel rolls and other random, empty stuff. So today, I brought some of those boxes in , dumped them in the middle of the carpet and set the kindergartners loose to investigate. My only instruction was "explore", but I did ask a question..."What can we do with these boxes?" The kids dove right in...comparing, banging, stacking, coloring. In no time, they started coming up with some great ideas. We are going to continue exploring and creating with the recycled boxes, but we need your help! Please help us collect and send in boxes (especially medium-sized and larger boxes), along with paper towel rolls, small boxes (i.e. empties from soap, baggies, etc.), or cardboard cylinders (i.e. empty oatmeal or salt canisters). One last request for Recycle Time...we are completely out of newspaper. Instead of tossing it in this week's trash when you are done reading it, please send the newspaper in with your child. Once our mad creating is done, our class will take a little walk across the parking lot to the recycling bin and recycle everything we collected. I'll be posting pictures soon of the kindergartners recycling creations. But in the meantime...here is a message for you from Sammi the Standard Poodle: Oh man, the blogs are few and far between this school year! Blogging has become very difficult in recent months...a slew of phishing emails from Weebly started bombarding our gmail accounts, so the county decided to block Weebly on their servers. So that means that now I can't jump on 123 KinderStreet to post pictures and updates from school like I used to. Technology...can't live with it, can't live without it! Here are our fabulous lunch bunchers from last month. We had a great time eating lunch together, with a mini dance party afterwards. I am so proud of our kiddies and how hard they try every day. And THESE Lunch Bunchers were in the 100% club. That means they had 100% positive points and no negative points for the month of January. Kudos to them!!! Have a great week everyone! Wow...It's been a month since I've blogged here!!!! Time flies, as they say. The kids have been busy with many investigations here at 123 KinderStreet. Back in October, we spent time discovering the properties of a pumpkin. The students got to roll the pumpkin, feel it for shape and texture, and tried (with great difficulty) to lift it off the ground. This pumpkin was HUGE...the biggest one in the pile at Home Depot. Later that week, I carefully sliced the top off of the pumpkin and we used our 5 SENSES to conduct a scientific investigation. Watch the video below to learn more! Watch as the kindergarteners make discoveries about the properties of a pumpkin. Currently, we are investigation 2-D and 3-D shapes in math. The students are discovering how the two types of shapes are related, how we can sort them in different ways, and how many vertices each shape has. Don't know what "vertices" are? Ask a kindergartener...they can tell you now! Check out these awesome videos that will help your child master their 3-D shapes: Find something else to investigate this week!
We have a lot going on here at 123 KinderStreet this week. Here is the latest... --Thursday is our Harvest Fest Party day!!! Our room mom has contacted the parents from our mailing list asking you to sign up for party and food items. The party will begin at 12:00 noon. Please donate something if you can. --On Friday, students will dress as storybook characters for our Annual Storybook Parade. Take some time over the next several days to reread some of your child's favorite books and choose a character to dress up as. In class, I will ask students to explain their costumes and the books they got their characters from, so help them to come prepared with a great answer! --Friday is also the last day of the marking period. If your child has any outstanding homework, or would like to make corrections on homework for a higher grade, it must be done and handed in to me by Friday morning in order to count on this report card. --be sure to sign up for a conference time for the week of November 11th. Sign-up sheets went home last week. Finally, I want to to see how hard we have been working here at 123 KinderStreet. We are so busy...Hey there Kinder Families! One of our parents shared a great blog post with me that I wanted to pass along. The article is from a site called "No Time For Flashcards" (love that name!!!!), and it describes a fun word-building activity using ABC magnets and cookie sheets. I'm always searching for ways to help kindergartners learn in a fun, hands-on manner, and this is one the kids will definitely enjoy. There are many other excellent articles over there, so click on the picture below to check it out. One other thing that I can't wait to share is this amazing, "No David"-inspired, self-created book that our friend Sophia made at home. She was so inspired by the tale of this naughty author that she wanted to recreate the story herself. Her story contains not only the main elements of the plot, but also characters, setting, and illustrations with lots of colors and details. When children begin taking what they have learned in school to demonstrate their knowledge in other places, we know that they are truly learning...and loving it! High Five to you, Little Friend!!!! All week long there has been a buzz around the classroom about these strange "Ned" posters that suddenly appeared all around our school. Kids have been asking who is Ned, and why is he up on the wall. Well, I found out today that the spiky-haired character is a part of a traveling show that is coming to High Bridge on this coming Tuesday. The Ned Show is all about building character and goal setting (which is right in line with our Class Dojo). NED stands for Never give up, Encourage others, and Do your best. The Ned team has created a special video just for parents to learn all about this awesome program. Watch it with your kids...get them excited about The Ned Show, and about the character traits he wants them to have. And if you can come out and join us for the assembly, that would be even better! Just click on the Ned Head below to watch the video. Have a fantastic fall week! Class Dojo went off with a bang last week! The kids are just beginning to learn what it's all about, and they are getting very excited about earning Dojo points. I am able to use my cell phone, the iPad or the laptop to rewards points no matter where we are in the building, and students are able to use the iPad to give each other points as well. As we go along, the students who achieve many positive points for excellent behavior will get rewards, like:
Next month, the kids will begin graphing their Dojo points in their purple folders, as well as deciding on personal behavior goals for the week. You and your child will be able to easily see improvements (or areas to work on) across the month. Also families, be on the lookout for the parent invites that will come home on Monday inviting you to join Class Dojo as well. Parents that join get weekly updates on their child's behavior in class, as well as regular messages from me in the form of texts and pictures. Dojo also has an app for students that you could download on your Apple or Android devices to see points earned on the fly. Here is a breakdown of what behaviors help your child earn (or lose) points:
On this coming week we will kick off our Monster Improver Wall. If you had a child in my class before, you may remember the Rainbow Wall that we used to have, where children would earn rainbow pieces for excellent behavior. The Monster Improver Wall operates on a similar concept, but its not just for behavior. Students can earn stars on their name cards for making improvements in any developmental area--academic, behavioral, social skills or self-help skills. Every child has something he or she needs to work on and every child makes progress at their own rate. This wall will reflect that individual growth. When a child earns 5 stars on their name card, they get to remove it and replace it with a card of the next color. They are working their way up from Rookie all the way to Legend! As the students mature this school year, I will encourage self-reflection and goal setting (both key skills for college and career readiness). I'm really excited about giving this new Monster Wall a try this year. Be sure to ask your child regularly about how many stars they have earned so far, and when they bring a completed card home, plan a big family celebration! We want our sweetie pies to be excited about learning and motivated to grow. Have a monstrously good weekend!
SCIENCE!!! We have been on some amazing science adventures here at 123 KinderStreet recently. We took a trip to our High Bridge Garden one day to make scientific observations of the flowers and vegetables that are growing there. We collected some samples and took them back to the classroom to observe and investigate. Here is some of what we discovered: An unknown flower. There were several different colors of this flower, but more research is needed to discover the name of it. Another beautiful flower, this time growing on a bush. The little scientists can research at home to discover the name of this sunshiny plant. We found a great, tall sunflower plant in our garden. Searching for the sunflower seeds was cool, but what was even more fascinating was the discovery the kids made beneath the broad leaves. They found some strange bugs crawling that looked like they had big triangular sails on their backs. They asked, "What kind of bug is this?" I said, "I have NO idea!!!" The last thing we discovered before coming in was a tiny green pepper that had fallen off of the pepper plant. It had an even tinier worm hole in it. I didn't take its picture, but it looked just like this, just smaller: We sat the little pepper on the windowsill and observed it all week. We wanted to see if it would turn red, and we were really curious about that tiny little hole. On Friday, it was time to cut the pepper open to discover what was inside. And we discovered....TINY LITTLE WHITE WORMS!!!! (Ewwwwwww!!!!!!) I am just a little embarrassed to admit that I ran screaming like a little girl when I saw the squirming little nasties...I'm terrified of worms. But the kids came to my rescue! With a spork and some toothpicks, they dissected the green pepper, removed the seeds and investigated the creatures that had eaten their way into the pepper. They even counted the worms. I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of worms, but I was able to capture the moment from afar: Kindergarten is so fun!!! Every little thing is a new discovery. p.s. --At dinnertime tonight, ask your child what we did in the meadow last week. Back-to-School Night went well. Thanks to all of you who were able to attend...I enjoyed meeting each of you. However, I realized after it was all over that I forgot to show the video about Class Dojo, our class behavior management program! So I put a short video about it down below, along with the PowerPoint that I used for Back-to-School Night for those who couldn't be there. As you know, the kids have been working hard learning rules, routines and procedures, all of which are new and sometimes overwhelming for them. Well here is a fun little rap that we have been using in class during Social Studies time to help make our rules more memorable. This Rules Rap is a call-and-respond activity, and the kids do a slap-slap-clap rhythm along to the beat as they repeat the words. Try it at home, and then discuss why rules are important. Also, ask you child to tell you the six rules we have in our class. Rules Rap by Mrs. Jenkins One other quick note...today your child will bring home a Story Journal for homework. As a family, I want you all to decorate the folder to reflect something about your child and your family. Some kids glue photos or clipart pictures on, some use stencils to make fancy letters, or any other artistic media you can think of. Be creative and have fun with this project over the weekend, then send it back in on Monday. We will begin story writing next week. Have a fabulous weekend everyone! Back-To-School Night PowerPoint
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Welcome!We are Mrs. Jenkins and Mrs. Koeppl, this is 123 KinderStreet, our little home away from home! Click on the pictures for more info about us. short /u/is
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