Welcome to Mrs. Estes' and Mrs. Joani's Kindergarten Class at Kennesaw Charter Science and Math Academy. Thanks for checking the blog out!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Estes Extras...

Whew! What an awesome fall week!! All week we talked about fall and pumpkins. We ended the week with a fabulous celebration! A very special thank you goes out to Matheus' mom, Sofia's mom, Kayly's mom, Elianna's dad and Nicholas' mom for helping out during the party. Thank you to everyone who contributed items to the party! We could not have done it without you. We ate lots of yummy food and played a few great games. Everyone looks so cute dressed in orange today!! This week we carved a pumpkin, which we call Jack Super, because Jack-o-Lanterns are super cool. We touched the inside of a pumpkin and counted the seeds. We had a remarkable 1,030 seeds in our pumpkin! Pictures will be up soon.

Next week is a big week also. Tuesday, there is NO SCHOOL! It is a teacher work day and Election Day. Don't forget to vote!! Wednesday, we are going on our first field trip to the Imagine It! Museum. It's going to be awesome! Please dress your child in a RED Uniform shirt for the field trip on Wednesday.
It is also Red Ribbon Week next week!

Aylin celebrated a birthday this week! Happy Birthday!

Victor was chosen to be the next star student. He has Max the Moose over this Halloween weekend!!

We had our second Junior Achievement lesson this week from our KSU student. We began to talking about what a quarter, dime, nickle and a penny was.

A new homework will go home on Monday. It is November on Monday! Can you believe it? We are almost half way into the school year! Please send October's homework back on Monday.

Specials: Monday: Music, Wednesday: no specials, Thursday: P.E., Friday: Spanish.

Academic Update:

Literacy: We finished our unit on Family. We will start a new unit on friendship on Monday. In phonics, we learned three new letters this week: W, T, and V. Keep working on the letter sounds and on sight words. We are now putting the sight words that we have learned into sentences. For example: I see a _____. and fill in the blank with anything. This helps them understand why we learn sight words. Once they read a simple sentence, the gain more confidence and want to learn more, so they can read more simple sentences. Once we move on from the simple sentences, we can move into more complex sentences.

Math: This week all of our math was based around fall, counting seed in the pumpkin, etc. Monday, we are starting a new unit on geometry.

Science: We mainly talked about the stages of a pumpkin. We did two big art projects on the stages of a pumpkin. Ask them about pumpkins and what color the pumpkin is before it turns orange! Elianna's dad is going to be our science parent for the year. We will do our first science experience next week!

Have a great weekend. Be careful trick or treating and have a spooky Halloween!! Roll Tide :)

Friday, October 22, 2010

Estes Extras...

Estes Extras...

What a fun-filled week!! It was great to see you at Open House on Monday. We had an awesome day on Thursday for our 50th day of school celebration! The celebration included counting our 50 items, gluing them into the shape of a 50 using all 50 items, bubble gum blowing contest, rainbow sherbet and sprite floats and a sock hop in the gym!! Everyone looked so cute. I will be posting pictures soon! A thank you to all the parents for coming to their conference. I enjoyed meeting with all of you!

We picked a new start student this week! Kayly will be getting Max the moose for the weekend!

Our specials for next week is: Monday: P.E., Tuesday: Spanish, Wednesday: Art, Thursday: P.E., Friday: Media Center.

The library books that went home this week are due on Wednesday 10/27.

We are going on a field trip on 11/3!!! We are so excited! Field Trip Forms are due 10/28. Kayly and Aijah's moms have volunteered to come with us. We are looking for 1 more parent volunteer! :)

Academic Update:
Literacy: We are continuing our family unit in literacy. We learned two new letters this week: j and p.
We found that the g and j sounds are getting mixed up. When you have a minute, just sounds for some extra practice.Continue working on sight words.

Math: We are continuing in the numbers chapter. We talked a lot about the number 50 this week too. We practiced counting to 50 by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's. Keep practicing counting to 50 and to 100 by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's.

Science: We continued talking about nocturnal animals and where our postcards came from. Now that we have a world map, the students can start to understand where the postcards are coming from!

Thank you to Camille's mom who helped in Literacy Centers and Micheal's mom who was our mystery reader on Friday. Camille's mom bought puzzles for each student in the class and the puzzles each have 50 pieces!

Our class has had a change in para pros this past week. We were very lucky to have Mrs. Fortson. However, we only saw Mrs. Fortson every three days. We have a new para working and helping in our class. Our new para is Mrs. Barnes. She will be in our class everyday from 9:00-12:00!! We are soo lucky to have her and to have her every day too!!

Have a great Fall weekend! Roll Tide!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Estes Extras...

What a fun week!! This week we had lots of awesome things happen! On Thursday, we had our second brainstorm day. It was a day full of fun. Our class went to the other four Kindergarten classrooms. In Mrs. Smith's class we learned about electricity. In Mrs. Van Hout's class we made flubber glue. In Mrs. Moten's class we made ice cream and in Mrs. Allen's class we learned all about the five senses. Today, we had three KSU student teachers come and teach us math games. It was great! Report cards came home today. We had a great start to Kindergarten. We are all doing so great! :)

A new star student was picked for next week. Matheus has Max the Moose this weekend!

I sent home a class directory form today. If you would like to be in the class directory, fill it out and send it back in. It's a great way for communication, make play dates and for birthday parties. Also, our two room-moms (Matheus' mom and Sofia's mom) would like a list of the parent's e-mail addresses to communicate any extra news. We will take the e-mail address from the directory.
Let me know if you have any questions about the directory.

Next week is a BIG week. Monday night from 5:30pm-6:30 is KCSMA's Open House. Come in and check out our classroom and work we've done recently.  Wednesday-Friday is Early Release. Carpool starts at 12:30! Also, conferences are Wednesday-Friday too! Thursday is the 50th day of school. We are celebrating it by dressing like the 50's. Wear poodle skirts, jeans, socks and pony tails. We are going to have SO much fun with this! Book Fair is this week in the library, be sure to check it out before/after your conference.

*KCSMA library books are due Monday!*

Field Trip forms were sent home this week. Please send the forms and money back soon. If you would like to come with us, please e-mail me. I need at least two parents. It is a big museum!

Academic Update:

Literacy: We have started a new unit in Literacy. Unit three is about our family. We learned new three letters this week: L,K,H. We are really working on the letter formations and sounds of these letters and all the letters as well.  We are working on beginning sounds too. For extra practice, point to a object, say the object and ask the beginning sound of it.

Math: We have learned the numbers up to 10. We are working on recognized the number, amount and how to write the number correctly. For extra practice, find a small group of objects (up to 5), count them and ask how many more do I need to make 10. This helps us use the vocabulary that we learned a few weeks ago-"how many", "more", etc.

Science: We studied apples this week and talked all about spiders and everything cool about them. The postcards are so cool. Keep them coming! 

                                         Volunteers Wanted:

Science Parent:  This is a volunteer position that you will have all year.  You will choose the day and time you want to come in (with one weeks notice).  You will earn hours for the time you are in teaching and the supplies needed.  You can find child friendly science experiments (they are all over the Internet) and come in to teach them to the students. Please email me if you would like to be the Science Parent 

Library Parent:  This is a volunteer position that you will have all year.  I will send home a list of the topics we are studying for the next month and you will check out books from the public library.  You will earn hours for time spent at the library.  Please email me if you would like to be the Library Parent.

Aijah's mom has volunteered to be our cooking parent! We can't wait to start cooking! If you would like to help out or know extra great recipes, let me know! We can never have too many ideas! 

We had three parent volunteers this week!! Thank you to Camille's mom for helping with math centers. Thank you to Victor's mom and Nicholas' dad for being the mystery readers and staying for math centers also.

I really try to promote reading and literature as much as I can. I added short sight word books to their table to have at a first hand basis. I have my "reading tree-house" area where most of my books are located. I would like to have another place to read in my classroom. As their Kindergarten teacher, I want to promote books and only hope to begin their love for reading as much as I can. I am looking for some bean bags chairs to make reading a little bit more comfy. If you have one and would like to donate it, we would greatly appreciate it. Mrs. Porter, another Kindergarten teacher donated one this afternoon. So currently, we have one!! :)

                                              Weekly Website:
            Play Clifford's sound match game: Sound Match Game

Have a great fall weekend and Roll Tide!

Friday, October 8, 2010

Estes Extras...

We had an super week! We learned a new word... flexibility! The older grades were testing and our specials schedule was crazy awesome. Next week is a big week! On Tuesday, we are starting the Junior Achievement program with a KSU economics student. On Thursday, we are having our monthly brainstorm!! On Friday, we are so lucky to have KSU students come and teach us and play math games from 8:30-11:30. What a great week to look forward too!

Today was our Chick-Fl-a awards day. Congrats to our two students of the month, Aylin and Jordan! :)

Our Star Student for next week is Aijah. She is keeping Max the Moose with her all weekend! Our class really enjoyed hearing about all the fun stories that Max and Sofia did!

Jordan celebrated a birthday this week. Happy Birthday!

Scholastic book forms with home today. The forms are due Oct. 22!! I also sent home the sight word list for the first and second nine weeks. We are approaching the end of the first nine weeks. We will be jumping right into the second nine week's sight words soon!! Make flash cards at home and go over them nightly, in the car or whenever there a quick five minutes. We are practicing learning them and using them in our writing. Flash cards are a great way to help the students memorize the words. After they know the word, ask them to use the words in a sentence, write it in a sentence, so the word has many uses- not just being memorized.

Please send back the conference forms on Monday if you have not done so.

Academic Update:

Literacy: We have finished our colors unit in Literacy. We are looking forward to starting a new unit on Monday. We also learned two new letters this week, u and e. Keep reading each night, practicing sight words and rhyming words.

Math: In math, we have completed or Chapter three on numbers 0-5 and estimation. We are starting chapter four Monday. The next chapter will be on the number 6-10. Keep asking the questions about groups like "which has more, fewer and equal" for a good review. We are starting to count by 5's and 10's. We know how to count to 100 by 1's, so now during calendar we practice by 5's and 10's.

Science: The next three weeks are going to be a mix of themes. Columbus Day, Apples, Pumpkins, Fall and Nocturnal animals. We made spiders and bats and started working on our owls this week to get us excited about nocturnal animals. They are hanging and flying around the room! We received a few more postcards this week! :)

We had a big discussion about our class procedures today. Mainly, our discussion was about self-control. Please continue to talk about keeping hands and feet to our self. We made a list of our class procedures and the class signed it, stating they understood the procedures of the classroom.

Thank you to the volunteers this week; Camille's mom in literacy, Sofia's dad in math and Sofia's mom for our mystery reader. Sofia's mom brought the class a snack and a craft! The kids loved it!

Wanted:
I'm looking for a Science Parent who wants to volunteer for the whole year. I would like to do science experiments each week if possible. I'm also looking for a Cooking parent who wants to volunteer all year long too. I would like to do a cooking experiment about once a month. If you are interested, e-mail me!! :)

Have a great weekend, spend time outside and enjoy the beautiful weather!! Roll Tide! :)

Friday, October 1, 2010

Estes Extras...

What a great week back! Hope everyone had a great fall break. October is here!!

We have a very exciting day coming on Tuesday, October 5th! It is our Crazy Color Day! We have been learning all about our colors this past unit in Literacy, and we are celebrating this day by wearing all the colors. This is a very special day to wear as many colors as you can. No nut-pass needed for this awesome day!!! We want our class to have the most colors than all of Kindergarten. You don't want to miss it!

We are very excited to announce we have a new friend in our class. Aijah, moved here from Michigan. We are loving having her in our class! Welcome!

As a school, we have monthly big give back to the community. This month's big give is 'Pillowcases for Cancer'. The pillowcases will go to children who are in the hospital. The pillowcase was based off of our class chosen book. Our pillowcase had a huge palm tree on it to represent the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. It turned out so cute!

*Star Student* started this week! Sofia is our first star student. Each week, one student out of the class will be chosen to be the star student for the week. We have a class pal- Max the Moose. Max will come home with a student for the weekend, when it is their week to be chosen! Coming soon to your home- Max the Moose!!

It's October and the start of a new month. The monthly homework and the monthly book log was placed in the folder today. Please complete it and turn it in at the end of the month.

The governing board of KCSMA had a meeting on Thursday to announce information about the new and exciting news about our school's future. I hope you had a chance to come. At the meeting they showed the new location of our future school site and the time line for the new school building. The KCSMA website will have a blog and pictures on the building progress. We are SO excited!!

A special thank you to the parent volunteers this week, Sofia's mom at Literacy Centers, Camille's mom for Math Centers, Nicholas' Dad for our mystery reader and my mom for helping with the pillowcase.

Specials Schedule for next week: Monday-P.E., Tuesday-Media Center, Wednesday-Music, Thursday-P.E. and Friday-Spanish

Academic Update:

Literacy: We continued our unit called "Colors all around" We have learned a lot about our colors. In phonics, we learned two new letters this week, s and d. The sight words for the week were our color words. We are beginning to learn some rhyming words. *When you have a chance, ask "what rhymes with cat, etc." for extra practice.

Math: We have started a new chapter in math. We are learning about one-to-one correlation. We have learned the words: More, Fewer, More than, and one more. *For extra practice, allow your child to group items into two groups. Count the items and find out which group has more/fewer, etc.

Science/Social Studies: We are still learning all about maps and where we live. We completed a flip book on where we live. Please review the book with your child and fill in the address. Update on our postcards: We are at 13 for the United States and 7 from around the world. A special thanks to Michael who brought in SO many postcards. Keep sending the postcards. The kids are loving the postcards!!

Have a great weekend, don't forget about crazy color day on Tuesday and Roll Tide!!!