Mrs. Huber's Kindergarten Crew

Hello kindergarten parents! I would just like to say that I regret to inform everyone that this will be our last blog of the school year. As the year comes to a close I get a bit busy preparing the last tidbits of fun for your children. I am also working on their end-of-the-year projects to take home. I really want to thank you for all your support in viewing our blog and all the great comments you have given me.  It is really nice to know parents are using and benefitting from my website. I hope to continue it next year as well.

Have a great night!!

In kindergarten today, we had a great time learning all about even and odd numbers. We learned that when you have a group of something and you divide tehm between you and a friend you can find out very easily if that group was even or odd. Today we played a Smartboard game in which we had to divide apples between two friends. We found out that the numbers that didn't divide evenly were called odd numbers and those that did, were even. We also took a look at a hundreds chart and marked all of the even numbers and found out that there was a pattern!!! These are the same numbers we used when we skip count by 2's. We then found all the odd numbers and found a pattern there too. We used linking cubes to help us decide today if the numbers on our papers were odd or even. We even had fun doing a dot to dot that we had to count by 10's with.

In our pond chat today, we discussed that if you went to different climates, they may have different pond animals in their ponds. During carpet time today, we read, Deep in the Swamp, by Donna Bateman. We found out that in warmer climates you may even find alligators in the pond. When we finished with our discussion, we worked in groups to make murals of a pond habitat. We had to remember all the elements at a pond that animals would need. We had to remember not only all the kinds of animals that couldl ive there, but also some of the plant life.

In centers we had a great time playing with the pond Mrs. Huber made at our sensory table. We even got to get a bit wet.

In phonics today, we practiced sounding out simple words. We used teh picture stamps to stamp pictures and then we had to use our phonics rules we learned this year and sound out what the picture was. We did are great job spelling. Some of us even remembered our sneaky "e's" at the end of some words.

I would just like to say that I had a great note today on how well behaved all the kids were in class yesterday. They also shared that they had a lot fun with her!

Today, we continued to talk about pond habitats. We were excited to show Mrs. Huber all the fun things we did yesterday. We learned how to make our own lists. We made a list in our pond journal of animals we may see around or in a pond. We also graphed our favorite pond animals. Fish were hands down our most favorite pond animal. After we showed Mrs. Huber what we did, it was time to talk about what we were going to learn about today. We learned what the word "Characteristic" meant. We learned that it gives descriptive words telling about something. To help us with this concept we played a quick game of I Spy and then turned it to finding characteristics of animals at the pond. When we finished we began to write a pond acrostic poem in our journals. We are going to finish our poems tomorrow. 

In phonics we learned two new long vowel sounds that are followed by sneaky "e." We also wrote around the room. The students love to go around the room writing down words they know how to read. They love it so much, because they are such good readers and are able to read almost everything!

Today we also went to a special Spanish mass. It was a great experience for all. The students were very interested and were excited when they were able to pick out some words that they knew or recognized from what they have learned in Spanish this year. 

Please be sure to check-out your child's homework folder for a note of what your child will need for our field trip on Friday. 

Have a great night!

Our blog tonight may be a bit short, but that doesn't mean we were any way short of fun today! We had a great day walking today with our special friend to help support the cure for Junenile Diabetes. We walked to the park and enjoyed our morning snack there. When we were finished we got to play and spend some time with our friends. We took a long walk back and when we returned, we already had to go home!

Earlier in the morning we also had gym and did our morning calendar. We did have a bit of time to read, Froggy's Sleepover and we also made a Froggy craft today.

Whew, after so much exercise today all our kinders should sleep pretty good tonight! I hope you all have a great night!

Today we began our day with mass. It was a very special mass, because it was for the volunteers that help us so much at our school. We couldn't have such a great school without them. When mass was finished we went back to our classroom and had a bit of playtime, because it is always so hard to sit for such a long time at church, even thought we do such a good job at it.

During carpet time today we continued to talk about frogs. We read, Jubal's Wish, by Audrey Wood. We focused on making prediction’s in today's story based on pictures we saw and based on what we knew was happening in the story. The story was about a bullfrog that just wanted to have a picnic with his friends, but they were all too busy, or all too grumpy. He wished that they would all be able to have a picnic with him. We used Jubal's wish and talked about it like it was praying to God for help. Sometimes we ask God for something, but He may not always answer you like you were hoping or thinking He would. This is just what happened in our story today. Jubal wanted something, but received it in a way he wasn't expecting.

In religion today, we also had a special guest speaker, Mr. Tim Renzelmann. This was a nephew of Mrs. Renzelmann. He is a cancer survivor and a motivational speaker. He talked to the school about taking time in your life to really notice all the good in life and not to always focus on the negative. No matter how much life is getting you down, from having cancer to maybe just having a bad day that there is always something positive to look at in that day and love everyday given to you. It was very inspirational and uplifting.

Today we began to talk all about frogs. We began the day discussing what we already knew about frogs. Some of us kneew that frogs like to live on the water and on land, frogs like to eat bugs, they are oviparous (lay eggs) and they have webbed feet. Whew, we sure knew a lot before we even got started.

To help us learn a bit more, we read a First Discovery Book called, Frogs. This book gave us a close upi look at what frogs webbed feet look like, as well as, some predators that frogs need to stay away from. We learned that frogs that are very bright in color are usually poisonous. These kinds of frogs are found mainly in the rainforest and nowhere near where we live.

In phonics we reviewed our -og word family and listed a few of those words. We also used those -og words to help us practice our rhyming. We did a rhyming sheet in which we had to match the pictures on frogs to the correct picture log they rhymed with. Wow, we are getting really good at rhyming and didn't have much trouble with this.

In math, we learned about "area." We had a frog that we had to fill with colored cubes. When we were finished filling the frog we had to count how many fit in our frog and record our data. We also had to measure how many cube went around our frog and record that data as well. When we completed the activity we compared the two numbers and decided which number was larger than the other. We also sang a silly song called, "Five Green and Speckled Frogs." You can find the link below to this song to sing at home. It is quite the catchy tune!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVPmtaHmL4g