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

                K-3 Newsletter February 27, 2015

                                                  Mrs. MacIntyre

Dear Families,

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Welcome back! I hope you all had a great vacation. The children have transitioned well back into the schedule of school. We have been very busy working on our Chinese unit. The children created their own Chinese dragons, they practiced writing Chinese symbols and they also created their own Chinese lanterns. We have read some wonderful literature about Chinese New Year and we also practice writing the numbers 1-10 in Chinese. We have incorporated our Chinese unit into our math and have even done addition with Chinese symbols!  

 We are very excited about our Chinese Potluck on Thursday, March 5th. Please arrive promptly at 5:00. Please have your child wear as much red as possible. The children will be doing a quick performance before the dinner. When you arrive please send your child over to me and we will get ready to put on a quick show for you. While I am getting them ready could you please help me by setting up your entrée on the buffet table? Thank you in advance. The children have worked so hard and are excited to share what they know and celebrate with some delicious Chinese food. I sent home a sheet about what to bring. Each family in my class should bring a drink and fruit dish to serve 12. Please include a serving spoon to go a long with your meal and be sure to remember to take it with you when the dinner is over. Mrs. Green’s class and Ms. Mitchell’s class will provide entrees for all of the families. We are looking forward to having all the kindergarten families together.

In other news, please continue to read nightly with your child. It is very important that the nightly readers come back within 2 or 3 nights consistently. The nightly reading should be enjoyable for you and your child and should not take more than 10 minutes. Please let me know if you have misplaced your bag so that I can get you a new one. Our letter of the week was “Gg.” Our tongue twister was “Gail and Gwen grow goodies in their garden.” In Writer’s Workshop, the students have been working very hard. They are answering prompts well and adding spaces into their writing. We are also working on using lowercase letters in our writing as well.

Keep up the great work everyone!

I hope you all have a nice weekend. Thanks for sending in all the winter gear for your children. We sure do need it!!

*We are looking for donations of plastic spoons for our classroom.

Enjoy your weekend,

Fondly,

Mrs. MacIntyre

                     

K-3 Newsletter

                      Mrs. MacIntyre

                                                                                                                             

Dear Families,

February 5, 2015

Gung Hay Fat Choy!  Happy New Year. Even though February is a short month, we have been very busy in our classroom. We have begun working hard on our Chinese New Year Unit. During this unit, we will make many decorations for our classroom, including; Chinese writing, Chinese dragons and dragon masks. We learned that this year in Chinese Zodiac symbols, 2015 is the year of the sheep. Chinese New Year starts on February 19^th this year.

We are planning on having a Chinese New Year dinner and celebration on Thursday, March 5^th here at Melrose School from 5-7pm. I sent home a paper for you to return. Once we get an estimate of how many families are able to come, I will send home a signup sheet for food. It is a Potluck style dinner and it is a wonderful time to meet with fellow kindergarten families. There will be more info to follow.  

In the Home Living Center, the children are setting up for a Chinese party. They are also serving rice and lettuce to each other. During Chinese New Year lettuce is considered to be a symbol of new life. They enjoy cooking for each other and for me. They continue to practice forming their numbers as well.  The children were very excited to take our survey of our favorite Jan Brett book in K-3and the winner was

Our letter of the week was “Qq”. Our tongue twister was “Quinton and Queenie quilt quickly and quietly.”

As long as we do not have any more snow days, Thursday, Febraury 12^th  is our 100^th day of school! If you have not sent in your 100 items with 3 clues, please do so. It is a fun class activity that we do and I would not want anyone to feel left out.  I really hope we don’t have any more snow days, otherwise I may have to teach class at Mackerel Cove… actual that sounds good right about now!

Thank you so much for sending in the shoe boxes. I have enough now. We are using them for a Valentine’s Day project. Since there is no school for students on Friday, February 13^th, due to teacher development day, we will pass out our valentine’s on Thursday, February 12^th. Please be sure that your child makes a valentine for each student. Thank you!

The children seem to be doing a nice job with their reading homework. Thank you to all of you who are instilling a love for reading and a sense of responsibility in your child with nightly reading, the children are very proud about the reading that they are doing.  Just a note about the reading books, I know that they books are very repetitious and that they may seem easy or that your child is just “memorizing.” That is in fact, what they may seem to be doing, but they are learning sight words that they can carry over into their writing and also learning reading skills such as looking left to right and one to one correspondence (by pointing to each word as the read). Please do not replace the reading books with reading to your child. Reading nightly TO your child is the best “homework” you can do with them. I just want to stress the importance of that with you. Please let me know if you have any questions.

A big thank you to Mrs. McGraw who treated each child to a little treat at the Book Fair today in honor of Booth’s birthday.. which is July 8^th since he will not be here in the summer.. Thank you Thank you what a treat!

Finally, report cards will be sent out through Aspen in an on-line version only.

This is new for us here in kindergarten. If you have any questions about your child’s report card, PLEASE contact me. I am happy to meet with you.

I hope you all have a warm and fun weekend!

Fondly,

Mrs. MacIntyre