Mrs.

Swales Love-Bug Weekly Learnings

April 18th, 201

Spring "eview
This week we reviewed what the behavior expectations are at )ed *edar. The children visited different areas of the school and had review lessons on school wide behavior. We reviewed the rules and expectations for how to be safe, kind, and responsible in the bathroom, hallwa#, the lunchroom, large group learning time, on the bus, and on the pla#ground. It usuall# takes about a week for the kids to re acclimate to the procedures of school. )emembering when it is time to pla#, and when it is time to learn is a big one, along with using appropriate voice levels and rules for listening, sharing ideas.

Mystery "ea!er
Thank #ou ver# much to +tella,s mom for being our -#ster# )eader. The children loved the %famil# favorite& book #ou selected to share. !ow fun that the book was won from a previous book bingo night at )ed *edar +chool(

Wor! Work an! Sight Wor!s

'ur new sight words, sai! and was were taught and put to song. 'nce new words are taught, I look to see if children are using these words, spelled correctl#, in their ever# da# writing. I also watch to see that children are able to read these words b# sight in our guided reading groups. "or word work, we continue to practice the strateg# of decoding larger words b# reading the smaller chunks we know in the word and thinking about what would make sense and sound right. We have been practicing this skill with words in isolation as well as with words within our shared reading books. The children are reall# putting these phonics strategies together to become fluent readers and writers(

Math "eview
This week, we spent some time learning new math games to review place value (knowing that a number has a group of tens and ones), subtraction, and addition. Next week these games will be placed into math centers where I will be able to assess independence with these skills before moving on to new concepts.

Share! "ea!ing# $u%k an! &en are 'rien!s

We had fun reading the big book, uck and !en are "riends. This was a longer book that had man# large words that gave us opportunities to practice looking at word chunks and thinking about what makes sense. We also learned about $uotation marks (talking marks). We learned that $uotation marks %hug& the words being spoken. "or fun, we gave our characters different voices so that we could pa# attention to this new punctuation.

Classroom Newsletter

Love Bug Learnings

April 18th, 2014

Writers Workshop# (pinion Writing, Woul! )ou "ather*

.earning about what is fact and what is opinion is a big concept for kindergarteners. We started off this week talking about our opinions of what season is best and giving three reasons wh#. In writing, we look for a strong beginning statement, three supporting ideas and a closing sentence. I am also looking to see that children are using spaces, punctuation, and writing with lower case letters more often. 'n "rida#, the children wrote about which bird, a duck or a hen, is best to go along with our shared reading book. There writing pieces were fun to read and the# will all come home at the end of this unit.

'ur shared reading book lent itself well to comparing and contrasting as it was about two friends, duck and hen, and how the# liked to do man# things together but the# were different. 1s a class, we made a t chart comparing and contrasting the two birds. In addition, the children listened to man# read alouds about ducks and hens, both fiction and nonAfiction, comparing and contrasting the two. The children reall# are deep thinkers and I am alwa#s impressed with the thoughts and ideas the# bring to the conversation. When reading at home, think about how #ou could discuss books in this wa# with #our child.

4o,prehension# 4o,pare an! 4ontrast

Weekly S%he!ule
-onda# 678 -usic Tuesda# 668 1rt, *omputers (-rs. +wales is at -ath *urriculum -eeting all da#) Wednesda# 698 0/ Thursda# 6:8 -usic, .ibrar# "rida# 6;8 1rt $on.t /orget to return your li0rary 0ook so you are a0le to %he%k out a new one1 (ur last !ay to %he%k out a 0ook will 0e this +ues!ay. All 0ooks are !ue 0a%k May 2th.

S%ien%e# Living +hings +hat &at%h 'ro, -ggs

'n "rida# we went on a little egg hunt. /ach child found one egg from the front school #ard. 0rior to %hatching& our eggs, we predicted what might be inside. I was ver# impressed with the fact that the children came up so man# accurate examples. /ach child opened their egg to find a picture of a living thing that indeed does come from an egg. 1fter that, we went back outside to dissect hard boiled eggs. We learned about the different parts of the egg and their purpose if the egg were indeed fertili2ed. /ach child completed a diagram of an egg with definitions of each part. Next week we will take a closer look at the life c#cle of a chick before hatching.

3p-4o,ing -vents
1pril 668 /arth a# 1pril 698 0arent <olunteer =reakfast -a# 668 International "estival of *ultures -a# 6>8 -emorial a# ? No +chool -a# 6@8 1llA+chool Trip to a -usic *oncert at the /.!+ -a# 6B8 "estival )ain ate

/n3o# #our famil#( -elissa +wales +wales4mr5elps.us