Newsletter

Hello Families!Your kids were amazing during their very first student led conferences!! Congratulations to all of them. Here is the news for this week...HEADS UP: I will be attending a literacy workshop on Tuesday so I won't be in school. There will be a substitute named Jessica taking over for me.FRIDAY IS FIELD TRIP FRIDAY: This Friday, we will be having FAMILY SING first thing in the morning. Then we will be leaving at 9:50 to walk a block away to The Little Shop of Crafts on the corner of 94th and Amsterdam. The entire kindergarten is going so it will be tight! I think I can manage a few extra adults to help us out. I will put the sign up sheet outside of the classroom tomorrow. Thanks!FAMILY PACKETS: The photos/artifacts, interviews and recipe are due back to us tomorrow. If you need a little more time Wednesday morning would be ok too! Please try to avoid bringing your packet items in on Tuesday as I won't be there to receive them and I'm worried about them being misplaced. Thank you!KINDERGARTEN AND FIRST GRADE HOOTENANNY: During MSC Kids Rock on Saturday, March 21st, kindergarten and first grade kids are invited to come sing the songs they know during a hootenanny in the auditorium. I and many of the other teachers will be leading the hoot. Please join if you can! And - if you (the adult) plays an instrument other than a piano, and would like to join us in accompanying the kids, you are encouraged and welcome to do so!WHAT ELSE WE ARE UP TO:In writing we are still working on How - To's. This week we will be looking at some mentor texts to see what things other authors do to teach a how to and maybe trying those things out in our own writing.In reading we are starting a new unit called Avid Readers. We will first be looking at photos of what avid and not avid readers look like. We will learn that avid readers read a lot, find places everywhere to read, keep a stack of books in waiting to be read, and just can't stop reading! We will also be learning that avid readers react to books - they laugh, cry, share parts of books with friends. In phonics we are going to focus on the digraphs ch and th and then keep working on building our word-part power!In math we are continuing to focus on part/part/whole - looking at different combinations of numbers which is really learning the beginnings of addition and subtraction. We are going to be breaking numbers apart to see how they combine to make a whole number and recording our thinking into our math journals. Stacie is coming this week to start teaching her song Part of a Family! And we have started a beautiful project having to do with family memories that we will continue to work on this week. Plus we will start to gather our interviews and create a chart for seeing similarities and differences while we are sharing.I don't plan on having a formal discussion about Covid 19 with the kids. There are actually other things going around like a stomach bug, flu and strep throat. I have encouraged them all to use their arms to cough and sneeze in, to not pick their noses (a tall order that one!), to use tissues and try not to touch their faces. I'm sure you already are, but if you could use the same practices at home to help get them in the habit that would be so helpful.Have a great week!Love,Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!March is here! There's lots going on so here's the news...FRIDAY FIELD TRIP DAY IS MARCH 13th: Not the 6th. We will be walking a block away to The Little Shop of Crafts to paint pottery!! The whole kindergarten is going at 10:00 and we should be heading back to school by 11:00. We will also go ahead and do our Family Sing on that Friday as well - first thing in the morning. Our trip will just require 2-3 parents since it's so close and it will be a tight squeeze as 85 kids and extra grownups will be in the shop. I'll put a sign up outside of the room.STUDENT LED CONFERENCES: Are this Thursday. Please remember - these conferences MUST BE ATTENDED WITH YOUR CHILD as they are actually leading them! Make sure you picked a time when your child can be with you. Here is some important info:Thursday is a HALF DAY for your child. They will be dismissed at 11:30 in the auditorium.Each conference is 10 minutes and there is no buffer time in between so if you are late the conference will just be shorter - we have to keep on track for everybody's sake. This conference is a time for your child to share their self assessments with you, their goals and their thoughts. They may also be able to answer questions you might have! So grown up!MAYBE IMPOSSIBLE REQUEST: We need hand sanitizer in the classroom! I have looked everywhere but everybody is out. If you happen to come upon some and can donate to the classroom I would be very grateful. We use it a lot since we can't constantly be leaving the classroom to wash our hands in the bathroom. Thank you!!FAMILY PACKETS: I will be giving out very important family packets on Monday morning. I would like to hand them to you if you're doing drop off and then if there are instances where I can't hand it to a grown up I will make sure to put it in your child's backpack but please be on the lookout for it. In the packet there are 3 pages. Our Family Study is dependent upon these 3 things and they are fully explained in the packet but here's the gist - 1) Bringing in photographs and very small artifacts to create an artwork 2) Sitting with your child and answering 4 interview questions 3) Bringing in a copy of your family's favorite recipe. The packet is due back to school by MARCH 9th. FAMILY STUDY POTLUCK CELEBRATION: We will be having a potluck on the morning of Friday, April 3rd. Just a heads up! HOOTENANNY for MSC KIDS ROCK FESTIVAL: The entire kindergarten is invited to come join in a Hootenanny (for those of you who aren't up on the folk music lingo it's a big sing-a-long ). We will be singing all of our favorites and if you (adults only) play an instrument and would like to join myself and Lindsey on the piano and Gerri on the guitar please, absolutely do it!! I believe the hoot is at 1:00 in the auditorium that day but I will get back to you on the time.WHAT WE ARE UP TO:We are still working on Word Part Power in phonics - building words out of endings and snap words. This is building our writing vocabulary and our confidence - realizing that if we can figure out how to write one word, we can then write many words!We are writing How To books! We are learning how to give instructions about how to do something step by step, reread our work to make sure it makes sense, share our work with a partner to see if they can follow our writing and this week we are working on drawing labeled diagrams.We are finishing up building our bigger reading muscles! Just like in our writing we are working on asking ourselves the question "Does this make sense?" when we are reading. This week we are going to be doing partner reading and independent reading and I am working on informally assessing reading levels. I'm hoping to change menus this week.In math we are working on understanding "Part/Part/Whole" - breaking apart numbers and discovering different combinations of numbers. We have been learning how to use number bonds and how to record our thinking. We are also getting ready for student led conferences! We are busy filling out a self-assessment, will be coming up with and writing some goals and thinking about new friends we'd like to get together with outside of school. Stacie won't be coming until next week but we are focused on our new Family Study. We are working on creating webs about what we individually think of when we think of family. And we will be starting a very special project about Family Memories this week too!Have a wonderful week!Love,Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!

I hope you all had a wonderful week off! Can you believe this is the last week of February? Here is what's happening...

STUDENT LED CONFERENCES: Will be on Thursday, March 5th. What are student led conferences?

• They are conferences that are essentially "run" by your child!

• They are 10 minutes long.

• Your child will be discussing what they feel proud of, what they have mastered and what they are working on.

• Please be sure to sign up for a time when YOUR CHILD can attend WITH you. 

• This is a practice that happens K - 8th grade.

There is a sign up sheet outside of the classroom. Thank you!

BOOK BAGGIES: You are welcome to exchange books with your child any morning that is convenient for you. Books should be read for 3-4 days before exchanging. When we come back from break I will be informally assessing kids to see if their levels have changed and will reflect that on their Book Menu which is the purple, laminated sheet with color dots. In the meantime, if you have noticed that your child is whizzing through dot books without your support (without you starting the pattern of a book), you are welcome to take books from the next higher level - the levels climb following the rainbow of colors - A=red B=orange C=yellow D=green E=blue. Shhh - don't tell your kids! No pressure - reading is FUN!

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

We are starting some new units of study once we get back on Monday. Our social studies learning will be FAMILY. Our focus is the similarities and differences of all kinds of families and understanding what a tradition is. By the end of this week we will be sending home a special packet for your child to work on with you (his/her family) and we will be asking for some specific things. I won't jump ahead but just know that will be introduced soon. Stacie of Harmonize Kidz will be coming to teach us her amazing song, Part of a Family, once week for the last 3 weeks of March. 

Our writing workshop is learning How - To writing. These savvy kindergartners are full of knowledge they can share with their readers! This week we will be learning how to take a topic, name how to do this thing in steps, number the steps and draw specific pictures showing the steps. 

Our reading workshop is centered around making sure our reading makes sense. Does a word look right? Sound right? Have we looked very closely at the picture? And finally does what we've read make sense in the whole story?

In phonics we are going to be using our most common alphabet chart to write more words. For example, when we see F and a picture of a fan, we can stretch out the word f-a-n and then come up with a ton of other words with the same ending. After we do that we will stage a "Word Part Alphabet Chart Takeover!" and will be putting new cards on letters.

In math we are going to be taking numbers and breaking them into parts. We will learn about a great tool called a number bond which will help us do this work. We are also continuing to get fluent with double digit numbers and even though we marked the 100th day of school the day before vacation, we will continue to count until the very last day of kindergarten which will help us learn about triple digit numbers!

So there's a lot going on! Plus, we are continuing to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and are always working on our social growth throughout the day, but especially during Worktime. 

Have a great week!

Love,

Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!

This is the week before February break and a lot is going on! Friday is a huge day! Here is the news...

THE 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL: Is Friday, Feb. 14th!! We have been counting each day of school since September and have been learning a lot of math and learning how to explain our math thinking while keeping count. We will be celebrating all day on Friday, doing different activities centered around all things 100. A traditional activity classes do for the 100th day is to ask kids to bring in collections of 100 things. I am going to say, IF YOUR CHILD WANTS TO bring in a collection of 100 small things to explain and share with the class they can. It is NOT mandatory. So, if they choose to you can help them bring in their collection any day of the week or on Friday - whatever is easiest. Thanks!

FRIDAY IS ALSO: "Nobody Eats Alone Day." As part of the DOE's "Respect For All" initiative, all schools are focusing on teaching kids to have empathy and be aware of seeing when somebody needs a friend. This is really the everyday work of kindergarten and since we don't eat in the cafeteria, nobody ever sits alone at lunch BUT the lessons are extremely important. We will be joining the rest of the school in developing an installation of kindness trees with hearts and leaves. Hopefully this day could spark an ongoing policy of nobody eats alone ever!

GALLERY WALK FRIDAY MORNING AT DROP OFF: We are going to be finishing up our Lincoln Center Institute work this week and on Friday we will have an informal "Gallery Walk" inside the classroom at drop off, where you can see the work we've done all centered around Rachel Feinstein's sculptures. 

NO SCHOOL: Next week from Feb. 15 - Feb. 23rd. 

ENJOY OUR NEW BULLETIN BOARD OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM: The Magic Mailbox has become just an ordinary box after a full week of magic! We wrote to fairy tale characters in Fairytale Land and they wrote back to us! Many, but not all, of the letters we wrote are up on the bulletin board for you to read. Our goal was to convince characters to change something about their stories to help them. You will see that some worked on convincing and others got caught up in their curiosity and asked questions, while still others just wanted to communicate. It's all writing and the kids were very motivated and worked very hard. Happy reading!

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

In phonics we are learning about word parts to help us write and read many words. For example, if you can spell "hop", you can spell "top." We are going to be creating a word part chart and then learn how to do some very simplified crossword like puzzles. 

In writing we are going to be finishing up our Persuasive Writing unit We are going to be writing speeches (opinion writing) to make change!!! We will use The Lorax by Dr. Seuss as a touchstone text and then we will be writing speeches to make our voices heard. 

In reading we are going to be focusing on our sound power by learning about blends and digraphs plus learning to "Look, Blend, Look" - reminding readers to move their eyes to the letters at the end of the word when solving words. We will do some shared reading, book groups, partner reading and independent reading. We also have been seeing our Reading Buddies - Sejal's 2nd grade class - on Tuesday mornings. Our kids are read to and are reading to their buddies too. 

In math we are going to continue working on learning about double digit numbers and will be focusing on counting 100 in different ways and recognizing numbers up to 100. We are also going to be learning new ECAM games focused on numeration and will be recording our math thinking in our journals. 

Stacie will be coming this Tuesday to finish up her teaching around her fairy song Don't Judge a Book by its Cover. And Susan will coming to us on Wednesday and Thursday to finish up our work for LCI. We will also be finishing up our Fairy Tale work and when we come back from February break we will be starting a study on Family.

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!Happy Groundhog Day! It seems Spring will be coming sooner rather than later. Thanks to all of the grownups who were able to join us on our trip last Wednesday - it was a success. We have very sophisticated kids who are able to to talk about art and their ideas - highly impressive! Here is what's happening...FAMILY SING AND FIELD TRIP FRIDAY: We will have a Family Sing first thing in the morning on Friday, 2/7. We just had a big trip but are hoping to make a walking trip to Wild West Playground after our sing. (As of now the forecast says rain but it's a while away.) We would go to play but also to look at the 3D shapes used to create the structures in the playground. When we come back we have a math/fairy tale project planned which requires some found things to be donated from home. We need each family to donate:toilet paper rollspaper towel rollsif you have any - empty shoe boxes, egg cartons, small boxes (no bigger than a shoebox)these are not a found things: decorative sticky jewels, scotch tape and/or decorative tape.We are going to be creating our own individual castles! FAIRY TALE MAGIC: Be sure to ask your child what magical thing has occurred in the classroom after tomorrow...FLU B: Heads up that Flu B has been going around. The flu shot did not cover this strain. If your child has a fever and is lethargic you may want to get a flu test. I'd like to remind everybody that school policy says a child must be fever free for 24 hours before returning to school. Thanks!WE HAVE SWITCHED LUNCH TEACHERS: Along with switching from dance to now art and music, we also have a new lunch teacher for the rest of the year - it is Bernard the art teacher! Lucky kids.STUDENT TEACHER: Starting this Tuesday, Tomoka Masuda will be student teaching in our class on Tuesdays and Thursdays through the beginning of May. WHAT WE ARE UP TO:In phonics we have moved from working with real words to learn word-part power (it, in, an, at) and have started looking at chunks of words (ex: ent, ot, ar) We are learning that if we can figure out and read one word we can read many words!In writing we are going to be working solely on writing convincing letters this week. There is going to be a huge incentive for doing this letter writing - which has to do with the fairy tale magic I wrote about above! In reading we are continuing to build our reading muscles. We will continue to meet in groups to work on specific skills. As a class we are going to be working on checking our reading to make sure what we have read makes sense and sounds right. If not, we stop and try to fix it. Reminder about book baggies - keep the bags at home until you are ready to help your child exchange the books. Kids are progressing quickly so I will be reassessing and changing menus on an ongoing basis. In math we are going to be finishing up our geometry unit with the castle project on Friday. We are also working on understanding and writing double digit numbers. Last week we worked on teen numbers - knowing what each number means (14 means 1 group of 10 and 4 ones.) This week we will continue with 20 - 99. We are also now starting the exciting countdown to the 100th day of school!!! The 100th day will land on Feb. 14th - the day before February vacation. We will be having a day long celebration on the 14th! Stacie will be coming this week to continue teaching us about fairy tales through her song Don't Judge a Book by it's Cover. Also Susan will be coming from Lincoln Center Institute to continue lessons around transformation and the artworks we saw at the Jewish Museum on our trip. We are enjoying Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Charlie found the last golden ticket! I've read this book tons of times and I still get the goosebumps at that part. And really - a lifetime supply of chocolate? What could be better than that?Have a great week!Love, Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!I hope you've been enjoying your weekend. Here is everything you need to know...WEDNESDAY, JAN. 29th TRIP: We will be going to the Jewish Museum this Wednesday to see Rachel Feinstein's art works. We will be taking a school bus.We will be leaving at 9:30 and returning to school by 11:30Kids will be eating lunch at school.This trip is part of our Lincoln Center Institute work.REQUESTS: We are in need of the following things if anybody wants to donate. Thank you!Paper towelsPlay dohLysol wipes or a can to help with the germs going around.toilet paper rolls, paper towel rollscone cups (the paper ones you pull out next to water coolers)STAR REPORTS: Will be going out by the end of the week. I'd like to remind everybody that there are certain benchmarks we use in our assessments based on the time of year and end of year goals. An "approaching benchmark" is not something to be upset about - the benchmarks are generally high and what we know about child development at this age is that there are bursts of learning that occur at different times in a child's early education and that barring any learning issues, all children get to where they need to be eventually. These benchmarks, however, are used to help teachers know where to work with each child to move them forward - from their "points of need."CHANGE IN SPECIALS: From tomorrow until the end of the year we no longer have Dance. Instead we have ART ON WEDNESDAYS and MUSIC ON FRIDAYS.WHAT WE ARE UP TO:In our Lincoln Center Institute study Susan, our teaching artist, has been coming to us twice a week. We have done some really interesting and fun things all centered on understanding transformation. So far we transformed sticks into other things using our imaginations, paper to transform into other things, costumes to transform and we transformed a ladder into a castle! We then used that castle along with old shoes to develop characters and moments. The pieces we are going to be seeing on Wednesday by Rachel Feinstein have a fairy tale like quality about them - which is why we are studying fairy tales at the same time. In phonics we are learning about part/whole power - basically about word families and rhyming words. For example, we know that if we can spell one word, like at, we can spell so many words like cat, bat, rat, sat and so on. We will continue this work this week.In writing we are continuing our Persuasive Writing unit. We worked on writing songs last week and this week we will introduce lists - also intended to be used to make change. We will then have all of the writing choices open to us, signs, letters, songs and lists to work with. We will also be working on rereading and fixing up our writing and independently making decisions to either be done with a piece or whether we need to revise.In reading we are going to be learning about figuring out the changing words in pattern books. We will think, "What is the same and what is changing on each page?" We will also be learning that we can use our pattern power to think about how the ending of a book goes with the pattern and then ask ourselves, "What is this whole book really saying?"In math we are going to be working on our last week of geometry. There were a couple of lessons that we were unable to get to and this week we will get to them! We are also going to be having number talks about two digit numbers - how to read them, what they actually mean (place value) and knowing what number comes before and after a specific two digit number. Stacie will come this week to do another lesson on her amazing fairy tale song "Don't Judge a Book by its Cover." We will continue to read fairy tales, look at the parts of each story (characters, setting, problem, solution, magic, moral) and we will do some fairy tale projects. We are also working on being our best selves/making the best choices in regards to how we behave throughout the school day. What should we do if somebody is trying to distract us during a learning time? How can we help a friend learn to better pay attention? What does it mean to be our best self?Have a fantastic week!Love,Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families,

Happy Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day! I hope you've all had a great weekend. I'm sorry I wasn't able to be there on Friday - I had to bring my dad to the hospital on Thursday afternoon but he's doing much better and will be home soon. Here is what's happening ...

TRIP TO THE JEWISH MUSEUM: Is on Wednesday, January 29th from 9:30 - 11:30. We will be taking a school bus and have room for 8 or 9 chaperones. The sign up sheet is up outside of the room. 

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." Dr. MLK Jr. It is so fitting that we are studying Persuasive Writing right around Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday. Like he did, we are learning to make change through our ideas and with our words. At this age, kids in kindergarten live in a very small world, however, they understand in a truly profound way what is right and what is wrong in the world. I dare say they could teach some grown ups a thing or two!! Anyway, we have learned to write about change on a sign - focusing on what you are asking people to do rather than what not to do - and we just started to use letter writing in that same way. We are going to continue with both of those mediums this week, but will also introduce writing songs and writing lists.

In reading we are really getting into the nitty gritty of things. We are taking all of our superpowers and putting them to work to move our reading skills. We are meeting in reading groups and working on reading many books at a sitting using a special reading mat to remind ourselves to read through our pile of leveled books twice. We are encouraging kids to use all they have learned, every time they read a book. Hopefully your kids are enjoying using their book baggies at home. They can exchange their books tomorrow. If you feel like they need more books than are on the menu, it would be fine to take a few more of either dot color that is on the menu.

In phonics we are focusing on rhyming words/word families. This is called word/part power! It's also fun. So there.

In math we are still studying geometry and will be learning about 3D shapes, as well as shapes within shapes. We will be learning a really great game called "Fill the Hexagons" where kids roll a dice with different pattern block shapes and have to figure out what shapes work together to make a hexagon. We are also going to be doing some journal tasks that are helping the kids to learn to record and represent their mathematical thinking. 

Stacie will be coming this week to start teaching us a new song about fairy tales! She wrote the song Don't Judge a Book by It's Cover when her older daughter was in my class years ago, based on a fairy tale the class wrote. The work she will be doing around this song ties directly into the work that Susan from the Lincoln Center Institute is doing. Susan has been focusing on the idea of transformation. So far the kids have used sticks to transform into something else, paper, and last week costumes. She will be coming to us Wednesday and Thursday to teach us more.

We have started to read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. Again, I want to remind you that I do censor some things in the book. 

I'd like to leave you with one of my favorite Dr. MLK Jr. quotes: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Have a wonderful week,

Love,

Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!
How have you been enjoying this Spring weekend?? Here is everything happening this week and a little beyond...
NO SCHOOL MON. 1/20: To honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr!
NEW READING BUDDIES: I am so excited because we hooked up with Sejal's 2nd grade class for Reading Buddies! We will be meeting every Tuesday starting this week for a period and our students will be partnered up with 2nd graders to share books, discuss books, celebrate reading and create friendships! 
BOOK BAGGIES: Book baggies are going to be going home for the first time on Monday. Normally you will be helping your kids choose books using their reading book menu on Monday mornings, however, since this is our first time we will be doing it as a class. Your child will be bringing home the baggie filled with a total of 4 books to start. They will have 3 on level books and 1 "push" book which is the next level up. For their first reading of the books it would be helpful to sit with them so that they can grasp the patterns in their books. Here are some helpful tips:

• Read the title with your child. Talk about the picture on the cover - what do they think the book will be about?

• Have your child do a "picture walk" - reading the book and using language to describe what's happening through only the pictures on each page. 

• Help your child figure out the first page's pattern.

• Now, listen to your child use all of their superpowers to figure out the rest of the book. If they are stuck with a tricky word you can encourage them to use the picture, use the first sound in the word, think about what would make sense. 

• If your child gets frustrated, help them. Reading should be enjoyable!

• Remember, after one or two readings of a book your child may have the book memorized. That is a good thing and a strong strategy that will then allow them to focus on other things they need to learn to be good readers - fluency, storytelling voices, making meaning. 

• They should be holding onto their books for an entire week and reading those books to anybody who will listen or even stuffed animals (who always love to listen!)

• Some extra things you could do after your child is super comfortable with a book are: 1) Take sentences out of the book on strips of paper, cut it into words and have your child re-create the sentence 2) Make a list of all of the snap words in a book 3) Have your child write a new ending to the book 4) Take non-snap words out of the book and see if your child can come up with rhyming words or word family words.

• There is no school the following Monday after this week of books so the choice will be to exchange books this Friday or the following Tuesday.

NEW WATER DISPENSER: Avery's parents, Elizabeth and Rahsaan, have ordered us a new water dispenser! Thank you! It should arrive this week.

TRIP TO THE JEWISH MUSEUM: Will be on July 29th from 9:30 - 11:30. Sign up sheet will be posted outside for a total of 8 chaperone adults.

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

In phonics we are going to be learning about blends and digraphs and will also continue to work on our word wall words (snap words.)

In writing we have begun learning about persuasive writing. We read a book called We March, by Shane W. Evans. It is about a family preparing for and then joining the March on Washington in 1963 where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. The book is a perfect touchstone to show the power of words to make change and shows the signs being made and carried in the protest. We brainstormed and charted things that we want to change at home, in our school and in the world and the kids have been working on creating signs. We are learning that in order to make change we cannot state what not to do, but instead we need to think about what people should do to make that change.

In reading we are building our bigger reading muscles. We have learned how to use a reading mat to collect a pile of books we will be reading and read them each twice. This week we are going to work on figuring out the patterns in books that will then help us read every page and know what our books are about. And as I said above - we are starting Reading Buddies! Hurray!

In math we are working on Geometry. This week we will learn how to use geoboards (kind of square individual peg boards that you stretch rubberbands on to create shapes.) We will also be recording our math thinking through some journal problems and will be working towards learning new ECAM games focused on numeration.

In social studies, we will have Stacie coming on Tuesday to do a review of all the songs and concepts she has taught so far. We are also diving into Fairy Tales and will be thinking about the big question - "Do all fairy tales have a happy ending?" which will lead us to understanding perspective. For example, one may say that The Three Pigs has a happy ending but it depends on which perspective you have - the pigs may be happy but the wolf would say otherwise! 

And while we play we continually work on understanding when things are a bummer, a problem or a disaster and how to fix a bummer on our own. 

We will be finishing Fudge-a-mania this week and then will be starting a brand new chapter book! Stay tuned on what it will be!

Have a great week!

Love,

Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families and Happy New Year!

Hopefully everybody is healthy now and/or have had a great vacation! We have a full week and here is everything that will be happening - it's a lot...

FAMILY SING AND FIELD TRIP FRIDAY: This Friday we will have a Family Sing first thing in the morning. We will then be taking a "Shape Hunt" walk around the neighborhood to see what shapes we can find. This is supporting our new unit in Geometry! When we come back we will be doing a math/art project to create some of the things we saw using cut out shapes - a sort of mural of neighborhood scenes.

• For our walk we can use as few as 3 grown ups but welcome as many as who want to join!! I'll put up a sign up sheet outside the classroom. Thank you!

WATER DISPENSER BROKEN? There seems to be a problem with our water dispenser. It is leaking a lot! Ugh. So, we may either require a new one or we can stop our water delivery and kids can use the water fountain in the hallway to collect water in their water bottles. I'll check in with our class parents to see what the verdict is. 

LINCOLN CENTER INSTITUTE: Our school is in a partnership with the Lincoln Center Institute - a fabulous organization that brings the arts into our classrooms by focusing on one kind of artform and having a teaching artist come in to help guide our learning around that art. The kindergarten will be focusing on fine art created by Rachel Feinstein whose pieces are now showing in the Jewish Museum. We are going to be having lessons that center on transformation and a sort of fairy tale magic. Our first lesson is on the 9th, our last lesson is on Feb. 14th and we will be taking a trip to see the artworks we are focusing on on Wednesday, January 29th from 9:30 - 11:30. We will be taking a school bus that day and will have room for 8 chaperones.

BOOK BAGGIES: This week we are going to be learning about and preparing to take home Book Baggies! The baggies are used for kids to shop for instructional books at their level to take and read at home. Here's what you need to know:

• Kids will learn how to use their own individual book baggie menu to shop for books to put into their book baggie.

• Every Monday kids will exchange their books for new ones.

• Kids will be reading and rereading their books for an entire week. "But they will memorize their books!" you say? Yes! That is a good thing and a solid strategy when learning how to read. When a child memorizes the text they are able to focus on one to one correspondence, reading with fluency, reading for meaning, reading with confidence. Good juicy stuff!

• This won't be homework. Reading should be frustration free and joyful. If your child is pushing back because they want to play or snuggle or sleep, those things take precedence. Besides reading the books independently, they can read them to you, family members over the phone, neighbors, baby sitters, siblings - whoever will listen! 

• Your child's level will change and that will be reflected on their menu. Levels are shown with colored dots - not letters. We are trying to avoid comparisons as that should have no place in a budding reader's mind. That said, if there is ever a time when you notice that your child is breezing though a book the very first time they read it without any support - please let me know. Thank you!

• Kids should put their book baggies back into their backpacks every evening so they can carry them to school every day, however, if your child forgets their bag at home it is ok!! The ultimate goal is to have them reading at home and to exchange books weekly - if that's happening then cool - the bringing the bag to school every day is less important.

• The first day your child will bring their baggie home will be on Monday, Jan. 13th.

NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY, JAN. 20th: To celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.!!

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

So much!! We are starting new units for reading, writing, math and social studies! Actually, all of our learning will be connected in some way to our Lincoln Center learning which will make things very rich and meaningful. We are going to be delving into a study of Fairy Tales since the artworks we will be focusing on have fairy tale elements of story and magic in them. And our new writing unit - Persuasive Writing fits in beautifully with this. We will be learning how to use writing to make a change. We will be starting off with writing signs and will end with writing letters. Our letter writing will have to do with persuading fairy tale characters to make a change in their behavior to possibly have a better outcome in their story! 

In reading we are going to be building bigger reading muscles! We will be using all of our superpowers - under the umbrella of PERSISTENCE POWER to keep building on our reading skills. This week we will learn about book baggies but will also focus on using patterns to help us read almost every page of our instructional books. 

In phonics we are starting a unit on word - part power. We will be starting to look at blends (ex. tr, sm - two letters that you blend together), and digraphs (th, ch, sh - two letters that make one sound). We will also continue to develop our snap word power. 

In math we are starting a Geometry unit. This week we will be learning about the descriptive words we use to explain shapes, learn about specific shapes and create other things out of shapes. Fun!

Stacie will come this week to do her last lesson on Harmonize. And we will do some celebrating/learning about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Also, we are going to start our Fairy Tale study! We will begin by figuring out what we already know about fairy tales and read a whole bunch of them. 

We are also working on "Keeping our power." When bummers happen (somebody calls you a name, gives you a funny look, says they don't like your structure etc.) we have a choice to make. We can get upset and cry and let it bring us down - losing our power of knowing who we are (not a ninny, a wonderful structure creator etc.) and giving it up to that person who is trying to bring us down OR we can keep our power and say, "What you just said is not kind but I know who I am." and walk away. Not easy but powerful nonetheless! 

Have a wonderful week,

Love,

Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!
This is our last week before December vacation! We had so much fun on our Friday Field Trip Day taking a trip in our imaginations! Albert Einstein said,  "Creativity is intelligence having fun." and Maya Angelou said "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." I'm sure you've seen what your child created out of "discarded" things, making a truly unique piece. The kids were so into it, so busy, and so independent. It was a very amazing afternoon! Here is the news for this week...
NO SCHOOL 12/21 - 1/1/20: We come back on Jan. 2nd. Happy Holidays/Vacation to you!
WEDNESDAY, 12/18: We will have a Community Pot Luck Breakfast first thing in the morning. This is just a time to enjoy each others company and another chance to mingle with other K515 families.
NEW STUDENT JOINING US MONDAY: Your kids may have told you that Eli Kastens from Gerri and Lindsey's class will now be joining our class for the rest of the year. Most of the kids already know him and we are ready to welcome him into our very loving classroom community!
SMALLISH CLASSROOM CLEAN UP: I have a some finished works that are ready to go home and kids have some overstuffed worktrays to be cleaned out before the vacation. Please bring in any kind of bag to fill with these things this week. There is actually a pile of work that needs to be sorted/sifted through and I will be leaving that up to you so thank you in advance! Also please be sure to take home waterbottles on Friday or whenever your child's last day this week will be. Thanks!
WHAT WE ARE UP TO:
We continue to work on snap words this week. We now have special boxes filled with words and snap word mats to use to sort them on. We will be playing "Guess My Rule" with snap words and will search through books to find snap words too.
In writing we are still working on small moment true stories and will both focus on using all the tools we have to help us as well as giving special focus to our personal word walls (snap words again!) We are also using our narrative writing check list to make sure that our stories are readable for ourselves and our audience.
In reading we are finishing up our Superpowers unit and will spend this week using all we've learned so far to help us with our reading. I will also be working with groups and assessing reading levels in order to get ready for sending kids home with book baggies in January! More info to come after break on that!
In math we are continuing our work on comparing. We will be doing work with balances using the words heavier than and lighter than. We will also be playing our ECAM games and recording mathematical thinking in our math journals.
Stacie will come on Tuesday to continue her lessons based on her song Harmonize. Last week the kids made musical shakers using different colored/shaped beans (a lovely parallel to mirror the diversity of people) to use during the chorus of the song. And during Worktime we are focusing on turn taking. What do we do when more than one person wants to use a certain thing? Of course there are different options and taking turns is a good one (though not always an easy one thus the focus.)
I hope you all have an excellent vacation, happy holidays and a wonderful new year! Love, Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!

Our Relatives and Special Friends Day was very lovely. You can see a project we did all together hanging in the hallway above the fish tank. Here is everything you need to know for this week...

FIELD TRIP FRIDAY AND FAMILY SING: We've had a small change in plan. Here is what we are doing (still no chaperones are needed):

• 8:35 - 9:00ish - FAMILY SING.

• Instead of watching Mary Poppins we have changed to Lucky Duck which is a very sweet short animated movie about a toy duck who doesn't squeak and therefore has trouble fitting in with the other toys. It is about his journey to discovering how being unique is wonderful.

• After watching we are going to have a "Found Things Imagination Factory" where we will be putting out all kinds of recycled goodies for the kids to create something truly unique and therefore special. It can be a toy, a sculpture, a structure - anything.

• WE NEED ANY OR ALL OF THE FOLLOWING CLEAN AND DRY ITEMS FROM YOU BY FRIDAY: toilet paper/paper towel rolls, plastic or cardboard boxes, tissue paper, wrapping paper, ribbons, empty bottles, bottle tops, old socks, corks, yarn, really anything you think we could use to work with that is laying around your home! Thank you so much!

• After we create these works we are going to go outside as a whole kindergarten to have a gallery walk and show and share with each other what unique thing we have made.

NO SCHOOL DEC. 21 - JAN 1: We come back on Jan. 2nd. Yay!

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

This week we will be working on snap words and lowercase letters. One of the new tools each child has is a "Snap Word Box" which is hanging on velcro on the bookcase in the back of the room in old reused crayon boxes. Inside are a bunch of the snap words we have on the word wall and kids will be using them to sort and practice.

We are writing true stories/small moments. Our focus right now is to make our writing easy to read. We are learning many strategies to help such as: drawing our uncolored pictures on all pages after we get an idea so that we don't forget it and then go back to write labels and words, write a little then read a little (write a sentence, go back and read it), tell our stories over our fingers and then touching each page, and then rereading our whole story to table mates when we feel we are finished.

We are going to spend this week revisiting all of our superpowers and focusing on specific strategies while meeting in small reading groups. We will also practice our book talking by doing some shared reading of a text as a class and then also during partner reading.

In math we are going to keep learning ECAM games and getting used to the routines of ECAM. To remind you, ECAM is used as an assessment tool and to strengthen particular math concepts for kids. The games are played in partnerships and are often done independently. This week besides ECAM we will be learning how to use a math journal in which we will be recording our math thinking. We are also continuing to learn about less than, greater than, equivalency, heavier, lighter though different types of informal measurements.

Stacie is coming on Tuesday to continue her teaching of Harmonize. Here are some lyrics from the chorus to help you understand what the song is teaching: Harmonize, come together, sound the call! Harmonize, come together one and all. Dr. Martin Luther King said it best, and put our nation to the test, "I have a dream!" Harmonize, harmonize. And while we play, we are focusing on the very difficult concept of sharing. Often kids say "He/she isn't sharing!" when somebody else has gotten to a toy/piece/item first and is using it and another child wants it. We are working on developing the understanding that "sharing" may mean, in this instance, that it will require some patience, but when that child is finished using this item, then they can share it OR maybe both kids can use it at the same time OR maybe one child uses it for a short bit and then the other does - back and forth. It requires both communication and acceptance. Heavy stuff!

We have finished Superfudge and now have moved on to our last Judy Blume "Fudge" book (there is one after but I usually don't read it) Fudge-a-mania.

Well, that's the news! Have a terrific week!

Love,

Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!

I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend! It's already December! Here is what's happening...

RSF DAY: Relatives and Special Friends Day is Friday. Just a review -

• The Kindergarten will be singing all together in the auditorium at 9 am.

• Your child's relative or special friend will be welcomed to our classroom from 9:30-10:30 to do fun stuff with us.

• Please don't worry if your child doesn't have somebody coming. We will be sharing adults who come and everybody will be busy with our activities so everybody will be working together and happy!

FIELD TRIP FRIDAY AND FAMILY SING: Will be on Friday, Dec. 13th.

• We will be having a FAMILY SING first thing in the morning.

• We won't need any chaperones for this month's trip because we are going to be watching Mary Poppins and then creating chalk drawings out on 93rd Street so we can imagine jumping into them just as they do in the movie! Which leads me to one request - we would love to have donations of colorful sidewalk chalk. Thanks!

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

In phonics we are going to focus on both snap words and ending sounds. Kids will be getting a new tool this week in their writing folders - an individual word wall. This has all of the snap words we have gone over so far and they will continue to add words as we go along.

In writing we are writing true stories. This week we will be working on rereading our own writing. So we will write a little, read a little - making sure that we can read our own work. We will also be focusing on remembering our whole stories. We do this by thinking of the story when drawing our pictures, telling and retelling our stories across our fingers before trying to put words on the page and looking back at the pictures when we get stuck.

In reading we are going to be building up our Book Talk Power! We will do this both as we read a book with a partner and then by retelling stories once we finish. Of course we will all the while be honing all of our reading super powers!

In math we are going to be working on making equivalent sets of objects. We will learn a game called Match My Set and also work on making sets with one more and one less. We will also be working with balance scales to compare using the terms heavier and lighter.

Stacie is coming on Tuesday to start teaching us a new and amazing song called Harmonize. This will also support this week's teaching of the book We Are All Wonders by R.J. Palacio which will be the touchstone text leading us to our special activity on Friday with our relatives and special friends.

We should be getting our new rug on Tuesday too - no more slip sliding around the floor! Yay!

Have a wonderful week!

Love,

Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!

This is only a three day week - there is no school on Thursday or Friday for the Thanksgiving holiday. I am thankful to all of you for being so wonderfully supportive! Here is what's happening...

RSF DAY, DEC. 6th: It will be Relative and Special Friends Day the first Friday of December so there is no field trip or Family Sing first thing in the morning. The entire kindergarten will be singing together in the auditorium at 9 am (just a few songs) and then from 9:30 - 10:30 the relatives and special friends are welcomed into the classroom. In our class we will be having a fuller sing time and then do a special group activity!

FRIDAY, DEC. 13th: This will be our Field Trip Friday and Family Sing. I will let you know what we have planned asap.

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

ABC School was fuzzy and fun! The kids were fabulous teachers so I'm sure now you've got some very well educated stuffies in your home! The next bend of our Word Scientists unit blends all of our literacy learning - writing, reading and word study. We will be working on using our tools and knowledge of letters to stretch out and write not only the first sound in words but ending sounds too (and depending on our abilities all the sounds in between.) Hand in hand with our learning in writers workshop where we are learning to bring our writing to life - making it super interesting and easy to read for our readers - we are also going to be using speech bubbles to add more to our stories and practice this during phonics as well.

Continuing with writing workshop and learning to Write for Readers - we are working on writing true stories. We are going to be working on writing sentences, word for word. We will also look at some Mo Willems books to see how speech and thought bubbles are used and try to work that into our own stories.

In reading we are going to dip our toes into punctuation! We will learn about what a period, a question mark and an exclamation point mean. We will work on changing our voices when we read and will also dive into learning how to talk about books - activating our Book Talk Power!

In math we have finished our comparing both the length and number of letters in our names through our name train project and this short week we will learn the card game Compare. We will also continue to dive into comparing quantities using the vocabulary less, more, equal through some math story problems and playdoh!

Stacie is coming on Tuesday to continue her I Feel work! Yay! I feel happy she's coming! And we got a little sidelined with the starting of our School study. We are going to hold off until December to start that (which is only a week away!) and we are going to be doing a very mini study around the picture book We're All Wondersby R.J. Palacio.

We didn't get to our seed experiment last week so we will do that this week!

I wish you all a very lovely holiday weekend,

Love,

Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!

We had a wonderful "Old Favorite Parade" during last Friday's Town Hall. Thank you to the parents who were able to come help us get dressed in our costumes! I am attaching a video that Olivia's mom took of part of the parade so you can see all your little elephants.

Here is all the news this week...

ABC SCHOOL: As part of our phonics "Word Scientists" unit of study, the kids are asked to bring in one stuffed animal so they can teach them everything they know about the abc's! The stuffies is just a one day thing - we will ask them to join us this WEDNESDAY, 11/20 please. If your child doesn't have one, I have a few extra in our class and I'm sure I can borrow even more from other classes. Thank you!

NO SCHOOL NOV. 28 & 29: For Thanksgiving.

RELATIVES AND SPECIAL FRIENDS DAY 12/6: The first Friday in December is not going to be the usual Field Trip Friday & Family Sing because it will be "Relatives and Special Friends Day" at MSC. The kindergarten will be singing a few songs in the auditorium for the attendees and then after other greetings and such, people will come up to spend an hour in the classroom. In our class we will be singing some more songs and then working on a project together. Quite lovely!

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

In phonics we are celebrating what we already know about the alphabet and sounds of letters by holding an "ABC SCHOOL." We are also going to be learning more snap words and sharpening up using our alphabet chart as a tool to help us write.

In writing we are writing pattern books using the snap words we have learned so far which are on our Word Wall. We know we can gather certain words together to form sentences and then use that sentence to create a pattern book. After we have written some pattern books we will focus on how our books end. Will be break the pattern and bring everything together in a statement? Wait and see!

In reading we keep discovering new super powers! Last week we discovered that we have Picture Power! We can use the pictures to help us read tricky words! We also activated our Snap Word Power - and we know we can use snap words to anchor our pointer power when we read. This week we will be practicing using all of those powers together - no small feat but superhero readers can do it! We will also use what we know about snap words and initial sounds in words to help us read.

In math we are going to be comparing numbers. We will be using our names to count and compare the number of letters in our names, create name trains, and have some math discussions regarding that. We will learn a card game called Compare which you might know as War (but that name is too unfriendly for kindergarten!)

In social studies we have Stacie coming to do a lesson with her song I Feel. Your kids are going to be experts in communicating their feelings! We are practicing using appropriate feeling words while we play every day! We are also going to do some work in opening up our School study.

In science we are continuing our weather tracking on Wednesdays and we will also work on a science/math experiment with our remaining apples from the Farmers Market trip. We will be asking and answering the question, "Do all apples have the same number of seeds?" We will search, count and compare our outcomes.

Since it has gotten good and cold - please check that your child's change of clothes in case of accident has the appropriate type of clothing (meaning no shorts & short sleeves.) Thank you!

Well, have a great week and enjoy the video!

Love,

Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!

I hope you are all having a meaningful Veteran's Day today! Here is what's going on this week...

THURSDAY, 11/14 CONFERENCES AND 1/2 DAY:

• Dismissal is at 12:00 in the auditorium.

• There will be an abbreviated lunch time so you can choose to have your kids eat lunch in school or have them eat after pickup. They will still have a snack so they can hang on if necessary!

• Conferences start at 12:50 and continue with one break until the last one at 7:30.

• In thinking ahead, if you have a specific goal, concern, question(s), this will be a private time to bring it/them up.

• I will do my best to strictly stick to the allotted times. Please don't be late - I won't be able to push over into somebody else's conference time. Thanks!

OLD FAVORITES PARADE: To celebrate our reading unit about Old Favorite books, the entire kindergarten is having a parade that will march through the Town Hall on Friday. Our class is dressing up as the colorful elephants in Elmer. I have asked for a couple volunteers to help the kids get ready - they are putting on grocery bag costumes, elephant ears and trunks. I will need this help around 9:35ish. Our Town Hall starts at 10. I will ask somebody to film the parade so I can send it to you! Warning - it might be cuteness overload!!

STAR REPORTS: These are the progress reports MSC uses. I will be giving them out some time this week by handing you a hard copy either in the mornings or at dismissals. I believe you can also see them on line in your child's school account. If you don't know how to get into that you can ask Malaka our Parent Coordinator in room 503. Any hard copy reports that I don't get to hand out will go to you in the mail.

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

In phonics we are getting fluent with our alphabet charts. We are working on matching the first sound a word makes with the letters on the chart and coming up with alternative pictures that we think would be more helpful and straightforward. We are also getting fluent with our snap words. We will be learning "Snap Word Basketball" this week - spelling out snap words and shooting the word through the imaginary hoop!

In writing we are going to learn that when we want to write a book with a bunch of pages it sometimes helps to talk and write in a pattern. We can use a snap words we know to create these patterns! We will also continue to practice using all the tools we have learned about so far - alphabet charts, the word wall, writing charts and writing partners.

In reading we are going to unleash some more powers! Did your kids tell you that Princess Leia of Star Wars wrote us a letter and sent us all mini light saber power pointers to help us point under each and every word we read?? I'll let your children reveal which new powers they will discover this week so stay tuned!

This week in math we are going to be learning the concept of "one less." Last week we worked with "one more" and learned some fun games and now we will focus on the opposite. We are also getting familiar with the number line as a tool to help us. We will be learning a "One Less Bump" game and then will move onto another math concept - comparing numbers.

In social studies, we have Stacie coming this week to start working on a new theme and song called I Feel. This is a unit on learning how to communicate and honor all possible feelings and to have empathy for one another. And while we play we will use what we learn about communicating our feelings to make sure we are expressing ourselves clearly to our friends. We are also going to be moving into a study of our school! What do we already know? What do we want to know? What workers do we know about in our school and who can we learn about?

Don't forget that Wednesday morning when we come into the classroom kids are to work on their Weather Wednesday Journals. The purpose of keeping track every week of the weather/season/month is to collect evidence of seasonal changes. We are scientists!

Have a great week!

Love,

Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!
Hope you got to enjoy an extra hour of sleep falling back with the clocks! Thank you to the grown ups who were able to come with us on our trip on Friday to the Farmers Market. It was really chilly but fun! When we got back to school we were inspired to make paintings of the fruits and vegetables we saw and then we had an apple taste test. We had 5 different color apples to try: red, green, yellow, green/red and yellow/red. Come see the graph we created from the outcome of the test, hanging up inside the classroom. This week we will continue using some of the data they (and you) collected from interviewing the farmers to answer the question of when produce was planted and harvested to determine what is seasonal. Science is yummy! Here is what else is happening...
TUESDAY, NOV. 5th: NO SCHOOL FOR KIDS.
MONDAY, NOV. 11th: NO SCHOOL FOR EVERYONE.
THURSDAY, NOV. 14th: 1/2 DAY AND CONFERENCES. HERE IS IMPORTANT INFORMATION: Dismissal will be at 12:00 in the auditorium for all kids.You can decide to have your child eat lunch at school or after pick up.These conferences are called "Goal Setting" conferences. In kindergarten we ask that no kids attend, only parent(s) and teacher. There will be conferences in the spring where your child will not only attend but run the conference!Please be on time for your conference. You can see from the sign up that there is no buffer between conferences. If you are late we will use the remaining time you have to keep on schedule. Thanks! STAR REPORTS: These are progress reports that we give out quarterly. The categories you will see on the report are reading, writing, math, social studies, science, social/emotional, dance, and physical education. The level number your child gets next to each category is a number based on benchmarks for all of kindergarten. You will be receiving your child's first Star Report next week.
WHAT WE ARE UP TO:
In phonics we are being Word Scientists! We are going to be learning some new snap words, looking at what we notice, and using alphabet charts and alphabet books to focus on initial sounds using pictures.
In our "Show and Tell" writing, we are going to start writing about important places. We will be writing in booklets for this and trying to add many labels to our drawings. We are also going to practice using writing partners at our work tables and learn about giving compliments about each others' writing. We are also going to introduce some different ways to decide how we'd like to make our books including a choice of "lift the flap!"
In reading we are going to continue discovering and then unleashing our Reading Superpowers!!! Last week we activated our Pointer Power and this week we will activate a couple more powers that I will have your children share with you. Didn't know you had a superhero in your midst this whole time did you?
In math we are going to be learning about one more and one less. We will be playing partner games to practice these concepts. We will also work on these concepts through word problems. We are going to focus on math partnership behaviors too - how can we be great math partners? What does that look like, sounds like, feel like?
In science, as I wrote above, we will be using the data we collected from our trip to dig into what seasonal means. And on Wednesday kids will be coming into the room in the morning to work on their next Weather Wednesday Journal page. By the way - our class won a contest created by older students in the Greenhouse! We won the recycling our garbage contest because we are using our paper/plastic/garbage bins correctly! So proud...
Stacie won't be coming this week because kids have no school on Tuesday. We are wrapping up our Self and Others unit by starting a culminating project about the "others" portion of this unit. We will be assigned a partner and will be creating a pattern "All About" book about our friend.
We have started the sequel to Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing called Superfudge, by Judy Blume. More Fudge adventures! I just want to remind you though - I do censor the book! I know some people like to read the book at home while we are reading it in school (although I would prefer you wait until we finish so you don't get ahead of us - makes it more fun for the kids) and there are words I take out, parts I take out and even may skip a chapter here and there to make it perfectly appropriate for kindergarten.
Have a great week! Love, Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!
I hope you're staying dry on this wet Sunday! Here is the news for this week...
FRIDAY, NOV. 1st: Is FAMILY SING and FIELD TRIP FRIDAY. Family Sing will start at 8:35 and run through to around 9:00/9:10. Please join us! Siblings welcome!We are planning on taking a walking trip to the Farmers Market on 97th St. between Columbus and Amsterdam (the one by Whole Foods.) Right now the forecast is for rain but we will make a determination either Thursday night or Friday morning if we need to cancel. We plan on leaving school at 9:20, and then walk through the market investigating when things were planted and when they were harvested. We should make it back to school by 10:15. PLEASE JOIN US if you can! The more grown ups the better! Thank you. NO SCHOOL FOR KIDS ON NOV. 5th: Only for teachers and staff.
HALLOWEEN: Just a reminder that kids are not allowed to wear costumes to school on Halloween.
THANK YOU: We have enough paper grocery bags now - thanks so much.
WHAT WE ARE UP TO:
We finished up our first unit of phonics and will be heading into a new unit called Word Scientists. We are now experts on the first letter of our name and we are each included as a tool/support for our peers if they should need our help writing or hearing our first letter (that's what the signs on the back of the chairs are for.) We are going to use our alphabet charts and the alphabet song to focus on letter recognition, sounds and then the sorting of letters by how they are formed. For example, we are going to be looking closely at letters that have holes and letters that don't. We will also be matching pictures with first letter sounds and will be sure to make it all fun!
In show and tell writing we are finishing up using the items we brought from home and kids can bring those back home after tomorrow. This week we are being brave spellers! We are learning how to stretch out each sound we hear in a word to attempt to write down those letters. There are 3 steps to being a brave speller: Stretch out the word.Use tools (like alphabet charts and the word wall.)Don't give up. (This one is my favorite rule!) We are ready to start learning about our reading Super Powers! We will discover that we actually have super powers just like Wonder Woman or Spider Man! As readers, we have the power to look, point, and read everything we can! This week we are going to summon our powers and unleash our Pointer Power! Take that!! We are also celebrating the end of our Old Favorites reading unit by creating costumes from a character we've read about. We will start that project this week!
In math we are discussing how to keep track of our counting when we can't move what we are counting (like pictures for example.) This is also teaching the ordering numbers. Once we have learned about this concept we will work on some dot to dots. Fun! We will then be working with Counting Collection Bags. Students will have a bag with a certain number of objects inside and they will be counting/keeping track of the number of items. They will do this work independently but will be helping their classmates double check their numbers.
Stacie will come this week and continue her work through The Golden Rule. We are also going to be continuing our social studies work by starting a new project in which we ultimately will be writing an All About (insert friend's name here) Book. We will need to interview one another, practice listening to one another, and then will create this artifact. I will be choosing partners for the kids. We will also focus on being inclusive when we play. We will see how aware we are of the kids around us. Is everybody a part of the play? Is everybody actively engaged? Are we sure that everybody is feeling included? And are we making sure everybody has what they need to enjoy the playing?
We learned about our Weather Wednesdays Journals last week and this Wednesday will be working on them in the morning when we arrive in school. We are also learning about what seasonal means and what harvest means. Our Farmers Market trip supports our science learning as well as learning about our school neighborhood.
We finished Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing! Ask your kids about the ending! We will start a new chapter book this week but it's a secret for now!
Have a wonderful week! Love, Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!
You know what? Your kids are amazing - our class is amazing. On Friday we were doing the "Cinderella Greeting" where we take off one shoe, put the shoes in the middle of the circle and then each child takes one, presents it to the owner and the two greet each other. Well, the evacuation drill alarm went off and we had to quickly line up and leave the building and your kids were pros! With one shoe on and carrying the other! As soon as we got outside they put their other shoe on and walked up the block - no questions, complaints - so responsible and mature! My heart swelled. Anyway, here is the news for this week...
NO TOYS: Initially, individual classrooms had a "no toys in school" rule. Now the whole of MSC has that rule - not even toys at recess due to issues surrounding loss and conflict. Thanks for your help with this.
LICE: There is a case of lice in another kindergarten classroom. Please be diligent and proactive and check your child's hair for the next couple of weeks. Be aware of excessive itchiness. Also, if your child has longer hair it is safest for them to wear it up. Thank you!
HALLOWEEN: MSC doesn't celebrate holidays and they do not allow costumes to be worn to school on Halloween.
REQUEST: I need 20 - 22 grocery store paper bags. They will be used for a very fun project we will be doing to celebrate "Old Favorite" books! We will be creating costumes out of the bags and then will join an "Old Favorite Book Parade" that the entire kindergarten will be participating in! I will give more details as to the character we will be dressing up as and the date of the parade soon! Thank you!
SHOW AND TELL: We are beginning a new Writers Workshop unit of study called Show and Tell. For the launch of this unit I need each student to bring in a small, favorite object that they would be interested to write about. It would be great if we could bring in these objects by Wednesday. Thanks!
WHAT WE ARE UP TO:
This week in word study (phonics) we are going to be introducing some more snap words. Last week we introduced the word "the" and after labeling the room with post its using the first letter of objects we found, we wrote a class book called The Things in Our Classroom. We used the word "the" on each page (The blocks, The chair, The worktrays...) This week we will learn the words a and me. We will also learn how to support one another while writing, Since we are the experts of the first letters of our name and the sound that letter makes, we can help our classmates write other words using our first names' letter!
We are starting our new Show and Tell unit! This is a really wonderful writing unit that is all about writing more, drawing more, and eventually using the support of patterns to help write books!
We are going to be heading into finishing our work with Old Favorite books. This week we will focus on using more and more words that are exactly the same in old favorite books, focus on making sense when we "read" words in books while matching them to the illustrations, and then using all we know to read old favorite books. We will then start on our parade project!
In math we are working on the concept of holding a number and counting on. We learned a new version of a game called Build It 2 where we are presented with a 10 frame that already has 5 dots on it and then are using cards 6-10 to build a number after "holding" that 5. We will play this game in partnerships (the first time we played we did so with partnerships against partnerships - so 4 kids - and now will play with just 2 partners.) We will be having number talks around this concept as well. We will also be learning about connecting numbers in order and keeping track of numbers.
This Wednesday we will start using our "Weather Wednesday Journals." Then after this week the journals will be out every Wednesday morning.
Stacie from Harmonize Kidz came last Wednesday and started to teach us the song and vocabulary from her song The Golden Rule. This Wednesday she will come again and teach us a new lesson using that song as the touchstone. And we will focus on the skill of listening while collaboratively playing with one another. Are we listening to everybody's input when choosing roles for playing? When deciding what to build? When deciding who goes first in a game? Are we listening to one another's concerns?
The kids have really been enjoying Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and the character of Fudge! Ask your child to tell you some of his stories!
Have a lovely week! Love, Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!

I hope you've been enjoying this beautiful fall weekend! Here is what's happening...

PICTURE DAY: Is THURSDAY, OCT. 17th at 9 AM. Yay! This means no lunch stains on your child's clothes for school pictures!

HARMONIZE KIDZ: Is starting this Tuesday! Stacie will be starting to teach the kids her original song The Golden Rule as well as the first lesson that accompanies it. I'm really excited for the class to start their work with Stacie and Mr. Sing-a-wrong who you will find out about on Tuesday...

REQUEST: We are going to be creating "First Letter of Our Name Collages" this week. If you are able, would you please go through a few magazines with your child to cut out pictures of things that start with the same letter as the first letter of their name? You can collect those pictures in a small baggie and please bring it in for Wednesday. Thank you!

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

We have finished all of our Star Names and now will be working on "owning" the letters in our names and teaching them to others, as well as using our names to build new words.

In writers workshop we are going to be starting to use booklets as a choice for our writing. We will be saying the story we want to write across three pages- touching each page as we go before even putting pictures/words/sounds down.

In reading we are going to be diving into "Old Favorite" books! These are stories that you probably read when you were little and now have passed on to your kids (Where the Wild Things Are, The Carrot Seed, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, Caps for Sale and many more!) This week we are going to be focusing on making the words we "read" match the page we are reading. We do this by following the action we see in the pictures and remembering words we have previously heard/read in the book. An example of this is in The Three Billy Goats Gruff where we see the Troll under the bridge and one of the billy goats on top of the bridge and we read/say "Trip, trap, trip, trap." "Who's that tromping over my bridge?" said the Troll.

In math, we are going to be having number talks about holding a number and counting on. We will be using rekenreks for this work. Then we will also be learning a really fun game called Build It where we will be using 10 frames, a pile of cards, counters and a folder as a hiding barrier (a la Battleship) between each others' boards. Kids will be building a number based on a card and then explaining to one another how they built it on their ten frame and then compare how they each built the number.

For our science work we are going to be starting something called "Weather Wednesdays." This will be a way of learning to observe, track and understand weather and temperature through the months and seasons during school. The first time we will be doing it as a class. After that, every Wednesday the Weather Wednesday journals will be out on the tables in the mornings when kids come into school and they will do that work first thing.

In Social Studies, besides delving into The Golden Rule, we are going to be continuing our "Myself and Others" work. We learned about using shapes to help us create representational drawings and have drawn our own bodies. We are working on a project where we think about who we are and will use those body drawings plus things we know about ourselves to ultimately create an artwork that teaches others about ourselves. We will also be continuing to focus on the concept of flexibility while working through our play.

Have a lovely rest of the week!

Love,

Lynn

Newsletter

Hello Families!

We had such a lovely Family Sing and Field Trip Friday! Thank you for the parents who were able to join us - it was the most beautiful fall day and after doing some scientist work with trees and then collecting leaves, twigs and acorns, we spent the rest of the morning playing in the playground. You can see the bark rubbings the kids created hanging up in the classroom on one of our bulletin boards. Also - have you seen the "Me Stews" up on the bulletin board in the hallway? Check out your child's favorite recipe ingredients! Here is what's happening this week...

NO SCHOOL: On Wednesday, 10/9 for Yom Kippur.

BIG NEWS: Next week we are going to be starting an incredibly important and wonderful program on most Tuesdays called HARMONIZE KIDZ. This is a program that was created by Stacie Lewis - a former MSC parent who is a Broadway performer. It is a powerful supplement to teaching our Social Studies curriculum matched with amazing songs that were written by Stacie. I taught both of Stacie's daughters and after her older daughter Vivian (now in 7th grade) was in my class, Stacie started to write songs about the themes we cover through our Kindergarten Scope and Sequence. I helped Stacie create lessons around each of these songs and then she morphed everything together into this rich program. I'm so excited for the kids to experience this!

WHAT WE ARE UP TO:

We are still working through our Star Names.This week besides celebrating and learning letters through our names, we will be learning our own names by heart and teaching others. We will be reading our name wall, labeling with our names, hearing all the sounds in our names, creating name collages and then using our names to build new words!

In writing we are going to be learning to take an idea, say our writing idea out loud and then put the idea down on the page(s). We are also going to use our alphabet chart on the back of our folders to help us to stretch out words we want to write and get the sounds down on the paper.

In reading we are going to be focused on connecting all the pages of a book so that we may be able to understand new things and talk about what we learn in our own words. We will be practicing partner reading and sharing "Wow" pages - things we find interesting that we want to share with our partner.

In math we are going to be exploring and then using a new tool called a Rekenrek. This is a tool that has 20 beads with 2 levels. The top level has 5 red and 5 white and the lower level has the same. We will be having some Number Talks about counting beads that are pushed to one side and then are covered, and then we explain how we know what we counted. We will also be learning about how we may represent our mathematical thinking in different ways and will be working on figuring out missing numbers in a game called "Beep" and then writing those numbers correctly.

In science we are going to sort and closely observe the items we collected from the park, then we may see what we can create with them.

In social studies we are continuing our "Myself and Others" study. We are going to be discussing what our favorite parts of each of us are and also will be learning why everything about our differences should be celebrated. We are also going to be introducing the concept of flexibility through our play. What does it mean to be flexible? What does not being flexible look like and what are the consequences of that? What does being flexible feel like, sound like, look like?

We started reading a very funny chapter book! It's Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. I choose this book to read because it is the story of a family on the upper west side - mainly a 9 year old named Peter and his hilarious 3 year old brother Fudge. Kids LOVE Fudge! He is very mischievous. Please note however, that I do censor the book. There is a whole chapter I skip and certain parts I leave out as well in order to make the book 100% appropriate and enjoyable. Listening to a chapter book that has no pictures is a wonderful way for kids to imagine characters in their own minds, follow a story hearing only words, hold onto an ongoing story and build their vocabulary and understanding of a story arc. And this one makes them crack up which is actually the best part!

Have a great week!

Love,

Lynn