K-3 Newsletter

                         Mrs. MacIntyre 

Dear Families,

March 27, 2015

 The month of March sure flew by fast. We found that we had many many more “lion days” than “lamb days”. It was very cold and windy and snowy!! Let’s hope for some fun in the sun in April. We will be finishing up our Dr. Seuss unit next week. We are doing a great job with rhyming and learning about word families. Your child will be bringing home a library of mini-books that they have made here in class. Please let them read them to you! Enjoy!

Our letter of the week was “Jj”. Our tongue twister was “Jeremy and Jazmin jiggle like jell-o.”

In April we will be studying about Oviparous animals. We will be learning about what an oviparous animal is and will be able to identify many stages and transformations they go through before they are born.

In Writer’s Workshop the children worked on writing informational pieces. We wrote about what you can find at an airport, in the classroom and on the playground. They did a nice job.

I wonder if your child has been talking about Salt and Pepper. They are part of our science unit. They are goldfish and the children love them. Maybe they will tell you the funny story about what happened when I brought them home last weekend.

In math, we worked on creating our own addition and subtraction stories and we also practice addition with dice. If you want to do this at home give your child two die. Have them roll them and write and solve an addition problem with the numbers they rolled. They loved this and the dots are there for them to count if they need to use them.

If you happen to see signs of spring this weekend please bring them in to share with the class.

 Have a wonderful weekend,

Fondly,

Colleen MacIntyre

                     K-3 Newsletter

                     Mrs. MacIntyre      March 20, 2015

Dear Families,

Spring is here! K-3 welcomed spring today on March 20^th. Let’s hope that the warm weather is headed our way… it sure has been a long winter and still feels like winter!

I can guarantee you and your child that they will be getting extra recess on our first warm and sunny spring day!

I hope everyone is feeling well and the germs are moving on. We have had a lot of absences this week, including my own, can’t wait to open the windows and let the fresh air in.

The children are enjoying our Dr. Seuss unit. They are getting very good at identifying the rhyming patterns in many of his books. I have multiple copies of a few Dr. Seuss books in our library center and many children are pairing up and taking turns reading a page together. They did this on their own and it is just wonderful to see!! They are also so excited to bring in books from home. I have a pile near my rocking chair to read. I am trying to read anything they bring in. We are even reading a few pages of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas every day! When a child is that excited about a story how can I say no?

Remember, the best thing you can do for your child to encourage a love of reading is to read to them every night. Make it a relaxing and enjoyable experience that your child and you look forward to.

In Writer’s Workshop this week we are continuing to grow. We are using different types of punctuation. The children love the exclamation point. We practiced how you would read a sentence with an exclamation point versus with a period. We also are beginning to read and answer questions while we learn about the question mark. The children are using periods and exclamation points and even commas appropriately during their writing. They are also becoming very good at lowercase letters. You should all be so proud.

In math, we continued to practice with subtraction with linking cubes. We also worked on making different combinations on our ten frames. Then frames are something your child will be using in 1^st grade so what they are doing and learning in kindergarten is giving them a strong foundation.

Our letter of the week was “Tt”. Our tongue twister was “Tori tells Tommy about tacos and tomatoes.”

In science, we are observing two goldfish; Salt and Pepper. We are observing them in their habitat, learning the parts of the fish and learning about what they need to survive.

Children may bring in one stuffed animal to rest with at rest time and of course books are always welcome. Thank you in advance.

Have a wonderful weekend.

HAPPY SPRING!!

Fondly,

Colleen MacIntyre  

                          K-3 Newsletter

                          Mrs. MacIntyre   March 13, 2015

Dear Families,

The children worked very hard this week preparing for Chinese New Year.

After studying about Chinese New Year they knew just what to do. The children swept out the classroom, to get rid of any “bad spirits”, they also cleaned up all the centers and tidied up the classroom. I am very proud of the level of understanding they gained about another culture through this unit. The Chinese potluck dinner was such a great success. Thank you all for the wonderful fruit plates you made. The table looked beautiful. We had a bountiful array of special treats. The entrees prepared by the other classrooms also looked amazing. Thank you all for coming and having such polite and wonderful children. I couldn’t think of a better way to finish off our Chinese Unit. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves.

Our letter of the week was “Ii”. Our tongue twister was “Isaac and Iris like ice cubes and ice cream.”

I am so excited about our writing this month. The children are really working hard and each one of them is improving. They are applying strategies they know and really becoming more independent with their work. Since we are studying Dr. Seuss this month, this week we looked at the word family “at”. We made a list of “at” words and incorporated two or more of them into our Writer’s Workshop to make a rhyming sentence. It is amazing to see how much they have grown since September.

In math, we continue to practice writing numbers 1-20. We have also been counting by 5’s and 10’s up to 110. We count the number of days we have been in school and are up to 113 as of Friday. That means we only have 67 days left of Kindergarten!! We are also practicing writing our own addition number stories.

We have so many wonderful Dr. Seuss’s books in our class library. The children are also excited to bring in their own from home. Your child is welcome to bring their favorites in. During our study of Dr. Seuss, we learned that his real name was Theodor Geisel. We also learned he was the most popular children’s author in the world. His style of writing and rhyming is an excellent way to get children excited and confident about reading.

Keep sending in the snow pants and boots, hopefully next week I won’t be asking for that!!

Thank you as always, for being such a supportive group of parents. I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful class.

Have a nice weekend.

Fondly,

Mrs. MacIntyre

Wish list:

Elmer’s glue sticks

Dear Families,
Due to the inclement weather our Kindergarten Chinese New Year Potluck Dinner has been rescheduled for Wednesday, March 11th at 5:00 pm. Please bring whatever you signed up for on Wednesday night.
Sorry for any inconvenience this may have on you and your family.
Stay safe
Mrs. MacIntyre