May 10, 2012
Dear Parents,
Crazy as it seems, we are two weeks away from the May long weekend and that
leaves us with only 7 weeks of school remaining! We are ahead of schedule
with lots of enthusiasm filling Room 5.
Earth Day had us all cleaning up the playground, sorting recycling, and
discussing world issues. We read ‘Oliver and the Oil Spill’. It is a story of
the Exxon Valdez told through the perspective of a sea otter. The outrage
expressed after that story could break your heart. I have no doubt we have
some future environmentalists among us.
Our caterpillars have arrived and we are keeping a close eye on them. We
watch them under a magnifying glass and have been counting the number of
times each one molts. ‘Fuzzy’, our largest caterpillar, has now molted 3
times…one more and he will become a chrysalis or pupa (we can’t say the later
word without uncontrollable laughter). In addition, we are working on
consonant blends and digraphs and continuing to use approximated spelling in
our journals – our phonics work has really paid off. In math, we are
continuing with addition and subtraction using number sentences, we just
began symmetry (“Symmetry is where my grandpa is buried”, explained one 4
year old to the class.), and soon will be moving into three dimensional
shapes.
We will be having our JK year end presentation on June 8th. It will not be
a ‘Kindergarten Graduation’, as Kindergarten is really a two-year program,
however they are moving on to SK and it is great for the kids (and parents)
to acknowledge the accomplishment of completing their first year of school.
Parents are welcome to come to Room 5 (or outside, weather depending) from
9am to 9:15am on June 8th for the AM class and 1pm – 1:15pm for the PM class.
The children only will have a class party following the short performance.
Class parents will contact you for refreshment donations for the children if
you are able.
‘Scientist in the Classroom’ will be in Room 5 on Thursday, June 20th. Three
parent volunteers will be required. Class parents will be in contact.
I would like to wish all the Moms a Happy Mother's Day! I can say after
spending the last 9 months with your children, you are doing an incredible
job!
Sincerely,
Joanne Fagan
JK Room 5
JK NEWSLETTER
April 17, 2012
Dear Parents,
Our dinosaur unit has been a HUGE success. The children have learned so much
and their curiosity has kept the dinosaurs alive! We can classify herbivores
and carnivores with ease, we can grid using an ‘x’ and ‘y’ axis (very helpful
when on a dino-dig), we ‘excavated’ chocolate chip cookies with a brush and
tooth pick, we can identify lots of different kinds of dinosaurs by name and
tell some really cool facts about them. For example, did you know that a
parasaurolophus has a big snorkel in his head to allow him to stay under
water for a long time and still breathe? Last week we measured off 45 feet of
string and tied to the end of a helium balloon tied to weight. We released
the balloon to see the average height of a real dinosaur. It was amazing to
see how big the dinosaurs really were. We will be finishing up dinosaurs this
week; we still have to make fossils, explode a few volcanoes and will be
watching part of a “Land Before Time” movie. We will only be watching about
20 minutes (until the dino cookies and popcorn run out), so you may want to
consider it the next time you are at the movie store.
We will be celebrating Earth Day on Friday and have some special activities
planned.
In May, we will be welcoming 25 new classmates to Room 5: our butterflies! We
will be watching them transform from caterpillars to chrysalis to butterflies
before our very eyes. As well, we will be learning about bugs and the
environment.
Thank you all for your continued support of Room 5…especially all the eggs we
found on our class egg hunt!
Sincerely,
JK Room 5
March 20, 2012
Dear Parents,
Welcome Back! I am hoping everyone had a wonderful break and I am certainly
glad to have seen the last of snowpants(hopefully).
We have just begun our unit on 'Dinosaurs' and we are taking a scientific
approach. We are spending this week learning about what a ‘paleontologist’
does and in our sand table we have been looking at real fossils under the
magnifying glass, discovering about bones and using brushes just like a
real ‘dinosaur detective’. We are categorizing dinosaurs into Herbivores and
Carnivores based on specific characteristics (i.e. most carnivores walked on
two legs, herbivores-four legs, etc). Next week we will be talking more in-
depth about how we know dinosaurs really did exist and theories on why they
became extinct.
Easter and Passover will be discussed in class this month and next. I will be
planning a little egg hunt on April 5th. I am hoping to have some parents
send in plastic eggs with a little surprise in each. The eggs can be found at
the dollar stores and filled with candy treats, stickers, erasers, dinos,
etc. If you are able, please send in a class set with your child. I would
like for each child to be able to find 3 eggs each. Please let me or our
class parents know if you are able to contribute.
Thanks,
Joanne
February 24, 2012
Dear Parents,
February has been busy…very busy! In addition to starting our unit
on ‘Feelings and the Senses’, we all participated in a great Carnival, we
covered Groundhog Day, shared lots of love and fun on Valentine’s Day, and
spent time learning about winter birds and making bird feeders.
In math we are finishing up ‘measuring’, magnets in science, and we
went ‘vowel hunting’ this week all over the school and found over 250 vowels!
We are now learning about rhyming words and will spend next week learning a
jaunty tune to remember the rhyming word rule. We are attempting to write
full sentences in our journals and after March Break will begin our “Borrow
Book” program.
Another HUGE thank you for all you do to make our JK year so great!
Sincerely,
Joanne Fagan
JK-Room 5