Our lead story this week is called Mayday! Mayday! Although it is considered nonfiction it reads like fiction, recounting the rescue of a yacht on a stormy sea. Among other things students will be retelling the story using the words First, Next, and Last. We are also using these in our own stories to help our readers get a sense of order and time. In math, we are hopping like frogs, as well as estimating and measuring the length of our jumps. It is great to see the kids working in pairs to help mark and measure each others jumps. Part of our Bridges math curriculum is develop flexibility in our approach to problem solving, so each day we solve a few of our class frog problems together. We are getting quite good at figuring the answers, but it is still quite challenging to communicate our “knowing” in pictures, numbers, and symbols. But today we had several solutions to Erik’s problem, “5 frogs in the pond. How many eyes?” Some of our answers included 5+5=10, counting 2-4-6-8-10, and 2+2+2+2+2=10, along with 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10. We will have our first visit of two with Miss Julia to the Lewis Learning Garden on Wednesday. We will be looking for worms and bugs in their natural habitat. We will then be taking a closer look at some of these creepy-crawlies in the classroom. We have had two visits from Sabrina, our school nurse, to lead us in some yoga breathing and exercises. The kids have enjoyed it a lot and we can all use the “mini-vacation” she provides us as she leads us in visualizing calm, imaginary trips. Later in the week, we will be treated to a musical performance by Mr. J’s musical groups! Thanks for all of your help this year with this great bunch of kiddos. 

It is hard to believe we only have four weeks of left in our kindergarten year! All of the kiddos in room 2 have made so much progress this year - both socially and academically. This week we are reading a story titled Max Takes the Train. We are focusing on the different types of transportation the characters take, labeling diagrams, illustrating sentences, as well as the comprehension skill of comparing and contrasting. In math, we are working on problem solving and our partner math games. We will have our last two gardening sessions with Julia starting next week. The kids will be looking at worms and pillbugs and their habitats. We will then follow up in the classroom with some of our own science investigations. In writing, we continue to write personal narratives - checking for spaces, punctuation, capitalization. We will also be writing letters to our reading buddies. With assessments, Field Day, and the end of year picnic on the way - it looks as though it will be a busy month! P.S. - We just finished some beautiful landscape oil-pastel drawings. They will be hanging outside the classroom. Come in and see them! 

It was great to see so many families at the Lewis Art Night! The kids did a wonderful job talking to people about their art, the processes and mediums we used, and our inspiration! All of their art will be coming home soon in a portfolio for you to enjoy.

We are getting back in to the swing of things after the busy month of April which was filled with so many special activities. We are revisiting some of our worktime jobs to be sure we are doing our personal best on each piece of work we turn in; making sure it is completed as it was intended to be and not rushed through to just be finished. Two more of the goals of worktime are to help build stamina for working independently and to teach kids to self-monitor their work and work habits. It is a big challenge for kindergarteners but one we have made progress on. In math, we are revisiting problem solving with the help of our frogs. We will be creating our own story problems later in the week and working to solve them next week. We continue to play our many math games helping us with our math facts and concepts. We are getting quite good at quickly recognizing our ten-frames and unifix-stacks and knowing which has more or less. We are also practicing counting by 5’s and 10’s. Please help reinforce this by practicing at home! We also should be able to count to 100 without any hiccups. Kids often get tired and skip a few numbers here and there. We are working toward 100% - 100% of the time. In gym, we are doing a great job of playing our positions in the kickball outfield and sharing the ball! We are still working on kicking the ball and running the bases. These are turning out to be more challenging than anticipated. REMINDER: Please help your kiddo remember to wear gym shoes to school on Tuesdays and Fridays- as we are playing kickball right now. Open-toed sandals and crocs are not appropriate. Children are welcome to bring a pair of shoes to change into. We don’t want any hurt toes!  Thanks! Please contact me at school or by email with any questions or concerns. 

What a busy week we have putting the final touches on our art for the annual Lewis Art Night this Thursday, May 3rd. Several kids have already signed up to be docents - but there are lots of spaces still available. Please check the sign-up on the classroom door if you plan on attending this great event and your child wants to be a docent. In language arts we are finishing up worktime with the non-fiction story If You could Go to Antarctica and will begin a new story midweek called Abuela, a lovely story about a young girl, her imagination, and her Abuela, or grandmother. In writing, we will explore what and why writer’s write, and then begin to work on some of those real-life kinds of writing as we head to the end of the year. In math, we are working with coins and counting to 30 (and beyond), counting by 5‘s and 10‘s, measuring with unifix cubes, different ways to make 5, and our estimating skills! We will be moving back into problem solving in the upcoming weeks. In gym, we are going to start playing the old favorite Kickball. Please make sure your child wears closed-toed shoes (athletic shoes) on Tuesdays and Fridays, as we will be playing both in the gym and on the field whenever possible. Thanks and I hope to see you Thursday at Art Night!

We have another busy week in Room 2. We will be getting ready for Art Night which is coming up next Thursday, May 3rd. Art Night is filled with art, music, friends, family and dessert! Each classroom has student docents stationed with their art work. Students get to dress up and tell people all about our art! It is optional but everyone indicated that they were interested! We will have a sign-up sheet outside the classroom later this week. If you are unable to come in feel free to email me or send a note about which time works best for your kindergartener. We will have 30 minute slots between 6:00 - 8:00 pm. Throughout our week in math we will be estimating length and measuring items in the classroom, as well as revisiting some of our math workplaces this week. Our literacy work has us traveling to Antarctica with a wonderful nonfiction text If You Could go to Antarctica. Students will be writing facts about Antarctica, comparing and contrasting sea life that lives there, along with working with the short vowel sound /u/. We will get a preview of the school play this week. I hear that it is a wonderful musical and a lot of fun. Get your tickets in the office and come see for yourself either Friday night or Saturday afternoon. Thanks for all your support. Any questions or concerns please contact me at sjamesba@pps.net.

We started off the week on Monday with the first session with our artist in residence from Tears of Joy Theatre. We are making our own puppets and learning how puppeteers create voices and animate their puppets. We will be working on this project all week leading up to an in-classroom performance on Thursday Morning at 10:00 a.m. We started out by talking about the characters in the story and what type of voice and movements they would make. Then we had auditions to assign a role to each student in the class. We will then make our puppets and start staging the performance of Eric Carle’s The Grouchy Ladybug. We hope many of you will be able to make it to see our performance! 

In math, we continue our look at measurement and time in our daily Number Corner. We will begin to measure things around the classroom, as well as continue to estimate, add, and work with coins in our math work places. Our bean plants have beans! We have seen the seeds germinate, sprout, grow leaves and flowers, and finally the fruit of our labor - beans! There is not quiet enough for a meal, but we will be sampling them later in the week.

Coming up at the end of the week is our field trip to see the Tears of Joy Theatre’s production of Stellaluna, report cards, and the start of our weaving project. If anyone has anymore bright colored yarns, please send them in. Small amounts are welcome! We have plenty of CD’s so no need to send those anymore! Thanks for your support!