Last School Day of 2010!

Have a fantastic Christmas and we will see you in the new year! 2011 HERE WE COME! :-)

A cold Tuesday

We had a fun day in spite of the cold weather keeping us in for all three recesses. So we made the best of it with our action songs like 'The Gingerbread Man", "ABC Disco", and our vowel song! Then we had two Christmas stories one about a GRUMPY Santa and the old fashioned Jingle Bells story and song!

Maddy was back so we celebrated her birthday and tomorrow is Eli's! What a fun week!! We wrote our names for Kelsey so that we could practice all lowercase except for the first letter.

We had a very important Second Step lesson about using "I feel" statements to let people know how we are feeling.
Many times if someone makes us mad or frustrated, simply telling them in a non threatening way helps them see what happened and they say they are sorry. Empathy is a learned skill and it starts very young. So when we ended the day with the movie Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, we talked about the name calling and the feelings of being left out. Hopefully, identifying with the fictional characters helps us treat everyone nicely.

I did not get a January calendar done yet. It will come home the first week. The letter of the week will be "D d" ! We will be working hard to make a small counterclockwise circle then the tall line and finally a monkey tale. The little "ditty" that I use to help them remember is:

"De left de left, de up de up de down de down de monkey tail"

We started it today as we wrote Maddy on her birthday cake cards. It is a long process but I explained to the children that it will help them write better when they go to cursive if they keep practing the lower case 'd' that way!

Have a very Merry Christmas and enjoy family time over the vacation. I think I will be a Grandma again by the end of the year!
See you all in 2011 unless we happen to see each other at a store, or movie or something fun!
Sincerely Carol Clapper

DECEMBER 20, 2010

We had a wonderful day at school today. We finished our parent presents and they came home in a white paper bag that they decorated. Your child can tell you if you can open it today or if you have to wait until Christmas. It's cute how some can't wait, and others want to put it under the tree. It is something you can use more this year if you open it right away...but the children know that and if they want you to wait...it's OK. They are the giver of the gift! It's so fun to watch them experience the JOY of giving something they made with love!

Academically, we did a lot of Math. We counted again by 2's to 20 and also by 5's. Then we talked about fewer than or less than and did a fun Math sheet with Christmas stockings. We also arranged our handmade stockings in a pattern. It took a lot of problem solving because we wanted to make a pattern and have the toes hang nicely. We have some very sharp students who helped me figure it out.

For Language Arts, we worked with the high frequency words: she, with, the and little and reviewed the "r" sound. Since we had pretzels for snack time we also concentrated on the blend sound of /pr/ and said our funny rhyme with the /pr/ sound!
"Pring a prong a pree, I got you by the knee!" This will help them cement in the idea that not all initial sounds are just one letter. We will work on blends throughout the year!

They got a little more center time than usual today because I wanted to help each child 'wrap' their gift for you after they finished their Merry Christmas card.

I will try to write tomorrow after school, but in case I don't, I hope you each have a very Happy, Relaxing Holiday week. I am teaching Monday and Tuesday and Mrs. Hansen is going to teach all day Wednesday. We will still have library so bring those books back for sure! Thanks for all you do to help your child succeed at school!

Sincerely,
Mrs. Clapper

Friday!!

Hello one, hello all! What a great day overall! The students are very amped up for Christmas, but they held it together today to complete some of the academics they still need to do. Here are a few of the things they did:
Math- skip counting by twos! We worked on skip counting to 20. This is an easy thing to do at home as well. We reviewed writing the numbers 13-20 and taking out the tens and ones that are in the number (we used playdough to represent the numbers today, which was fun for the students.)
Reading- The students retold the story of Little Quack. They had to use picture cards and place them in the right sequence. The students also wrote something about their favorite part of the Holiday season. They did very well at trying to write out sentences to describe what they liked.
Music- The students got to watch part of the Nutcracker.
We also had time today to complete show and tell, centers and a read aloud. The day went by pretty quick! Please remember that there are only 3 days left of school in 2010! Have a great weekend!

Thursday!

Here we are at Thursday again! :-) Sorry to all you parents who did not get a weekly letter this week. Mrs. Clapper and I spaced putting one together for next week. I will remind you however that next week is a short week. We only have three days of school. We would like to thank each of you for sending cookies, frosting or volunteering to come help with our cookie decorating, it turned out great! The students today were both tired and excited for Christmas to come. I know that makes it harder for them to study academics! The class worked on a lot of Math today. We have been working on the "teens", writing them out, counting them out and working on forming their background knowledge with important concepts of grouping numbers. They did well! We have been reading and working this week with the book Little Quack. The book incorporates addition. R week has been great. Continue to ask your child what begins, ends with R. Have a great evening! Thanks for all that you do for your child! 

Wednesday

What a fantastic and fun day! The students really did well today especially with having a special cookie decorating time in the afternoon. Each student had the chance to decorate 5 sugar cookies. They will be bringing them home on a plate. Most of the kids ate one or two of them though. :-) The students finished their December calendars and will be bringing those home today as well. Some students only filled out their calendar until Christmas. Mrs. Clapper and Mrs. Hansen worked hard today to get all the students dibeled and recorded. While we were working with students Mrs. Hamm came in and read Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. She gave them a great complement by saying they were a FANTASTIC class. Way to go Kindergarteners!! The day flew by and they did great! Have a wonderful evening!! :-)

Candy Canes, Presents, Rudolph & Christmas Cookies

That's what is on the minds of our students today ... we are sure excited about Christmas. My challenge is to keep everyone calm and learning in the process! We did pretty well today and earned 2 compliments!

We moved our Candy Cane decorations out to the hall and are going to call it Candy Cane Lane! Kelsey, our West High helper has to help two more students glitter theirs and then she will start helping the sew stockings. We also started a project that will be a present for our parents. (in some ways I sure wish it was P week) Please don't question them too much about this as we are trying to keep it a surprise!

Since it's "R r" week, we enjoyed one version of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. Later in the week we will read another one and compare them. Show and tell needs to be something that starts with R r and three of our students can bring themselves if they want to!!!

Last but not least, we talked about the cooking decorating time on Wednesday. Many of the children said their Mom is bringing cookies. But I only know of two for sure. I know we have 24 snowmen and 24 bells coming. I asked the students who said their Mom was bringing Santa's or trees or stars to let Mrs. Clapper know. Some said they could bring frosting so I asked that they bring that by Tuesday, so I know how much we have and can supplement if need be.
So please email clapperc@billingsschools.org if you want to donate some sugar cookies!

Thanks! Carol Clapper

Thursday, Another Quick Day

Hello! The week is almost over and I am going to share a bit of what we worked on today:
Math- we continued working on 13, 14, and 15. The students also reviewed with me 12, 9, 20 and 17.

Reading- We reread our story for the week, Little Panda. The students and I came up with "N" words and stretched the words into sentences, they did amazing! Tomorrow they will label and write sentences with "B" words. We have really been working on the sounds letters make to form words. These sounds are what we are listening to when Mrs. Hansen says a word like, "PIG". The students tell me each sound segment of the word. (This of course is only one example.)

The students reviewed verbs today (action words, for those of you who may not remember) and comparing and contrasting.

Have a great evening! Thanks for all the love and support you show your child everyday!

Wednesday

Fast Wednesday! The class has been doing very well with the star student of the week! Each student will have a chance to be star student. The schedule will be coming home tomorrow. Please remind your child NOT to tell anyone when their turn is because we do a game as a class and try to guess the star student for the week. Be watching in the Thursday folder tomorrow for your child's form and time. Today the students were working in their reader/writer notebooks. We will be working a lot with writing. We are trying to get students to begin labeling and writing about their work. Have them sound out words and try to write it out at home, this is great practice! We have moved into the "teens" in Math. We really focused on 13, 14 and 15 today. We will continue with these numbers tomorrow as well. Have a great evening!

MONDAY DECEMBER 6th

This class is wonderful to work with! Today, we guessed Kaleigh as our STAR Student and celebrated her birthday.
Tomorrow, we will listen to her tell us all about herself and share a poster of pictures her Mom is busy working on!
She gets to be our Star Helper all week. As do our table helpers. Then next week we will change it all up and 5 new people will be our helpers. We had a great class discussion about how fair Mrs. Hansen and Mrs. Clapper always try to be. And how if a week is only 4 days long, we will made sure that star student gets and extra day on the really short 2 or 3 day weeks. If your child expresses frustration waiting for a turn, encourage them to be patient because when it's their turn they will get 5 days too. Thursday I will send the list out for the whole year. As well as the sheet you and your child can fill out a week or two before their special week.

Last week's Reader/Writer Notebook pages went home today. We left many of the pages undone. This does not mean your child was not completing their work. It means that the Jack and the Beanstalk unit was the 6th one of the unit and the authors put in lots of writing exercises we just don't have time for. One of the best pages that would be fun to do with your child was putting two stories in 1,2,3 order. (Chronological order, I should say for adults) Anyway if the children want to do that page and bring it back, they can get a sticker for doing Extra Credit!

We are in B week and our story will be about a Baby Panda who was born at the San Diego Zoo. It describes how she changes during her first year of her life. Our amazing words are " bamboo, curious, explore, healthy, measure and weigh.

It's a regular week for Show and Tell. Children can bring any item that starts with a 'b' even one of their favorite BOOKS!

Remember that tomorrow is our Holiday Luncheon and you are welcome to join your child for chunky turkey,gravy, and all the trimmings including a holiday cookie. Just bring the correct change for your lunch ($3.00) so the line can move as quickly as possible.

Have a nice evening!
Carol Clapper

Fast Thursday

So, here we are again, another day flew right by! Here are some of the things we did today:

Math- We created patterns, added on to patterns and sorted the shapes into categories. The students also played a game of math the number of items to the correct number listed. The students also worked on one-to-one up to the number 10.

Reading- We reread Jack and the Beanstalk and retold it through drawing a sequence of events for the beginning, middle and end of the story. The students worked hard at drawing and telling me about what they decided to draw about. We also worked with the words "he" and "for" and placing them in sentences.

Science- The students sorted different objects in to groups that held the same type of material. They did very well with this and they labeled their picture as well.

Phew! That is just a part of our day! Hope you have a wonderful evening! :-)

Wednesday

What a fast and fun day! The students worked on counting from 1 to 31. We are trying to recognize the numbers, their names and what they represent. This can easily be practiced at home too! The students have been bringing in show and tell that starts with the letter "N". We learned in Social Studies today what "accidental" means and what "on purpose" means. The students also had Library... phew! Have a great rest of the day!

Tuesday: PLEASE CHECK BACKPACKS

We had another TERRIFIC TUESDAY in Kindergarten. Read two different versions of Jack and the Beanstalk. The first one had Jack and the Giant taking turns telling the story. Then after lunch I read a really old-fashion one from a book I have had for 40 years!

WE are working on counting writing and spelling 9 so we combine both math and reading. We finished up Chapter 4 and the next Math chapter is numbers through 31. Some children get stuck at 29 and after that hurdle its a breeze to get to 100.

The December Calendar went home with Book Orders today. It came home early because of Dec. 1st falling on a Wednesday and because we want to send the book order into scholastic early enough for a Christmas delivery. Be sure to read the letter on the back of the calendar, especially if you order books as gifts and want to keep it a surprise. Ordering online is set up and I included a HoneyBee catalog online that we don't get paper copies of in case you want to order for younger siblings.

As soon as the students were dismissed today, I found lunch menu's in our teacher mailbox.
I put them in the student mailboxes and they should be in their backpacks tomorrow after school In the meantime,
tomorrow's lunch is Beef Ravioli, Chicken Patty Sandwich, or a Bean & Cheese Burrito.

Thanks for all you do to help your child succeed in and out of school.
Sincerely, Carol Clapper

Last Monday in November

We had another wonderful day at school! We enjoyed a long recess in the afternoon with sunshine, snow and friends who shared and helped each other. A few children were disappointed that they could not play on the snowbanks because they did not have their snowpants. So please help them remember them for tomorrow. This snow is so much fun!!!

We got ready for the big book "Jack and the Beanstock" with the unusual,amazing Words of :
beanstalk, lad, lend, magic, naughty, and orge.
Maybe it was talking about the word naughty that helped them be so good today. It was great to start out "Nn" week with no one being naughty! In fact everyone was so well behaved that we earned the last 4 compliments and are at 100 for the year! I promised to bring cupcakes to celebrate! I am trying to get the December calendar done to go home tomorrow, so it's going to be a busy night. Just in case I don't have time to do both cupcakes and the calendar you need to know more about Friday night.

Today we practiced our song and dance for the Holiday Palooza this Friday night, Dec. 3rd at 7:00. This is not mandatory, but looks to be a really fun evening. The activities start at 6:00 and Kindergartners need to be gathering with Mrs. Hansen and Mrs. Blakeslee in the Music room about 6:50 to get ready for our performance. Before or after our song and dance, be sure to go to Mrs. Gibson's room for the Kick off for a fabulous reading program and your child can get a free book! I will be in Utah visiting my granddaughter otherwise I'd love to be there! Students can also make a special Christmas card, and listen to Santa reading Christmas stories. Cookies and cocoa will top off a fun evening at school, a gift from our wonderful PTA.

I better go, so that i can get ready for the rest of what looks to be GREAT week of learning and having fun at school!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Clapper

It's Thanksgiving week and we sang "Over the River and Through the Woods" today after watching Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving. Mrs. Rappaport's class joined us for snacks and the movie rather than going out for afternoon recess. I know Mrs. Hansen mentioned that the children need to have their winter clothes at school when it is cold. The school guideline is that we go out, at least for a little bit as long as the temperature is above ZERO. Today they had PE in the morning then went out for lunch recess, and then we stayed in for the afternoon recess. Most of the children can independently change into their winter clothes, bu we are always available to help with the tough stuff. We also help the children tie tennis shoes and organize their clothes to keep track of it as best we can.

We started the traveling book called "I am Thankful" Sophia got to take it home today. if she brings it back another student will get to take it home for the long weekend. We hope to get it around to everyone before Christmas.

Two small green papers went home today. One reminding you of Early Dismissal on Tuesday of this week and the other explaining the Meadowlark Holidaypalooza. Be sure to read to find out why the Kindergarteners are practicing a fun dance to perform at school next Friday night! That same night (December 3rd) later in the evening, there will be a kick-off for the Read-To-Me program that Mrs. Gibson received a grant for. She will have a power point running all evening. All Kindergarten children who come in with their parents will receive a free book. There will be a quick survey and sign-up for the parent to fill out.She has enough books to run it for all of our classes if we stagger the starting dates. This is a wonderful program available to our students and I hope you can make it on Dec. 3rd to hear all about how it works.

Last but not least, we want to wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. Mrs. Hansen and I are so thankful for the wonderful students and great parents that we get to work with here at Meadowlark. Enjoy the 5 day weekend! When we return from Thanksgiving we will start "n" week and send home the December calendar on Tuesday the 30th.

Sincerely, Carol Clapper

Blustery Friday!

Snow is on the ground! Please be sure to have your child wear the appropriate clothing as we will be going outside. Today was fast and fun. The students put together a book and should be able to read most of it to you tonight! Yay! We made our turkey's and those will be coming home as well today. The students also worked on patterning today. Very hard. The patterns were: ABAABAAABAAAAB (etc.) These the kids really had to work at figuring out together. We wrapped up 'i' week. The students did very well. Have a great weekend! 

Thursday

Everyone got a letter today sent home with them about all the things happening in the next two weeks. Please take the time to read over the letter. Today went fast! We reread the book A Bed for Winter, completed our turkeys for next week's Math, worked on the letter "i", writing it out and sounding it out. The class did very well today even when things don't go quite as planned. Have a great day! 

Windy Wednesday

Wednesday went quick! The students had Library today and will not have it next week since we are off. Remember that next Tuesday is an early out at noon and there is no school next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. We worked on our turkey books and reading them aloud, these went home today. Please do not forget the I am thankful for... homework. If you cannot find yours please let us know so that we can send another one home for your child to fill out. Have a great day! 

Tom Turkey came to school today!

We had a terrific time learning about a Tom Turkey that Mr. Gibson brought to school He was a real wild turkey before he got hit by a car. We learned that turkey's don't have any teeth but they love to eat grasshoppers and seeds. They swallow their food whole and it goes down to another kind of stomach called a crop where there are little rocks that grind up the food! We talked about the colors on the turkey and how wild turkeys are different from farm raised turkeys we eat at Thanksgiving. We also talked about how they can fly, but don't fly as far as geese or ducks and they don't fly south for the winter. The children were very polite and waited until the end to ask questions. Then we got a special treat of filing by the turkey to get an up close look at his feet, eyes, waddle beak and beautiful feathers. Tomorrow we will write a thank you note to Mr. Gibson for coming to our school and making to so interesting to learn about wild turkeys.

We also read a poem about turkeys and will make and read a special book. Please give your child a chance to read it to you, pointing to the words and telling you which words rhyme.

Slips went home today in case you want to order a sack lunch for your child for next Tuesday's Early Out day. Orders must be in by this Friday, November 19th, along with the "I am Thankful" homework! I have received 5 so far!

That's all for now, folks! Have a nice evening! Carol Clapepr

November 15, 2010

Today we started our second vowel of the year. Vowels are a little tricky because they have so many sounds. We will work mainly on the short I sound at the beginning and middle of words. Show and Tells can be either short or long i but please have the the item start with the letter 'i".

We jumped ahead a little and had the story, "A Bed for the Winter" on Monday afternoon rather than Tuesday morning because tomorrow Mr. Gibson, husband of one of the other Kindergarten teachers is bring a Tom Turkey, stuffed and ready for the children to see and learn from. We will be going into Mrs. Gibson's room around 9:15 until morning recess! We will be doing a book, a poem and some turkey math activities. So if we get to less of the Reader Writer Notebooks this year, you can understand why. The children especially a couple of our more active ones, have trouble behaving appropriately if I try to stuff too many things in one day.

I started assessing them on rhyming words today and am really happy with how many are getting most of them right. Some are pretty tricky, like grain and green, or fear and far. But they love flower/shower, and smile/pile etc. Continue to help your child discover the wonderful words that rhyme anytime you can!

Looking forward to a Terrific, Turkey Tuesday tomorrow! (sounds like it should be T week instead of I i week!)

So far I got two of the 'I am Thankful" gold homework sheets back. Your child may turn them in any day this week, but by Friday at the latest. Thanks so much! Carol Clapper

Friday!

What a fast day! Here are a few things that we completed:

Math: one-to-one and using the words "greater than" and "less than"

Writing/Reading- write out and read our poem. "We like the cat. It has a hat."

We had a chance to work with counters and play a game with "greater than" and "less than".

The students had Music today and we were able to work with sounding out words for show and tell that had a "C" and a "K". Overall it was a great day! The class was a bit chatty, but they pulled it together!

Thursday Letter

Newsletter for the Week of Nov. 15th - ,19th
Monday	Tuesday
Letter of the week is “I  i” High Frequency Words:  he    for  Amazing Words: nest, meadow, stump, tree                                    trunk, hive, den   P.E.  Please wear tennis shoes	Story: A Bed for Winter Question of the week: “What kind of                         homes do animals need?   Show-n-Tell: Austin, Eli,                         Maddy and Treyden
Wednesday	Thursday
Library Day – Since we didn’t check out books last week your child’s book may already be in the gray box.  But check to be sure, please   Show-n-Tell:  Elias, Ella, Emma,                          Ethyn and Erica	Show-n-Tell:   Gabrielle, Jaxton,               Kaleigh, Kendal and Orion
Friday	Special Announcements
Music     Show-n-Tell: Reese, Morgan,            Remington, Rikki and Sophia	Thanks to all who have brought snacks. If you haven’t we can still use more to provide some variety.  Carrots for C week would be awesome!
Reminders
Thankful homework coming home 11/11/2010.  It will be due next Friday 11/19 before our very short week of 1 ½ days of school before Thanksgiving break. Directions: Talk to your child about what they are thankful for.  Have them draw a few of their ideas and labels what they are.  You can help them with the spelling but let them do as much of the labeling as they can, even if you write the word on a separate sheet and have them copy it  Encourage them to share more than one thing and to color it nicely because it will be a page in our “Thankful Book”.  Then have them sign the bottom in their very best writing! Thanks so much!

Thursday Newsletter

Great day! We had a lot we completed. In Math we worked on place value. The kids had a great question about why there was a digit for 1 and a digit for 0 making up the number ten. We talked about how when the ones house (place) was overflowing we made "one" group of ten, hence the ! and 0 ... 10. It was a great question! We worked on rhyming words today with "cat" they should have  a sentence that they wrote about a cat. Some were able to rhyme with cat with one of the words we came up with as a class... pat, rat, sat, mat, fat. We reread, The Bear Snores On and reviewed the letter "P" and the sound it makes... phew! That is just a quick snapshot of the day! 

New Song - Who remembers it?

Tuesday, I forgot to put it out on the blog that the children learned a new song and they were going to sing it for you when they got in their pajamas Tuesday night. Since it's been a day and a half, and we forgot to practice the song on Wednesday, you may need to remind them of what the song is about. It goes to the same tune as R-E-D R-E-D that spells red (Frere Jacques or Are you Sleeping?) but it's a math song rather than a reading song.

I can't wait to hear from someone!

Sincerely, Mrs. Clapper

Another Marvelous Monday

I promised the boys and girls that I would tell all the parents how great of a day we had today! We earned 4 compliments and put 4 links in the kindness chain. They are really working to be quiet in line, helpful to each other and listen to the teacher! They adjusted back to our regular day and some were surprised when it was already time to go home!

We started a new way to do lunch count that should go faster and leave us even more learning time. The students who are cold lunch need to put a clip by their name on a list by the door. Then we have the star helper count the hot lunches and we "count on" to get up to our total students for the day! They are lining up alphabetically without name tags, so we will probably only use them on Wednesday's when they can be the nametags for our librarian.

We also started a creative art center choice at the blue table. They can use scraps of paper, scissors, glue and markers to make any sort of creation they want. Look for all sorts of new creative designs and projects!

Thank you all for coming to conferences. We had all but 2 completed last week and those 2 have rescheduled for this week 100% WOW!!! you are AWESOME parents!!!! Thanks for taking time to talk with us about your child's school progress! We know it makes a huge difference when we work together.

Now a quick overview of our week. Our Question of the Week is: What unique thing does a bear do in the Winter? The big book tomorrow is "Bear Snores On" and our amazing words are: blustery,

cave,

sleep,

storm,

winter

and woods.

We are reviewing the high frequency words: we, like, and my.

I also fit in another story about bears getting ready for the winter called "Copy me, Copycub"! Even though we talked about bears the first few weeks of school the student are excited to be learning more about bears.

Show and tell is still one item that starts with the "hard" c sound (like in cat, cup, or carrot) or the k sound as in (kite, koala or kitten). We discovered a lot of words that start with the /k/ sound but have yet to have someone say "KINDERGARTEN".

We got some questions about the homework I put on the November calendar. It will come home this Thursday after we talk a little more about Thanksgiving. I will send home a gold half sheet that says "I am thankful for.... at the top" and by _______________ at the bottom. In between children can draw pictures of things or write a list of things they are thankful for. It can be one thing or many things. You can help them to whatever degree they need help. You can help them sound out the words, spell words for them, or write them on a separate sheet of paper and let them copy the words. Or they can do the pictures and you can label them. Just try to let them do as much as possible that is still readable for other adults. We are going to put the individual sheets into a book that will 'travel' home with each child for a night to read with their parents.

Thanks for everything you do to help your child feel good about school!

Sincerely, Carol Clapper

Thursday, Another Quick Day

Today was another 1/2 day of school. The kids have been working hard during the mornings and can get pretty hungry and tired by the time noon rolls around. We had a guest teacher from the school district in today to work on writing practice with the class. We reread animal babies and wrote, "who is my mommy". The kids chose an animal and their baby to draw and write about. We will finish these up tomorrow. The kids got to join me today for a quick reading group. They did well! Thank you so much for taking the time to join your child in their learning. Thank you also for making it a point to come to their conference time as well.

A Monday Minute report

This is going to be short because we had a marvelous Monday starting out with drawing and writing something about our Halloween weekend. My example said "On Halloween, I handed out candy" but since no one came to the Clapper door, I had to edit it this morning to I was sad when no one came to our door.

We began our week talking about Grassland baby animals and working on the new words 'we', 'my' and 'like'. We said good bye to Abe on Friday and were missing him today. With him gone, only Austin, Eli, Maddy and Treyden need to remember their "P" show and tell for Tuesday.

Tomorrow we will be sending home important stuff! Their first report card, a November calendar, and a reminder of picture retakes on Nov. 10th. So I think I will be sending Thursday envelopes home on Tuesday this week!

That's all for now! Thanks for reading the blog and keeping up with our Kindergarten activities! Sincerely, Carol Clapper

Windy Wednesday

Phew! What a windy chilly day! The kids had a tough time today staying on task. Maybe it was because of the wind. We finished up Chapter 3 in Math today and will move on to Chapter 4 tomorrow. The students have been learning about nature and how to observe the things of nature. This reading section fits nicely into the Science curriculum which is on our 5 senses and how we observe objects using our 5 senses. The students have been enjoying learning the letter "S", learning to write, sound it out and read the letter "S". They had a chance to practice the number 8. They LOVED the 8, "Make an S, do not wait, go back up and close the gate!"

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day!

Super Tuesday!

We had a super day today learning about scarecrows and spiders! Had a great book called "The Lonely Scarecrow" Ask your child what changed the way the animals thought about the scarecrow. If they say winter came, or snow covered the scarecrow, give them a big High Five or pat on the back! We are working on retelling stories, so anytime you can get them to tell you the beginning, middle and end of a story it's great!

Morgan's Mom helped us make spider webs and count out 8 legs to make a spider. All of the children got their webs done but only some of the children got their spiders done. Kelsey our career student from West can finish them up through out the week.

We had Abe's July birthday early because he will be moving at the end of this week. We will miss him so much and wish him well at his new school! This is such a great class and they are really showing good manners through out the day. As we talked about why we were celebrating Abe's birthday early many of the children told him how much they would miss him. Many of them drew and extra picture on the back of his Birthday cake card!

Don't forget Wednesday is Library Day and the children love to check out new books!

Mrs. Hansen and I are busy preparing for conferences. So far we have received 13 out of the 20 yellow questionaires to help us prepare for your child's individual conference. On Thursday you will be getting the time assigned next week for our meeting! We got 18 out of 20 blue time request sheets. If you have not turned in the blue sheet, we will just assign you a time and hope you can make it. We are hoping for 100 % attendance this year! Together we can make this the BEST for YOUR child!

Sincerely, Carol Clapper

Quick Half Day!

Hello! I hope that you are reading this after you have had a wonderful day! The kids did very well today for it being a half day of school. We did get to centers today and we were able to go over vowels, read our book called "Flowers" and complete the calendar. We did quite a bit of singing today to say our alphabet and vowel sounds. The students even had a chance to go to Library this morning. For Science today we dissected a real flower and drew its parts in our Science journal and labeled them. What a full day! Have a great 4 days off of school! ~Mrs. Abigail Hansen

P.S. The students did have a chance to draw a picture of a flower that they can turn in to the Gainains store in the heights and get a free baby pumpkin. I hope that you have a chance to use their drawing! Also pictures came home today. I made sure that they were not placed in backpacks to avoid them getting smashed. 

Wednesday

Hello! Today was a split day between Mrs. Clapper and myself. We worked on quite a few things. Here are just a few: Math- We have been counting to 5 and working on one-to-one correspondence. The students have been using blocks to count out different numbers and then use the vocabulary more and fewer (and less). We read today about flowers and the different parts to a flower. If you have a chance, go over the parts with your child and see what they can pick out and tell you. We have been working on vowels and especially the letter "A". The students have been learning a song about the vowels names and their sounds. We used our reader/writer notebooks today and worked on A, a and our sight words: am, is, little have. Overall the day went well. I did have to remind the students NOT to go near the bridge at recess and to keep our hands to ourselves. Please remind your child of these things. Thank you for all the love and support you show your child everyday!

Mrs. Abigail Hansen

P.S. Please have your child bring back their conference slips so that you can get an ideal time for your child's conference coming up soon.

Monday of the short Oct. Week

WOW! Monday was a marvelous day! We started our second unit of Reading Street and will be looking at how plants and animals are unique. We talked about how 'unique' means one of a kind and very special. Maybe that's why our day went so well, everyone was feeling extra special!

We added 6 links to our kindness chain, that more than doubles what we had so far! The children worked hard, played hard and enjoyed each other during our school day.

Tomorrow we will have a story called "Flowers" and talk about the different parts of a flower. Our amazing words are: bloom, buds, fruits, petal, seeds, and stem.

Our letter for this week is "A a" (next week will be S s - sorry about that!) We learned that this letter is a vowel and has more than one sound. We are working hard to make the circle for the lower case 'a' in a counterclockwise circle and then go down and add a monkey tail. We will revisit this vowel many times during the year. Our high-frequency words are 'have' and 'is'.

We will not have show and tell for "A a" week because we miss too many afternoons!

Next week we will get back on schedule with Show and Tell during "S s" week because it is a five day week!

Tell your child how proud Mrs. Clapper is that they were kind and considerate all day today!

Mrs. Hansen will be in Tuesday afternoon to share this short week. Please don't forget our early dismissal:

12:00 Wednesday, October 2oth

Sincerely, Carol Clapper

Thursday Newsletter

10/14/2010

Wow! Another week has come and almost gone! Here are just a few reminders for this next week:

~”S” week is coming up.

~Next week there is an early out on Wednesday the 20^th. There are sack lunches available. The students will be released at noon. There is NO SCHOOL that Thursday and Friday.

~There is a note about conferences. Please fill it out and send it back as soon as possible.

~Tomorrow is SPIRIT DAY for Meadowlark Elementary!!! Dress in the school colors (Gold and black) if you don’t have a Meadowlark shirt.

~Book orders are due tomorrow, Friday 15^th. Have a wonderful upcoming weekend!

     ~Mrs. Hansen and Mrs. Clapper

Columbus Day

Wow! we had a wonderful day of learning1

We started out with orange playdough and made long,thin strips to make the letter "m".

We also divided our playdough into 4 pieces, then 5 and did some math! We will be working on writing 4's and 5's. the rhyme for four is "Down and over, down some more makes the number 4! Five doesn't really have a rhyme but we try to make a line down and a big fat tummy and then a hat on top so the numeral 5 doesn't look too much like the letter 's'.

We talked about Columbus Day and had a story of the 3 ships he used to get over to the Bahama Islands south of our country. We also talked about how he was an explorer and had to be mighty and strong and brave. We did a number dot to dot for Math that made his largest ship. On the back is an alphabet dot to dot that is a little tricky. So we sang the ABC's a few times and I did it with the picture projected up for them to watch. If they want to bring it back to school completed and colored nicely, they can earn a sticker!

We had fun discovering where our tongue went when we made the 't' sound and came up with lots of 't' words. I forgot to remind the Tuesday show-and tell students to bring one thing that starts with 't' so please help Eli, Abe, Austin, Maddy and Treyden remember!

I sent home rings, bracelets, those rubber band shapes, and money today. As children show other children, or play with jewelry, fancy scarves, etc. it distracts the other children and interrupts learning. Please help them only wear or bring items that they can ignore while we are working hard at school. Thanks for your help and also for the treats that are coming in! Today we had awesome apple slices and the children shared so nicely, we have more for tomorrow!

Last but not least I promised them I would remind you of the

Meadowlark PTA - Ice Cream Social !

It's tomorrow night from 6:00 to 7:00 .

See you then! Mrs. Clapper

Fabulous Friday!

Here is a quick look of our day:

Math- We finished chapter 2 as a class. The kids worked well remembering patterns and completing graphs.

Reading- Today we started our first little reading group. They did very well. We read the book Zoom together. We retold the story of Smash! Crash!? and made pictures of the characters in the book. They also worked on the character page in their reader/writer notebooks and they brought those home today.

The students did their show and tell for 'M' week! What fun to see the things they chose to bring! Next week it will be "T" week.

By Fridays the students are often VERY sleepy. Today though they did very well getting through the day. They even earned 10 compliments!! Way to go class! Have a wonderful weekend! Thank you for all the love and support you show your child everyday!! ~Mrs. Abigail Hansen

Newsletter!

Newsletter for the Week of Oct 11th – 15th
Monday	Tuesday
Letter of the week is “Tt” High Frequency Words:  to   a  Amazing Words: scooping, swooshing,       squelching, gobbling, spinning and rumbling   P.E.  Please wear tennis shoes                     Columbus Day	Story: Dig Dig Digging Question of the week: “How do machines                                  help people work?   Show-n-Tell:  Abe, Austin, Eli,                         Maddy and Treyden 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. PTA Ice Cream Social
Wednesday	Thursday
Library Day – Please return library books to the gray tub in our room so you can check out another one for this week!   Show-n-Tell:  Elias, Ella, Emma,                          Ethyn and Erica	Show-n-Tell:   Gabrielle, Jaxton,               Kaleigh, Kendal and Orion
Friday	Special Announcements
Music     Show-n-Tell: Reese, Morgan,            Remington, Rikki and Sophia      Book orders due today!	Mrs. Hansen and Mrs. Clapper love to see our students being  kind and caring to one another!
Reminders
Next week the children have an Early Out on Wed. Oct 20th and No School on Oct. 21st and 22nd. Because of the shorter week we will not have Show and Tell or a newsletter for the 18th – the 20th.   Snacks are running low, donations to our cupboard would be appreciated!

 

Great Thursday!!

What a busy day we had! Here are some of the things we worked on today: 

In Reading we reread Smash and Crash. We blended words like: MIX, MOP, GUM, MET. The students also participated in a shared reading of Bullies Never Win and The Wheels on the Bus. We completed an Art project that involved writing their names on individual pieces and gluing them together to form a caterpillar. We had 5 students today that brought something for show and Tell that started with the letter "M". We also had a bus field trip this afternoon. The bus driver gave the class a HUGE compliment by saying, "This class is an EXCELLENT class." Way to go students!! Way to be quiet and safe on the bus! The students each have a coloring book they took home today. My favorite quote from the day was, "Oh, no! Here comes a roundy-round!" This particular student was talking about a round a bout. I just loved it! Thank you for all the love and support you show your child everyday! ~Mrs. Abigail Hansen

Wonderful Wednesday

The students had a very full day today and they are learning!! Both Mrs. Clapper and I have been so pleased with how well students are beginning to recognize sight words. We worked on "M" today and finding the sound in words. For example at the end of the word "Jam" or "yam". The class had Library today and should have their book in their backpack. Try to take some time to read the book that they chose to check out.  As a class we made a graph that showed their names and the number of letters that each student had in their name. We read a new story but similar to The Little Red Hen. The students picked out the sight words and compared and contrasted the books we have read. In Math the students worked on sorting by color and number. At the end of the day quite a few of the students were tired and had a difficult time at centers. Please be sure that they are getting plenty of sleep at night, especially on a school night. Thank you so much for all the love and support you show your child everyday! ~Mrs. Abigail Hansen

Tuesday...

I decided not to call it a terrific Tuesday, because it was an odd kind of day in Kindergarten today. Maybe there is a change in weather coming, but we were extra noisy, some of the children were bothering other children, and then we had a frustrating Amazing Word for the week. The Amazing words are: dud, fascinating, pirates, perfect, proper and signals. The teacher's manual gives me definitions to discuss with the children related to how they are applied in the story for the week. The definition for 'dud' was someone that doesn't want to play along. The picture to help them understand was two friends outside a window with a soccer ball and one boy inside playing blocks. We talked about how that word is one of our Amazing Words, but that I do not like it for two reasons."

1. Because some people like to play or do things alone and if they are polite about saying 'No Thank you" when someone asks them to play, then it's OK to do something different. There also might be a good reason he couldn't play or didn't want to play

2. Because calling someone a 'dud' is namecalling and is not respectful. In fact, one of our Manners of the week is to make sure we do not put down other people or ourselves. Another manner reminds us to treat others the way you want to be treated and none of the children wanted to be called a 'dud' after they learned what it meant. One student raised his hand at the end of this discussion and politely asked, "Then why do you have to teach it to us, teacher?" Good question! I explained that it was in the story we were reading and they might hear it in other places or other ways. Plus it's always good to learn what words mean so we can choose to use or not use them appropriately. The reason for these challenging AMAZING WORDS in this reading series is that they increase each student's background knowledge and speaking/listening vocabularies. And research shows that good readers have larger vocabularies and extensive background experiences to apply to what they read.

Anyway, the big book this week is a wonderful story about two trucks that are having fun smashing and crashing and keep running away from a scary shadow of a huge vehicle. As they encounter different friends like a cement truck, they encourage the friends to help them smash and crash. When one of them doesn't want to they call him a 'dud." We reiterated the earlier discussion which reinforced that we should not call people 'duds'. It ends up that the scary vehicle is a wrecking ball truck that wants them to come help him smash and crash a building down!

Other things we did today are practice writing both upper and lower case Mm's, starting the capital one at the top line and going down, and starting the lower case 'm' in the middle going down, up and making two humps and then a monkey tail! We had great show-n-tells and one involved taped on mustaches! Elias, Ella, Emma, Ethyn and Erica get to bring an "m" show and tell on Wednesday! In Math we reviewed patterns by having each child draw a simple pattern in their journal. Some drew shapes, others flowers, some letters, and others did patterning with color. It's a fun activity you can do with your child and you will know after the first few pictures if they understand the concept of patterns. We still need to work on how a pattern REPEATS itself with a few of our students.

Thanks for reading all of this. I really felt the need to explain ''dud" as I did not want you to think I am teaching the children to be disrespectful!

Hopefully tomorrow will be a Wonderful Wednesday and that everyone will remember to bring their LIBRARY BOOK so they can check out a new one!

Sincerely, Mrs. Carol Clapper

Marvelous Monday

Today we started our first letter of the week "Mm"!  It was a marvelous Monday of finding m's  like muffins, marshmellows, mustard, and macaroni. We ate M & M's for afternoon snack that were provided by Mrs. Mettler last week!  This week they can bring 1 item that starts with "M"on their Show and Tell day!  With 5 every day, we will probably do 2 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon.

   In P.E./Health Mr. Besel and Mrs. Edgmond taught Personal Safety using an age appropriate video called "Willy Learns the Touching Rule."    Ask your child about the 4 steps of safety if someone is making them feel uncomfortable or unsafe with inappropriate touching. 

Say No  

Get Away 

Tell Someone  

Be Believe

Later in the week we will be sending home a letter from Mr. Besel that just did not make it back from printshop in time to come home today.

    We also had a short DVD introducing the children to our school wide Kindness program called Rachael's Challenge.  Although Rachael was the first student killed at Columbine, the DVD just told the children she was a very special girl who at a very young age focused on being kind.  They gave examples of her befriending new students, reaching out to handicapped kids, and wanting to start a chain reaction of kindness.  We will be emphasizing kindness and recording examples of people being kind to make our own chain around the school.  Each child signed a huge poster pledging that  they want to be part of Rachael's challenge and be kind every time they can and recognize when others are being kind to them and pass the kindness along! This poster will be displayed at school along with the chains reminding us always to be kind!

  Last but not least, it was fun to be back with the children and share with them the news of my new granddaughter Stella.  I showed them a few pictures as a proud grandma and told them I had a good report from Mrs Mettler on most of their behavior when she was their guest teacher.

This is a great group of students and we appreciate all the parent support helping them learn!

 Sincerely, Carol Clapper

   

Friday! Here Again :-)

What a crazy day! The kids did great despite all the interruptions. Today was PICTURE DAY, if you forgot there will be retakes at a later date. All students did get their pictures so you will have a chance to buy some if you forgot to send money. The students worked on patterning with different objects, while still making the same pattern in Math today. In Reading we reread The Little Red Hen and looked for the sight words "little" and "the". The students colored, cut, and pasted the story in order of how it happened. We also worked on reading the book, "Am I Little?" They should have it in their backpack to read to you at home and to keep. The class was able to work on typing today and finding letters on a computer keyboard. They did well. The students were VERY tired today. There is some sickness going around so it is a great idea to have your child go to bed on time so that they have plenty of sleep on school nights and can have a jump start on fighting off any germs. Have a wonderful weekend! Thank you for all the love and encouragement you show your child! ~Mrs. Abigail Hansen

Thursday Newsletter

Dear Parents, September 30, 2010





It’s already time to be sending out the October calendar, Fall is really here!

One thing we noticed about the month is that we do not have any October birthdays. That may mean that we get low on snacks. If you can help us out please send another snack this month. Mrs. Gibson has offered to share her small room refrigerator with us. So if you want to send carrots, apples (we have an apple cutter, so they can be sent whole) or any other healthy snack, we have a place to store them. Other favorites this year are Teddy Grahams, Goldfish, and pretzels. Thanks for your help.



On Picture Day in the fall, each child’s individual picture is taken even if you do not want to order any. This is so we will have pictures for records at school and a couple special art projects throughout the year. Please return the envelopes by tomorrow, if you want to order pictures and request a certain background.



Hopefully, we received all the addresses permission blue slips and parent-helper pink slips. We will get those lists out to you as soon as we compile them. The first Special Occasion will be the afternoon of the 29th. It helps to have a parent helping at each of 4 tables and a parent coordinating snacks so we have a variety not 3 cupcakes for each child. We will send out more information later this month. You are welcome to volunteer by emailing us at clapperc@billingsschools.org and hansen2@billingsschools.org.





Sincerely, Carol Clapper and Abbie Hansen

PICTURE DAY TOMORROW!!! :-) 

Wednesday!

Wednesday was great! The students did a wonderful job listening today and talking in quiet tones. Way to go! Some of you have asked about eating with your child during lunch. This is a GREAT idea. Your child loves it and you can see part of their school day. All you need to do is check in at the office during lunch (11:05-11:35) get a visitor sticker when you sign in and bring a lunch. If you want to eat a hot lunch just have your child tell me or bring a note for me so that I can let Mrs. West know.

Today in Math we worked on finding matching patterns. It was a bit difficult, but we will continue to do many patterns though out the year. We had Library time today, so take some time to read the book to your child. Have them try to find the word "THE" in the book. This is one of the sight word they are learning right now.

Hope that your day went well! Thank you for all the love and support you show your child everyday!
~Mrs. Abigail Hansen

Friday!!

Friday, already! Wow! Here are some of the things we worked on today:

Math- we reviewed algebraic patterning. The class is beginning to pick up how to make patterns. Not just ABABABAB, but ABCABCABC using shapes, colors and pictures. They even came up with what the pattern would be if we continued it on. Great job class!!

Reading- We did our retelling of a story as a class. They are getting better and better with putting story cards in order of how they happened. We also listened to the story, "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". We talked about fables and what it means when someone asks for the moral of a story. We also read as a class two different renditions of "The Little Red Hen." If you have the story at home, read it to your child and ask them to compare and contrast the stories. 

Science- In Science today we talked about matter and how it feels and looks. We focused on liquids and solids today. The class felt and played with water and talked about and observed its properties. The class then was able to play in the goo that I made. It had both properties of a liquid and a solid. In the end we talked about how the goo was called a suspension because it had both the properties of a liquid and a solid. The class had a lot of fun. If you would like to make the goo at home here is what you need:

1 c. cornstarch 

1/2 c. water

put the cornstarch in a bowl and add the water slowly. Play around with it. You should be able to have it drip from your hands or when you squeeze it have it become solid. 

The class also had a chance to work with computers today, centers and handwriting. They had music and we also went as a class to look and talk about the tipi that is set out on the playground. I sent home their Apple books. Please take the time to read the book with your child. Have them find words that they recognize. I also sent home their reading/writing packet. You may work on the rest of the packet with your child for extra practice. 

Have a wonderful weekend! Thank you for all the love and support you show your child everyday! Please remember that picture day is coming up soon and TOMORROW IS SATURDAY LIVE!!! HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!!

~Mrs. Abigail Hansen