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| Mr. D. presents us with a Certificate of Achievement |
WEEKLY HIGHLIGHTS
What a difference the warm weather makes! We have been enjoying our recesses like never before and we even were able to get outside for an impromptu walking field trip on Wednesday to the “17-Acre Wood Trail” behind the school. This is the trail that Micah Heaney and the Conservation Commission built last year. The trails are recently raked and offer a wonderful opportunity to explore our natural surroundings. The children are making great strides towards our end of year goals -- academically, socially and emotionally. They are becoming better listeners with the exception of intermittent uncontrolled jubiliation that spring usually brings -- they are right on track. I am very proud of their efforts. Mr. Driscoll is also very impressed with their progress and on Tuesday awarded the class with a Certificate of Achievement that he reserves only for the very best. He said it was their very best day and he has seen considerable growth over the past several months. I hope to see their efforts continue moving forward in the final weeks of the year. Great job Kinder Bees!
I’d like to also point you to our new classroom web mascot online. “Bizzy Bee” is an animated mascot -- you will find her in the right hand column on the web page. She will offer online tips to help our students make smart choices and great ideas for being helpful and kind. She will try to be current and up to date to highlight upcoming news and events for the class. I introduced the class to Bizzy Bee on Thursday and they should be able to help you find her on the page. Just click the “Play” button to hear her talk.
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| Maeve and Tanner add details to their drawings. |
Cross Curriculum: Science, Math & Language Arts
We are currently working on the lifecycle of plants, making connections to living things, and learning more about what living things need. They will also be learning about the parts of a plant, and seeds. This week they sorted seeds and graphed them.
Share: Thank you for the creative /ch/ share sounds. They enjoyed seeing little toy/stuffed chickens, learning the french word for hat “chapeau,” charge cards, and a chain. Next week’s share will be something related to springtime: plants, flowers, gardens to connect to our science unit. Our Farm to Garden Coordinator, Kelly Meacham will be teaching a lesson on spinach later today.
Math: We continue to work in our Spring Math Journals. This week’s math journal question asked the children to consider how many wings on a butterfly and then to determine how many wings altogether on 3 butterflies. numbers. They also had to create an ABB pattern by coloring a series of caterpillars.
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| Tate stitches his colored pencil case |
Centers: Our activity centers included Cuisenaire blocks, Rhyming puzzles, Stitching their colored pencil cases, and plant lifecycle booklets. The children are really enjoying the opportunity to make their felt pencil cases. As a reward for completing their Jolly Phonics workbooks, they choose a felt square color, embroidery thread and a button. They are working hard to complete their cases and then once completed are awarded a new box of colored pencils.
ELA: We completed our second ELA spring assessment: Opinion Writing. We read The Little Red Hen. They chose their favorite character and then wrote why. They did an outstanding job attending to this challenging task. Great job! Please have your child read their Home to School Journals this weekend. They can add any fun things they did on a new page. Thank you!
CALENDAR:
- Group Snack: This week’s healthy snacks were provided Morgan’s family. The children enjoyed heatlhy homemade muffins, pretzels, Goldfish, and applesauce! Thank you! Maeve’s family will be providing our healthy snack next week.
- Future Snack Weeks: Kerridwyn’s family the week of 5/20, and Tate’s family week of 5/27. We are still looking for snack donations for the weeks of 6/3 and 6/10.
- Next Friday, May 17th, Mrs. White and I are planning another seasonal field trip (spring/summer) to her property. We are planning to leave at 12:30pm and will return by 2:00pm. We are tying in the ELF curriculum on frogs and ponds. If you would like to chaperone, please let me know! Thank you!
- PTSF 4th Annual Book Swap: Please donate your gently used children’s and young adult books. I am accepting used books until May 29th for the Book Swap. The swap will be held on Thursday, May 30. The children will all come home with one or two books. Book Swap books are priceless in more ways than one. Thank you for putting more books into the hands of students!
- Our classroom buddy George went home with Conner during the week. We continue to enjoy hearing about all the fun he has when he travels to your homes. Thank you for taking such good care of our classroom friend!
- Carol Witherington is retiring. If you would like to wish her well meet at the Rec. on Sunday, May 19, from 1:00 to 5:00 pm.
- Tuesday, May 28th: Parent Appreciation Concert: Grades K-5, 6:30pm. Student’s should arrive to our classroom by 6:20 PM. We will walk to the assembly and sit together. As with the Winter concert children should remain seated with our class and will walk back to our classroom to be picked up.
- Kindergarten End-Of-Year Celebration: Tentatively scheduled in our classroom for June 13th (1/2 day of school).
- If you haven't clicked on Artsonia in the right-hand column yet this year, please do. You will be brought to a website that shows a selection your student's work in artclass for the year. You can search using your child's first name or you can scroll through the class. Both Mrs. White's and my class are grouped together. Enjoy the beautiful artwork!
- P.S. Mother's Day gifts are tucked in the left hand side of the folder (A paper tulip card with hand made gift tucked inside.) The story: In the heart of the seed... is also part of the gift. I struggled with how to have them wrapped. We hope you enjoy!)
Sincerely,
Jennifer Bodnar
To view online: go to mrsbodnarskindergarten.blogspot.com/
