Advice For Incoming Kindergarten Families

We would like to ask for your help and input.  Can you believe that a mere 10 months ago you were preparing to send your little one off to kindergarten?  Like many, we are sure you had questions, worries and concerns about what it would be like.

Over the past few years we have invited our students to offer some advice for incoming K students. We share this information on our class blog and with new friends at the beginning of the school year.  This is typically a fun writing opportunity for our children as they are the experts and have lots of wisdom to share! Here are a few comments from past years:

I love books and did lots of reading in my classroom.

Oh kindergartners, don’t be scared.  My kindergarten was so so fun. It

was a fun time and the best year.

At lunch, eat before you talk to each other.

The teachers are nice and they teach us to be nice.  

Kindergarten is fun because you will learn and play and have friends!

We have found that many of the grown-ups have questions too and therefore, we would like to invite you to help them!  Do you remember the questions that ran through your head? Did you wonder about your child’s emotions, logistics of the school day, etc?  Please consider offering some input to families of incoming kindergartners. Perhaps you would like to offer to be a parent support and we can share your contact information with anyone who would like to speak to an expert?  A note about this will go home with students shortly. Your input would be greatly appreciated. We will compile your responses and make them available to our new families when we meet for Kindergarten Orientation.

Please accept our gratitude as we continue to be appreciative of your support and help in Room 103!

Summer Reading/Writing Challenge!

We introduced students to the summer challenge today!  Be sure to ask your child about it.  Notes will be sent home with students on Friday, June 1.

June Challenge

We have been introduced to the room 103 summer blog. Students are challenged to share something.  Take a picture reading a book, write about something. Let us know what is going on at home!

Have mom/dad send an email with a picture, video, etc and we will post it on the summer blog!  Be sure to log on and keep up to date with all we are doing.

http://pineglenksummerreading.blogspot.com/

Future Caldecott, Newbery and Geisel Award Winners Share Talents!

We are continuing to grow as readers, writers, mathematician, scientists, historians, artists, musicians and wonderful young students!  

Spring is a wonderful time to be working in kindergarten as we witness much growth!  In recent weeks we have welcomed present and former students as guest readers.  Today, we had the opportunity to have our guest reader present her own work!  Congratulations to our classroom author, Charlotte!

Some of the best evidence of learning in kindergarten is presented when students bubble over with enthusiasm about their new found skills to read, write and communicate!  Keep writing kindergartners!  We hope you remember us when you are Caldecott, Newbery and Geisel award winners!

Room 103 authors and illustrators can share works they produce at home and school!

3 Act Math with Mrs. Fortunato

Mrs. Fortunato, our district math specialist was in today to lead Room 103's mathematicians in a creative math challenge!  Our 3-Act math story was about a dad who gave his 2 girls a bag of m&m's.  They each wanted to have the bag but the direction was to share them.

After watching a brief video we reflected upon what we noticed and what we wondered.  Then we made some smart math deductions about the likely quantities of candies in the bag.  Discussions evolved and we eventually shared our guesses and found that we were very close!  

100% Club!

Kudos to Tristan, who joined the 100% club on ST Math today!  Nice work!

Protect the Popsicle

Pine Glen K students participated in the Protect the Popsicle, shelter design and building challenge today.  Last week we culminated our study of the sun by noting the impact of the sun on ice cubes.  We compared the results of ice in the sun verse ice in the shade.  Then we explored ways people use shade to keep cool for themselves.  We looked at various forms of sun shelter.  Our final step last week was to independently design shade structures that would keep popsicles from melting.  Today we moved on to the next stage of design!

Before the work of building was to begin students were put in groups based upon similarities in their designs.  Then, they learned they would have to collaborate and build just one structure as a team.  Mr. Musselman explained that engineers must often share, debate and collaborate among themselves to generate the best ideas!

The building - teammates worked together to retrieve materials and construct their shelters.

Teachers and volunteers worked along side us to help with cutting tape and holding things in place!

Teams each took a turn presenting the finished products to the class and explaining what they had built and how they anticipated it would work to keep popsicles from melting.

 Then we brought the shelters outside and placed them side by side in the sun.  We even put a control popsicle out in direct sunlight to know when to bring them in.

The results - we poured off the liquid that came from the melted popsicles and compared quantities.  Mrs. Hoyt was very impressed to hear some of our math words in use as students pondered about the capacity of the containers.

We used our eyes to make the scientific observations about the melted portions.   The blue popsicle only had 5ml of liquid!  Kudos to the team of David, Shiven, Mansimar and Joyeeta for designing the shelter that allowed for the least amount of melting!

We were all quite proud of our efforts, but we were also quite hot!  Since the popsicles did not all melt, there were plenty left for us to reward ourselves with a refreshing treat!