April 25-29

We had an awesome time learning from our staff developer last week! It was fun to have her visit our classroom and learn so many new tips and tricks.

 On Friday afternoon, I will be administering the PALS assessment to students. As you may remember from the beginning of the year, PALS focuses on literacy concepts/skills such as letter sounds, beginning sounds, word identification, and so on. It will be exciting to document student growth! 


Upcoming events: 

• April 29 and May 3: PALs Testing
• May 12: Family Night
• May 13: KAT Cookie Decorating Celebration
• May 23: Family Event at the Kaukauna Public Library
• May 26: Half Day--Dismissal at 11:30
• May 27 and 30: No School
• June 1: Field Day--Stay tuned for more info, but if you are thinking about volunteering and will need a background check, please let us know ASAP!  Thanks!
• June 2: Last Day of School--Half Day for Students

What’s happening in Kindergarten this week?

Reading: So far, the avid readers have been focusing on fiction texts. This week, we shift to working in nonficiton texts! Students will learn to use precise words while teaching about what they learned from a text and to share their findings with their partners. Readers often begin sharing about a text by using one of the following prompts:

• I notice...
• I think...
• I wonder..
• What do you think? 
• Why do you think that? 

Practice using these prompts while reading at home too! 

Writing: Writers will learn that authors have deadlines and set goals to meet those deadlines. Setting goals will allow students to push themselves to write more and track their progress. Our writing minilessons will also be focused on checking words in their writing to make sure they look right. Writers will search for and edit any incorrect sight words. We will use vowels charts to ensure that each word has a vowel. Finally, we will use blend charts (sh, ch, th, etc.) and alphabet charts to make sure we are getting the right sounds and letters in our writing. 

Math: 
We will rotate through the following centers: 

• Students will sort cards that have equations that are the same as, equal to, or greater than 10. They will need to solve the equations, and then place the card in the correct row.  
• A pair of students will split a deck of cards with different dot patterns on them. Player 1 and Player 2 will both lay a card down.  Then, they will determine which player’s card is greater. The player with the greater card will get both of the cards. If the players lay cards with the same number of dots, they will flip another card to see who has the greater card. 
• Students will find the partners of number 1-5 using different color dot patterns. They will color a certain number of dots and quickly say the equation. This will help internalize the addition and subtraction equations within 5.  
• Mathematicians will play Domino Addition. Each player will have a stack of numeral cards in front of them. They will turn over one numeral card. Then, the mathematician finds dominoes with a sum that matches the number. 

Word Study: Our sight words are:  were, now, made, saw, & our.

We will be working on these endings in our sorts: ug, ig, ag, eg, and og. 

Here are our sight words. 

Science:Now that we have a better understanding of the characteristics of balls, we will start exploring what they can do! On Tuesday, we will explore bounciness on different surfaces, discuss how different balls make different sounds as they bounce, and measure how high they can bounce. Then, at centers, students will test 

• The bounciness of each kind of ball (counting the number of bounces)
• How much effort it takes to move it (using a straw to blow)