HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We had a wonderful day today.  Thank you to Mrs. Carlson and Mrs. Sroka for organizing and planning our class party and to Mrs. Kemmerer and Mrs. Poulopoulos for helping with the party.  Below are some pictures from the day.

Ocean World

 Ellen Goethel, a marine biologist from Hampton Beach, NH came to Memorial School to teach the children about animals from the ocean.  She brought a touch tub with her so that the children were able to touch and hold live creatures from the ocean!! 

Thank you to the PTO for funding this wonderful hands-on experience for our students!

Room 5 Update

The children have settled in nicely to the full-day kindergarten routine.  They have already been taught the sounds and correct lowercase letter formation for ten letters, have been working on rhyming, counting out syllables in words and started learning some of our kindergarten sight words.  They know that good readers look at the pictures for help and always use their reading finger to help them.  They know that some letters are vowels and that every word has a vowel.

We have been working on listening to and telling stories.  Every child has a "Turn and Talk" partner that they share their stories and ideas with.  Every Monday the children work on drawing and sharing one thing they did over the weekend.  At this point, the children have been dictating their words to an adult and trying to label their pictures.  It is quite amazing to see how much they progress with their reading and writing skills during their year in kindergarten.

We are about to finish Topic 3-Numbers 6 to 10 in our Envisions math program and will be moving into Topic 4 which focuses on comparing numbers 0 to 10.  Our math block often consists of many hands-on activities and games as well as a daily lesson from the Envisions program. 

As part of our Foss Science program, we have been observing trees and weather. We have discussed how all plants need water, nutrients, light, air, and space to grow.  We had fun working on leaf rubbings from our class tree on Friday morning.  

The Choose to be Nice program introduced us to Riley the Responsible Mouse.  Every child drew a picture of one way to show Responsibility in school.  The children's drawings are hanging in the hallways, library, gym cafe and in our classroom.  We realized there are many ways to show responsibility at Memorial School.

I introduced the children to the class Teddy Bear Jar.  The class can earn little teddy bears to put in the jar when they work together as a class.  They can earn a teddy bear by receiving a compliment for walking quietly in the hallways, or when I pick them up from one of their specials and the teacher says they did a great job.  There are many ways to earn teddy bears in our class jar.  Once the jar is full the class will earn something from a list that we comprised together.

We like to end our week with Fun Day Friday.  On Friday afternoons the children have been exploring and creating with our Maker Space materials. It is a wonderful time to walk around the classroom and ask the children about what they are creating.  They love sharing what they have created from their wonderful imaginations.  They love Fun Day Friday afternoons.  Below are some pictures from our Maker Space time.