What an awesome week! It was packed full of goodness! Next week is a BIG week. Here's what is happening... Tuesday and Wednesday is Kindergarten's Christmas around the world. Our class will be visiting 8 different countries learning all about how they celebrate Christmas! It's going to be awesome! On Thursday is our class Christmas Party! If you have not sent your form back what you are bringing, please do so on Monday! The party starts at 1:00. Don't forget about the book swap. Two students have already sent in their wrapped book already! The limit on the book exchange is $5.00! Make sure it's wrapped! :) On Friday, we are watching the Polar Express! The kids can wear Pajamas on Friday. NO SLIPPERS.
Thank you to Camille's mom for coming to Literacy centers, Sofia's dad for coming to Math centers, Elianna's dad for teaching us a science lesson on gravity, Michael's mom for being our Mystery Reader and to Aijah's mom for coming and cooking with us. We had our first cooking in the classroom experience this week... and it was a messy one. We make "Reindeer Tracks". It was very yummy!
Congrats to our Chick-Fl-A students of the month: Aijah and Nicholas!
Meghana was picked for student of the week, she has Max the moose this weekend! Have fun!
Library books were due today. If you have them at home, please send them back on Monday!
Specials next week: Monday: Media, Tuesday: Music, Wednesday: P.E., Thursday: Spanish, Friday: Art.
Academic Update:
Literacy: We continued our literacy unit on counting. We have really been working on sounding each sound out in a word. We are still having difficulty on seeing a word we don't know and then trying to figure it out. We are really working on sounding each sound out. If we saw the word cat and didn't know it, we would break it apart /c/ /a/ /t/ then put the sounds together and try to make the word. We also are working on hearing sounds from a word and being able to put them together.
Math: We didn't have a chance to have our math test today, so our math test will be on Monday! Keep practicing numbers to 30, breaking the numbers up by 10s and then seeing how many more are needed to make the number. If the number is 24, we would break items up into two sets of 10 and then count how many more is needed to make 24 and it needs four more. Also, we worked on number word recognition. It was hard to recognize the number words, write the number then draw the amount. Practice number word recognition.
Science: We learned about night and day this week. We also learned more about Christmas traditions. Elianna's dad taught us a great lesson on gravity!
Santa was a big topic of this week. If your child believes or doesn't believe in Santa, that is totally fine. We do have a majority of our class still believing in Santa. The kids are having lots of conversations on whether there is or there isn't a Santa. Please talk to your children about it's OK that some believe and some don't. However, we don't need to argue and tell them they are wrong for what we believe. I told them that I still believe... :)
Have a great weekend! Looking forward to seeing everyone at our class Christmas party on Thursday!
Friday, December 10, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Estes Extras...
We came back from Thanksgiving break and hit the ground running learning lots of new stuff! We had such a great week. We only have 2 weeks left until Winter Break. Next week is a normal school week packed with lots of learning. The following week (week before break- 12/13-17) is a big week. I'm giving lots of heads up in advance. Tuesday and Wednesday 12/14-15 is our Christmas Around the World Brainstorm. We will be visiting lost of awesome countries around the world. 12/16 is our Holiday Party from 1:15-2:15. Parents are welcome. I will be sending notes home about these events next week too. At the holiday party on Thursday 12/16, we will have a student book swap. The cost of the book limit is $5.00. Please do not spend over $5 for the book. If you need help with the book swap, e-mail me- I will help you out! Friday, 12/17 is Polar Express day and we can wear our pj's.
Specials next week: Monday: Music, Tuesday: P.E., Wednesday:Spanish, Thursday: Art, Friday: P.E.
We visited the library today. All library books are due FRIDAY, 12/11! Please remember to bring them back by next Friday!
Carla celebrated a birthday this week! Happy Birthday!
A note to the parents of the boys: The boys in our class seems to really like to play with "shooting noises" and a motion with their hands or another object that resembles a gun. This is completely NOT tolerated and definitely NOT allowed in school. I'm afraid the boys got the ideas from TV, video games, etc. These playful actions are getting out of control. I have written notes home already and talked to a few parents, but it's still happening. Please talk to your child again about this action.
The cold weather is upon us. Please dress your child in appropriate attire. We will be going outside for recess until it get way too cold. We can not go out now, if we have bare arms or legs showing.
We are have trouble buttoning, zipping and fastening our pants. I have buttoned every student's pants at least once or twice this year. Please practice this skill on pants and shirts. Their fine motor skills are still being developed in their hands, which makes unbuttoning and buttoning pants hard for their little fingers.
Academic Update:
Literacy: We started a new unit on counting. The first few books of our unit is about counting food. So, we talked about the food groups. We learned about the an family. The an family is all the words ending in an (can, man, ran). We are not really working on sounding out the sounds within the word, then putting them together. Our school librarian, Ms. Udall, has a tree in the library, where if you read a book to her as a first time read, she adds a leaf to the tree. We had 3 leafs added to the tree this week! Congrats to Meghana, Michael and Aylin. Keep working on sight words and keep reading!
Math: We started working on ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd). The first five numbers are the hardest to remember. Line more than 10 items up and ask in random order, what is the fourth item, what is the ninth item, etc. We also started learning which hand is right or left. Also, in this chapter, we are learning the numbers 11-20. Make flash cards of the number and quiz them. They often know it in their head, but will say the number backwards. For example the number 16, they sometimes say 61. We are having our chapter test next week.
Science: We learned about the food groups and about day and night sky.
We have started talking about Christmas since we will be doing a lot of Christmas activities the next two weeks. We learned about Hanukkah and made a Menorah, since this week Hanukkah started. If your family heritage is from another country and y'all have special Christmas traditions, I would love for you to come in on Monday 12/13 and come in, share with us about them. We would love to hear all about the traditions. Please e-mail me if you are interested!
The school's e-mail was down all week. I'm sorry, if you tried to e-mail me. We were not getting any incoming mail and were not able to send any out mail.
Thank you to the parent volunteers this week: Sofia's mom at Literacy centers, Carla's mom for math centers and Camille's mom as our mystery reader.
Have a great weekend. Stay warm and if you are going to watch the SEC Championship, pull for South Carolina to beat Auburn! :)
Specials next week: Monday: Music, Tuesday: P.E., Wednesday:Spanish, Thursday: Art, Friday: P.E.
We visited the library today. All library books are due FRIDAY, 12/11! Please remember to bring them back by next Friday!
Carla celebrated a birthday this week! Happy Birthday!
A note to the parents of the boys: The boys in our class seems to really like to play with "shooting noises" and a motion with their hands or another object that resembles a gun. This is completely NOT tolerated and definitely NOT allowed in school. I'm afraid the boys got the ideas from TV, video games, etc. These playful actions are getting out of control. I have written notes home already and talked to a few parents, but it's still happening. Please talk to your child again about this action.
The cold weather is upon us. Please dress your child in appropriate attire. We will be going outside for recess until it get way too cold. We can not go out now, if we have bare arms or legs showing.
We are have trouble buttoning, zipping and fastening our pants. I have buttoned every student's pants at least once or twice this year. Please practice this skill on pants and shirts. Their fine motor skills are still being developed in their hands, which makes unbuttoning and buttoning pants hard for their little fingers.
Academic Update:
Literacy: We started a new unit on counting. The first few books of our unit is about counting food. So, we talked about the food groups. We learned about the an family. The an family is all the words ending in an (can, man, ran). We are not really working on sounding out the sounds within the word, then putting them together. Our school librarian, Ms. Udall, has a tree in the library, where if you read a book to her as a first time read, she adds a leaf to the tree. We had 3 leafs added to the tree this week! Congrats to Meghana, Michael and Aylin. Keep working on sight words and keep reading!
Math: We started working on ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd). The first five numbers are the hardest to remember. Line more than 10 items up and ask in random order, what is the fourth item, what is the ninth item, etc. We also started learning which hand is right or left. Also, in this chapter, we are learning the numbers 11-20. Make flash cards of the number and quiz them. They often know it in their head, but will say the number backwards. For example the number 16, they sometimes say 61. We are having our chapter test next week.
Science: We learned about the food groups and about day and night sky.
We have started talking about Christmas since we will be doing a lot of Christmas activities the next two weeks. We learned about Hanukkah and made a Menorah, since this week Hanukkah started. If your family heritage is from another country and y'all have special Christmas traditions, I would love for you to come in on Monday 12/13 and come in, share with us about them. We would love to hear all about the traditions. Please e-mail me if you are interested!
The school's e-mail was down all week. I'm sorry, if you tried to e-mail me. We were not getting any incoming mail and were not able to send any out mail.
Thank you to the parent volunteers this week: Sofia's mom at Literacy centers, Carla's mom for math centers and Camille's mom as our mystery reader.
Have a great weekend. Stay warm and if you are going to watch the SEC Championship, pull for South Carolina to beat Auburn! :)
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Estes Extras...
We have made it to Thanksgiving break! Can you believe it? We had our 70th day of school on Friday! We had such a great week. I'm late on my blog, sorry. I moved out everything in our classroom on until dark on Friday and then I went and saw my sister cheer at her last home game at Samford University this weekend.
We had a fabulous Friendship Feast on Friday. A VERY special thank you to all the parents for coming AND helping set up- I couldn't have done it without you! The kids LOVED having you visit... that's all they talked about during Friday during the day. Everyone looked so cute in the Pilgrim and Indian hats. Thank you to all who brought food, it was wonderful. I will be posting pictures soon.
Specials next week are: Monday: P.E., Tuesday: Spanish, Wednesday: Art, Thursday: P.E., Friday: Media
Library Books are due on Wednesday, we are visiting the library on Friday.
Academic Update:
Literacy: We finished up our friendship unit this week and celebrated it during our feast. Please read as much as you can with your child over break. Read new books that they haven't read before and ask comprehension questions about it. Keep going over the sight words. The more words we know, the more we can read.
Math: We finished our chapter 5 on shapes. We had our chapter 5 test. Our next chapter is on numbers 11-30. Start practicing writing the numbers for extra practice.
Science/Social studies: We talked about Thanksgiving and how it was a national holiday, how the first Thanksgiving was and what we are thankful for. Elianna's dad came and did our 2nd science experiment. We continued our talk about osmosis. He showed us a really cool straw experiment.
Thank you to Sofia's mom who came for math centers and my mom was the mystery reader this week. She read us a few books on Owls and made owl cupcakes (I'll post a picture. They were so cute!)
Camille got picked for student of the week. Have fun with Max!
Elianna took our class pet, Tom Tom, the turtle, home over the break. Have fun.
As I mentioned earlier. We are getting new carpet in our classroom. I, my mom, and three school volunteers helped me move out everything! I'll be back during the break moving everything back in. Come check out the new floor soon!
I'm placing the scholastic order later this week. One last chance to place your order on-line. :)
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving break, be safe if you are traveling and don't eat too much! :)
We had a fabulous Friendship Feast on Friday. A VERY special thank you to all the parents for coming AND helping set up- I couldn't have done it without you! The kids LOVED having you visit... that's all they talked about during Friday during the day. Everyone looked so cute in the Pilgrim and Indian hats. Thank you to all who brought food, it was wonderful. I will be posting pictures soon.
Specials next week are: Monday: P.E., Tuesday: Spanish, Wednesday: Art, Thursday: P.E., Friday: Media
Library Books are due on Wednesday, we are visiting the library on Friday.
Academic Update:
Literacy: We finished up our friendship unit this week and celebrated it during our feast. Please read as much as you can with your child over break. Read new books that they haven't read before and ask comprehension questions about it. Keep going over the sight words. The more words we know, the more we can read.
Math: We finished our chapter 5 on shapes. We had our chapter 5 test. Our next chapter is on numbers 11-30. Start practicing writing the numbers for extra practice.
Science/Social studies: We talked about Thanksgiving and how it was a national holiday, how the first Thanksgiving was and what we are thankful for. Elianna's dad came and did our 2nd science experiment. We continued our talk about osmosis. He showed us a really cool straw experiment.
Thank you to Sofia's mom who came for math centers and my mom was the mystery reader this week. She read us a few books on Owls and made owl cupcakes (I'll post a picture. They were so cute!)
Camille got picked for student of the week. Have fun with Max!
Elianna took our class pet, Tom Tom, the turtle, home over the break. Have fun.
As I mentioned earlier. We are getting new carpet in our classroom. I, my mom, and three school volunteers helped me move out everything! I'll be back during the break moving everything back in. Come check out the new floor soon!
I'm placing the scholastic order later this week. One last chance to place your order on-line. :)
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving break, be safe if you are traveling and don't eat too much! :)
Friday, November 12, 2010
Estes Extras...
What a great week. Only 1 week until Thanksgiving break... this year is going by too quickly! Next week is a BIG week. On Wednesday, we have our November brainstorm! It will be an all day event. On Friday, we have our Thanksgiving Friendship Feast. It will be from 1:15-2:00. Most everyone sent their form back with what they are bringing. Please let me know if you have questions with the items for the feast. I would really like it if at least one or more parents can come to the feast. It would mean the world to them if you came. We are performing a few songs, celebrating Thanksgiving in the style of the first Thanksgiving as little Indians and Pilgrims. You are welcome to take your child home after the feast!!!
Next week's specials are: Monday: Art, Tuesday: P.E., Wednesday: Media, Thursday: Music, Friday: P.E.
Now that the temperatures are dropping please make sure that names are on jackets, hats and anything else that comes to school.
Library books went home this week. They are due on Tuesday. We are visiting the library on Wednesday.
Nadia was picked for student of the week. She has Max the Moose for the weekend! Have fun!
Thank you to Sofia's mom and Carla's mom who came and helped at literacy centers. Thank you to Elianna's dad who came and did science experiments with us. Thank you to Elianna's mom who was our Mystery Reader. Also, a special thank you to Sofia's mom who donated a bean bag to our classroom. Awesome! I love parent volunteers! A very special thank you to those who help from home, come in and for being the great parents you are for your children.
Academic Update:
Literacy: We are continuing our unit on Friendship. This next week will be our last week in this unit. Our Friendship Feast is also a celebration of wrapping up the unit. In phonics, we learned two new letters: X and Y. We also learned some new sight words: is, are, here.
I started sending home the "book bags". These are books we are reading during center time with me. We are practicing reading one word at a time, reading from left to right, looking at the capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and looking at the punctuation at the end of the sentence. The books that come home a few times a week, are KCSMA books. Please send them back the next day. I can not send another book home, if the first book doesn't come back. Let your child read it to you. Then you read it together and then let them read it to you again. After reading it three times, ask comprehension questions about the book, such as 'what happened at the beginning, middle, end?' 'who were the characters in the book?', 'what is the setting?' 'was there a problem, if so- what was it?' If the book is about an animal or object, ask them how they would feel if they were that animal or object...etc. The more questions asked about the book, the better the comprehension is. We are now realizing that once we know the sight words, we can read simple sentences. We have many readers in the class which is awesome! Knowing the sight words is good, but understanding what we just read is more important.
Math:
We are still continuing chapter 5 about shapes. We are learning the names of some shapes, how they move, their characteristics and when you put shapes together, they can make other shapes. We will be finishing up our chapter next week.
Science/Social Studies: This past week and next week, we are focusing on our upcoming holiday of Thanksgiving. Elianna's dad, our science parent, came on Wednesday and taught us a new word: osmosis. Osmosis means to absorb. He showed us two awesome experiments. The first was two jars filled with vinegar. We placed an hard-boiled egg in each of the jars. We have been observing the changes of the egg as each day goes on. The other experiment was testing what a dry sponge felt like and predicted what would happen when dunked into water...(It expands, the sponge absorbs the water!) We had a blast and can't wait to our next experiment!!
This past week was a tough week with our immune systems. We averaged about 10 friend each day and on Wednesday, we had only 8 friends in our class!! Please continue washing your hands and drinking your orange juice!! Mrs. Barnes and I are spraying the room down each day with hopes we can start to feel better. I tell the kids to sanitize all the time. I even lost my voice this week and I'm battling a small cold this weekend. Hopefully the cold that got us all, is gone and we are all back, good as new on Monday!!
This coming Monday, November 15th at 6:30pm is a very important meeting at Kennesaw City Hall about the vote for our possible new school land. Please come and wear RED. The class with the most parent support gets a party. See you at the meeting on Monday!!
The scholastic book order forms are due on Thursday, November 18th. don't forget this is a great opportunity to stock up on Holiday gifts as well as the class book exchange in December.
Have a great weekend. I look forward to seeing everyone at the Friendship Feast on Friday!! Stay warm, feel better and Roll Tide!
Next week's specials are: Monday: Art, Tuesday: P.E., Wednesday: Media, Thursday: Music, Friday: P.E.
Now that the temperatures are dropping please make sure that names are on jackets, hats and anything else that comes to school.
Library books went home this week. They are due on Tuesday. We are visiting the library on Wednesday.
Nadia was picked for student of the week. She has Max the Moose for the weekend! Have fun!
Thank you to Sofia's mom and Carla's mom who came and helped at literacy centers. Thank you to Elianna's dad who came and did science experiments with us. Thank you to Elianna's mom who was our Mystery Reader. Also, a special thank you to Sofia's mom who donated a bean bag to our classroom. Awesome! I love parent volunteers! A very special thank you to those who help from home, come in and for being the great parents you are for your children.
Academic Update:
Literacy: We are continuing our unit on Friendship. This next week will be our last week in this unit. Our Friendship Feast is also a celebration of wrapping up the unit. In phonics, we learned two new letters: X and Y. We also learned some new sight words: is, are, here.
I started sending home the "book bags". These are books we are reading during center time with me. We are practicing reading one word at a time, reading from left to right, looking at the capital letter at the beginning of a sentence and looking at the punctuation at the end of the sentence. The books that come home a few times a week, are KCSMA books. Please send them back the next day. I can not send another book home, if the first book doesn't come back. Let your child read it to you. Then you read it together and then let them read it to you again. After reading it three times, ask comprehension questions about the book, such as 'what happened at the beginning, middle, end?' 'who were the characters in the book?', 'what is the setting?' 'was there a problem, if so- what was it?' If the book is about an animal or object, ask them how they would feel if they were that animal or object...etc. The more questions asked about the book, the better the comprehension is. We are now realizing that once we know the sight words, we can read simple sentences. We have many readers in the class which is awesome! Knowing the sight words is good, but understanding what we just read is more important.
Math:
We are still continuing chapter 5 about shapes. We are learning the names of some shapes, how they move, their characteristics and when you put shapes together, they can make other shapes. We will be finishing up our chapter next week.
Science/Social Studies: This past week and next week, we are focusing on our upcoming holiday of Thanksgiving. Elianna's dad, our science parent, came on Wednesday and taught us a new word: osmosis. Osmosis means to absorb. He showed us two awesome experiments. The first was two jars filled with vinegar. We placed an hard-boiled egg in each of the jars. We have been observing the changes of the egg as each day goes on. The other experiment was testing what a dry sponge felt like and predicted what would happen when dunked into water...(It expands, the sponge absorbs the water!) We had a blast and can't wait to our next experiment!!
This past week was a tough week with our immune systems. We averaged about 10 friend each day and on Wednesday, we had only 8 friends in our class!! Please continue washing your hands and drinking your orange juice!! Mrs. Barnes and I are spraying the room down each day with hopes we can start to feel better. I tell the kids to sanitize all the time. I even lost my voice this week and I'm battling a small cold this weekend. Hopefully the cold that got us all, is gone and we are all back, good as new on Monday!!
This coming Monday, November 15th at 6:30pm is a very important meeting at Kennesaw City Hall about the vote for our possible new school land. Please come and wear RED. The class with the most parent support gets a party. See you at the meeting on Monday!!
The scholastic book order forms are due on Thursday, November 18th. don't forget this is a great opportunity to stock up on Holiday gifts as well as the class book exchange in December.
Have a great weekend. I look forward to seeing everyone at the Friendship Feast on Friday!! Stay warm, feel better and Roll Tide!
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Estes Extras...
This week flew by! With the day off and our fabulous field trip, we had a great week. The field trip was so awesome. We learned a lot about earning and spending money as well as experiencing hands-on learning activities. A special thanks to Kayly and Aijah's moms who braved the rain to be with us during the field trip.
Specials for next week are: Monday: P.E., Tuesday: Media, Wednesday: Music, Thursday: P.E., Friday: Spanish.
Library books went home this week. They are due on Monday. We will be visiting the library on Tuesday during specials!
Sofia celebrated a birthday this week! Happy Birthday!
Aylin was picked for being our student of the week. She has Max this weekend.
Academic Update:
Literacy: We are continuing our friendship unit. We learned two new letters this week: q and z. Keep working on sight words.
Math: We have jumped right in our new chapter. We are learning our shapes: Sphere, cone, cube, cylinder. We have also learned how they move.
Science: We studied apples this week. My husband and I went to Elijay this past weekend and stopped at a apple barn. We learned the parts of an apple and tasted two different types of apples; pink lady and granny smith.
On Friday, we had a major class discussion during our class morning meeting. Our discussion was about "good touch and bad touch". We talked about what a "good touch" was (head, hands and feet) and what "bad touch" was (anywhere you wear a bathing suit). We talked about how adults cannot touch you nor can an child touch you as well. Please continue talking to your child about this topic. We are really working on personal space as well. We have talked about having a "bubble" around us and respecting each others space. We also talked about what it means to respect others. We discussed that when someone says "no" or "go away" or "please stop", we need to listen and respect our friends. Remind your child about what personal space is and talk about listening to our friends. Extra reinforcement never hurts!! :) I appreciate all your help on these topics.
A scholastic book order form went home today. We are having a book exchange at our holiday party in December. This would be a GREAT opportunity to order a book. There are lots of really cheap books (under $5 and that's going to our limit too!) in it.
A turkey feather went home on Thursday. Decorate it and send it in on Monday. Can't wait to see the feathers for our Turkey Lurkey!!!
Have a good week and stay warm! Roll Tide!!
Specials for next week are: Monday: P.E., Tuesday: Media, Wednesday: Music, Thursday: P.E., Friday: Spanish.
Library books went home this week. They are due on Monday. We will be visiting the library on Tuesday during specials!
Sofia celebrated a birthday this week! Happy Birthday!
Aylin was picked for being our student of the week. She has Max this weekend.
Academic Update:
Literacy: We are continuing our friendship unit. We learned two new letters this week: q and z. Keep working on sight words.
Math: We have jumped right in our new chapter. We are learning our shapes: Sphere, cone, cube, cylinder. We have also learned how they move.
Science: We studied apples this week. My husband and I went to Elijay this past weekend and stopped at a apple barn. We learned the parts of an apple and tasted two different types of apples; pink lady and granny smith.
On Friday, we had a major class discussion during our class morning meeting. Our discussion was about "good touch and bad touch". We talked about what a "good touch" was (head, hands and feet) and what "bad touch" was (anywhere you wear a bathing suit). We talked about how adults cannot touch you nor can an child touch you as well. Please continue talking to your child about this topic. We are really working on personal space as well. We have talked about having a "bubble" around us and respecting each others space. We also talked about what it means to respect others. We discussed that when someone says "no" or "go away" or "please stop", we need to listen and respect our friends. Remind your child about what personal space is and talk about listening to our friends. Extra reinforcement never hurts!! :) I appreciate all your help on these topics.
A scholastic book order form went home today. We are having a book exchange at our holiday party in December. This would be a GREAT opportunity to order a book. There are lots of really cheap books (under $5 and that's going to our limit too!) in it.
A turkey feather went home on Thursday. Decorate it and send it in on Monday. Can't wait to see the feathers for our Turkey Lurkey!!!
Have a good week and stay warm! Roll Tide!!
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