Welcome back! We hope that everyone had a fun and safe spring break! This week in Kindergarten we have been VERY busy. On Monday we enjoyed a wonderful field trip to the Harold Washington Library to meet with an author about her poetry. Her enthusiasm was catching and everyone had a wonderful time!
This week we also started our unit on plants. On Tuesday we planted our own zinnias and started plant journals. Every day for the next two weeks we are going to observe the plants and record what we see. On Wednesday we watched a short video on Discovery Education about the different parts of the plant. Afterwards we discussed what we saw in the video and labeled a plant together. Then each table was given a large sheet of paper asked to draw and label a plant of their choice. It was wonderful to see all the great teamwork that went on during this assignment.
Also this week we started short a word families. We reviewed the short "a" sound, talked about what makes a family and brainstormed words for the -at, -ad, -am, -ag, -ap and -an word families. We then wrote a story using the -ap words from our list. In addition to short "a", the students learned about the "sh" sound. We talked about how you can hear this sound at both the beginning (shrimp) and end (fish) of words.
April has begun our study of fiction stories! The students are so excited to be able to use their creativity and imaginations during writing. We have been very careful to discuss how this unit is separate from Writer's Workshop. We spent this week reading and listening to different stories and discussing what makes them alike and different. We also talked about the different elements that make these stories fiction. Next week we will begin the planning process of our stories. In Writer's Workshop we are continuing to learn what makes our stories readable and unreadable. This week we went over hearing ALL the sounds in our words, how to write and then read and rewrite and reread. It's going to take awhile, but we are hoping that it will be very beneficial in the long run.
Reminders
- This Sunday
April 10th is the last family mass of the school year. It starts at 8:30 in the church, we hope to see you there.
- Next Friday
April 15th school will dismiss at 11:30. Parent-Teacher conferences are scheduled for the afternoon. Please turn in your sheet by Monday for a conference time. Can't wait to see you!
- Special Persons Day is next Wednesday
April 20th. Invitations went out this week, please make sure that your special people received his/her invitation and knows the details of the day.
- School will dismiss at 11:30 on Thursday
April 21st and will reconvene on Tuesday April 26th for Easter weekend.
