Eric Carle & IMPORTANT END OF YEAR ANNOUNCEMENTS

This week, we learned about Eric Carle.  We started the week with Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?  We also watched a video on how Eric Carle made his art.  Eric Carle doesn't paint his pictures, but he makes papers in a variety of colors and patterns and then he cuts the pieces out and builds pictures.   We then discussed as a class that we were going to be making a mural (and what a mural was).  We then brainstormed some ideas of what our mural could be.  We then came up with a jungle.  Students then, brainstormed some ideas of what goes in the jungle.  When they had their ideas, they had ideas of what color papers they needed to make.
reading one of his classics-one we can begin to pick words out of:

Students had the opportunity to make two papers.  They could choose a color and they could choose any of
the materials on the table to make their paper.  Students had brushes, popsicle sticks, blocks, K'nex, cotton balls, fluffy pipe cleaners, and the most favored: fingers, to do their papers.  We let these dry over night.

Students also helped write a class book.  Students wrote their own page to Students, Students, What Do You See?  Students wrote their name two times, then picked a color, then an animal and then illustrated it.  We read this book at circle time and then put it in our reading center.  It is a favorite because they can read it on their own!

Students who stayed all day, got the opportunity to run in the iRun in the
afternoon.  Students ran a lap around our playground and for each lap they got a tally/point.  The laps helped earn money based on pledges they received for our school technology fund.

Wednesday, students began building their mural.  The would pick what they were going to help make, I would draw some outlines on the back of the paper, and they would cut the paper out. They then glued the pieces together to build the original thing they had in mind.  We even recycled some of the scraps from the tree leaves and used them to make vines and grass.

Thursday, students finished up the mural.  We put it on the wall and they love it!

Thursday, students did one last journal entry with some teacher guidance to help them get the idea of journaling and writing for a purpose down.  Students were sent home with their journals as we are done writing in them.  Students would draw a pictures, write the words, and then the teacher would write what they wrote down and the date.  There is no order to the pages as we let the students choose.  I hope you enjoy reading them and feel free to add to the rest of the pages over the summer!

We counted as a class how many days of school we have left this year.  4 DAYS OF SCHOOL!   It is going to be a fun filled, busy next 4 wake-ups!

We have a very busy remainder of the school year ahead of us!

Father's Day Gift Students will be creating a Father's day gift on Monday.  If you have not done so already, please send in those plastic frozen juice containers, tin cans, etc.  Please NO GLASS.

Surveys: The Orange 4k Survey and the Green Literacy survey were sent home a couple weeks ago.  Please turn those in as soon as you can.  They help us improve the 4k program. The green on is for my personal professional development as it helps me to improve my teaching of literacy

Graduation will be June 3 5:30-6:30.  Formal Invitation went out this week, please make sure to get your RSVP in so we can print the correct number of programs and set up the correct number of chairs.

PLEASE HAVE STUDENTS TO SCHOOL AT 5:20 TO LINE UP.  You can drop your child off in the classroom and then head down to our gym area to find your seat.  There are no reserved seats, we are collecting RSVPs simply for a seat count.

St. Edward (All day students and Aiden and Kay Lee ONLY) field trip is Wednesday June 4.  It is an all day trip.  Permission slips came home in the folder.  .

PALS Assessments are completed

Library Check Out is completed for the year. All books are in, THANK YOU!\

Book orders are submitted and done for the year.

PLEASE BE CHECKING YOUR CHILD'S FOLDER AT NIGHT.  THERE WILL BE MANY END OF THE YEAR WRAP UP FORMS, QUESTIONNAIRES, AND MORE.  PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU RETURN FORMS PROMPTLY.

Please note, as always, the Hortonville Public Library hosts free events for kids!  Check them out on your days off and have some fun family bonding time! The link below brings you to the sites "kids" page.
http://www.hortonvillelibrary.org/taxonomy/term/1 
http://www.hortonvillelibrary.org/library_calendar

Important Notes:

• Our School day starts at 7:50am.  Please have your child in the building at that time.  We are going to be watching tardy's very carefully for the 4th quarter

Next Week:
Theme: Graduation, going to Kindergarten
Snack: Wieczorek Family

Down on the Farm

Congratulations to our PM 4k teacher, Mrs. Revoir, on the birth of a healthy baby boy!  Mrs. Revoir was due Tuesday but her little boy Parker decided to grace the world with his presence on the Thursday before.  Students were excited, though a little confused, why he wasn't born on the day with the star on the calendar.

Monday, students worked on putting some cows in their barn.  Students either had
to put the correct number of cows in the barn or put the first number of cows in the barn, the second number of cows in the barn, and then write how many cows in all were in the barn (addition).  Students did really well!   Students also began typing their own data for their power point slides.

Tuesday, students finished up their number of the week books and finished up putting their cows in the barn if they didn't have time to do that earlier in the week.

Wednesday, students worked on a write the room activity that was a little different than before.  I love how excited the kids get to walk around the room with a clip board and write words.  The students walked around the room looking for numbered words and wrote the farm words on their paper.  When all the words were written by all the numbers, students sat down to read their words and glue the picture of that animal by the word.  It was so cool to see kids writing, reading, cutting, gluing, and more in one project.  The cool thing about this project is that the projects are all getting smaller so their fine motor skills and control of their tools is getting so much more refined.  They are doing so well!  Students also finished up their power point slides.

Thursday, students were busy!  In my center, students went around
the room and asked their friends their favorite animals. They then marked their data on their graph.  They then brought their data back to the table and had to circle the large number and x out the smallest.  The only tricky part was seeing 0 as the smallest (rather than 1).  "I want 1 more cookie than 0, don't you?" helped them make sense of it.

With Mrs. Drummond, students had to cut out shapes (they are getting so tiny-great job with those fine motor skills) and then they had to follow directions and work with directional words...and when they were done there was  tractor!

With Mrs. Schneider (Izzy's grandma who visits weekly), students
practiced recognizing 11, 12, and 13 by reading the numbers on the card and then doing the correct amount of exercises.  Students had fun doing the exercises, but seemed pretty tired!

Students have also been enjoying the game of twister in their puzzles and games center.  They are getting good at reading left and right buy looking at the initial sound, and really trying to know the difference when playing the game.  The right side is our pledge side (if that helps you at home).

We counted as a class how many days of school we have left this year.  7 DAYS OF SCHOOL!   It is going to be a fun filled, busy next 7 days!

No School on Monday May 26 due to Memorial Day

We have a very busy remainder of the school year ahead of us!

PALS Assessments are completed

Library Check Out is completed for the year. All books are in, THANK YOU!

Book orders are submitted and done for the year.

iRun will be Tuesday May 27 in the afternoon.  Students will be running with the 3k to form a team.  We are running/walking laps (and keeping track) to go with the pledges students in the extended day program have gotten to earn money for the technology in our school.

Graduation will be June 3 5:30-6:30.  Formal Invitation to Follow.

St. Edward field trip is Wednesday June 4.  It is an all day trip.  Permission slips came home in the folder.  

PLEASE BE CHECKING YOUR CHILD'S FOLDER AT NIGHT.  THERE WILL BE MANY END OF THE YEAR WRAP UP FORMS, QUESTIONNAIRES, AND MORE.  PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU RETURN FORMS PROMPTLY.

Please note, as always, the Hortonville Public Library hosts free events for kids!  Check them out on your days off and have some fun family bonding time! The link below brings you to the sites "kids" page.
http://www.hortonvillelibrary.org/taxonomy/term/1 
http://www.hortonvillelibrary.org/library_calendar

Important Notes:

• Our School day starts at 7:50am.  Please have your child in the building at that time.  We are going to be watching tardy's very carefully for the 4th quarter so please 

Next Week:
Theme: Eric Carle (Author)
Snack: Ebben Family

Plants!

We started our week with checking on our plants we planted last week.  We planted 4 sets of seeds: 1 set had everything it needed: water, sun, and soil.  1 with no soil, 1 with no sun, and 1 with no water.  We made observations of those to see any change.  We noticed no change at all and decided to give them more time. We also watched a short video that labeled the plants and did our best to label a diagram of a plant.  We wrote the sound we heard at the beginning of the words we were writing.

Tuesday, we continued to work on our number of the week books.  We continue to work hard on these.   We made predictions of what we thought we would find in the cups when they started to grow.  We wrote these observations down in our science plant journals.

Wednesday, we checked our plants again. This time there was some change!  The plant that had all the things it needs was able to grow sprouts!  We also observed that the plants with things missing could not grow.  We then drew the conclusion that if a plant does not have all the things it needs it cannot grow.  We then wrote down our observations in our science plant journals.

Thursday, we finished up our science plant journals, by illustrating and gluing real seeds into a plant life cycle.  Students also wrote the steps of the plant life cycle by writing the first sound they hear.

We had some really great science investigations and vocabulary this week!  We find by using these big words and explaining what they mean, students actually feel comfortable using them and they become second nature!  It is amazing to hear little ones say hypothesis, observations, conclusions, investigations, and more.  Try this at home with any vocabulary, you will be amazed the conversations you can have with your child.

We counted as a class how many days of school we have left this year.  11 DAYS OF SCHOOL!   It is going to be a fun filled, busy next 11 days!

We have a very busy remainder of the school year ahead of us!

PALS Assessments are completed

Library Check Out is completed for the year.  Please return all library books on Monday.  This will give us time to get in any late books.

Book orders I am only able to submit one more book order this year to have it back in on time.  I had an original due date of tomorrow May, 16.  I am going to extend it shortly longer to allow you the weekend to get the paper copy/checks sent in.  You are obviously welcome to order online.  Please click on the scholastic tab at the top of this page and then click on the image if the scholastic book order.  ALL BOOK ORDERS ARE Due May 19, 2014.

Graduation will be June 3 5:30-6:30.  Formal Invitation to Follow.

St. Edward field trip is Wednesday June 4.  It is an all day trip.  Permission slips came home in the folder.  

PLEASE BE CHECKING YOUR CHILD'S FOLDER AT NIGHT.  THERE WILL BE MANY END OF THE YEAR WRAP UP FORMS, QUESTIONNAIRES, AND MORE.  PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU RETURN FORMS PROMPTLY.

Please note, as always, the Hortonville Public Library hosts free events for kids!  Check them out on your days off and have some fun family bonding time! The link below brings you to the sites "kids" page.
http://www.hortonvillelibrary.org/taxonomy/term/1 
http://www.hortonvillelibrary.org/library_calendar

Important Notes:

• Our School day starts at 7:50am.  Please have your child in the building at that time.  We are going to be watching tardy's very carefully for the 4th quarter so please 

Next Week:
Theme: Farm
Numbers of the Week: 11, 12, 13
Snack: Ellerman Family

How many themes can we fit in one week!?!

What a crazy busy week with tons going on!

Please feel free to check out the NEW tabs at the top of this blog to see the fun new pages added.  You can learn about our letters of the week, see the snack calendar as well as our events calendar, and order your scholastic books directly from the blog now!  Let me know if you need help or if you have any other ideas of what you would like to see on the blog to make it more useful to yourself and family.  Added this week: You can click on the photos link tab and it will bring you to a google album in which you can view our class photos and even download the ones you like to your computer!

Monday we started the day off with teaching what kindergarten work looks like. We did a coloring page and talked about a good piece of art uses: 1. stays in the lines 2. uses the right colors and more than one and 3. fills up the white space.  We then evaluated our own work (with names covered so nobody was embarrassed)  to see if that is how we are working.  We are trying really hard to get ready for kindergarten!

We celebrated Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for 5th of May) by listening to fiesta (Spanish for party) music and learning the Mexican Hat Dance. Students tried really hard to remember these Spanish words are were so cute trying to do the dance! Switching feet is tricky but they sure did try!
I did catch a verse on video for you all!
(hopefully it works!  Let me know if it doesn't)

On Monday, we also made part of our Mother's Day gifts and worked on PALS assessments.  Students are doing very well with their fine motor skills and their best work.  Assessments are going well and students are showing a great deal of improvement!

Tuesday we worked on our number of the week book for numbers 7, 8, and 9.  Students put stickers on the pages and drew that many pictures.  We continued to work on PALS assessments as well.

Wednesday we finished our Mother's day presents, Worked on our Number of the week books, continued work on the PALS assessments.

Thursday we had our trip to the planetarium.  Students really enjoyed the friendly skies presentation and seemed to really enjoy the trip.  It was a little different going back into the space unit, but students did very well with the transition.


We have a very busy remainder of the school year ahead of us!

We are working on projects to be sold for Blooming Bonanza fundraiser that starts Friday May 9.  Please come check out all the cool plants, but also the teacher table that will hold our products along with all the other products the students in our school have been making.  

PALS Assessments started May 6 and will be completed by next Friday.

Graduation Photos -

We have the wonderful opportunity to take graduation photos of the kids in adorable little caps and gowns!  We will be taking the photos during the school day on THURSDAY MAY 16, 2013.  Students will have a graduation cap and a gown provided so students need not dress up for the occasion, but you may want to leave little girls hair down or have a hairstyle that is lower on their head to allow for the cap to fit on their head.

Students love the opportunity to dress up and have their photo taken, but our photographer cannot take their photo without your permission.  We do not want your child left out so PLEASE SIGN THE FORM EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT PLANNING ON PURCHASING PHOTOS.  If you do choose to purchase photos, please return the money in the envelope.

PLEASE SIGN AND RETURN ENVELOPE REGARDLESS OF PURCHASE BY THE BEGINNING OF THEIR CLASS ON Wednesday MAY 14^TH, 2014.  The photos will be ready by the end of the school year.

Book orders Due May 16

Graduation will be June 3 5:30-6:30.  Formal Invitation to Follow.

PLEASE BE CHECKING YOUR CHILD'S FOLDER AT NIGHT.  THERE WILL BE MANY END OF THE YEAR WRAP UP FORMS, QUESTIONNAIRES, AND MORE.  PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU RETURN FORMS PROMPTLY.

Donations needed!
We have started our number of the week books.  These books will consist of putting the correct amount of stickers on the number, draw that many objects, and cut that number out of the magazines.  We need your help!  Please send magazines or ads (ads seem to have the most numbers).  Sunday ads would be perfect!  Thank you!

Please note, as always, the Hortonville Public Library hosts free events for kids!  Check them out on your days off and have some fun family bonding time! The link below brings you to the sites "kids" page.
http://www.hortonvillelibrary.org/taxonomy/term/1 
http://www.hortonvillelibrary.org/library_calendar

Important Notes:

• Our School day starts at 7:50am.  Please have your child in the building at that time.  We are going to be watching tardy's very carefully for the 4th quarter so please 
• Book Orders came home and are available.  I will have ONE MORE BOOK ORDER.    Our FINAL book order will be due May 16 to ensure that all orders are in by the end of the year.
• BECAUSE IT IS FINALLY GETTING WARM ENOUGH TO GO BACK OUTSIDE, PLEASE BE SURE THEY ARE DRESSED FOR THE WEATHER TO GO OUT.  Please send your child dressed for the weather as we go outside as long as it is not raining or below 0*(students are more than welcome to bring layers daily or to leave in their lockers)  It may also be time to change out the change of clothes to make sure they are weather appropriate.  If you send a new change of clothes, we will send the warm weather clothes in their backpacks.  We go outside on TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS, Extended day kids go out EVERY DAY.
• Folders. Please be checking your child's daily folder each night.  We put notes on the notebook pages in their folders as well as any notes we may have for you.  Artwork is also sent home this way. As we start letter of the week, we will also start sending home homework to help reinforce the letter concept and identification.  Please work on this with you child to help the students make the connection between home and school. 
• Also, Please check the student's Wednesday Folders.  Please try to take info out and return the folder and any forms/info/payments in those folders a day or two after receiving. 
• Literacy Bags are done for the year!  Thank you for your great work in working with your child on these!
• Library Books come every week.  We go to library on Monday and student have the opportunity to check out a book and keep it for a week. It can be kept in their back packs or at home, but please remember to bring it on Mondays. 

Next Week:
Theme: Plants
Numbers of the Week: 10
Snack: Lamers Family

We love our Earth

Please feel free to check out the NEW tabs at the top of this blog to see the fun new pages added.  You can learn about our letters of the week, see the snack calendar as well as our events calendar, and order your scholastic books directly from the blog now!  Let me know if you need help or if you have any other ideas of what you would like to see on the blog to make it more useful to yourself and family.

We had a crazy busy week!  We cannot believe we are getting ready for graduation already.  We have been practicing hard at our songs so we will be loud enough for all of you when we put on our show.

On Monday, we made an I <3 Earth project.  To make the Earth, students colored a coffee filter blue and green and we sprayed it with water to watch the colors spread.  We dried them on our heaters.  We then wrote on our heart how we were going to love our Earth in their very best spelling.  We then stapled the I, the <3 and the Earth together to make an adorable hall decoration (and public service announcement).

Tuesday, we recycled the paper we found around the school by making
it into our own new paper!  We first had to make the paper smaller by ripping the pieces.  Then we put the paper and water in the blender.  When the blender was on, we made pulp.  We all took a turn to touch the pulp and squeeze some water out of it.  We then dumped the remaining pulp on a screen
so the water went into a bowl.  Then we pressed the left over water out with a towel.  We put them out to dry and we will have our own fancy paper to take home!

Wednesday, we began subtraction.  We had some alive trees, then some trees died so we took them away so we had to count how many trees we still alive.  Students found taking all of them away and none away pretty tricky, but they did very well with the other numbers. We also worked on properly writing those numbers.

Through out the week, we were also working on completing our donations to the Blooming Bonanza project.  Students did a great job and I hope they will make us some money towards our school technology fund! Check out Blooming Bonanza to see all their hard work.

Tuesday was our number of the week project.  We put 4, 5, 6 stickers on the numbers and we drew 4, 5, and 6 things.

Thursday, we had our program (to participate in or watch) so we did our cutting out the numbers 4, 5, 6 from magazines and gluing on the numbers.

Our Field trip went wonderfully. We took 12 students to Hillside preschool and they had a blast learning bike safety, eating a healthy snack, talking with Deputy Janda about 911 and a police officers uniform, the Greenville firefighters about campfire and firework safety, and talking with some ladies about pet/animal safety and to always as, "may I pet your dog."

We have a very busy remainder of the school year ahead of us!

We are working on projects to be sold for Blooming Bonanza fundraiser that starts Friday May 9.  Please come check out all the cool plants, but also the teacher table that will hold our products along with all the other products the students in our school have been making.  

We have our Safety Fair Field Trip (at Hillside 4k site) on Friday May 2.  Please make sure your trip form is in!  No slip, no Trip!  There is no cost for this trip!

We have our Planetarium Field Trip on Thursday May 8.  Please make sure you have your trip form in, as well as the $4 fee.  

PALS Assessments will start May 6.

Graduation will be June 3 5:30-6:30.  Formal Invitation to Follow.

PLEASE BE CHECKING YOUR CHILD'S FOLDER AT NIGHT.  THERE WILL BE MANY END OF THE YEAR WRAP UP FORMS, QUESTIONNAIRES, AND MORE.  PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU RETURN FORMS PROMPTLY.

Donations needed!
We have started our number of the week books.  These books will consist of putting the correct amount of stickers on the number, draw that many objects, and cut that number out of the magazines.  We need your help!  Please send magazines or ads (ads seem to have the most numbers).  Sunday ads would be perfect!  Thank you!

Please note, as always, the Hortonville Public Library hosts free events for kids!  Check them out on your days off and have some fun family bonding time! The link below brings you to the sites "kids" page.
http://www.hortonvillelibrary.org/taxonomy/term/1 
http://www.hortonvillelibrary.org/library_calendar

Important Notes:

• Our School day starts at 7:50am.  Please have your child in the building at that time.  We are going to be watching tardy's very carefully for the 4th quarter so please 
• Book Orders came home and are available.  I will have ONE MORE BOOK ORDER.    Our FINAL book order will be due May 16 to ensure that all orders are in by the end of the year.
• BECAUSE IT IS FINALLY GETTING WARM ENOUGH TO GO BACK OUTSIDE, PLEASE BE SURE THEY ARE DRESSED FOR THE WEATHER TO GO OUT.  Please send your child dressed for the weather as we go outside as long as it is not raining or below 0*(students are more than welcome to bring layers daily or to leave in their lockers)  It may also be time to change out the change of clothes to make sure they are weather appropriate.  If you send a new change of clothes, we will send the warm weather clothes in their backpacks.  We go outside on TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS, Extended day kids go out EVERY DAY.
• Folders. Please be checking your child's daily folder each night.  We put notes on the notebook pages in their folders as well as any notes we may have for you.  Artwork is also sent home this way. As we start letter of the week, we will also start sending home homework to help reinforce the letter concept and identification.  Please work on this with you child to help the students make the connection between home and school. 
• Also, Please check the student's Wednesday Folders.  Please try to take info out and return the folder and any forms/info/payments in those folders a day or two after receiving. 
• Literacy Bags are done for the year!  Thank you for your great work in working with your child on these!
• Library Books come every week.  We go to library on Monday and student have the opportunity to check out a book and keep it for a week. It can be kept in their back packs or at home, but please remember to bring it on Mondays. 

Next Week:
Theme: Earth Day. Flowers. Mothers Day
Numbers of the Week: 7, 8, 9
Snack: Ellerman Family (already in)