Week 28 Highlights!

What a fun week!

We began our week with Mystery Reader.  Thank you Mr. Giles for sharing How to Catch a Leprechaun, That's What Leprechauns Do, and an Elephant and Piggie favorite.

Our story of the week was Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato by Tomie dePaola.  Our comprehension focus was retelling using key details, using illustrations to understand text, and asking and answering questions about unknown words in text.  Please ask your child to retell the story of Jamie O'Rourke and the leprechaun.  

We added one new word to our word wall this week.  Our new word wall word is said.  Please continue to practice our kindergarten word wall word lists and sight word punch cards with your child at home.

Take a peek at our kindergarten readers and writers hard at work during independent Daily Five stations.

In writer's workshop, we began our opinion writing unit.  We read Click, Clack Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin to introduce letter writing.  Using the cows' letter as a guide we learned that good letters begin with the word dear, state a problem, why it is a problem, suggest a way to fix the problem, and end with the word sincerely.   Then we used our list of problems and Irving School and wrote letters to our principal, teachers, and even friends about ways to make Irving a better place.

We continue to explore number bonds, addition, and subtraction in the fourth module of our math curriculum.  This week we focused on subtraction.  We used number bonds, pictures, number sentences, and math talk to represent subtraction equations.  We even did a couple sprints!  During math tubs, we explored addition to five and ten, subtraction, Subitize Tree, counting by 10, I-Spy, and Find Sums on the iPad.  Take a peek at our kindergarten mathematicians hard at work.

We continued the pushes and pulls investigation of our Materials and Motion unit.  Our focus question was what happens when objects collide.  Together with our table partners we created foam ramps to create collisions between balls.  We experimented with changing the height, or slope, of our ramps to increase the speed of the ball.  Take a peek at our scientists hard at work!

We started our St. Patrick's Day celebrations early with a visit from Mr. Lynch, a bagpiper.  Take a peek at Mr. Lynch teaching the kindergartners about the bagpipe and playing some Irish tunes.

Upcoming Dates
March 20th-24th--SPIRIT WEEK (Monday--Pajama and Stuffed Animal Day, Tuesday--Twin Day, Wednesday--Decade Day, Thursday--Color Day, and Friday--Irving Day)
March 24th--Trimester 2 Report Cards go home
March 27th-March 31st--Spring Break
April 4th--NO SCHOOL-Institute Day