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