Classroom Snapshot for Grades K/1
The letter below is a sample of a weekly email communication by K/1 class teachers to the parents of their students. This is a detailed account of the academic lessons that happened in the classroom, including upcoming events and acknowledgements to parents who so graciously assisted in the classroom, on field trips or with daily logistics.
Dear Terrific Tree Frog Families,
The end of the calendar year is upon us, and we are so proud of all of our students' many accomplishments! These past two weeks have been fun and learning filled, with lots of extra excitement due to the holidays. Speaking of the holidays, in class we had a special presentation about Icelandic Christmas and we've been reading a plethora of delightful and informative books. These include, It's Kwanzaa Time, Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblin, Gingerbread Baby, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Night of Las Posadas, Too Many Tamales, The Polar Express, A Great Miracle Happened There, The Runaway Latkes,and The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice. We also created a class book about the holidays and traditions of each of our families. Ask your child what she wrote about, and talk with him to see if you can discover any connections between the many December holidays.
Our field trip on Wednesday R-O-C-K-E-D, and boy did we plant trees! It was incredible to watch your children as they worked together to fill buckets of mulch, pull weeds, care for seedlings, dig holes, and plant live oak and valley oak trees. Some of us saw an orange-bellied newt, an alligator lizard, and we all found fresh mountain lion and deer prints in the mud. A few of us hiked along a path that led to the remnants of a deer's hind leg! Talk about something to talk about!! We also got to relax, gorge, and play games at a Rancho Laguna Park in Moraga. Extra thanks to all of our drivers and chaperones. We couldn't have had this special experience without your support.
We'd also like to thank all of the families who donated books for our Book Drive for the classroom at Futures Academy in East Oakland. We have two full boxes that they are eagerly anticipating!
We hope you each have a joyous break. Our bellies are still full from yesterday's scrumptious staff appreciation lunch! What a treat it was to dine with colleagues and feast. Thank you for all that you do to support us!
In January we will begin to study the rainforest, which means that preparations for our spring musical, "Rhythm in the Rainforest" will begin. Beware! And mark your calendars now: our performance is on March 9th at 1:00 p.m. for the whole school and March 10th at 7:00 for our friends and families.
Please read on for the full scoop!
Peace,
Nick and Connie
Dates to Remember
- December 17th - Fall Progress Reports E-mailed Home
- December 18th - January 2nd - Winter Break
- January 3rd - School Resumes
- January 17th - Martin Luther King Jr. Day - No School
Whole School Craft Celebration
Today from 11-12 all the kiddos got to work with their partner pals and go classroom to classroom to participate in crafts and projects. Here is a brief rundown on all of the fun:
In Room 1, the students had an opportunity to create a community quilt. Each square block expresses one or two things that each student loves to do at Aurora. When you have a free moment, please stop by Room 1 to check it out!
In Room 2 we celebrated the new year with a Japanese tradition. The kiddos wrote their wishes for the new year on colorful papers, and we festooned our tree in the hall with them!
In Room 3, we created mismatched pairs of partner pal feet! Each P.P. pairing made our room a lil' stinky as they helped each other trace, cut, and decorate their colorful pair of feet silhouettes. All pairs can now be found happily traveling along the walls in the Room 3 hallway.
In Room 4, the students created masks that represent feelings and thoughts at the present moment. These include: happy, sad, excited, angry, silly, scared, and quiet. The masks came home today. Enjoy!
In Room 5, Partner Pals created colorful greeting cards with the message "We just wanted to brighten your day!" for program in San Francisco serving elderly shut-ins throughout the Bay Area.
In Room 6 we brought colorful light to Aurora's hallways with tiny lanterns. The students created stunning colors with tissue paper, cups, and glue.
Hermit Crab Loss
This week we discovered that our hermit crab, Swirly Cake, passed away. Thursday after lunch we had a class meeting where we shared this sad news with the kids. Each child was able to share special memories and make a piece of art to hang in the window by our hermit habitat. Most students shared touching statements like, "I love you Swirly Cake," while other's said, "I rememeber when Swirly Cake helped Adventure last year when he was stuck," and "Swirly Cake was the best hermit crab I've ever known." (heart melts here) Swirly Cake is buried outside of Room 3's window, in our K/1 pet cemetery. Feel free to visit his popsicle-stick grave, or come into the classroom and look at the darling pictures and messages. We also voted yesterday to make drawings of Swirly Cake for one of our three January calendar cards. R.I.P. Swirly Cake.
On a brighter note, our surviving hermit crab, Adventure, is alive and scurrying around like never before. We're not sure if he's excited to have the habitat all to himself, or if he's searching for his dear friend. Ask your child to tell you about our memory share, and see what she thinks about Adventure.
Kindergarten ABC Chant
All Fall, the Kindergartners have been diligently working on mastering our "ABC Chant." The chant helps each child match a picture to the sounds and letters of the alphabet. Students can use the chant when they are sounding out words in the books they read and the stories they write. The kids created two to four pages each week to add to their "ABC Chant" book. The book also lent itself as an opportunity for the students to practice writing their upper and lower case letters. This week we were so impressed with our robot-talking frogs as they each demonstrated a solid understanding of the chant and the letter sounds to Nick and Connie. Look for the book which came home this week, and have your child teach you the chant.
Becoming Seussical
On Tuesday we read aloud the book, How the Grinch Stole Christmas by the beloved Dr. Seuss. As a whole class we focused on a short passage and listened carefully for rhyming words. We made a list of all the rhyming words, and then the kids worked in pairs to find rhyming words in a number of other fabulous Dr. Seuss books. Kids were eagerly helping each other write and read, and many chose to find twice as many pairs of rhyming words than we even asked them to find! Ask your child to tell you what Dr. Seuss book she read with her partner. Can you find rhyming words in the books you read at home? We hope you all enjoy spending quality time reading with your child/ren over the break!
Math
Our Kindergarten mathematicians have been hard at work creating a butterfly quilt where they've examined patterns and shapes, as well as learning new workplaces titled "Hungry Caterpillars," "Pattern Black Puzzles," and "Count and Compare Butterflies." In these games the kiddos work on mathematical skills such as spatial problem solving, counting on from five, and comparing sets of objects. We're also beginning to talk about addition and subtraction concepts, and we always share our strategies with one another. Ask your child which of the new workplaces she likes to play, and have her explain it to you.
Our first graders mathematicians also made a beautiful quilt. Theirs is titled, "Sea Stars: Counting by 5's," and we used it as a springboard to notice patterns, carefully examine a 100's chart, and to count by 5's to beyond 100. Ask your child: How can you use your hands and fingers to help you count by five's? The new first grade workplaces include "Ten and More," "Who Has More Cents: Dimes, Nickels, and Pennies," and "Hungry Shark Subtraction." Through these activities we have been continuing our conversations about addition and subtraction, and most recently have been conducting investigations about those tricky "teen" numbers. Using unifix cubes, white boards, and pens we have been drawing and building equations for the numbers eleven through twenty. Ask your child to tell you what the "1" stands for in the number 14. What about the "4."
Made From Trees
"What are some things that are made from trees?" This question launched our science activity last week, and once again, we were exceptionally impressed with how our kiddos took time to ponder this. They came up with a thoughtful list that included: the air we breathe, maple syrup, fruits and nuts, and leaves to collect and study. Then Nick asked our kiddos to begin to look around the classroom to think of physical objects that come from trees. Before we knew it our frogs were jumping with delight as they begin to realize just how many of our classroom objects originate from trees. One child exclaimed, "Oh my gosh! Almost everything in Room 3 is made from trees!!" Kiddos were each given two post-its and they labeled each with the phrase, "Made From Trees." The kiddos happily put their post-its around the class and we all carefully walked around to investigate where each post it was placed. Another child proclaimed, "I don't have to put my post-it anywhere, because even it is made from trees!" ? Ask your child to tell you where he put his post-its, and try to find things in your home that are made from trees.