Wednesday

Today went fast, as all Early Out days, but we fit a lot in. Mr. Croff brought a guest in to our room to meet our class. Her name is Mrs. Bartsch and she will be teaching on Mrs. Hansen's days for the rest of the year. We were excited to meet her and see how nice she is. We are hoping to include a letter from her introducing herself to you in the Thursday folder. Also in the folder will be April's calendar.

Thanks for those of you who came to the conferences Wednesday. So far we have 100% attending and love our time to visit with each of you!

As we end the week, we will be saying good-bye to Mrs. Hansen and sending her off with some special handmade gifts to remember us and our time together.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Clapper

Terrific Tuesday

This will be the shortest post yet. We had a GREAT day, but I can't really tell you what we worked on because I am sure Mrs. Hansen reads this blog! So ask your kids what they did!

Conferences start tomorrow and the rest of this week is Early Out. We aim to get them out by 11:50 so the parents that need to go pick up other students can, but as you know we sometimes run a little late. Although it is getting easier now without all those winter clothes! We will be out by noon for sure so that the teachers can get a bite to eat before the first conferences at 12:30.

We still get Library tomorrow so remember those books, please!

Sincerely, Mrs. Clapper

Monday of X week

Today was an excellent day for learning! We enjoyed finding x at the beginning of X-ray and xylophone (although we laughed that it was copying a 'z'). We found it in the middle of Jaxton, and at the end of ox, box, and fox as well as ax and Max and six!!!

One of our caterpillars is already in it's chrysalis so we read the story by Deborah Heiligman called "From a Caterpillar to Butterfly". It was exciting to find out that the caterpillar in the book turned into a "Painted lady butterfly" just like ours will be!

We watered our plants and 3 of them have already popped out of the dirt! It was really exciting to come back after the weekend to changes in both plants and animals of our room!

Tomorrow we have a story about a rescue at sea called "Mayday, Mayday". Kaleigh's Mom is coming in to help us make a going away gift for Mrs. Hansen. Friday is coming all too soon!

I am working on the April calendar and was surprised to see that the children do not have school on Monday, April 4th. The teachers have meetings but school is not in session. We will still go ahead with the full Reading and writing for that week since most of the boys and girls are really completing their worksheets independently. I am so proud of their progress.

Report cards come home tomorrow and then we look forward to conferences Wednesday - Friday afternoon. The time and day is listed on the left side of their report cards.

That's all for now!

Have a nice evening!

Mrs. Clapper

Busy Thursday

Hello! What a busy day we had! Hopefully you got the school carnival sheet that went home yesterday. Today there was a PTA sheet that went home along with the schedule for next week. Here are some of the things we did today:

Class picture! :-) 

Math- discussed symmetry and how to know if a shape is symmetric. 

Reading- Reread Max takes the Train and we went over quick spelling our high frequency words, phonics with a review of /e/. 

Science- planted our bean sprouts! Thank you Mrs. Bergum for popping in and helping! 

Writer's workshop- The students wrote today about the luckiest day they ever had. They did well. :-) When they finished they were able to get on to the computer and do some reading practice. 

Of course the class got centers today and while they were there I worked with the students one on one . They enjoy that little time to read/ show me what they know. 

Have a great evening! Remember that book orders are due tomorrow! :-) 

Great Wednesday

Here is a quick update on the day:

Reading- Mrs. Clapper continued to focus on the "J" and "W" words today in Reading Street. Mrs. Hansen did some testing today on where the students are with rhyming, segmenting words and reading.

Math- We are working on symmetry, big word, we will be doing even more with it tomorrow as it can be a hard one to remember.

Science- we are getting ready to plant our beans tomorrow, we reviewed what a living thing was and took a look at some plants below and above ground and compared and contrasted them.

Library! Don't forget to have your child bring their Library book back every Wednesday!

It was a great day! :-)

Wet and snowy but a Tremendous Tuesday!

These students are terrific! Today, even with the really odd weather, they stayed focused on our school work. They only got to enjoy one outside recess at lunchtime but had fun with the Gingerbread Man song and a math game. I missed them so much on Monday and got such a great report from our guest teacher. Mrs. Hanel said they did such a good job for her and waited a long time for a special concert on Monday. The Castlerock choir came to Meadowlark and were a little rowdy during their set up when our class was already in the Commons. But once they got singing, the children loved their Rock-n-roll songs that lasted right up to dismissal time!

Today we talked about all sorts of TRANSPORTATION and read a fun book about Max traveling to get a double chocolate ice cream Whamburger with coconut curls and red sprinkles. It was fun to follow the signs as he took a bus, a train, a ferryboat, an airplane and a subway to get there and his sister came to pick him up on a bicycle with a sidecar!

In math we are sliding, flipping and turning shapes for the geometry part of this unit. By the end of the week we will be learning about symmetry!

We are finishing up on report cards, so look for them a week from today. I am so glad that Mrs. Hansen can be here for our Parent Teacher conferences. We are certainly going to miss her joyful ways of teaching the children but we know it's best for her family that she move to Great Falls!

Tomorrow is Library day and Thursday is picture day. I plan to come in so that I can be in the group picture. It's such a nice group of children!

Sincerely, Mrs. Clapper

p.s. Show and Tell can be TWO items this week, one with J and one with W. One boy brought Woody and didn't remember a 'j' show and tell, but we figured out that Woody wears jeans!!!

Quick Recap!~

What a day! The students came in SO excited for the day, they could hardly keep it together. I had to remind the class many times that they needed to be on task, even when SUPER excited. Hopefully tomorrow will go even better. :-) (I think the excitement from St. Patrick's Day was just too much. ) :-)

Math- worked on shapes. we talked about rectangles and squares and how a square can be a rectangle, but a rectangle cannot be a square.

Reading- we reread Abuela and went over and reviewed "e" in the middle of words, the "g" sound as well as some blends.

We did a lot of fun things for St. Patrick's Day. The kids colored and read a book, which they brought home, completed a rainbow with a review of sight words on the back and had a special treat of lucky charms. :-)

Have a great evening! Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Two hundred Fifty compliment Tuesday!

We had such a perfect Kindergarten day today. Even when we ran out of time for centers at the end of the day, no one complained! We love the spring weather getting to go outside EVERY recess and even taking our coats off this afternoon!

We really enjoyed 'Abuela" even though Mrs. Clapper stumbled over quite a few of the Spanish words. They do have a glossary in the back and the boys and girls were very patient while I flipped back and forth to at least get the syllable right! I am hoping Mrs. Hansen can get more of the words pronounced correctly in the 2nd visit to the story. We learned that many of our words are Spanish words, like patio, rodeo, banana, and mango.

We reread our thank you notes to Kanalu's father and are going to make patriotic pictures to go in our thank you book!

We got to see our seeds sprout by taking them out of the paper towel and repositioning them on the outside of the towel, but still inside the bags so we can watch them without opening them.

I am going to work on conference slips tonight and you will get a bright green half sheet that tells when we get to meet with you at the end of this month! The children have all grown in their reading and math skills so we look forward to sharing their progress with you!

Monday I am traveling back from St. Paul, MN so Mrs. Hanel will be our guest teacher. Kindergarten is her favorite grade level and I am sure the children will love her! I will let Mrs. Hansen do the Thursday letter this week, but want to introduce the reading part:

We are starting a new Reading Unit called GOING PLACES.

We'll be discussing different ways people & things get from here to there.

The letters of the week will be Jj and W.

Show and tell gets to be two items; one starting with J and one with W!

I hope everyone who reads this, tells their child that they love hearing how well we worked together to learn today! We read, we wrote, we played with solid shapes and learned to call them spheres, cylinders, cubes and cones in Math, and enjoyed our friends at centers and recess. Life is good at Meadowlark, in Room 7!

Sincerely, Mrs. Clapper

Monday March 14th

Hi Everyone,

As I typed March 14th I realized this has to be a quick note, as it's my husband's birthday and I want to wrap a present before dinner. So here's our day:

We started our new unit and are going to adventure into a BIG city tomorrow.

We had fun in P.E. and everyone had their tennis shoes!! YEAH!

Our bean seeds started to sprout! We looked closely at one and will get a better look tomorrow at more of them.

The best thing we did today was to write a thank you note to Capt. Wong, Kanalu's Dad. Each child wrote a page and I will put them together in a book. I put a little school picture by each of their names. I realized we did not have a class picture when Kanalu was here, so I thought both he and his parents would like to see his MT school friends! We will not send this as a traveling book because it needs to get to Texas soon. He is about to come back to our country!

Have a nice evening. I will get the conference slips ready to go home this Thursday that reminds you of the time and day of your conference!

Sincerely, Mrs. Clapper

Blustery Friday!

Here is a quick look at what we did today:

It was SPIRIT DAY! The kids could sport their black and gold. :-)

Math- We finished up chapter 7 with the chapter 7 test.

Science- Living things, we planted our beans today and recorded our observations in our journals.

Reading- We did some of our reader/writer notebook, retold our story for the week and reviewed our question of the week as well.

Music :-) The students always enjoy this time with Mrs. Blakeslee.

Have a GREAT weekend! :-)

Thursday

Hello! Here is a bit of what we did today!

Science- living things, we got our caterpillars today that we will watch transform into butterflies! The students started their first journal page of what they look and how many there are.

Reading- We reread our story of the week and talked about Antarctica. We reviewed our spelling and phonics and even had a chance to read the book Ferdinand the Bull.

Reading groups went well today. I only got through two, but I was VERY proud of how hard they worked.

Thursday folders went home today here are the most important points:

1. Daylight savings is THIS weekend!

2. If you have not turned in a conference time for the end of March be sure to let us know what time you can meet.

3. Tomorrow is SPIRIT DAY!

Have a great evening!

Pictures of our gift from Afghanistan

This is the framed flag and certificate. Kanalu's aunt explained that it is given to us because Kanalu's father appreciated how we supported his son during his time at Meadowlark while he was flying missions in Afghanistan supporting our country's Operation Enduring Freedom.

This is a close up of the certificate. The smaller blue words say:

This American Flag flew over the skies of Afghanistan in an MC-12W, Tail #09-0624, in support of OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM on the 6th of February 2011 on behalf of:

Carol Clapper & Abigail Hansen

Along with their Kindergarten class from Meadowlark Elementary School

It is signed by Kanalu's Dad

Capt. Ryan Wong,

Mission Commander, 4 ERS

Kanalu was such a nice addition to our class and adapted so easily into our room that it was a gift to have him as a student and a friend. We miss him, but know he is glad to be back in Texas with his Mom. I have asked his aunt Kristi for an address to write to him and also for Capt. Wong so that we can thank him for this one of a kind gift to a Kindergarten class!

Wonderful Wednesday!

What a fantastic Wednesday! We had a very special surprise for our class today. Kanalu's family sent us a special gift from Afghanistan. Kanalu's father flew an American flag on his jet over the country of Afghanistan, folded up the flag and sent it to our class in a beautiful shadow box. The flag is folded very neat and there is an awesome picture of picture of his jet as well. What an honor!! :-) The kids were very excited to get the gift.

The weather today was fine and there were smiles on the faces of kids as they played in the sun. We were ALL thankful to be able to enjoy going outside.

Math- we reviewed the whole of chapter 7. We will begin our chapter test tomorrow.

Library- The students had a chance to check out a book for this week.

Reading- "e" week! The students have done well bringing in something that begins with the letter e. The students have also been reading the story, "If I could go to Antarctica." They have enjoyed predicting.

This is just a quick overview. Have a great day!

Terrific Tuesday

We had so much fun thinking about what it would be like to go to Antarctica! And the children saw a beautiful picture of a southern hemisphere sunset! We talked about how the scientists get food and build the science station. Most of the children thought it would be fun to visit, but would want to take their family along since it takes so long to get there!

We also has a song/poem called "I'm a Little Shamrock" and Kaleigh's Mom is helping us with some beautiful chalk art. Tomorrow we will write about when we feel lucky and add the writing to the art project.

Tomorrow is Library Day and also the day we would like all your slips in for Spring Conferences. We have quite a few that want as late a possible on Friday. So we may be doing some morning conferences before the work day starts to alleviate having parents take off too early from their jobs. As soon as we get everyone scheduled we will send home your time and day. It will also be on the report cards that come home the day before conferences start.

Have a wonderful evening and I hope these notes help you start discussions with your child about their school day! We do have fun in Kindergarten and love learning new things every day!

Sincerely,

Carol Clapper

ps There is a PTA meeting tonight if you get this before 7:00! Come learn how parents help make our school a great place to be!

Adventuring to Antarctica!

We started our week of Antarctica adventures. We are talking about the amazing words of:

ice berg, penguins, seals, whales, and continent.

We got in a geographical discussion of the city we live in, the state, the country and the continent. So you might want to visit about our location and the differences between a state and a country. It's a hard concept for this age level. In our Reading Street background tape, they explained that Antarctica is bigger than 20 states of Texas. I think that confused some of them more than helped them. And of course then everyone wanted to tell a Texas story, or who they knew in Texas and we got way off the subject! But the children were definitely paying attention and interested in learning!

Mrs. Anderson, a district literacy specialist, came back to our room and did a Penguine book with one of our Reading groups and worked on the good reader skills of predicting and discussing main points in a small group without raising their hand. Taking turns and using eye contact to visit about the book was challenging but fun!

We also worked on being REALLY quiet in the halls because the older students are taking some important tests and need to concentrate! We were really polite by the 6th grade classrooms as we waited in line for lunch!

This week we are focusing on the initial sound of /E e/ for Show and Tell. It'll be fun with 6 children who's name starts with "E"! They can bring themselves and talk about what they like and even how they got their name if they want!

Please send back the conference slips as soon as possible. Especially if your child has a sibling in 1 -3 grade so we can coordinate with the other teacher so you only need to come to school once for all your conferences. Mrs. Hansen and I look forward to sharing the progress each child has made!

Sincerely, Mrs. Clapper

Friday!

Here we go! another week has passed by and it is getting closer and closer to spring! :-)

Here is some of what we did today:

Reading- retold the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We also did a lot with what a sentence is and why it is important to write a complete sentence. We did a lot with predicting today and we predicted before reading the book : The Sweetest Fig. We then wrote about what our biggest dream would be. The students even got to share what they wrote about their dreams with the whole class. We once again reviewed rhyming words.

Math- MONEY, MONEY, MONEY! That is what we are working with. We worked on matching the correct coins with their name and amount.

Music! The students ALWAYS have a blast in Music. I enjoying sneaking down the hall and listening to what they are working on.

So sorry that I forgot THursday folders yesterday. Check your child's backpack with Friday folder. :-)

Have a wonderful weekend!

Thursday!

What a great day! The weather was finally cooperating today and it was nice to take the class outside for a recess!! They LOVED being able to run around outside. I am hoping tomorrow will not be too cold. Here is what we did today:

Reading- We reread Goldilocks and the three bears. We also discussed what prediction is and how we use it in not only Reading but in other subjects as well. We worked on Rhyming again today and used a Cat in the Hat sheet to color and write. It should be in their backpack today.

Science- We started our newest unit over Living Things. We talked a lot about what made something a "living" thing as opposed to a "non"- living thing. It was an interesting discussion. :-) 

 

Math- We worked with MONEY! The class sorted and counted out money today and we actually had a very fun time pretending to buy things from a store and count out the exact amount of change. 

We did get to most of the reading groups today. They have been doing very well at sounding out words and READING!! :-) 

Have a great evening! 

P.S. So sorry! I just realized that I did not send a Thursday letter home today! I will get something to you tomorrow. I did however send home the form you can fill out for your conference time at the end of March. Thanks! 

Wacky Wednesday!

I thought I would use a title from a Dr. Seuss book, as today is his birthday! We celebrated in many different ways. We read many books of his, dropped everything and read in the hall (as an entire school!) and we even had a chance to watch a video of a few of his books. Needles to say today was a bit "wacky!" The students earned compliments as a class and were able to wear PJ's today as well as bring a stuffed animal friend for the day. :-) The kids really enjoyed the day. 

We really focused on rhyme today. This would be a great evening to read a book with your child that has rhyme. The students also had Library today. Phew! We are ready for Thursday! Have a wonderful evening! 

BRRR Its getting cold again!

If the temperature keeps dropping we probably won't go out for recess, but you need to make sure your children enough outer wear to keep them warm even in their Pajamas! One student asked today if they HAVE to wear pajamas and I explained that it was an earned treat and no one had to if they didn't want to. He was concerned about not wearing his Pajamas to an after school activity, so I suggested he could either skip Pajamas or bring a change of clothes and change in the bathroom before dismissal. We do not want children spending half the day in the bathroom changing for each recess and for lunch but we will allow one change if they are worried about being comfortable in their pajamas. Please help them select something that is easy for them to put on and off themselves. Thanks!

We had so much fun with Math today, both in the calendar change over and in money math! We've been talking about pennies and nickels and today dimes! I promised the children I'd find out what plants were on the back of the dime as well as the torch in the middle. There is an olive branch to the left and an oak branch to the right.The back reads, "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA," "E PLURIBUS UNUM"; which means, "Out of many, one".

Those of you who ordered book order in Feb. I apologize for forgetting about them this Friday. The paper order will go out tomorrow and hopefully we will get them by next week. I will get the March ones ready to come home in Thursday folders. I went ahead and sent the lunch menu's home today. Probably could have sent the PTA notice, but forgot about them stored up by the returned folders.

Well, I better get to bed so that I am rested and ready to enjoy

Dr. Seuss' birthday with the children tomorrow in my pajamas, too!

Stay warm everyone!

Sincerely, Mrs. Clapper