123 KinderStreet

Kindergarten will be very busy for the next few weeks! Here are a few highlights. For a complete listing of activities and important dates, be sure to click on the Kindergarten Calendar link to your right.

*Last week of homework is this week. Please be sure to work with your child and let them show what they have learned.

*Field Day--this Friday, June 4th. Students have been assigned to color teams. Be sure to dress your child in their team's colors. Another reminder will come home on Thursday.

*Zoo Trip--Tuesday, June 8th. Send a lunch in a disposable bag, so your child won't have to carry a lunch box around all day.

*Celebration in the Park for Kindergarten--June 14th. We would like parents to attend. Look for an invitation to come home this week.

One final note: Angel the Traveling Bear is lost! We sent home a flyer last week about the yellow sharing backpack that goes home with the Star of the Week each Friday. One of the students took it home over a month ago, and never returned it to class. Please have a look around your home and car for it, and return it to school if you find it. These items were purchased by Mrs. Jenkins, and she would like to use them again next school year.

That's all for now! Please watch and enjoy our latest videos below of the farm field trip, and a montage of Mother's Day cards (coming soon) made just for you.

Have a great week!
Mrs. C and Mrs. J

Our Kindergarten Yearbook is on sale!!!  This softback, colorful photobook will be a wonderful way for you and your child to remember this magical year of Kindergarten. Please order one by Thursday, April 29 while we have access to the Mother's Day Sale offered by Shutterfly ($15.99 per book). The yearbook will be available after the 29th, but the cost will go up slightly.Order forms went home last week, and we will send another round home this week, in case you misplaced it.

This week in language arts, we will focus on the short /e/ sound. Short /e/ can be very tricky when it comes to spelling, because it sounds very similar to the short /i/ sound. Please use this video short to help your child practice at home. You can also give them rhyming words with the /e/ to try to spell (i.e. pet, vet, met or pen, men, then) for practice.

This first week of Spring, we will be doing a variety of special activities to celebrate the new season! We have been learning about the winds of March, and will create items that can catch the wind. In science we will experiment more with the forces of push and pull.

Two very special events will occur on Thursday (which is the last day of school for students before Spring Break). The first is the K-Team's first-ever Spring-Fling Fruit Fair. Three of the K classes will rotate between rooms and do fun learning activites with unusual fruits. If you are available to help out with this event, please contact us as soon as you can. Also on Thursday, Mrs. C is planning a Lunch Bunch Easter Egg Hunt for those students who stayed on green behavior for the month of March.

Our class has submitted an entry to our school science fair, which will be held today. If you get a chance, stop by the school to see our information board. If you cannot make it, just have a look at this video:

What will happen when you put Mentos candies into various liquids?

As Spring comes on the scene, we wave a fond farewell to the beautiful blizzards of 2010.

First off, a note from Mrs. J:

Earlier in the year, I sent home a letter telling you about the STEP podcasting course that I and several other High Bridge teachers are taking, and my assignment to create and share a podcast. Well, I have just completed the first episode of my first podcast, and it should be of great interest to you. "Demystifying Reading Instruction" is a podcast geared towards helping parents and others to teach their young child to read. At the top of this page (just above this paragraph) you will see a small player for Episode 1-Phonemic Awareness. When you can, please take a listen. I hope the show will be interesting as well as instructive. Thanks for all of your support, and stay tuned for more episodes!

We want to give props to our Hamburger reading group for doing a fantastic job last week on their play performance. They have been working on reading fluency (or using their "reading voice"). Each of the four students were given a part in the play and a short script. They were able practice independently and cooperatively for several days, and then they fluently read their parts in front of their classmates. Keep up the super reading, Hamburgers!

Our latest class movie is now out! Several weeks ago, we celebrated the 100th day of school. There were plenty of math and language arts activities centered around the number 100, and a delicious pizza party. Watch the video below to see some of the activities. The video is also up on our Video page of the site. Have a great week!