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