Mrs. Iacullo's Kindergarten Class

Literacy:

• This week we have spent a lot of time writing!  Students have a good understanding of the letter-sound connections and are able to sound out words to write sentences!  Writing is not only a way for students to express themselves, but it also reinforces their phonics and phonemic awareness skills. We wrote sentences using picture cards as prompts, wrote about ourselves,and retold a story using pictures and words.  My favorite writing activity this week was inspired by the book, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems.  I hope you enjoyed them!
• This week we continued the author study about Mo Willems. Mo Willems has written some of our favorite books:  Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, I’m Invited to a Party and Knufflebunny.  This week we focused on the Elephant and Piggie books.

Science:

• We continued working on our unit of Living and Nonliving, focusing on plants.  We made flowers and labeled the parts.  We also have been recording our pea plant  observations.  Check out how they have grown:

Math:

• Function Machine:  Students used a function: Add 1 or Subtract 1, to compute numbers.  Those who were ready got to try even harder function rules such as Add 7 or subtract 4
• Favorite math apps:  Subtracting Sardines, Jungle Time, and Balloon Academy
• Number Writing Practice
• Counting Up–starting at any number and counting up.  This is a good one for the car!

Cool Centers: 

• Tumblebooks on the laptops
• Sight Word BINGO
• Reading on the ipad
• Roll a Summer–adding to sums of 12
• Recording Pea Plant observations
• Parts of a plant–stamp and label

Visiting First Grade!

• The boys and girls had a great time meeting all the first grade teachers and finding out what life will be like next year in first grade!!!!

Coming Up:
Letters: Building Words

Popcorn Words: Review all

Reading Strategies: Making Inferences

Math: Number Story Problems

Science: Living and Nonliving

More Mo Willems books!

Important Info:

Tripp Half Day on May 25th: AM Kindergarten Only, No School for PM Kindergarten

No School on May 28th for Memorial Day

May 29th Field Trip to The Grove

June 1st Kindergarten Graduation

June 5 Kindergarten Field Day

June 7 Last Day of Kindergarten

Save the date:

Friday, June 1st is Kindergarten Graduation.  AM Class will be at 11:00 and PM Class will be at 2:40.

Literacy:

• We have now finished all the letters of the alphabet! We made a yellow yo-yo in our ABC Books for Y and a zig-zag for Z.
• Since we have finished working on the letters by themselves, we have now started to talk about digraphs!  We concentrated on the the digraph “th”
• Popcorn Words: me, where
• Read the book, A Tree Can Be. After reading the story, the students wrote about what a tree can be for them–shelter, a place to play, etc…
• In guided reading groups, I spent time assessing students on their reading–letters, sounds, sight words.  We have awesome readers in kindergarten!
• This week we started an author study about Mo Willems. Mo Willems has written some of our favorite books:  Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, I’m Invited to a Party and Knufflebunny.  This week we focused on the “Pigeon” books.  Check out this video of the afternoon class re-reading the story:

 IMG_0047

Science:

• We started working on our unit of Living and Nonliving:
• Sorted out living and nonliving things
• Watched a movie about living and nonliving things
• Sorted living things by where they live and how they travel: water, land, air
• Sorted living things by how many legs they have

Math:

• Adding and Subtraction practice with the games and worksheets
• Favorite math apps:  Subtracting Sardines, Jungle Time, and Balloon Academy
• Measuring with inches
• Counting Up–starting at any number and counting up.  This is a good one for the car!

Cool Centers: 

• Grouping 10s and 1s
• Making words with letter tiles
• Reading on the ipad
• Practicing color words
• Writing about words with the digraph “th”
• Parts of a plant–stamp and label

Spring Tea!

• The boys and girls had a great time singing songs and sharing a story with our moms! We hope you enjoy the flower pot they made!

Coming Up:
Letters: More digraphs–sh, ch, and wh

Popcorn Words: Review all

Reading Strategies: Retelling

Math: Function boxes, Addition and Subtraction Equations with missing numbers

Science: Living and Nonliving

More Mo Willems books!

Important Info:

Tripp Half Day on May 25th: AM Kindergarten Only, No School for PM Kindergarten

No School on May 28th for Memorial Day

May 29th Field Trip to The Grove

June 1st Kindergarten Graduation

June 5 Kindergarten Field Day

June 7 Last Day of Kindergarten

Save the date:

Friday, June 1st is Kindergarten Graduation.  AM Class will be at 11:00 and PM Class will be at 2:40.  More details to come.

The Q U Wedding!  What a celebration!  Click on the Q U Wedding Page above for the video!

Here is what we did this week:

Literacy:

• Letters Jj the action is to jump. We made making jumping feet for J in our ABC Books.
• Popcorn Words: with
• Comprehension Strategies:
• We read the book, What Do You Know? and worked on the strategy of rereading and using illustrations to better understand a story.
• In guided reading this week we reviewed Popcorn Words and we focused on the skill of retelling.

Math:

• Adding and Subtraction practice with the game “Plus or Minus”
• Made more number stories using pictures to create equations
• Number Scrolls-the boys and girls reinforced their counting skills and number writing by making their own 100 grids.

Cool Centers: 

• Handwriting Jj
• Reading books on ”Tumblebooks”
• Writing about things that start with the letter Jj
• Popcorn Word BINGO on the ipads
• Sentence writing to describe pictures
• Roll and Record with 2 dice
• Worked on a special project for Mother’s Day

Coming Up:

Letter: Q–the QU Wedding!

Popcorn Word: my

Reading Strategies: Retelling

Math: Bundling Sticks-10s and 1s, Decade Count

Social Studies: Living and Nonliving

Science: Weather/ Seasons and Plants

Important Info:

No School on April 20th for a Teacher Institute

Student Council Hawaiian Day is April 27th

Save the dates:

Tuesday, May 8th will be our Spring Tea.  This will be a special time for each student to share with one family adult member  AM Class will be at 11:00 and PM Class will be at 2:40.  More details to come.

Friday, June 1st is Kindergarten Graduation.  AM Class will be at 11:00 and PM Class will be at 2:40.  More details to come.

Here is what we did this week:

Literacy:

• Letters Vv and Xx, their actions play a violin and and making “X marks the spot” with our fingers. We made a V for van and fox for X in our ABC Books.
• Popcorn Words: has, look
• Comprehension Strategies:
• We read the book, Fish Faces and worked on the strategy of asking questions.  Asking questions while reading can help us better understand a book.  We also worked on the skill to compare and contrast–sometimes a reader can learn about different things by comparing them to each other.
• In guided reading this week we reviewed Popcorn Words and we also focused on the skill of comparing and contrasting.
• Rhyming-we read the poems “Sea Animals” and “I Don’t Suppose” and talked about how some poems rhyme and some do not. We also read the book, What Does the X-Ray Say?.  This awesome book written by a second grade class is SO fun!  Check it out the next time you visit the library!

Social Studies:

• Community Helpers:
• We finished up our unit on Community Helpers and worked on some pages in our Social Studies Journal
• The PM class had their Mystery Skype Call and it was SO COOL!  The boys and girls asked awesome questions like, “What supplies do you need?”  “What tools do you use?”  “What do you wear?” They then, guessed the job–a Hair Stylist!  A big thanks to Jeff from J. Scott Salon in Buffalo Grove for taking the time to be our Mystery Community Helper!!

Math:

• Tally Marks
• Made number stories using pictures to create equations
• Quarters
• Addition–Dice Addition Game, used the app “Top-It” from Everyday Mathematics

Cool Centers: 

• Handwriting Vv, Xx
• Reading books on ”Tumblebooks”
• Writing about things that start with the letter Vv or Xx.
• Used the Sock Boxes and ipad app PaintSparkle to practice writing and reading our Popcorn Words
• Popcorn Word Search–Students had to find Popcorn Words around the classroom and tally how many they found
• ABC BINGO
• Played Tic-Tac-Toe

Coming Up:
Letter: Jj

Popcorn Word: with

Reading Strategies: Reread and using illustrations

Math: Plus or Minus Game, Counting up from various numbers

Social Studies: Living and Nonliving

Science: Weather/ Seasons and Plants

Important Info:

•  No School on April 20th for a Teacher Institute
• Student Council Hawaiian Day is April 27th

Save the dates:

• Tuesday, May 8th will be our Spring Tea.  This will be a special time for each student to share with one adult family member  AM Class will be at 11:00 and PM Class will be at 2:40.  More details to come.

• Friday, June 1st is Kindergarten Graduation.  AM Class will be at 11:00 and PM Class will be at 2:40.  More details to come.

Check out the movie–Video by kindergartners–of the Mystery Skype Call!  A big thank you to Davis Schneiderman for being our Mystery Skyper! On Monday, the Afternoon Kindergarten Class will have a Mystery Call–who will it be?????

Mystery Skype Call

A few reminders:

No School on Friday, April 6th

No School on Friday, April 20th

Student Council Spirit Day on April 27th–Hawaiian Day–wear your Hawaiian Clothes

Here is what we did this week:

Literacy:

• Letter Kk, it’s action is to kick and made kites in our ABC Books.
• Popcorn Words: little, said
• Comprehension Strategies:
• We read the book, Oak Tree and worked on the strategy of sequencing.  Using the words “first, next, last” we retold the story of how an oak tree grows.
• In guided reading this week we reviewed Popcorn Words and focused on identifying the setting and character.

Social Studies:

• Community Helpers:  We talked about police officers and how they help keep us safe.  Next week we will have our first Mystery Skype calls!  I wonder who they will be?  We are excited to find out!
• We felt the luck of the Irish on Friday as we searched Tripp School for the leprechaun who had some “fun” in our room!  Ask you child all about it!

Math:

• Tally Marks
• Used a coin toss app to “toss coins” and record the results
• More skip counting
• Fractions: one-half

Cool Centers: 

• Handwriting Kk
• Reading books on the ipads with “I Like” apps–students could read from a selection of levels from Kindergarten to Third Grade depending on their reading level.
• “Pots O Gold” Popcorn words.  Students pulled coins from pots that had popcorn words on them–they read and wrote the words
• Counting Shamrocks book, read with shamrock pointers
• Matching sets of shamrocks to numbers
• Spin a Leprechaun Monster:  probability and graphing

Coming Up:
Letter: Uu

Popcorn Word: there, was

Reading Strategies: Recognizing text structure

Math: games with coins

Social Studies: Community Helpers

Science: Weather/ Seasons and Plants

Here is what we did this week:

Literacy:

• Letter Bb, it’s action is to swing a bat and made bears in our ABC Books.
• Letter Ll, it’s action is to lick a lollipop and made lions in our ABC Books.
• Popcorn Words: and, what
• Comprehension Strategies:
• We read the book, In The Yard and worked on the strategy of identifying the setting in the story.  The setting is where the story takes place.  Practice this strategy at home when you are reading with your child.
• Another strategy that we worked on, using the book, Bear Snores On, was visualizing. Students make a movie in their mind while reading.  Readers visualize the text as they read to help them better understand what they are reading.
• We also read a nonfiction entry about black bears and what they do all year long.  We worked on the strategy of reading with a question in mind.  The question was “What do bears do?”   We created a web to organize our thoughts.  As we read the selection we used the text to answer the question and added to our word web.  This strategy helps students read with a purpose–another great one to use at home!  Check out the webs we created on the Promethean Boards:

Social Studies:

• Helpful and Harmful Decisions–we discussed how decisions can either help us and those around us, or hurt us and those around us.  After reading a short story the boys and girls completed some pages in the “Together Times”.  This mini-booklet was then sent home for you to use and discuss with your child.

Math:

• Skip counting with calculators by 2s, 5s and 10s
• Practiced telling and setting time to the hour–had fun with the app Jungle Time!

Cool Centers: 

• Word Family Balloons
• Handwriting Ll and Bb
• March Calendars
• Reading books on the ipads with “I Like” apps–students could read from a selection of levels from Kindergarten to Third Grade depending on their reading level.
• Used the app Songify to “Songify Mother Goose”!  Students had a blast reciting Mother Goose rhymes and hearing them on the app–check it out at home!
• Roll a Popcorn Word with the latest sight words

Coming Up:
Letter: Kk

Popcorn Word: and, what

Reading Strategies:  Recognizing story structure and sequence of events

Math: Coin Toss, Tally Marks and more practice with the fraction 1/2

Social Studies: Community Helpers

Science: Weather/ Seasons and Plants

HAPPY LEAP DAY!

The kindergartners had so much fun leapfrogging their way through Leap Day!!!!  Click on the links to see

AM Kindergarten:   IMG_0041

PM Kindergarten:  IMG_0046

Here is what we did this week:

Literacy:

• Letter Ee, it’s action is to break an egg and made elephants in our ABC Books.
• Popcorn Words: this, do
• Read Across America!  We made very cute “Cat in the Hats” for our bulletin boards.
• Comprehension Strategy:  We read the book, A Rainy Day and continue to work on the strategy of identifying the main Idea and details.  After reading the story we used a graphic organizer–word web–to organize our thoughts about what happens when it rains, the we wrote some great detailed sentences about it!
• Writing:  We continued working on writing sentences.  We focused on capitalizing the first letter in a sentence, using spaces between the words and using end punctuation.  We used pictures of things that begin with the letter “e” to help us come up with excellent sentences!

Social Studies;

• Leap Year–We talked about why we have a Leap Year, discussed what we would do if our birthdays were on Leap Day and had a blast playing Leap Frog in the hallways!  Be sure to click on the link to see the fun!

Math:

• Dividing groups in half–we played a fun game with partners, “Cover Half” to help understand the concept of one-half.  Ask your child all about it!

Cool Centers: 

• Name Writing–first and LAST names
• Listening to Dr. Seuss books on the ipads
• Writing the Popcorn words on the ipads using the app PaintSparkle

Coming Up:

Letter: Bb, Ll

Popcorn Word: and, what

Reading Strategies:  Visualizing and Identifying the Setting

Math: Skip Counting, Time

Social Studies: Community Helpers

Science: Weather/ Seasons

Other Important Info…

It was so nice to meet with many of you for Parent-Teacher Conferences.  It was great sharing all the accomplishments the students have made–they sure are working hard in kindergarten!!

Here is what we did this week:

Literacy:

• Letter Rr, it’s action is run in place and made rainbows in our ABC Books.
• Popcorn Word: you
• Comprehension Strategy:  We read the book, The Bus Stops and identified the main Idea and details.  The story is about a bus dropping off and picking up people in a neighborhood.  We then identified some of the details of the story–where the bus stops and wrote about it.
• Writing:  We continued working on writing sentences.  We focused on capitalizing the first letter in a sentence, using spaces between the words and using end punctuation.
• Guided Reading:  This week I meet with students to read books on their level.  We focused on decoding strategies such as chunking, using picture clues and context clues.

Math:

• Coins: We identified the coins: pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters and what each is worth.
• Tally Marks and Graphing:  We conducted surveys and used tally marks to keep track of responses.  Then we graphed our results

Social Studies:

• Community Helpers–we spent time working with partners to name the community helpers we already know about.  This strategy called “Turn and Talk” is where students turn and talk to their partner about the topic and then report out to the class what their partner said.

Cool Centers: 

• Ruler Collage
• Coin Sort
• Word Matches
• Make a list of words we find in our room
• Apps:  Sums of Ten, Number Line, Top-It, itube list

Coming Up:
Letter: Ee

Popcorn Word: this, do

Math: More with coins

Social Studies: Community Helpers

Science: Weather

Other Important Info…

Tripp Half Day, AM Kindergarten ONLY on Thursday, March 1st for Parent-Teacher Conferences–AM Kindergarten 9:00-11:15 and No School for PM Kindergarten

 No School on Friday, March 2nd for Parent-Teacher Conferences