• Progress Reports Sent: You should have
  

  Thanks Ale and Oscar for making our Room 7 BIG CAKE dreams come true!

  received your child’s report via email on Thursday June 22nd. It was a privilege to teach your children this year! Please email if you have questions or comments. Thanks!

• Room 7 Exit Surveys: If you haven’t filled out my exit survey for your familyplease do so and either email it. IT IS NOT the school survey. It’s specifically for room 7 and for my own betterment as a teacher. I want your feedback! Click the link to download the survey: Exit Survey Parents. Thank you!
• NO Community Snack in First Grade:  A BIG THANK YOU to our Kinder Snack Coordinator, Kudsana (kkizaraly@yahoo.com). She kept this process organized, kept us informed of changes, and was wonderfully attentive to our needs. Job well done!
• Enrichments/Coordinators for FIRST GRADE: WE STILL NEED YOU! Look at openings left and think about what enrichments orclassroom jobs you may want to take on for first grade. I would like to start making plans for curriculum with those volunteers for next year. For definitions of the roles below visit https://discoverykinderworld.wordpress.com/classroom-coordinator-info/:
  

  Cameron left early this past week. We gave her an early send-off for the summer complete with an ice cream!

  1. Classroom Coordinator:  Christina Wayne
  2. Field Trip Coordinator: Arielle Kurtze
  3. Class Librarian/Scholastic Coordinator: Nicole Kerbey and Wendy
  4. Social Events Coordinator:  Jennifer Coscarart
  5. Documentation Parent: Kristel Fritz
  6. Science: Christine Ging and _______________
  7. Cooking:  Arielle Kurtze and ______________ (we really need 2 here)
  8. Arts & Crafts: Ale Rincon and Akiko Fukuhara
  9. Gardening: Julie Olsen
  10. Math Enrichments: Sheila Hunter
  11. Music & Movement: Possibly Lonnell Graham (if scheduling works out)
  12. Materials Manager: Doreen
• Classroom Prep for Next Year: We need help between July 12-17! We’re planninga couple prep days to spruce up the classroom for next year. If you’re available between July 12-17, let us know! We need help deep cleaning the classroom, sanding down cabinets, painting, cleaning toys, possibly rearranging furniture, and sprucing up the wall space. More details to come, soon! Note: We usually provide you some light snacks, soda, and adult beverages 🙂 Thanks!
• D2 Summer Vacation: June 24th-August 1st.
• First Day of School This Fall: Wednesday August 2nd for 2017-18.

Memory Cubes: Each side has 1 kinder memory that they thought was important.

Kindergarten Olympic Closing Ceremonies

Cameron left early this past week. We gave her an early send-off for the summer complete with an ice cream!

Weekly Highlights!

• D2 Yearbooks!
• Whole Kinder Pod Hike: Monday June 19th – We went on a nature hike behind the
  

  D2 Yearbooks were distributed!

  school on the trail in the hills and had popsicles at the top!

• Whole-Kinder Pod Water Exploration Celebration: Tuesday June 20, Victoria Tran (Joan’s coordinator) will email details soon.
• Whole-Kinder Pod Arts & Crafts Celebration: Wednesday June 21.
• Kindergarten Olympic Goals Closing Ceremonies: On Friday, June 23 from 11:30-1:10pm we had Closing Ceremonies and a potluck lunch party to follow. We had great year of goal-setting, goal striving, and goal reaching since we began our Olympic Brain & Body Goal Wall! As we brought the Kinder Academic Games of 2016-2017 to a close parents joined us in class on the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL for the Special event. Children planned how they wanted to celebrate their accomplishments, together, which included using finger
  

  Ale reads Quentin’s Birthday Read-aloud!

  lights to process in with the lights off, saying our goals out loud and clapping for one another, a potluck, a BIG cake, “Secret Santa” goodbye cards (each child picked ONE person to make a really nice card for), a “Bucket Filling” time to say nice comments about each other or how we feel about the year, parent gifts, and finally parading around the school passing around “the goal torch”.

• Art – Making Parent Gifts: Children painted special flower pots for parent volunteers and made cards for them. We put a collage of our faces together on the cover and on the planter sign as a memory of our kinder class. We said “Thank you for your THYME!” and gave each parent thyme seeds to plant 🙂
• Teacher Kate’s Gift: I gave each student an impatiens flower with a letter from and picture of me for the summer. Essentially, I talked about how they wouldn’t have been able to reach their goals without a lot of patience -which was hard to learn at this age! Since first grade will require new challenges and skills, we’re going to have
  

  Closing Ceremonies Cake Survey: Ale & Oscar had kids vote on their favorite flavor combinations!

  to dig deeper and find more patience. We can’t give into “I can’t” or “I’m not good at that.” If they did that this year, they wouldn’t have made so much progress. So, I gave them a little place to put their impatience. My hope is they will leave the impatience with the impatiens and focus on learning amazing new things!

• Community Sing: We said goodbye to the 8th graders and led choreography for their special goodbye song, which the whole school sang to them, called “The Climb.“
• Child Read-Alouds: Steele and Byron
• Summer Birthday Read-Alouds: Claudia, Quentin, and Henry
• Skill Share:  Quentin
• Math Workshop: We played a myriad of math games for the last time this year!
• Math/Literacy: We talked about the 3D
• 

  Goodbye Pranav! We will miss your spirit SO much in our community 🙂

  cube shape (how many sides, faces, edges) and then we made memory cubes. They drew/wrote 6 things they remembered from kindergarten this year. It was cool to see what made the cut!

• Just-Right Reading! Each morning, parents can help kids choose leveled books to take home and practice reading with children. Please be sure to return the books and put them in the proper bins!
• Buddy Time:  Exploration together until next year when we pair up, again, as first and fifth graders!
• Fairies: The fairies left! They said they’re on summer vacation and the door short circuited. So, Lou the Maintenance Fairy can’t get in until later this summer,anyway.
• ADULTS-ONLY End of the Year Party: We had a great time BBQing and partying like it was 1999! For those who couldn’t attend, we’re doing it again next year!

Community Sing: Room 7 and 8 leading the school in singing “The Climb” for the 8th graders

Dear Charlotte – Questions About First Grade:

Charlotte (Nicholas’ older sister) Read to us and then answered our questions about first grade and what to expect.

Nicholas’ sister Charlotte read to us on Monday, and we asked her if we could just inquire about a few things kids were wondering in terms of first grade. She just finished first grade, so we thought she was an expert resource! Charlotte was very honest, poised, and helpful.

Is it harder? A little harder in first grade. You do a little more than what you did in kindergarten.

What do you do in kindergarten? Well, we learn take away problems that are a little harder and you learn how to read and read chapter books.

Do you have writers workshop? Yes.

Do you have cases for your special pencils? You can if you want to but you don’t have to

Do you have your own desk? It depends if you need your own space to focus.

Do you have enrichments? Sometimes. Art, science, and stuff.

Do you still get out at 2:50? Yes. I think 3rd grade is when you get out a little later.

Do you still have body goals? I don’t have that much body goals but yes sometimes you do. We’re kind of focusing on other things than body goals.

What’s different? You do a little harder math problems and write sentences. I have to write as many sentences as how old I am each time I do something.

What should we look forward to? Well, I really liked writing. I started to do bigger sentences and started to get what sentences were actually for.

Whole Kinder Hike Field Trip Behind The School!

Whole-Pod Water Exploration

 

Whole-Pod Kinder Celebration

Parent Gifts: Thank You For Your Thyme

Children’s Read-Aloud Schedule!

Steele’s Read-Aloud!

After hearing Ellie Luz read last month, many other children felt inspired to read to the class, too. They begged me to create a sign-up and kept asking when they would read! So, we took time to create this list, below. They chose where on the list they wanted to be (knowing the higher or lower they were meant sooner or later), but please talk with your child about when they’re scheduled to read and whether they’ll be able to prepare their book, in time. This is the list that the kids asked me to put together, because they wanted to read a book to the class themselves. If your child’s goal is to do this, but he/she’s not ready right now, I can definitely have him/her go later! For children who aren’t reading yet but volunteered, too, they could simply do a picture walk (narrating the story orally based on each picture)! The last option is perhaps they can read with a partner, taking turns, or they can read a page and I read a page. The bottom line is that I want them to take as much ownership over this activity as possible 🙂 What type of book?

Byron’s Read-Aloud!

Whatever book they want! From BOB books to picture books. It’s their choice of whatever makes them feel comfortable and CONFIDENT.

Henry’s surprise read-aloud: His birthday book!

List of read-aloud dates and students:

1. Ellie  3/23
2. Genevieve 3/24
3. Logan 3/29
4. Dominic 3/30
5. Jada 4/21
6. Claudia 4/27
7. Maddie S./Izzy 5/4 (reschedule?)
8. Nakiya 5/11
9. Pranav 5/12
10. Tyler 5/18
11. Maddie K.  5/18
12. Sthanika 6/1
13. Sadie 6/7
14. Donovan 6/8
15. Quentin 6/9
16. Oscar 6/13
17. Nadia 6/15
18. Cameron 6/16
19. Steele 6/20
20. Byron 6/21
21. Henry – Read his own birthday book!

Opted Out (Maybe Next Year!)

Nicholas

Cici’s birthday book read-aloud, which she also read herself!

Friday Skill Sharing Schedule (9:15ish-9:50am)

Quentin teaches us how to punch in karate!

Children will have an opportunity to explain, demonstrate and field question/commentson ONE (1) skill of their choice. Some have to decide WHICH SKILL because they thought of two. Those children have an (*) next to their name. They have 5-10 minutes each. You can discuss with them how they may want to show their skill, what props they might need, how they will utilize the space of our classroom safely, and help them prepare for this public speaking opportunity by rehearsing it with them. I will prepare the children to be encouraging, kind, and respectful audience members. Some children already told me what they chose as a skill. So that’s why some names already

Quentin’s Skill Share: Karate!

have a skill in parenthesis. If your child has not chosen a skill, yet, please help them choose and prepare before their debut! Please see the following sign-ups, this week’s in bold:

My gift to the children along with an impatiens plant. Have a great summer!

• Happy Father’s Day!: I am so grateful for the love, time and effort you put into
  

  Heritage Day Picnic

  helping your little ones learn and succeed. You are like superheroes to them and they’re so proud of you. I hope you have an amazing day!

• Progress Reports Underway: I am done with assessments and am almost done writing their reports. What a privilege it is to teach your children!
• Whole Kinder Pod Hike: Monday June 19th – We will go on a nature hike behind the school. Technically it’s a field trip, so you’ll be hearing from Arielle!
• Whole-Kinder Pod Water Exploration Celebration: Tuesday June 20, Victoria Tran (Joan’s coordinator) will email details soon.
• Whole-Kinder Pod Arts & Crafts Celebration: Wednesday June 21.
• Community Snack Schedule:  This week is the Ging family. Please use the
  

  Happy Father’s Day!

  snack signup genius here to sign up for a week to bring snack. Let the Snack Coordinator, Kudsana (kkizaraly@yahoo.com), know if you need special accommodations or are unable to fulfill your commitment. And a BIG thank you to the Paiyou/Ramos family for snack last week!

• ADULTS-ONLY End of the Year Party: Feel free to drop by at some point on Saturday June 24, 12-6pm at 1257 Lakeside
  Drive, Sunnyvale CA 94085. Please join me at my complex for an end of the year pool party/BBQ potluck. Sheila (Cici’s mom) has offered FREE CHILD CARE that day. Give her a call! There is also FREE parking in the garage, though I recommend carpooling. We have a grill, a pool, good music and a cabana! Feel free to bring a yummy dish or drinks and DEFINITELY a bathing suit 🙂 Adam and I
  have rented the cabana adjacent to our pool, and are looking forward to hosting you for some fun in the sun to celebrate all your hard work this year! Let’s party like it’s 1999! Click Signup genius  to RSVP!
• Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies:
  

  Join us Saturday 6/24 for our Room 7 End of The Year Pool Party!

  Friday, June 23 from 11:30-1:10pm we have closing ceremonies and a potluck lunch party to follow. We’ve had great year of goal-setting, goal striving, and goal reaching since we began our Olympic Brain & Body Goal Wall! Now, it’s time to bring the Kinder Academic Games of 2016-2017 to end 🙂 Parents, please join us in class on the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL for the Special Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies for Room 7. Children have planned how they want to celebrate their accomplishments, together, which include a potluck (click here for sign up genius) complete with a BIG cake, “Secret Santa” goodbye cards (each child picked ONE person to make a really nice card for), a time to say nice comments about each other or how we feel about the year, using finger lights to process in, and finally parading around the school passing around “the goal torch”. After that, we will have a nice lunch and then say goodbye!

• Enrichments/Coordinators for FIRST GRADE: Think about what enrichments orclassroom jobs you may want to take on for first grade. I would like to start making plans for curriculum with those volunteers for next year. For definitions of the roles below visit https://discoverykinderworld.wordpress.com/classroom-coordinator-info/:
  

  Julie helped kids plant the garden!

  1. Classroom Coordinator- (Possibly) Christina Wayne
  2. Field Trip Coordinator -Arielle Kurtze (taken)
  3. Class Librarian/Scholastic Coordinator – Nicole Kerbey
  4. Social Events Coordinator – Jennifer Coscarart (taken)
  5. Documentation Parent – Kristel Fritz
  6. Science – Christine Ging and _______________
  7. Cooking –  Arielle Kurtze and ______________ (we really need 2 here)
  8. Arts & Crafts – Ale Rincon and Akiko Fukuhara (we really need 2 here)
  9. Gardening  – Julie Olsen
  10. Math Enrichments – Sheila Hunter
  11. Music & Movement: Possibly Lonnell Graham (if scheduling works out)
  12. Materials Manager -Doreen
• Classroom Prep for Next Year: We need help between July 12-17! We’re planning a couple prep days to spruce up the classroom for next year. If you’re available between July 12-17, let us know! We need help deep cleaning the classroom, sanding down cabinets, painting, cleaning toys, possibly rearranging furniture, and sprucing up the wall space. More details to come, soon! (Note: We usually provide you some light snacks, soda, and adult beverages 🙂 Thanks!)

Weekly Highlights!

• Room 7 Exit Surveys: If you haven’t filled out my exit survey for your family
  

  Parent Appreciation Day!

  please do so and either email it OR leave it on my desk. IT IS NOT the school survey. It’s specifically for room 7 and for my own betterment as a teacher. I want your feedback! Click the link to download the survey: Exit Survey Parents. Thank you!

• Parent Appreciation Day:  D2 celebrated our amazing parents who help make our vision possible with a breakfast and various classroom gifts! We offered each parent a rose, but next Friday is when we planned to give our official thank you gifts.
• Heritage Day: D2 celebrated the surface cultures of various countries from around the world with posters, music, crafts, and special foods to enjoy. The kids had a blast learning about different areas of the world what’s famous in each place. I’d like to see something like this on a more regular basis with a focus on deeper culture, as well, because it was a fabulous experience that the kids really enjoyed!
  

  Steele diligently finished his sewing project: A Dragon!

• Kinder Sing: Practiced “The Climb” which is the secret song the whole school is singing for the 8th grade. Please use the video to practice lyrics with your children!
• Secret Santa Goodbye Cards: Children wanted to do ONE really elaborate goodbye to ONE friend, rather than making 22 cards each. So we picked from a hat on Friday and everyone has ONE secret person they will make a card for and give it to them on Friday.
• Last Parent Meeting: It was Wednesday June 14th at 6:30pm. VERY productive! See minutes here: Wednesday 6.14.17 Parent Meeting
• Art: Making art like Michelangelo drawing upside down under tables AND making beautiful wrapping paper for Father’s Day presents with poster paper and soccer balls covered in various paints rolling around in kiddie pools!
• Pod Bathrooms CLOSED: Indoor bathrooms were closed due to children’s continued misuse of them. Now, we can only use the outside bathrooms and only with an adult present.
  

  Students worked hard to practice these steps!

• Child Read-Alouds: Cameron, Oscar and Nadia
• Fairies: We were visited by Binx, FINALLY!
• Community Talks: We discussed plans for the last week of school, father’s day presents, and how to tidy up the classroom.
• Skill Share: Sadie
• Literacy: Story Workshop
• Math: We learned about word problems! Word problems are just stories with an equation hidden inside them. We went over steps to dissect the information we needed in order to solve them, including figuring out key words for addition and subtraction! They were encouraged to use  wrecknrecks to count and drawings to show their work. It was investigative work and as they practiced, it became easier and easier to do. They especially liked the sheets I made for them with their names in the word problems.
• Just-Right Reading! Each morning, parents can help kids choose leveled books to take home and practice reading with children. Please be sure to return the books and put them in the proper bins!
  

  

Parent Appreciation Day

Father’s Day Present Project: Shrinky Dink Key Chains & Kid-made Wrapping Paper!

Children’s Read-Aloud Schedule!

After hearing Ellie Luz read last month, many other children felt inspired to read

Nadia’s read-aloud!

tothe class, too. They begged me to create a sign-up and kept asking when they would read! So, we took time to create this list, below. They chose where on the list they wanted to be (knowing the higher or lower they were meant sooner or later), but please talk with your child about when they’re scheduled to read and whether they’ll be able to prepare their book, in time. This is the list that the kids asked me to put together, because they wanted to read a book to the class themselves. If your child’s goal is to do this, but he/she’s not ready right now, I can definitely have him/her go later! For children who aren’t reading yet but volunteered, too, they could simply do a picture walk (narrating the story orally based on each picture)! The last option is perhaps they can read with a partner, taking turns, or they can read a page and I read a page. The bottom line is that I want them to take as much ownership over this activity as possible 🙂 What type of book?

Whatever book they want! From BOB books to picture books. It’s their choice of whatever makes them feel comfortable and CONFIDENT.

Cameron’s read-aloud!

List of read-aloud dates and students:

1. Ellie  3/23
   

   Oscar’s read-aloud!

    

    

    

2. Genevieve 3/24
3. Logan 3/29
4. Dominic 3/30
5. Jada 4/21
6. Claudia 4/27
7. Maddie S./Izzy 5/4 (reschedule?)
8. Nakiya 5/11
9. Pranav 5/12
10. Tyler 5/18
11. Maddie K.  5/18
12. Sthanika 6/1
13. Sadie 6/7
14. Donovan 6/8
15. Quentin 6/9
16. Oscar 6/13
17. Nadia 6/15
18. Cameron 6/16
19. Steele 6/20
20. Byron 6/21

Opted Out (Maybe Next Year!)

Henry

Nicholas

Heritage Day

Friday Skill Sharing Schedule (9:15ish-9:50am)

Children will have an opportunity to explain, demonstrate and field

Sadie showed her gymnastics moves!

question/comments on ONE (1) skill of their choice. Some have to decide WHICH SKILL because they thought of two. Those children have an (*) next to their name. They have 5-10 minutes each. You can discuss with them how they may want to show their skill, what props they might need, how they will utilize the space of our classroom safely, and help them prepare for this public speaking opportunity by rehearsing it with them. I will prepare the children to be encouraging, kind, and respectful audience members. Some children already told me what they chose as a skill. So that’s why some names already have a skill in parenthesis. If your child has not chosen a skill, yet, please help them choose and prepare before their debut! Please see the following sign-ups, this week’s in bold:

Mark Those Calendars

Day 1 of Box City Economy and we were ready to ROCK!

• Progress Reports Underway: I am done with assessments and am almost done writing their reports. What a privilege it is to teach your children!
• Last Parent Meeting: Wednesday June 14th at 6:30pm
• Whole Kinder Pod Hike: Monday June 19th – We will go on a nature hike behind the school. Technically it’s a field trip, so you’ll be hearing from Arielle!
  

  Math and Literacy intersect: 3D sight-word cuboids!

• Whole Kinder-Pod Water Exploration Celebration: Wednesday June 21, Victoria Tran (Joan’s coordinator) will email details soon.
• Community Snack Schedule:  This week is the Ging family. Please use the snack signup genius here to sign up for a week to bring snack. Let the Snack Coordinator, Kudsana (kkizaraly@yahoo.com), know if you need special accommodations or are unable to fulfill your commitment. And a BIG thank you to the Paiyou/Ramos family for snack last week!
• ADULTS-ONLY End of the Year Party: Feel free to drop by at some point on Saturday June 24, 12-6pm at 1257 Lakeside
  Drive, Sunnyvale CA 94085. Please join me at my complex for an end of the year pool party/BBQ potluck. Sheila (Cici’s mom) has offered FREE CHILD CARE that day. Give her a call! There is also FREE parking in the garage, though I recommend carpooling. We have a grill, a pool, good music and a cabana! Feel free to bring a yummy dish or drinks and DEFINITELY a bathing suit 🙂 Adam and I
  have rented the cabana adjacent to our pool, and are looking forward to hosting you for some fun in the sun to celebrate all your hard work this year! Let’s party like it’s 1999! Click Signup genius  to RSVP!
• Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies:
  

  Join us Saturday 6/24 for our Room 7 End of The Year Pool Party!

  Friday, June 23, 11:30-1:10pm. We’ve had
  great year of goal-setting, goal striving, and goal reaching since we began our Olympic Brain & Body Goal Wall! Now, it’s almost time for the Kinder Academic Games of 2016-2017 to end 🙂 Parents, please join us in class on the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL for the Special Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies for Room 7. We’ll celebrate our accomplishments, together, parade around the school passing around “the goal torch” and have a nice lunch! More details to come.

• Enrichments/Coordinators for FIRST GRADE: Think about what enrichments orclassroom jobs you may want to take on for first grade. I would like to start making plans for curriculum with those volunteers for next year. For definitions of the roles below visit https://discoverykinderworld.wordpress.com/classroom-coordinator-info/:
  1. Classroom Coordinator- (Possibly) Christina Wayne
  2. Field Trip Coordinator -Arielle Kurtze (taken)
  3. Class Librarian/Scholastic Coordinator –
  4. Social Events Coordinator – Jennifer Coscarart (taken)
  5. Documentation Parent – (THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! A Weekly/Monthly job) ___________________
  6. Science – Christine Ging and _______________
  7. Cooking –  
  8. Arts & Crafts –
  9. Gardening  –

Child-Led Conferences

Weekly Highlights!

• Kinder Sing
• 2 Friday Surprises: Whole-pod exploration and indoor recess (due to rain) where we watched Disney short films with
  

  Mystery Father’s Day Presents!

  a whole-pod snack buffet.

• June Child-led Spring Conferences:  (Sign up genius) Thank you for coming!
• Art: Making Father’s Day presents using shrinky dink plastic
• Pod Bathrooms CLOSED: Indoor bathrooms were closed due to children’s continued misuse of them. Now, we can only use the outside bathrooms and only with an adult present.
• Byron’s Birthday Read-Aloud
• Child Read-Alouds: Quentin and Sadie
• Box City: Box City was an AMAZING 4 day experience of building economy and stewardship cleanup for the kids! See pictures below.
• Fairies: We found out more about Onyx!
  

  Sight Word Cuboids: What words do we know?

• Community Talks: We discussed Box City and what was going well vs. what bothered us. The middle school bandits were the main theme of conversation. Some of us had box city bucks or goods stolen.
• Skill Shares: Nakiya (French language skills), Steele (baseball), and Nicholas (running).
• Literacy/Math: Making 3D sight word cuboid shapes and writing words we know on each of the sides.
• Just-Right Reading! Each morning, parents can help kids choose leveled books to take home and practice reading with children. Please be sure to return the books and put them in the proper bins!
• Filling Buckets and Taking Names! We read the books Have You Filled A Bucket
  

  Byron’s Birthday read-aloud

  Today? and How Full Is Your Bucket? which both helped to facilitate the continuation of a conversation we started during our Community Talk about treating each other with kindness. We did an activity called BUGS & WISHES, where students said what bugged them (annoyed them) and what they wish would happen instead. MANY people had issues with friends being unkind or saying mean things.   They were so proud of their efforts to change this behavior and happily recognized bucket filling moments when they could lift someone up, telling me or another adult. They also articulated when they felt others were DIPPING into their buckets, or “dumping them.” We talked about how no one can dump it, because we’re in charge of holding onto our imaginary buckets. No one else has that power.

Whole-Pod Kinder Indoor Snack Recess:  Short films and snack buffet!

 

Box City In Action:

A BIG THANK YOU TO ALL PARENTS WHO HELPED!!!

 

Father’s Day Present Project: It’s a mystery what we made!

 

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Children’s Read-Aloud Schedule!

Donovan’s read-aloud!

After hearing Ellie Luz read last month, many other children felt inspired to read to

Sadie’s read-aloud!

the class, too. They begged me to create a sign-up and kept asking when they would read! So, we took time to create this list, below. They chose where on the list they wanted to be (knowing the higher or lower they were meant sooner or later), but please talk with your child about when they’re scheduled to read and whether they’ll be able to prepare their book, in time. This is the list that the kids asked me to put together, because they wanted to read a book to the class themselves. If your child’s goal is to do this, but he/she’s not ready right now, I can definitely have him/her go later! For children who aren’t reading yet but volunteered, too, they could simply do a picture walk (narrating the story orally based on each picture)! The last option is perhaps they can read with a partner, taking turns, or they can read a page and I read a page. The bottom line is that I want them to take as much ownership over this activity as possible 🙂 What type of book?

Whatever book they want! From BOB books to picture books. It’s their choice of whatever makes them feel comfortable and CONFIDENT.

List of read-aloud dates and students:

Quentin’s read aloud!

1. Ellie  3/23
2. Genevieve 3/24
3. Logan 3/29
4. Dominic 3/30
5. Jada 4/21
6. Claudia 4/27
7. Maddie S./Izzy 5/4 (reschedule?)
8. Nakiya 5/11
9. Pranav 5/12
10. Tyler 5/18
11. Maddie K.  5/18
12. Sthanika 6/1
13. Sadie 6/7
14. Donovan 6/8
15. Quentin 6/9
16. Oscar 6/13
17. Byron 6/14
18. Nadia 6/15
19. Cameron 6/16
20. Steele 6/20

Opted Out (Maybe Next Year!)

Henry

Nicholas

 

Friday Skill Sharing Schedule (9:15ish-9:50am)

Nakiya teaches us French!

Children will have an opportunity to explain, demonstrate and field question/comments on ONE (1) skill of their choice. Some have to decide WHICH SKILL because they thought of two. Those children have an (*) next to their name. They have 5-10 minutes each. You can discuss with them how they may want to show their skill, what props they might need, how they will utilize the space of our classroom safely, and help them prepare for this public speaking opportunity by rehearsing it with them. I will prepare the children to be encouraging, kind, and respectful audience members. Some children already told me what they chose as a skill. So that’s why some names already have a skill in parenthesis. If your child has not chosen a skill, yet, please help them choose and prepare before their debut! Please see the following sign-ups, this week’s in bold:

Baseball: Steele demonstrates his crow hop throw!

Nicholas demonstrates his running skills!

• Progress Reports Underway: I am done with assessments and have started writing
  

  Kids Bop Concert Friday Night!

  their reports! I’m more than half-way through and it’s been amazing to look back on their incredible learning journeys.  What a privilege it is to teach your children!

• June Child-led Spring Conferences: THIS WEEK! Click here for the Sign up genius for June! 
• Box City:  Remember SUNSCREEN! It’s during Conference Week this year, June 5-9th. Start collecting large cardboard boxes to bring in for your child and others! One per child has worked in the past. Please contact Christine G. for questions at cch722 (at) gmail.com.
• Last Parent Meeting: Wednesday June 14th.
  

  Rebecca’s thank you card for bringing us popsicles!

• Whole Kinder Pod Hike: Monday June 19th – We will go on a nature hike behind the school. Technically it’s a field trip, so you’ll be hearing from Arielle!
• Whole Kinder-Pod Water Exploration Celebration: Wednesday June 21, Victoria Tran (Joan’s coordinator) will email details soon.
• Community Snack Schedule:  This week is the Paiyou/Ramos family. Please use the snack signup genius here to sign up for a week to bring snack. Let the Snack Coordinator, Kudsana (kkizaraly@yahoo.com), know if you need special accommodations or are unable to fulfill your commitment. And a BIG thank you to the Wayne family for snack last week!
• ADULTS-ONLY End of the Year Party: Feel free to drop by at some point on Saturday June 24, 12-6pm at 1257 Lakeside
  Drive, Sunnyvale CA 94085. Please join me at my complex for an end of the year pool party/BBQ potluck. Sheila (Cici’s mom) has offered FREE CHILD CARE that day. Give her a call! There is also FREE parking in the garage, though I recommend carpooling. We have a grill, a pool, good music and a cabana! Feel free to bring a yummy dish or drinks and DEFINITELY a bathing suit 🙂 Adam and I
  have rented the cabana adjacent to our pool, and are looking forward to hosting you for some fun in the sun to celebrate all your hard work this year! Let’s party like it’s 1999! Click Signup genius  to RSVP!
• Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies:
  

  Join us Saturday 6/24 for our Room 7 End of The Year Pool Party!

  Friday, June 23, 11:30-1:10pm. We’ve had
  great year of goal-setting, goal striving, and goal reaching since we began our Olympic Brain & Body Goal Wall! Now, it’s almost time for the Kinder Academic Games of 2016-2017 to end 🙂 Parents, please join us in class on the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL for the Special Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies for Room 7. We’ll celebrate our accomplishments, together, parade around the school passing around “the goal torch” and have a nice lunch! More details to come.

• Enrichments/Coordinators for FIRST GRADE: Think about what enrichments orclassroom jobs you may want to take on for first grade. I would like to start making plans for curriculum with those volunteers for next year. For definitions of the roles below visit https://discoverykinderworld.wordpress.com/classroom-coordinator-info/:
  1. Classroom Coordinator- (Possibly) Christina Wayne
     

     Math: Measuring with 1 inch cubes and recoding!

  2. Field Trip Coordinator -Arielle Kurtze (taken)
  3. Class Librarian/Scholastic Coordinator –
  4. Social Events Coordinator – Jennifer Coscarart (taken)
  5. Documentation Parent – (THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! A Weekly/Monthly job) ___________________
  6. Science – Christine Ging and _______________
  7. Cooking –  
  8. Arts & Crafts –
  9. Gardening  –

End of The Year Whole-Kinder Picnic & Baseball Games!

Weekly Highlights!

• Pod Bathrooms CLOSED: Indoor bathrooms were closed due to children’s continued misuse of them. Now, we can only use the outside bathrooms and only with an adult present.
• Box City: We continued conversations about Box City (coming up next week!)
• Fairies: A mysterious fairy friend of Luna and Esmeralda visited. His or her name was Onyx! He or she was playing hide and seek and accidentally opened the portal door not knowing what it was. She immediately knew what happened once she arrived and her friends told us how amazing our room was, so she stayed and left us a brief note 🙂
• UPDATE on Trouble in Line-Up Paradise: We were having issues traveling to and from the playground. So, we had a few meetings and came up with a line-up strategy that worked so far – the buddy system! This has worked for them and made a big difference in eliminating power struggles to be near the front, shoving, cutting, etc.  We line up the same way, every time, holding hands. The holding hands part isn’t enjoyed by all, but it’s the only way people don’t start rushing the line to get ahead.
• Community Talks: We discussed several agenda items, timed 7 minutes each.
  

  Community Talk!

  Whatever we didn’t finish, we left for the net day. Some of the topics were bugs and wishes (socio-emotional issues that came up about people not treating one another with kindness in words or actions), talking about taking better care of the materials around the room, Child Led Conferences, and Box City.

• Skill Shares: Cameron (art), Maddie S. (German language), and Sthanika (science knowledge: Evaporation vs. Condensation)
• Literacy: Writing fairy letters, writing what we’re excited to do this summer, writing the different ways we fill buckets.
• Child Read-Aloud: Sthanika
• Kids’ Extension of Filling Buckets: Quentin had an idea to take our filling buckets prisms and go around the school to fill the “whole community’s buckets!” Many
  

  Bucket Filling at D2: They filled Suzy’s bucket with hugs!

  others jumped on board with this idea and took their own exploration time to go around

• Math: We did measuring with 1 inch snap cubes and more on shapes! We made two 3D shapes this week. On the triangular prism’s faces, we wrote/drew 4 ways we could fill someone’s bucket with kind words or deeds at school. For the cone, we wrote/drew  1-2 what we were excited to do this coming summer! For two weeks now, we have discussed shapes, their characteristics, and the difference between 2D (flat – height and width) and 3D shapes (height, width and DEPTH).
• Science: We finished our LAST week of science experimenting with paper towels, color dyes, and chromatography!
• Just-Right Reading! Each morning, parents can help kids choose leveled books to take home and practice reading with children. Please be sure to return the books and put them in the proper bins!
• Filling Buckets and Taking Names! We read the books Have You Filled A Bucket
  

  Triangular Based Prism: 4 Bucket filling ideas each!

  Today? and How Full Is Your Bucket? which both helped to facilitate the continuation of a conversation we started during our Community Talk about treating each other with kindness. We did an activity called BUGS & WISHES, where students said what bugged them (annoyed them) and what they wish would happen instead. MANY people had issues with friends being unkind or saying mean things.   They were so proud of their efforts to change this behavior and happily recognized bucket filling moments when they could lift someone up, telling me or another adult. They also articulated when they felt others were DIPPING into their buckets, or “dumping them.” We talked about how no one can dump it, because we’re in charge of holding onto our imaginary buckets. No one else has that power.

They had some great ideas for how to treat others!

Science: Paper Towels, Colored Dye and Chromatography!

Over the past month, the kids have had many opportunities to see diffusion/osmosis in action.  This week, we continued looking at a new example of osmosis while introducing a little bit of chromatography (separating out components within a mixture).  The kids used markers and food coloring to put designs/drops on paper towels.  They then had the option to wet the paper towel to see how the colors behaved.  Before starting, we asked the kids to state any hypotheses.

• Some of the kids wadded up their paper towel and dropped the entire wad into a
  bucket of water.  One pulled it out immediately to inspect her paper towel – “The red (dots of dye) turned pink, the blue turned purple, and the yellow is still yellow.  And the water is tan!”
• Those that left their towel in the water for a longer period of time discovered that the dots of dye disappeared.  “All the coloring went into the water so now the towel is just normal again.  But it’s a little bit colored from the water.”
• One discovered that the water turned green, while the paper towel was a pink color.  After leaving it outside for an hour, they discovered that the paper towel had turned green as well!  “It must be the sun that turned it!”
• Some kids held their towel and dipped the edge in water and discovered that the water soaked up!  “My color is also going up!”  A few enjoyed using the measuring tape to see how high the water went.
• Some enjoyed making tie-dye patterns by dripping water onto the paper towel with transfer pipettes.  “The blue and the yellow are almost touching…. look, it turned green where it touched!”

Music Video Starring Room 7!

Room 12 (first grade) has been hard at work on an ongoing project to make a music video after Henry asked to learn the moves to the Gummy Bear song.  Many of the Room 7 kids decided that they wanted to have their own music video as well, so interested kids have been spending their recess time working on this project.  Christina led the charge, recording with her phone!

Box City Discussions

We took some time for kids to share ideas for what they planned to do during Box City week.  Through these discussions, the kids worked together on creating some agreements:

• No weapons, even toy ones, allowed in any part of your booth.  One child talked about a game that required water squirt guns.  When the school-wide agreement about weapons was brought up, kids immediately started brainstorming other alternativies (“What about water balloons?”)
• Respect your surroundings and don’t break other kid’s boxes.  For the kids who were considering doing games with water in their booth, we talked about how water balloons were banned last year because students were getting neighbors’ boxes wet.  Everyone agreed that that was not being neighborly, and the kids had some interesting ideas about how to ensure that water play could be done in a positive way.
• Items sold must be homemade.  There was discussion about what it meant for something to be homemade, and kids enjoyed listing out how they were planning to create their items to be sold.
• Only healthy foods can be given away.  One child mentioned an idea of selling homemade chocolate chip cookies.  When we asked whether that was a healthy choice, most of the kids agreed that it was not, and the kids immediately started brainstorming different fruits, veggies, and snack options that would be good for the body.

Get ready to rock!

It’ll be exciting to see everyone’s ideas come to fruition next week!

Fairyopolis at Box City

The fairies have been visiting Room 7 for the past month, and the kids have enjoyed

Coming up with agreements for Fairyopolis!

writing letters to their new tiny friends, learning about different types of wildflowers, and building fairy homes out of cardboard.

After hearing Ellie Luz read last month, many other children felt inspired to read to the

Sthanika’s read-aloud!

class, too. They begged me to create a sign-up and kept asking when they would read! So, we took time to create this list, below. They chose where on the list they wanted to be (knowing the higher or lower they were meant sooner or later), but please talk with your child about when they’re scheduled to read and whether they’ll be able to prepare their book, in time. This is the list that the kids asked me to put together, because they wanted to read a book to the class themselves. If your child’s goal is to do this, but he/she’s not ready right now, I can definitely have him/her go later! For children who aren’t reading yet but volunteered, too, they could simply do a picture walk (narrating the story orally based on each picture)! The last option is perhaps they can read with a partner, taking turns, or they can read a page and I read a page. The bottom line is that I want them to take as much ownership over this activity as possible 🙂 

What type of book?

Whatever book they want! From BOB books to picture books. It’s their choice of whatever makes them feel comfortable and CONFIDENT.

List of read-aloud dates and students:

1. Ellie  3/23
2. Genevieve 3/24
   

   They loved this part!

3. Logan 3/29
4. Dominic 3/30
5. Jada 4/21
6. Claudia 4/27
7. Maddie S./Izzy 5/4 (reschedule?)
8. Nakiya 5/11
9. Pranav 5/12
10. Tyler 5/18
11. Maddie K.  5/18
12. Sthanika 6/1
13. Sadie 6/7
14. Donovan 6/8
15. Quentin 6/9
16. Oscar 6/13
17. Byron 6/14
18. Nadia 6/15
19. Cameron 6/16
20. Steele 6/20

Opted Out (Maybe Next Year!)

Henry

Nicholas

Friday Skill Sharing Schedule (9:15ish-9:50am)

Children will have an opportunity to explain, demonstrate and field question/comments

Sthanika shared her science knowledge!

on ONE (1) skill of their choice. Some have to decide WHICH SKILL because they thought of two. Those children have an (*) next to their name. They have 5-10 minutes each. You can discuss with them how they may want to show their skill, what props they might need, how they will utilize the space of our classroom safely, and help them prepare for this public speaking opportunity by rehearsing it with them. I will prepare the children to be encouraging, kind, and respectful audience members. Some children already told me what they chose as a skill. So that’s why some names already have a skill in parenthesis. If your child has not chosen a skill, yet, please help them choose and prepare before their debut! Please see the following sign-ups, this week’s in bold:

• March 31: Cici (Flexibility), Genevieve (Art)
• April 21: Byron (Karate) and Nadia (Cat’s cradle)
• April 28: Tyler (Dance moves), Ellie (Drawing), Maddie K (Gymnastics)
• May 5: Donovan (Hockey), Pranav (Art), 
• May 12:  Dominic (Basketball), Oscar (T-Ball) and Jada (Gymnastics)
• May 26: Logan (?) and Henry (Gymnastics)
• June 2: Cameron (Gymnastics), Sthanika (_________) and , Maddie S. (Gymnastics)
• June 9: Nakiya (Teaching Reading) and Nicholas (_______), Steele (Protecting)
• June 16: Quentin (Karate) and Sadie (Dance moves)

Maddie S. shared her German language skills!

 

Cameron shared her art skills!

• Progress Reports Underway: I am done with assessments and have started writing their reports! I’m half-way through and it’s been amazing to look back on their incredible learning journeys.  What a privilege it is to teach your children!
• Child-led Spring Conferences: Click here for the Sign up genius for June!
• Memorial Day: NO SCHOOL Monday May 29th
• Sub for Kate: Wednesday May 31st
• Box City: It’s during Conference Week this year, June 5-9th. Start collecting large cardboard boxes to bring in for your child and others! One per child has worked in the past. Please contact Christine G. for questions at cch722 (at) gmail.com.
• Community Snack Schedule:  This week is the Wayne family. Please use the snack signup genius here to sign up for a week to bring snack. Let the Snack Coordinator,
  

  Sheila is teaching kids to sew pillows and other items on Thursdays!

  Kudsana (kkizaraly@yahoo.com), know if you need special accommodations or are unable to fulfill your commitment. And a BIG thank you to the Ramam family for snack last week!

• APPLY SUNSCREEN: Please make sure your child is protected and prepared for sunny weather! We have a sunscreen basket under the morning message. Feel free to drop in the kind you like and shoot me an email saying I can use it on your child. Thanks!
• LAST Parent Meeting Date:  Wednesday June 14th.
• Whole-Kinder Pod Hike: Monday June 19th – We will go on a nature hike behind the school. Technically it’s a field trip, so you’ll be hearing from Arielle!
• Whole Kinder-Pod Water Exploration Celebration: Wednesday June 21, Victoria Tran (Joan’s coordinator) will email details soon.
• ADULTS-ONLY End of the Year Party: Saturday June 24, 12-6pm at 1257 Lakeside
  

  Join us on Saturday 6/24 at our pool to celebrate a great year!

  Drive, Sunnyvale CA 94085. Please join me at my complex for an end of the year pool party/BBQ potluck. Free parking in the garage, but I recommend carpooling. We have a grill, a pool, good music and a cabana! Feel free to bring a yummy dish or drinks and DEFINITELY a bathing suit 🙂 Adam and I have rented the cabana adjacent to our pool, and are looking forward to hosting you for some fun in the sun to celebrate all your hard work this year! Let’s party like it’s 1999!

• Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies: Friday, June 23, 11:30-1:10pm. We’ve had 
  great year of goal-setting and reaching since we began our Olympic Brain & Body Goal Wall! Now, it’s almost time for the Kinder Academic Games of 2016-2017 to end 🙂 Parents, please join us in class on the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL for the Special Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies for Room 7. We’ll celebrate our accomplishments, together, parade around the school passing around “the goal torch” and have a nice potluck! More details to come.
• Enrichments/Coordinators for FIRST GRADE: Think about what enrichments or
  

  Help remind your little ones of what’s expected with our new equipment!

  classroom jobs you may want to take on for first grade. I would like to start making plans for curriculum with those volunteers for next year. For definitions of the roles below visit https://discoverykinderworld.wordpress.com/classroom-coordinator-info/:

  1. Classroom Coordinator-
  2. Field Trip Coordinator -Arielle Kurtze (taken)
  3. Class Librarian/Scholastic Coordinator –
  4. Social Events Coordinator – Jennifer Coscarart (taken)
  5. Documentation Parent – (THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! A Weekly/Monthly job)
  6. Science – Christine Ging, _______________
  7. Cooking –  
  8. Arts & Crafts –
  9. Gardening  –

Weekly Highlights!

• Project: Fairy House Building/Decorating
  

  NEW line up system!

• Box City: We continued conversations about Box City (coming up in two weeks!)
• Fairies Still Visit: They were sky camping this week, so they only visited us on Thursday when they returned!
• Trouble in Line-Up Paradise: We were having issues traveling to and from the playground. So, we had a few meetings and came up with a line-up strategy that worked so far – the buddy system! This will make a huge difference in eliminating power struggles to be near the front, shoving, cutting, etc.  We line up the same way, every time, holding hands.
• Community Talks: We discussed several agenda items, timed 7 minutes each. Whatever we didn’t finish, we left for the net day. Some of the topics were making playground toy agreements, talking about taking better care of the materials around the room, and socio-emotional issues that came up about people not treating one another with kindness in words or actions.
• Skill Shares: Logan (math facts) and Henry (gymnastics)
  

  Identifying shape names, matching them up, and writing how many sides each has.

• Literacy: Writing observations of veggies after being soaked in the colored water, Story Workshop, and letter writing to fairies.
• Math: Talking about shapes, their characteristics, and the difference between 2D (flat – height and width) and 3D shapes (height, width and DEPTH)
• Science: We continued experiments with osmosis using colored water vegetables!!!
• Just-Right Reading! Each morning, parents can help kids choose leveled books totake home and practice reading with children. Please be sure to return the books and put them in the proper bins!
• Filling Buckets and Taking Names! We read the books Have You Filled A Bucket Today? and How Full Is Your Bucket? which both helped to facilitate the continuation of a conversation we started during our Community Talk. We did an activity called BUGS & WISHES, where students said what bugged them (annoyed them) and what they wish would happen instead. MANY people had issues with friends being unkind or saying mean things. So, I introduced my classroom community bucket and said that they could write a drop for every nice deed they did or kind word they said in our classroom. “When the bucket is full, that means our community is stronger, now. We feel better, more confident, more supported by our friends. You will also earn an extra 10 minutes of exploration every time it is filled.” A few kids only heard that last part and quickly tried to fill the bucket with silly reasons! However, most of them took this seriously and together we filled our bucket 3x in one week. They were so proud of their efforts and happily recognized bucket filling moments when they could lift someone up, telling me or another adult. They also articulated when they felt others were DIPPING into their buckets, or “dumping them.” We talked about how no one can dump it, because we’re in charge of holding onto our imaginary buckets. No one else has that power.

Lemonade Stand Budget: Update!

So far, we spent money on the things they originally came up with plus a ball cart, because as Nakiya said, “You should just buy the ball cart from the picture we used for the agreements (to which everyone voted and agreed)!!!! Because we can’t use the lunch cart forever. That’s just a temporary solution.”  Our ball cart arrived Wednesday, and with Mercedes’s help and some dedicated Kindergarten assistants, the ball cart was successfully assembled on Thursday!

I made a little slideshow of visuals based on our conversations, so far, to further discuss our plan with the remaining amount.  They discussed how much we should allocate to various funds with what was left of our budget. Maddie K. and a few others asked us to save some of it in case anything breaks and we have to replace it (i.e. a saving cushion). Henry suggested we donate some of it to the homeless, because “You can’t really buy a ball or
anything for 16 cents, so we could give that to people who need it.” Others jumped in saying we could essentially set aside $20 and give it to the food bank we visited earlier this year (Second Harvest). So, we looked at what we had left and thought about how much should be saved, spent, and donated to a good cause (helping the poor).

We conducted A LOT of votes! Children had suggestions and asked questions. They talked to one another and then reconvened. There was even a little lobbying going on, though they didn’t know that’s what they were doing 🙂 Eventually, we came upon an agreement. Turns out, we have a class of savers and philanthropists! There was actually an argument about why we might not want to save 50% and GIVE 50% to the poor – it was quite touching. In the end, they agreed to save 50% for savings (in case things break and need to be replaced), 20% to the homeless (Second Harvest), and 30% for spending on more equipment.  We talked about what other possible toys we would want and this coming week, we will follow up on our wish list!

Note for Parents: I appreciate you letting the kids figure out how to solve their problem with the lack of access to P.E. equipment. Many parents have asked if they can bring in balls or other toys and I asked before that we hold off. NOW, YOU CAN BRING THEM! Donations are greatly appreciated 🙂 Thank you for waiting!

We’re still going full-force with our study on osmosis and diffusion.  

VEGETABLES AND COLORED WATER

Dissection: The inside of the veggie was NOT dyed!

Because this experiment was so similar to the one we conducted last week, we took this opportunity to explain best practices when conducting scientific experiments.   We talked about how scientists had to follow specific step-by-step procedures when doing their experiments to ensure that results were accurate and repeatable.

While they were preparing their cups of colored water and vegetables, we asked the kids to make hypotheses about what would happen to the vegetables the next day:

Building on our vegetable experiments, we set up a side experiment looking at how salt water affected live plants.  We had two plants – one that the kids would water with salt water and one that the kids would water with fresh water.  Thanks to Julie Olsen (Gardening Enrichment) for providing the bean plants for this activity!

Box City – Creative Learning Zone

This year, the staff requested that the intent of Box City be on community building – encouraging students to think beyond their own businesses and look at ways to make the overall community more positive and enriching for all the citizens.

One issue that has been brought up in the past is addressing the needs of the low-income citizen (aka kids who don’t have successful businesses and run out of bucks early in the game).  In the past, these citizens could earn bucks by doing civil jobs such as collecting trash.  These jobs didn’t provide the same sense of pride and ownership as running a successful business.  For some, it had the opposite effect.  Students said that civil jobs were “embarrassing”, “demeaning”, and “boring”.

Under the guidance of their first-grade teacher, the kids in Room 12 set to tackle this issue and decided to set up a “no-bucks required zone” for the citizens of Box City.

Room 12 is planning the specifics of this open-to-all citizen section of Box City.  It will include communal building challenges.  Room 12 students will also be manning free activities in the dirt area around the playground.

This zone is located in the playground area, including the hockey rink.

We talked briefly about the no-bucks-required zone to get Room 7’s initial feedback and ideas for what they would want to see in there.

• “All kids should be able to go to the free zone, not just kids that don’t have money.  That’s called excluding and discriminating if you only allowed kids with no money to go.”
• “I don’t like the idea of a free area because then nobody would want to buy from my business.  They would just get stuff for free.  It’s not fair for me.”
• Many wanted to convert the hockey area into a dedicated space for kids to invent cardboard-based sport (“We could do cardboard hockey.”  “Or basketball!”  “Or soccer!”  “Or golf!”)
• “Maybe kids can get some bucks if they play one of the cardboard sport games.  Or maybe they can get a prize.”

We passed this feedback to Room 12!

Children’s Read-Aloud Schedule!

After hearing Ellie Luz read last month, many other children felt inspired to read to the

Tyler’s read-aloud!

class, too. They begged me to create a sign-up and kept asking when they would read! So, we took time to create this list, below. They chose where on the list they wanted to be (knowing the higher or lower they were meant sooner or later), but please talk with your child about when they’re scheduled to read and whether they’ll be able to prepare their book, in time. This is the list that the kids asked me to put together, because they wanted to read a book to the class themselves. If your child’s goal is to do this, but he/she’s not ready right now, I can definitely have him/her go later! For children who aren’t reading yet but volunteered, too, they could simply do a picture walk (narrating the story orally based on each picture)! The last option is perhaps they can read with a partner, taking turns, or they can read a page and I read a page. The bottom line is that I want them to take as much ownership over this activity as possible 🙂 

What type of book?

Whatever book they want! From BOB books to picture books. It’s their choice of whatever makes them feel comfortable and CONFIDENT.

List of read-aloud dates and students:

1. Ellie  3/23
2. Genevieve 3/24
3. Logan 3/29
4. Dominic 3/30
5. Jada 4/21
6. Claudia 4/27
7. Maddie S./Izzy 5/4 (reschedule?)
8. Nakiya 5/11
9. Pranav 5/12
10. Tyler 5/18
11. Maddie K.  5/18
12. Sthanika 6/1
13. __________ 6/2
14. Sadie 6/7
15. Donovan 6/8
16. Quentin 6/9
17. Oscar 6/13
18. Byron 6/14
19. Nadia 6/15
20. Cameron 6/16
21. __________ 6/20
22. __________ 6/22

Opted Out (for now?)

Henry

Steele

Nicholas

Friday Skill Sharing Schedule (9:15ish-9:50am)

Children will have an opportunity to explain, demonstrate and field question/comments

Logan shared his math facts about multiplication, explaining repeated addition, and demonstrating 3-digit addition!

on ONE (1) skill of their choice. Some have to decide WHICH SKILL because they thought of two. Those children have an (*) next to their name. They have 5-10 minutes each. You can discuss with them how they may want to show their skill, what props they might need, how they will utilize the space of our classroom safely, and help them prepare for this public speaking opportunity by rehearsing it with them. I will prepare the children to be encouraging, kind, and respectful audience members. Some children already told me what they chose as a skill. So that’s why some names already have a skill in parenthesis. If your child has not chosen a skill, yet, please help them choose and prepare before their debut! Please see the following sign-ups, this week’s in bold:

• March 31: Cici (Flexibility), Genevieve (Art)
• April 21: Byron (Karate) and Nadia (Cat’s cradle)
• April 28: Tyler (Dance moves), Ellie (Drawing), Maddie K (Gymnastics)
• May 5: Donovan (Hockey), Pranav (Art), 
• May 12:  Dominic (Basketball), Oscar (T-Ball) and Jada (Gymnastics)
• May 26: Logan (?) and Henry (Gymnastics)
• June 2: Cameron (Gymnastics), Sthanika (_________) and , Maddie S. (Gymnastics)
• June 9: Nakiya (Teaching Reading) and Nicholas (_______), Steele (Protecting)
• June 16: Quentin (Running) and Sadie (Dance moves)

Henry shares his gymnastic skills and taught us how to do a favorite move!

• Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies: Friday, June 23, 11:30-1:10pm. We’ve had a
  

  Help remind your little ones what’s expected with their new equipment!

  great year of goal-setting and reaching since we began our Olympic Brain & Body Goal Wall! Now, it’s almost time for the Kinder Academic Games of 2016-2017 to end 🙂 Parents, please join us in class on the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL for the Special Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies for Room 7. We’ll celebrate our accomplishments, together, parade around the school passing around “the goal torch” and have a nice potluck! More details to come.

• Child-led Spring Conferences: Click here for the Sign up genius for June!
• End of Year Assessments: I am doing assessments during the day (Quiet Time and Exploration). My hope was that doing it during the day would save you scheduling 2 days to come in with your child, as opposed to 1. 
• Box City: It’s during Conference Week this year, June 5-9th. Start collecting large cardboard boxes to bring in for your child and others! One per child has worked in the past. Please contact Christine G. for questions at cch722 (at) gmail.com.
  

  Thank you Wendy, Tyler’s mom, for helping us get our first round of items for Monday!

• Community Snack Schedule:  This week is the Ramam family. Please use the snack signup genius here to sign up for a week to bring snack. Let the Snack Coordinator,
  Kudsana (kkizaraly@yahoo.com), know if you need special accommodations or are unable to fulfill your commitment. And a BIG thank you to the Olsen family for snack last week!
• APPLY SUNSCREEN: Please make sure your child is protected and prepared for sunny weather! We have a sunscreen basket under the morning message. Feel free to drop in the kind you like and shoot me an email saying I can use it on your child. Thanks!
• Staff Development Day: NO SCHOOL Friday May 19
• Memorial Day: NO SCHOOL Monday May 29th
• Other FUTURE Parent Meeting Dates: Wednesday May 24th, and Wednesday June 14th.

Weekly Highlights!

• D2 In-Service Day: No School Friday May 19
  

  Kid-Read Aloud: Tyler read an excerpt from Calvin and Hobbes!

• Sub for Kate: Wednesday (Lonnell) and Thursday (Shalini)
• Art: Popsicle stick fairies (to go in the houses!)
• Project: Fair House Building
• Box City: We continued conversations about Box City (coming up in two weeks!)
• Fairies Still Visit!
• Community Talks: We discussed several agenda items , timed 7 minutes each. Whatever we didn’t finish, we left for the net day. Some of the topics were making playground toy agreements, talking about taking better care of the materials around the room, and socio-emotional issues that came up about people not treating one another with kindness in words or actions.
• Children’s Read Aloud: Tyler and Maddie K.!
• Literacy: Every child wrote his/her wish list for items to buy for the playground
  

  Thanks for subbing Lonnell and Shalini!

  equipment.

• Science: We continued experiments with osmosis using salt water, gummy bears, gak, and now vegetables!!!
• Just-Right Reading! Each morning, parents can help kids choose leveled books totake home and practice reading with children. Please be sure to return the books and put them in the proper bins!
• Focus Spots: The lack of listening and responding during group times merited spots around the room. Children came to me and asked for a focus spot if they exhausted other strategies. Now, everyone has one taped to the floor!

Lemonade Stand Budget: Update!

To-do next week!

Due to my unexpected absence, I wasn’t able to discuss this with them in length the information from the picture on the left. However, I made a little slideshow of visuals based on their conversations, so far, to further discuss our plan.  They discussed agreements for the new equipment and Logan helped me make the visuals to accompany them, because students noted “Some kids can’t read the words, yet!”

Next week, we will talk about what we will do with what is left of our budget. Students did talk a little bit about ways to spend the money, though. Maddie K. and a few others asked us to save some of it in case anything breaks and we have to replace it (i.e. a saving cushion). Henry suggested we donate some of it to the homeless, because “You can’t really buy a ball or anything for 16 cents, so we could give that to people who need it.” Others jumped in saying we could essentially set aside $20 and give it to the food bank we visited earlier this year (Second Harvest).

To-do next week!

While I was gone, I had Shalini give the students a “wish list” literacy activity to complete. We will use those to discuss what we will buy with our left over budget, during the next community talk. So far, we spent money on the things they originally came up with plus a ball cart, because as Nakiya said, “You should just buy the ball cart from the picture we used for the agreements (to which everyone voted and agreed)!!!! Because we can’t use the lunch cart forever. That’s just a temporary solution.”

Science:  Gummy Bear Osmosis Experiments Continue!

This week, we continued exploring concepts of osmosis, looking at how salt affects the movement of water!  The kids did a number of guided experiments, and had a chance to practice making hypotheses and comparing their results against a Control (the ‘thing’ in the experiment that you didn’t change)

 

Activity #1: Gummy Bears with Salt Water

A couple of weeks ago, the kids had a chance to see what happened when a gummy bear was immersed in water for a day.  They also had a chance to conduct their own gummy bear experiments.

Oscar wanted to see what happened when we added salt water to his gummy bear. I don’t know if he kept the experiment going long enough to see what happened, but I figured that testing salt’s effect on gummy bears was a good experiment for the whole class to try.  The kids prepped the gummy bears the day before by filling their cups with water, adding two spoonfuls of salt, mixing the water solution, and then dropped a gummy bear into the cup.

Christine asked the kids to give a hypothesis of what they thought would happen with the salty gummy bears.  Some of the responses:

• It’ll maybe get bigger, then get smaller, but then maybe get bigger again.
• It’ll taste salty.
• It’ll get smushier.
• It’ll get harder.
• It’ll sink.  But I don’t know if it’ll still be sinking tomorrow.
• The same as {previous child}
• It’ll fall apart.

The next morning we checked them, comparing the salty gummy bears to a Control gummy bear (the gummy bear which we didn’t do anything to it).  The kids made verbal observations:

• It’s a little bit bigger, and it’s puffier.  Like stickier.
• It’s got some white stuff inside it.  I think it’s the salt.
• One side is white – that’s the side where the salt was.
• I can squish it and it only breaks a little bit, it’s not too delicate.
• I can still see the “A” on it (the original gummy bear has the letter “A” molded on its belly)
• It feels slimey.

Honestly, the fact that the gummy bear was larger than the control was unexpected, as we’d assumed that the size of the gummy bears would stay the same due to the high concentration of salt in the water.  Science surprises us all!

The kids then had a chance to try the gummy bear.  Most took a bite and spit it out a few seconds later – “it’s super salty!  Where did the sugar go?”  “The salt went inside the gummy bear!”

Activity #2: Gak with Salt Water

This is actually an experiment that we’ve done before, but, because we’re revisiting how salt affects the movement of water through barriers, we thought it might be good to repeat it again in a more controlled manner.  The kids each received a ziploc baggie with a small amount of gak in it.  After making a hypothesis, they added a spoonful or two of salt, closed the bag, and observed.  Almost immediately, they noticed the gak changing.

“There’s water coming out!”

“My gak is starting to get lumpy together.”

“The gak is turning white.  I think the salt is going onto it and making it white.”

The kids discovered that even more water had been released out of the gak after letting the gak sit for 30 minutes.  “The water that was inside the gak is going outside to be with the salt!”

Activity #3: Veggies with Salt Water

To continue our exploration on osmosis and salt, we looked at how salt water affected vegetables.  The kids each got their own cup to fill with carrots, celery, and raw potatoes.  They then added salt water to their cups and left the cups overnight.  (We forgot to ask for hypotheses!  Oops!)

The next day, the kids got to make observations, comparing the salty veggies with Control veggies (veggies soaked in plain water).  Some notes:

• All the veggies in the salt water are more soft and bendy than the ones in plain water.
• The potatoes in salt water are more brown and bumpy than the ones in normal water.
• The veggies in the salt water taste salty and no one wants to eat them.
• The veggies in the salt water got smaller.
• The celery in the salt water feels fluffy.  The celery in normal water feels hard.
• The salt water veggies are the best!
• Sat water veggies are bendable.

We think the kids really enjoyed seeing how different things were affected by salt water and practicing the art of observing against a Control in an experiment.  Next time we’ll be exporing diffusion and osmosis of colored water!

Box City: Discussing Economics and Bucks

We began talking about Box City a week ago. The conversation was more around what makes a city and then what makes a community. As we discussed how to plan and run a business with the lemonade stand last week, this inspired many children to think about their own Box City ideas for a business, this week. Maddie K asked, “Can we make a book store? We can make books like we do at Quiet Time and sell them at our store at Box City!”

This week, kids are preparing for Box City week (June 5-9)!  For parents unfamiliar with Box City, “Box City bucks” (wood sample pieces) are given to the students on the 2nd day of Box City week.  These pieces represent the money in Box City, and students have the opportunity to use them to buy/sell items/services from each other’s businesses.  The discussion we had Tuesday morning focused on three different Box City scenarios that reflect actual economic/social situations in the real world:

1.  A child losing their bucks.  Should they be able to get replacement bucks or do they have to deal with the loss?  [This scenario pertains to the concept of insurance.]

– pick up trash (6 votes)

– open your shop and sell things

– teacher should give replacement bucks (5 votes)

– ask a friend for a loan

2.  A child providing a carnival game for free because they wanted to do something nice for the community.  Should they be able to get bucks from the teacher for their contribution or will they have to accept that they will not get income? [This scenario pertains to the concept of gvt grants]

– yes, they should get some reward for helping the community (6 votes)

– no, they don’t get money (8 votes)

– they can accept donations

– one child said she would set up a tip jar and donate the tips to kids doing nice/free things

3.  A child having an excessive amount of bucks and seeing those around them with no bucks [This scenario pertains to the concept of charity/donations]

– the child should share their bucks (12 votes)

– the child should see if the others want to work together with her

– the child should keep all their bucks (1 vote)

It was an interesting and informative discussion!

Children’s Read-Aloud Schedule!

After hearing Ellie Luz read last month, many other children felt inspired to read to the

Tyler’s read-aloud!

class, too. They begged me to create a sign-up and kept asking when they would read! So, we took time to create this list, below. They chose where on the list they wanted to be (knowing the higher or lower they were meant sooner or later), but please talk with your child about when they’re scheduled to read and whether they’ll be able to prepare their book, in time. This is the list that the kids asked me to put together, because they wanted to read a book to the class themselves. If your child’s goal is to do this, but he/she’s not ready right now, I can definitely have him/her go later! For children who aren’t reading yet but volunteered, too, they could simply do a picture walk (narrating the story orally based on each picture)! The last option is perhaps they can read with a partner, taking turns, or they can read a page and I read a page. The bottom line is that I want them to take as much ownership over this activity as possible 🙂 

What type of book?

Whatever book they want! From BOB books to picture books. It’s their choice of whatever makes them feel comfortable and CONFIDENT.

List of read-aloud dates and students:

1. Ellie  3/23
   

   Maddie K. reads aloud spontaneously!

2. Genevieve 3/24
3. Logan 3/29
4. Dominic 3/30
5. Jada 4/21
6. Claudia 4/27
7. Maddie S./Izzy 5/4 (reschedule?)
8. Nakiya 5/11
9. Pranav 5/12
10. Tyler 5/18
11. Maddie K.  6/1
12. Sthanika 6/2
13. Sadie 6/7
14. Donovan 6/8
15. Quentin 6/9
16. Oscar 6/13
17. Byron 6/14
18. Nadia 6/15
19. Cameron 6/16

Opted Out (for now?)

Henry

Steele

Nicholas

Friday Skill Sharing Schedule (9:15ish-9:50am)

Pranav shared his art two weeks ago!

Children will have an opportunity to explain, demonstrate and field question/comments on ONE (1) skill of their choice. Some have to decide WHICH SKILL because they thought of two. Those children have an (*) next to their name. They have 5-10 minutes each. You can discuss with them how they may want to show their skill, what props they might need, how they will utilize the space of our classroom safely, and help them prepare for this public speaking opportunity by rehearsing it with them. I will prepare the children to be encouraging, kind, and respectful audience members. Some children already told me what they chose as a skill. So that’s why some names already have a skill in parenthesis. If your child has not chosen a skill, yet, please help them choose and prepare before their debut! Please see the following sign-ups, this week’s in bold:

• March 31: Cici (Flexibility), Genevieve (Art)
  

  Donovan shared his hockey skills two weeks ago!

• April 21: Byron (Karate) and Nadia (Cat’s cradle)
• April 28: Tyler (Dance moves), Ellie (Drawing), Maddie K (Gymnastics)
• May 5: Donovan (Hockey), Pranav (Art), 
• May 12:  Dominic (Basketball), Oscar (T-Ball) and Jada (Gymnastics)
• May 26: Logan (?) and Henry (Gymnastics)
• June 2: Cameron (Gymnastics), Sthanika (_________) and , Maddie S. (Gymnastics)
• June 9: Nakiya (Teaching Reading) and Nicholas (_______), Steele (Protecting)
• June 16: Quentin (Running) and Sadie (Dance moves)

• Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies: Friday, June 23, 11:30-1:10pm. We’ve had a
  

  Lemonade Stand: We turned a total profit of $366.16!

  great year of goal-setting and reaching since we began our Olympic Brain & Body Goal Wall! Now, it’s almost time for the Kinder Academic Games of 2016-2017 to end 🙂 Parents, please join us in class on the LAST DAY OF SCHOOL for the Special Kindergarten Closing Ceremonies for Room 7. We’ll celebrate our accomplishments, together, parade around the school passing around “the goal torch” and have a nice potluck! More details to come.

• Child-led Spring Conferences: Click here for the Sign up genius for June!
• End of Year Assessments: I am doing assessments during the day (Quiet Time and Exploration). My hope was that doing it during the day would save you scheduling 2 days to come in with your child, as opposed to 1. 
• Box City: It’s during Conference Week this year, June 5-9th. Start collecting large cardboard boxes to bring in for your child and others! One per child has worked in the past. Please contact Christine G. for questions at cch722 (at) gmail.com.
  

  Students decided what important info needed to be on the lemonade stand posters and fliers

• Community Snack Schedule:  This week is the Olsen family. Please use the snack signup genius here to sign up for a week to bring snack. Let the Snack Coordinator,
  Kudsana (kkizaraly@yahoo.com), know if you need special accommodations or are unable to fulfill your commitment. And a BIG thank you to the Ho/Fukuhara family for snack last week!
• APPLY SUNSCREEN: Please make sure your child is protected and prepared for sunny weather! We have a sunscreen basket under the morning message. Feel free to drop in the kind you like and shoot me an email saying I can use it on your child. Thanks!
• Staff Development Day: NO SCHOOL Friday May 19
• Memorial Day: NO SCHOOL Monday May 29th
• Other FUTURE Parent Meeting Dates: Wednesday May 24th, and Wednesday June 14th.

Fairy Notes: Esmeralda wrote to us this time!

Weekly Highlights!

• Happy Mother’s Day: You ladies are fierce, strong, and amazing women who
  

  Happy Mother’s Day from Spanish Club!

  participate actively in the classroom and your children’s learning. Thank you for ALL you do and we hope you like your special mother’s day gift 🙂

• Art: Making frames for kids’ pictures to give as presents for Mother’s Day!
• Lemonade Stand: Kids learned how to get what they want by working hard and having fun! We started and finished our lemonade stand together to raise money for Kindergarten playground equipment after Coach David said we weren’t allowed to use his, anymore, because we were responsible in taking care of it. We wanted to buy our own to practice being responsible and earn back our privileges.  Students learned how to plan, execute, and run a successful business from start to finish. They worked HARD, earning a total of $366.16 over 4 days!
• Box City: We started conversations about Box City. What is a city? What does it have inside it? What is a community? What does it feel like to be part of a community? We discussed ways that we’d like to focus on building a community vs. the previous box city conglomerate of competitive businesses based on the
  

  Box City Meeting

  commodity of “sugary” goods.

• Fairies! Esmeralda, Luna’s sister, visited us! Having these visitors has inspired children to try their hand at practicing sentences, practicing neat handwriting, more spelling, and writing questions 🙂 It’s really revved up our literacy curriculum…Gotta love those fairies!
• Kinder Sing
• Skill Sharing: We share every Friday! Dominic and Jada shared their skills with us  🙂 (Why? Many children have brought in toy items for show-and-tell, which became a materialistic contest. So, we stopped bringing in items and started bringing in SKILLS. Everyone is good at something and this spring is everyone’s time to shine! Take a look at the schedule so far!)
• Math: We brushed up our addition/subtraction skills with money for our lemonade stand! We also talked about supply and demand, daily profit goals, and daily profit averages (the amount of money total divided by the days we sold our lemonade).
  

  Reflection: Students looked back at their portfolios. They put post-its on what they wanted to share during conferences that showed their learning.

• Buddies: They came to our room and helped kids wrap their Mother’s Day presents. Then, they played together!
• Literacy: We played literacy games, did fairy letter writing, handwriting with lemonade posters and fliers, and self-assessments.
• Science: We continued experiments with gummy bears on osmosis!
• Just-Right Reading! Each morning, parents can help kids choose leveled books totake home and practice reading with children. Please be sure to return the books and put them in the proper bins!
• Focus Spots: The lack of listening and responding during group times merited spots around the room. Children came to me and asked for a focus spot if they exhausted other strategies. Now, everyone has one taped to the floor!

Lemonade Stand: Applying Academic Skills to Real Life!

Context is everything when it comes to learning! We’ve been practicing equations, counting, subtraction, and addition all year. This was the perfect opportunity to put all those skills to use and see just how valuable they are in real life, as well as how much we learned!

Step 1: Community Meetings 

Students wanted to raise money for playground equipment for our pod after they lost P.E. equipment privileges with Coach David’s, due to their lack of responsibility in putting it back after use.  They were upset and needed a way to earn back Coach David’s trust. So, we had a meeting. We talked about the problem and asked kids what we should do. They’ve been wanting to “sell stuff” for months. So, they brainstormed ideas about how we could raise money selling different goods to buy our OWN equipment and learn to practice responsibility using that. We voted and settled on a lemonade stand! Some kids had experience with this, before, and had good suggestions to get us started.

Step 2:  Making a Business Plan

We talked about how we’d get the resources we needed. Parents were our first thought! So, our community pooled together a lemonade stand, cups, lemons, reamers/juicers, sugar, and pitchers. Then, we had to think about the cost of the lemonade. “LET’S CHARGE $20!” some said, “No, $5…or $2.” We had to talk about cost and worth in terms of goods. “If we charge $20 for 1 cup of lemonade…would you buy it? (“No!!!”) Neither would I and I love you to pieces, but I am NOT spending $20 that could get me two burritos at Chipotle on a dinky cup of lemonade!” That quickly brought us down to voting between $1 or $2, and $1 won! We talked about how who our customers would be (the school) and how to get the word out (posters, fliers, word of mouth). Nakiya suggested we have a catchy slogan – so we went with “Cool for a hot day!” They showed their posters to other teachers in the pod to get feedback on the sign and went back to incorporate information they were missing. Students asked me to email the staff to let their classes know, as well. We talked about how long we’d have the stand (four days) and the times we were able to actually run it (2:30-3:30 Tuesday-Friday, except Wednesday which was 1:00-1:30.) They had to think about how to make information about our event CLEAR and  VISIBLE, which meant really talking about what went on the sign.  As several kids pointed out a couple times – “It’s got too much stuff on it!”  and “You can’t read the important things. We can’t have so many drawings everywhere.” and “It’s too busy! Like, we’re not selling hearts guys. We’re selling lemonade!” It also meant walking around the school to find high-traffic spots to post the posters and seeing if we could notice them easily from various access points (corridors, the gate, the quad, etc.).

Putting up our poster in front of the cafeteria!

Step 3: Learning About Company Production

Arielle started us off on our juicing process during cooking on Monday!

Students learned about production (making lemonade) which meant juicing A LOT OF LEMONS! They learned about quality control (making sure we don’t leave good juice filled lemon carcasses), repeatedly using the same recipe steps to mix the lemonade, etc. They saw how much effort it took to make lemon juice and then the steps involved in turning it into a desirable product. THEY took ownership over this process. By the end, they were helping each other juice lemons, reminding them to check the pulp and rinds, straining the juice without help, and making the lemonade recipe, independently. They even invited other students from other classrooms to help and taught them how to successfully participate in the process. Leaders arose during this time and we heard students say things like:

• “If you get tired, just tell someone so they can help you take over.”
  

  We juiced over 200 lemons!

• “We’re almost done, but someone needs to juice this one, again!”
• “That’s a good one Logan, you got all the juice out! Keep going!”
• “If you can’t get all the juice out, give it to someone else to try with a different juicer!”
• “I want to run the lemonade table, can I?”
• “You have to share!”
• “No fighting at the table! If you fight over the juicers you could spill the juice and then all our hard work is ruined.”
• “We have so much lemon juice, because we did teamwork!”
• “Teacher Kate, nobody’s at the lemon juicing table, right now, and if we don’t get enough juice we won’t meet the supply for the demand! Can I ring the chimes and tell people to come over?”
• “Okay, if you want to help – Donovan you can pour 2 cups of water and Steele, you can pour 2 cups of water, because then you each poured two and that’s fair.”
• “If you want to help you have to wash your hands and wait your turn to add ingredients.”
• “Why don’t we have some kids keep making lemonade in the classroom while we’re selling. So, if we run out we have some ready to replace it?”

Step 4: Salesmanship, Advertising, and Money

“Teacher Kate, we want to walk around with a NEW flier for the last day! Can we take a dollar bill so people know how much it is?”

Students talked about what would make THEM buy lemonade and they practiced in our classroom what good customer service looked like: Friendly greeting, asking for an order, giving change, and cuing the “pourer.” We had lots of mini-lessons tucked in there (i.e. remember to smile, cash first – lemonade second, always stay at the cash box, always sanitize your hands, only people working the stand behind the counter, etc.) They were ready! Students decided on how I’d schedule people to work the stand. They wanted it to to be fair and asked me to choose sticks. So, I did and wrote the schedule out for two jobs at a time: cashier and lemonade pourer. The person passing out leis was a job they delegated themselves.

Step 5: Reflection – Community Talks About Successes and Challenges

Supply and demand was one thing. We didn’t make enough for our first day and had to

Students went around the school when the bell rang to get more customers!

turn away paying customers. Also, everyone in our class bought 1 cup of our own lemonade. So, we realized we’d have to forgo drinking it the next day in order for the supply to meet the high demand. We made daily profit goals based on our first two day’s of success and voted on what amount we wanted to earn. Students took our posters around the school and advertised by word of mouth for our lemonade stand. They then realized creating a DELIVERY service was a good idea for people who wanted a cup, but couldn’t leave their desks.

Customers were ‘self-serving’ the lemonade. So, Maddie K. and others made badges for us as a sort of “uniform” 🙂

Additionally, at first, customers were self-serving because they didn’t realize we had a person pouring. Maddie K. was very upset and I asked her what we needed to fix the problem and help them see we work here. She said “Well, they keep pouring for themselves and we can’t do our job- we need a badge or something!” So, I encouraged her to make some and 5 minutes later we had green ‘lemonade’ badges with duct tape on the back.

Below is a video of Donovan telling children how much money we made in two days. He happily stayed after school and counted ALL the money with a little help (but not much!).   He was so proud to reveal what his hard work in calculations amounted to…and the kids were SHOCKED!

Step 6: Community Outreach

Other classrooms hadn’t talked about starting businesses, yet, and so I asked if any of them wanted to go into classrooms and tell kids about our process and get them interested in it. Several kids volunteered to talk to other students (Genevieve, Quentin, Maddie K. and Sadie are featured above) about our business process and explained in our successes, challenges, and fielded questions! Their presentations were NOT planned, but they volunteered and confidently explained everything. The best part? It didn’t matter who I sent over, because they all could have probably explained it 🙂

Room 7 students invited kids from the other class. She gave them a tour of our “facilities” and showed them how to participate in our production process!

Steele is practicing with money -counting by 5s, counting on with new bills, making change, etc.

1. How to get what they want by doing hard work to earn it WHILE having fun!
2. Grade level and above math skills in an applicable context.
3. Useful life skills: Customer service, working in the food industry, cashier work, how to start and run a business, advertising, etc.
4. The power of a community working together for a singular goal.

As their kindergarten teacher, I couldn’t be prouder of their entrepreneurial spirit!

Buddy Time: Mother’s Day Gift Wrapping & Play!

Science:  Gummy Bear Osmosis Experiments Continue!

Activity #1: Gummy Bear Osmosis Skit

Last week, the kids conducted an experiment where gummy bears that were left in water
expanded to 2-3X their size!  Most understood that the gummy bears got bigger, because water somehow moved inside the bear.  To better demonstrate the science of what was happening, the kids had a chance to participate in an interactive skit about osmosis, the movement of water through a membrane! We recreated the story about a poor gummy bear who fell into a cup of water.  The gummy bear’s gelatin structure was represented by a large sheet held up by adults.  “Inside” the gummy bear (behind the sheet) was sugar, represented by small bouncy balls.

The kids represented water molecules.  We explained how water molecules could go back and forth through the gummy bear barrier, but that the sugar molecules could not go through and had to stay inside the bear.  The water molecules kids were asked to look for sugar – which they found inside the gummy bear!  When a few of the kids came outside with their sugar “ball”, we reminded them that the sugar molecule couldn’t go through the gummy bear gelatin structure.   Eventually, all the kids ended up inside the gummy bear holding sugar molecules, and the bear was now bloated with water molecules!  As a final step, the gummy bear disintegrated and broke apart, something many kids observed from their experiment!

The kids really seemed to enjoy performing and watching the skit, especially with my awesomely dramatic gummy bear acting skills! (hehe) We had a few showings so that all the kids had a chance to be water molecules as well as practice being good audience members.

Activity #2: Gummy Bear Taste Test

Many of the kids practiced self-control last week and refrained from eating their bloated gummy bear.  There were many questions about whether it would taste the same or different from a regular gummy bear.  So, we did a taste test experiment.  The kids first got to try a regular gummy bear and commented on the taste and texture of the bear.  Then, they got to try a water-soaked gummy bear and comment on those.   The kids definitely enjoyed comparing the two types of gummy bear!  A few noticed that the soaked gummy bear tasted like jello, and one child excitedly explained that it was because jello and gummy bears were both made from gelatin!

Activity #3.2: Gummy Bear Guided Exploration

Last week, a couple of kids were asking their own questions about gummy bears and requested time and materials to conduct their own gummy bear experiment.  So, this week, the kids had the opportunity to come up with their own experiment question and follow through the entire scientific method process.  Using a template, the kids were encouraged to record their question statement, their hypothesis, and their results.  We provided a number of tools and options that they could use for their experiment, including ice, colored water, salt, toothpicks/skewers, and various size cups.  The weigh scale and rulers were also available.  The kids also had access to the refrigerator, freezer, and outside (hot environment).

Some of the questions that were posed by the kids included:

• What happens when you put the gummy bear in the freezer?
• What happens when you add ice to the gummy bear?
• What happens when you add sugar to the gummy bear?
• What happens when you put the gummy bear in dirt?
• What happens when you put the gummy bears in fire?
• What happens when you leave the gummy bear out for a long time?
• What happens when you put gummy bears in gak?

A Special Note From Christine (Science Enrichment Coordinator):

“The objective of my science activities this year was to build natural proficiency in using the scientific method (note: this is my personal opinion and mission only).  This is, of course, an ongoing process.  All of the science activities from this past year were organized to help expose and guide the kids through the process of using the scientific method.

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific_method.shtml

This was the kids’ first opportunity to own an experiment independently from start to finish.  There was a wide variety of responses to this activity.  A few really enjoyed coming up with their own unique questions.  Others preferred choosing from options of example questions.  The willingness to provide a hypothesis was mixed, with some kids still hesitant to be considered “wrong”.  This was especially true for problems where the result wasn’t immediately obvious.  All of the kids were able to independently set-up and run their experiment, and most verbally explained their results and observations.

Overall, I think the kids really put on their “scientist” hat and owned it!  It was a great opportunity for me to see areas I might want to focus on for future (1st grade!) activities.

One fun observation: We had a few containers of colored water in case kids wanted to use those for their experiment.  For many of the kids, the colored water turned into its own exploration activity.  Since I only had the primary colors available, a few kids immediately went to work to try to get the secondary colors.  Kids also created “fairy juice” for our visiting fairies, which apparently had to be a specific color that had to be just right for Luna!

Colored water exploration was actually the very first kindergarten science activity back in October, so it was fun to see how much they still enjoyed exploring this!  I guess watching blue water turn green when you add yellow water to it never gets old!”

• Lemonade Stand Starting Tuesday: Coach David has banned younger kids from
  

  Next Week: Raising money for playground hockey pucks, kick balls, soccer balls, basketballs and other equipment!

   using the P.E. balls, as a natural consequence, since they tend to not put them away at the end of recess. So, the kids want to raise money to buy their own playground equipment collection. The other kinder classes were notified of this Friday, during Kinder Sing, and would like to also raise money for a pod-wide ball collection. 

• Child-led Spring Conferences: Click here for the Sign up genius for June!
• End of Year Assessments: I am doing assessments during the day (Quiet Time and Exploration). My hope was that doing it during the day would save you scheduling 2 days to come in with your child, as opposed to 1. 
• Community Snack Schedule:  This week is the Ho/Fukuhara family. Please use the snack signup genius here to sign up for a week to bring snack. Let the Snack Coordinator, Kudsana (kkizaraly@yahoo.com), know if you need special accommodations or are unable to fulfill your commitment. And a BIG thank you to the Steinhauer family for snack last week!
• Silent Auction: Saturday May 13th (adults only) at Shir Hadash in Los Gatos. Christina (art coordinator) helped children make a plushy sensory reading rug, now turned wall art decor and it’s lovely.
• APPLY SUNSCREEN: Please make sure your child is protected and prepared for sunny weather! We have a sunscreen basket under the morning message. Feel free to drop in the kind you like and shoot me an email saying I can use it on your child. Thanks!
• Staff Development Day: NO SCHOOL Friday May 19
• Memorial Day: NO SCHOOL Monday May 29th
• Other FUTURE Parent Meeting Dates: Wednesday May 24th, and Wednesday June 14th.

Fairy House Design Plans!

Weekly Highlights!

Teacher Appreciation Day: Flowers from my kiddos!

• Teacher Appreciation Week: Thank you SO much for all the outpouring of thanks
  

  Thank you for your showering of love and appreciation!

  via notes, drawings, gift cards, and flowers. I’m so sorry!

• Fairies! A fairy door SUDDENLY appeared along with a tiny mail box, and now the
  children are pen pals with Luna the fairy and her family. Having these visitors has inspired children to try their hand at practicing sentences, practicing neat handwriting, more spelling, and writing questions 🙂 It’s really revved up our literacy curriculum…Gotta love those fairies!
• Kinder Sing: We discussed bathroom ettiquette, again, (like not peeing on the toilet paper roll), and fundraising for pod-wide playground equipment.
  

  R2D2 visits for Star Wars Day!

• New Toys and Games: We brought out the foam wood-working set and two games – the Lady Bug Game and the Fairy Game. One is competitive and one is cooperative. Children enjoyed them both!
• Star Wars Day: R2D2 came to visit and many children wore their Star Wars costumes!
• Skill Sharing: We will share every Friday, and Donovan and Pranav shared their skills with us  🙂 Why? Many children have brought in toy items and it became a contest. The items kept getting bigger and newer and created an imbalance in the system of power and social status within our classroom, solelybased on toys being shared. So, we stopped bringing in items and started bringing in SKILLS. Everyone is good at something and this spring is everyone’s time to
  

  Fairy Game: A popular cooperative game amongst all the kids!

  shine! Take a look at the schedule so far!

• Math: We did math conferences. Children were given a base 10 mat with a number shaded in. They had 10 seconds to figure out what number it represented. Then, they could say it and explain their strategy for how they figured it out. The 2 agreements we had were “raise your hand and don’t call out if you know.” Children were very respectful of this! Everyone had a turn, as we used the attendance name
  rocks.
• Buddies: They came to our room! We played parachute outside, and then they
  helped us fill out our self-assessments for the year. It was a really engaging experience to have their buddies walk through this process with them!
• Literacy: We played literacy games, ddid fairy letter writing,
  handwriting, and self-assessments.
• Science: We did experiments with gummy bears on osmosis and heat transfer!
• Just-Right Reading! Each morning, parents can help kids choose leveled books totake home and practice reading with children. Please be sure to return the books and put them in the proper bins!
• Focus Spots: The lack of listening and responding during group times merited spots around the room. Children came to me and asked for a focus spot if they exhausted other strategies. Now, almost everyone has one taped to the floor!

Buddy Time: Parachute & Self-Assessments

Science:  Gummy Bear Osmosis & Heat Transfer!

• Continuing the practice of taking measurements accurately
• Drawing conclusions using quantitative data and qualitative (non-numerical) data
• Introducing the concept of the Control (the variable/object that doesn’t change in an experiment)
• Providing further examples of osmosis/diffusion

Activity #1: Gummy Bear Osmosis

We reminded the kids about last week’s impromptu experiment with adding water to freeze-dried blueberries.  As many of the kids discovered, the “water went into the blueberry and made it squishy.”

This week’s activity builds on the concept of water “going into something” (a.k.a. osmosis) using gummy bears!  The experiment itself was fairly simple on the surface – put a gummy bear in water and wait to see what happens!

Before we started the experiment, we asked the kids their hypothesis on what would happen to their gummy bear in water.  Some of their ideas:

• The gummy bear might sink (or float).
• The gummy bear will grow bigger (or shrink down).
• The water will turn the color of the gummy bear.
• The gummy bear will melt or break into a pieces and disappear.
• The gummy bear will turn a different color.
• The gummy bear will get stickier.

It was interesting to see how the kids’ hypotheses drew from science concepts studied in previous science activities, such as color interaction and density!

Each child got to pick one gummy bear for their experiment.  They used a precision scale to measure the weight and measured their bear against tally marks on a paper to measure the height.  We explained how to make sure our measurements were accurate.  This included checking that the scale was properly tared (reading “0”) before putting their gummy bear on as well as waiting until the final value stabilized.

They recorded these measurements on a data worksheet.  They then added their gummy bear into a cup of water.  Throughout the rest of the day, many of the kids enjoyed looking at their gummy bear and providing observations of changes they saw.

• “The water smells really really good!”
• “The gummy bear is getting bigger!”
• “The water might be turning colors… no, it’s still clear.”
• “The gummy is still sinking.”

The next day, the kids had a chance to remeasure the weight and height of their bears
and record their findings.  Comparing the numbers recorded from the previous day, the kids all came to the same conclusion looking at the quantitative data – their gummy bear was bigger!  Christine then asked the kids to analyze their experiment gummy bear by visually comparing it to a regular gummy bear.  She explained how the regular gummy bear was the Control Gummy Bear in the experiment, the bear that didn’t have any changes done to it.  Of course, observing the two gummy bears side by side, the kids, using qualitative information, all came to the same conclusion – their gummy bear was bigger!

Although a few kids mentioned that it was the water going “inside” the gummy bear that made it bigger, we will talk more about the science behind the growing gummy bear next week!

*** NOTE: Some kids talked about doing this experiment at home.  We made sure to communicate to the kids that gummy bears left out in water overnight should never be eaten.  A few kids really practiced their constraint in not consuming these bears!!

Activity #2: Heat Transfer with Gummy Bears

Even before I had a chance to explain the “official” science activity, a few of the kids had their own questions about gummy bears that they wanted answered.  Specifically, Maddie K wanted to know what would happen if we heated up our gummy bear with the sun.  So, we decided to do an impromptu science experiment!

Each child got a fork and a gummy bear and the chance to go outside to try to heat up their gummy bear.  Most didn’t have the patience to wait outside long with their gummy, and went to the second part of the experiment – tasting it!

A lot of the other kids had experiment ideas they wanted to do, and we’ll be giving all the interested kids a chance to ask their own question, run their own experiment, and draw their own conclusion next week!  This will be the full scientific method in motion!

Skill Teach & Tell Continues!

After Nadia showed the class her skill of doing cat’s cradle with string, Henry’s interest was piqued and he spent a considerable amount of time trying to learn how to do it via online videos.  Henry wanted Nadia to teach him (and the rest of the kids) more about cat’s cradle, and, after consulting with her, she agreed!  So, during Exploration, they passed out loops of yarn to interested kids and Nadia and Henry both spent the time walking
kids through various cat’s cradle configurations.  Once the kids understood the basic concept of moving yarn with their fingers, they discovered that they could create their own designs and configurations.  It was a great way for the kids to share and learn from each other.

Children’s Read-Aloud Schedule

After hearing Ellie Luz read last month, many other children felt inspired to read to the

Cici’s read aloud!

class, too. They begged me to create a sign-up and kept asking when they would read! So, we took time to create this list, below. They chose where on the list they wanted to be (knowing the higher or lower they were meant sooner or later), but please talk with your child about when they’re scheduled to read and whether they’ll be able to prepare their book, in time. This is the list that the kids asked me to put together, because they wanted to read a book to the class themselves. If your child’s goal is to do this, but he/she’s not ready right now, I can definitely have him/her go later! For children who aren’t reading yet but volunteered, too, they could simply do a picture walk (narrating the story orally based on each picture)! The last option is perhaps they can read with a partner, taking turns, or they can read a page and I read a page. The bottom line is that I want them to take as much ownership over this activity as possible 🙂 

What type of book?

Whatever book they want! From BOB books to picture books. It’s their choice of whatever makes them feel comfortable and CONFIDENT.

List of read-aloud dates and students:

1. Ellie  3/23
2. Genevieve 3/24
3. Logan 3/29
4. Dominic 3/30
5. Jada 4/21
6. Claudia 4/27
7. Maddie S./Izzy 5/4 (reschedule?)
8. Nakiya 5/11
9. Pranav 5/12
10. Tyler 5/18
11. Maddie K.  6/1
12. Sthanika 6/2
13. Sadie 6/7
14. Donovan 6/8
15. Quentin 6/9
16. Oscar 6/13
17. Byron 6/14
18. Nadia 6/15
19. Cameron 6/16

Opted Out (for now?)

Henry

Steele

Nicholas

Friday Skill Sharing Schedule (9:15ish-9:50am)

Pranav shared his art!

Children will have an opportunity to explain, demonstrate and field question/comments on ONE (1) skill of their choice. Some have to decide WHICH SKILL because they thought of two. Those children have an (*) next to their name. They have 5-10 minutes each. You can discuss with them how they may want to show their skill, what props they might need, how they will utilize the space of our classroom safely, and help them prepare for this public speaking opportunity by rehearsing it with them. I will prepare the children to be encouraging, kind, and respectful audience members. Some children already told me what they chose as a skill. So that’s why some names already have a skill in parenthesis. If your child has not chosen a skill, yet, please help them choose and prepare before their debut! Please see the following sign-ups, this week’s in bold:

• March 31: Cici (Flexibility), Genevieve (Art)
  

  Donovan shared his hockey skills!

• April 21: Byron (Karate) and Nadia (Cat’s cradle)
• April 28: Tyler (Dance moves), Ellie (Drawing), Maddie K (Gymnastics)
• May 5: Donovan (Hockey), Pranav (Art), 
• May 12:  Dominic (Basketball), Oscar (T-Ball) and Jada (Gymnastics)
• May 26: Logan (?) and Henry (Gymnastics)
• June 2: Cameron (Gymnastics), Sthanika (_________) and , Maddie S. (Gymnastics)
• June 9: Nakiya (Teaching Reading) and Nicholas (_______), Steele (Protecting)
• June 16: Quentin (Running) and Sadie (Dance moves)

[Slideshow]

• Child-led Spring Conferences: Click here for the Sign up genius for June!
  

  Spring Fun Fair Success!

• End of Year Assessments: I am doing assessments during the day (Quiet Time and part Exploration). I would do them during lunch, but I need to be outside on the playground with yard duty. My hope was that doing it during the day would save you scheduling 2 days to come in with your child, as opposed to 1. 
• Community Snack Schedule:  This week is the Steinhauer family. Please use the snack signup genius here to sign up for a week to bring snack. Let the Snack Coordinator, Kudsana (kkizaraly@yahoo.com), know if you need special accommodations or are unable to fulfill your commitment. And a BIG thank you to the Ramos/Paiyou family for snack last week!
• Staff Appreciation Day: Thursday May 4th
• Silent Auction: Saturday May 13th (adults only) at Shir Hadash in Los Gatos. Christina (art coordinator) helped children make a plushy sensory reading rug, now turned wall art decor and it’s lovely.
• Staff Development Day: NO SCHOOL Friday May 19
• Memorial Day: NO SCHOOL Monday May 29th
• Other FUTURE Parent Meeting Dates: Wednesday May 24th, and Wednesday June 14th.

Exploring Sound With The Didgeridoo!

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Spring Fun Fair!

Weekly Highlights

• Fairies! A fairy door SUDDENLY appeared along with a tiny mail box, and now the children are pen pals with Luna the fairy and her family. Having these visitors has inspired children to try their hand at practicing sentences, practicing neat handwriting, more spelling, and writing questions 🙂 It’s really revved up our literacy curriculum…Gotta love those fairies!
• Kinder Pod Performed for Community Sing! The kindergarten pod performed Friday April 28th. They ROCKED!
• Science/Art with Amber: An exploration in sound with making didgeridoos!
• Spring Fun Fair: Saturday April 29th families gathered for a community extravaganza from 12:00-4:00pm. Room 7 teamed up with Room 6 TKers to run what we decided was a duck pond with prizes to be won! It was a sunny day with clear skies and joyful hearts!
• New Art Medium: Air dry clay!
• Skill Sharing: We will share every Friday, and Oscar, Maddie K., Ellie Luz, and Tyler shared their skills for us  🙂 Many children have brought in toy items and it’s become a contest. The items kept getting bigger and newer and created an imbalance in the system of power and social status within our classroom, solely
  

  Community Sing: Fight Song!

  based on toys being shared. So, we stopped bringing in items and started bringing in SKILLS. Everyone is good at something and this spring is everyone’s time to shine! Take a look at the schedule so far!

• Math: We worked on showing math sentences (equations) with base 10blocks: 10’s rods, 1’s units (called “baby ones” or “cubes”), and the 100’s flat blocks. Goals: Understanding that the 10s rod has 10 ones inside of it, the one’s cubes are only representing ONE each, that a larger number can have a combination of 10s, 1’s, and sometimes 100s, and adding can be easier thinking about it in 10s and 1s.
• Buddies: They came to our room for math workshop. We played a series of base 10 games and did base 10 activities (since 4th grade is ALSO using base 10 blocks). We also numbered our duck pond ducks for Spring Fun Faire.
• Weekly Kid Read-Aloud: Cici
• Literacy: Fairy letter writing, handwriting, and story workshop.
• Story Workshop: We used the loose parts cart to construct our stories!
• Science: A day in the life of a food scientist – spiraling back to the space unit!
• Art: Body Tracing!
• Just-Right Reading! Each morning, parents can help kids choose leveled books totake home and practice reading with children. Please be sure to return the books and put them in the proper bins!

Buddies: Math Workshop with Base 10 block activities!

Science: A Day in The Life of A Food Scientist!

The kids had a chance to step in the shoes of a NASA Food Scientist.  The astronauts wanted to take blueberrries on their next flight up into space, and the kids had to conduct experiments to determine which type of blueberry to pack in the shuttle.  The kids were told that the blueberries had to be tasty as well as light-weight.  There were three different types of blueberries – frozen, dried, and freeze-dried.

The kids conducted two experiments.  One was a taste-test experiment, where the kids tried the different types of blueberries and ranked the taste using a scale of  to .  The other was a weight experiment, and the kids worked together to weigh the blueberries using a precision scale.

Amber had previously purchased a couple of freeze-dried meals (chicken/rice and marinara/noodles), so the kids had a chance to experience a typical meal that a real astronaut might have for lunch.

There was a wide range of opinions of whether the meals tasted good or not, but most agreed that they couldn’t eat meals like this for an extended period of time and it highlighted just one of the (many) luxuries that astronauts willingly give up in the name of science!

Activity #3: How color affects taste!

Amber has already done a number of experiments in the past with taste and how our
other senses affect our sense of taste.  For NASA’s Space Food team, one of the challenges is to make food in space LOOK and TASTE the way they were meant to be.

The kids got to be taste-testers in a juice experiment.  They first tried a red-colored juice, and were asked to guess the flavor of the juice.  They then repeated the taste-test with a dark/purple-ish juice.

For the red juice, kids thought the flavor was:

• fruit punch gatorade
• apple
• pomegranate
• cherry
• grape

For the purple juice, kids thought the flavor was:

• apple cider
• kiwi
• grape
• purple jelly bean
• fruit punch
• pomegranate
• blackberry

Most of the kids were excited to drink the red juice, but initially refused to drink the dark purple juice.  When asked, many had a preference towards one juice, saying that it tasted better than the other.

It turned out that the two “different” juices were the exact same (apple juice) that had been dyed different colors!  Because our brain has been trained to associate different colors with different flavors, it can affect how we perceive what something tastes like.  This activity showed why the NASA team spends effort on how food looks!

Activity #4: “Un-freeze-drying” blueberries

We had some leftover freeze-dried blueberries, and one child wanted to know what happened when we added water to it.  So we did an impromptu experiment where we rehydrated freeze-dried blueberries.

In the afternoon, Sadie rang the chimes and announced that the kids could taste-test and observe freeze-dried blueberries that had been rehydrated.  The water’s behavior (“moving” into the blueberry) is a loose example of diffusion. Several partook in this opportunity!

We’ll be doing a lot more experiments over the next month demonstrating the concept of diffusion and osmosis (which is just diffusion through a semi-permeable membrane)

Future Ideas:

Going forward, many of the ideas Christine has for diffusion/osmosis may require a fairly long wait-time and little preparation time (e.g. putting raisins in water and observing them 24 hours later).  It’s possible we may need to adjust the schedule somewhat… I’ll think about it more and send out more details later.

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Read-Aloud Schedule

After hearing Ellie Luz read last month, many other children felt inspired to read to the

Cici’s read aloud!

class, too. They begged me to create a sign-up and kept asking when they would read! So, we took time today to create this list, below. They chose where on the list they wanted to be (knowing the higher or lower they were meant sooner or later), but please talk with your child about when they’re scheduled to read and whether they’ll be able to prepare their book, by then.  If your child would like to go a little later on the list, in order to practice a book that he/she is comfortable it be ready to read it on his own, please let me know.

We talked as a class about read-alouds and how children prepared themselves to read for the class. Ellie Luz said that she practiced that ONE book both at school and at home with her family for a month. Genevieve said she practiced it at home a bunch of times and wanted to share it. Dominic and Logan said the same thing! I want to be very clear that this list is not about a list of books that they choose and I read aloud. This is the list that the kids asked me to put together, because they wanted to read a book to the class themselves. If your child’s goal is to do this, but he/she’s not ready right now, I can definitely have him/her go later! For children who aren’t reading yet but volunteered, too, they could simply do a picture walk (narrating the story orally based on each picture)! The last option is perhaps they can read with a partner, taking turns, or they can read a page and I read a page. The bottom line is that I want them to take as much ownership over this activity as possible 🙂 

What type of book?

Whatever book they want! From BOB books to picture books. It’s their choice of whatever makes them feel comfortable and CONFIDENT.

List of read-aloud dates and students:

1. Ellie  3/23
2. Genevieve 3/24
3. Logan 3/29
4. Dominic 3/30
5. Jada 4/21
6. Claudia 4/27
7. Maddie S./Izzy 5/4
8. Nakiya 5/11
9. Pranav 5/12
10. Tyler 5/18
11. Maddie K.  6/1
12. Sthanika 6/2
13. Sadie 6/7
14. Donovan 6/8
15. Quentin 6/9
16. Oscar 6/13
17. Byron 6/14
18. Nadia 6/15
19. Cameron 6/16

Opted Out (for now?)

Henry

Steele

Nicholas

Nature & Our Garden!

Friday Skill Sharing Schedule (9:00-9:30am)

Children will have an opportunity to explain, demonstrate and field question/comments

Ellie’s share: Art!

on ONE (1) skill of their choice. Some have to decide WHICH SKILL because they thought of two. Those children have an (*) next to their name. They have 5-10 minutes each. You can discuss with them how they may want to show their skill, what props they might need, how they will utilize the space of our classroom safely, and help them prepare for this public speaking opportunity by rehearsing it with them. I will prepare the children to be encouraging, kind, and respectful audience members. Some children already told me what they chose as a skill. So that’s why some names already have a skill in parenthesis. If your child has not chosen a skill, yet, please help them choose and prepare before their debut! Please see the following sign-ups, this week’s in bold:

• March 31: Cici (Flexibility), Genevieve (Art)
  

  Tyler’s share: Dance moves!

• April 21: Byron (Karate) and Nadia (Cat’s cradle)
• April 28: Tyler (Dance moves), Ellie (Drawing), Maddie K (Gymnastics)
• May 5: Donovan (Hockey), Pranav (Gymnastics), Maddie S. (Gymnastics)
• May 12:  Dominic (Basketball), Oscar (T-Ball) and Jada (Gymnastics)
• May 26: Logan (?) and Henry (Gymnastics)
• June 2: Sthanika (_________) and Nakiya (Teaching reading)
• June 9: Cameron (Gymnastics) and Nicholas (_______), Steele (Protecting)
• June 16: Quentin (Running) and Sadie (Dance moves)

Maddie K’s share:  Gymnastics! She actually showed us 3 moves and then had them vote for which one they wanted to try outside!

[Slideshow]

• CANCELLED Parent Meeting THIS week: I sent an email out earlier this evening!
  

  SNACK: Jada’s mom, Amber, prepared all the fixings for the kids to make “donuts” using apples, dyed cream cheese, chocolate sun butter spread, sprinkles, fruit, pretzels, and more!

   The meeting we were going to have on Wednesday April 26th 6:30-7:30pm is cancelled. There’s nothing pressing to discuss in person and the sense I feel from everyone is that after a crazy first week back from school, we could all use a break. I emailed the few housekeeping items I had. Thanks for your flexibility!

• Kinder Pod Performs for Community Sing! The kindergarten pod will be performing THIS Friday April 28th for the school. Click Kinder Sing Lyrics for Friday April 28 for lyrics to all the songs being sung!  
• Community Snack Schedule:  This week is the Ramos/Paiyou family. Please use the snack signup genius here to sign up for a week to bring snack. Let the Snack Coordinator  Kudsana (kkizaraly@yahoo.com) know if you need special accommodations or are unable to fulfill your commitment. And a BIG thank you to the Martines family for snack last week!
• Spring Fun Faire: Saturday April 29th 12:00-4:00pm. Room 7 is teaming up with Room 6 to run what we decided was a duck pond with prizes to be won!
• Child-led Spring Conferences: Sign up genius coming soon for May/June!
• Staff Appreciation Day: Thursday May 4th
  

  Art: Making pom-poms for our pom-pom rug!

• Silent Auction: Saturday May 13th (adults only) at Shir Hadash in Los Gatos. Christina (art coordinator) will help children make a plushy sensory reading rug for
  our auction item and we need donations SOFT yarn in various ocean hues (blue and green). Thanks!
• Staff Development Day: NO SCHOOL Friday May 19
• Memorial Day: NO SCHOOL Monday May 29th
• Other FUTURE Parent Meeting Dates: Wednesday May 24th, and Wednesday June 14th.

Painting Through Adversity

We read “A Splash of Red,” which was a biography about Horace Pippin, a differently abled painter in the 1800s-early 1930s. He was born in 1888 into a poor country setting, and drew with coal. His drawings won him a set of art tools in a contest he entered, which changed his world by adding COLOR to his work for the first time. He wasn’t able to follow his passion at first because he was the breadwinner of his family as the eldest son. But Horace still dreamed of his passion to paint and wished he could pursue it. He went off to fight in WWI and was shot in his dominant painting arm. Horace struggled to make a full recovery in his weakened arm, but

never did. Eventually, he taught himself how to paint, again, by using his left hand to hold his right hand. It took him 3 years to finish one painting at first. His life’s story, use of bright colors, and his never-give-up attitude inspired a surge in curiosity about painting, blending colors, creating landscapes, and more! Many children talked about the story and brought up his perseverance and how “I still like what he made even after his arm was hurt. It’s better than what I make!” I felt like we were in need of a painting lesson to boost confidence and remind them that he had to practice, just like everyone else. My painting background came into play as I taught children how to create these types of paintings through mini-lessons during Quiet Time or Exploration. They loved  and kept asking me to do it every day! It was a nice change of pace from all the drawing lessons 🙂

Weekly Highlights

• Field Trip: Monday April 17 9:00-12:30 at the Youth ScienceInstitute/Vasona Park in
  

  Field trip to YSI!

  San Jose, CA to learn about Arthropod insects!

• Skill Sharing: Many children have brought in toy items and it’s become a contest. The items keep getting bigger and newer and have created an imbalance in the system of power and social status within our classroom, solely based on toys being shared. So, we will STOP bringing in items and start bringing in SKILLS! Everyone is good at something and this spring is everyone’s time to shine. I discussed it with them and then asked the definition of a skill. They gave the definition you see below in the explanation. Then, kids raised hands to volunteer a skill they wanted to share. Take a look at the schedule so far! We will share every Friday, and Claudia shared her skills for us  🙂
• Math: We continued work on composing and decomposing numbers with base 10
  

  Writing up strategies used by kids to compose numbers!

  blocks: 10’s rods, 1’s units (called “baby ones” or “cubes”), and the 100’s flat blocks. We talked about about numbers can be composed in multiple ways and different people might choose different strategies. We asked questions like, “How did you get 34?…. “How do you know it’s 34?”…”Can you show me your strategy?” Children had a few minutes to work, then we rang the chimes and shared the different ways they composed numbers. Goals: Understanding that the 10s rod has 10 ones inside of it, the one’s cubes are only representing ONE each, and that a larger number can have a combination of 10s, 1’s, and sometimes 100s.

• Buddies: We played 2 group games of soccer and chaos tag. Then, they frolicked around the playground!
• Earth Day Efforts: We read Peace on Earth in honor of Earth Day this weekend, and it inspired several kids to ask if they could pick up trash during exploration! We gladly obliged and encouraged their stewardship with trash pickers and bags 🙂
• Weekly Kid Read-Aloud: Jada
• Literacy: Phonics guessing game, handwriting, story workshop and sight words.
  

  Sight word and handwriting practice.

• Author Visit: Ryan Higgins, author of Mother Bruce, Be Quiet, and Hotel Bruce visited D2! He read aloud Be Quiet and demonstrated some amazing cartoon skills by making a ‘toadephant’ that was a mix of a tiger’s stripes, elephant’s trunk, and toad’s body!
• Story Workshop: Children were so inspired by the toadephant that for Story Workshop they made their OWN wacky creations and created stories around them!
• Science: Ink transfer with gak and solar ovens (not as successful as we’d hoped with the rain!)
• Art: Making more pom-poms for the sensory rug we’re auctioning for the Spring Fun Fair auction item!
• Just-Right Reading! Each morning, parents can help kids choose leveled books totake home and practice reading with children. Please be sure to return the books and put them in the proper bins!
• 1-on-1 Reading: From now on, I will take emerging and beginner readers (Fountas & Pinnell level A-G) 1-on-1 to practice reading and work on sight words during Quiet Time, and both mid-range readers (H-K) and high readers (L-N, and above) will go with TK teacher Carol for guided readings group 1-2x a week. I also read 1-on-1 with children who ask during exploration, as well.
• Lady Bugs: Room 5 collected lady bugs from the garden and shared them with us. We went hunting, too! We examined them closely using out light table and some drew observations.

Field Trip: Youth Science Institute and Vasona Park

Read-Aloud Schedule

After hearing Ellie Luz read last month, many other children felt inspired to read to the

Dominic reading aloud, before break!

class, too. They begged me to create a sign-up and kept asking when they would read! So, we took time today to create this list, below. They chose where on the list they wanted to be (knowing the higher or lower they were meant sooner or later), but please talk with your child about when they’re scheduled to read and whether they’ll be able to prepare their book, by then.  If your child would like to go a little later on the list, in order to practice a book that he/she is comfortable it be ready to read it on his own, please let me know.

We talked as a class about read-alouds and how children prepared themselves to read

Jada reading aloud to the class this week!

for the class. Ellie Luz said that she practiced that ONE book both at school and at home with her family for a month. Genevieve said she practiced it at home a bunch of times and wanted to share it. Dominic and Logan said the same thing! I want to be very clear that this list is not about a list of books that they choose and I read aloud. This is the list that the kids asked me to put together, because they wanted to read a book to the class themselves. If your child’s goal is to do this, but he/she’s not ready right now, I can definitely have him/her go later! For children who aren’t reading yet but volunteered, too, they could simply do a picture walk (narrating the story orally based on each picture)! The last option is perhaps they can read with a partner, taking turns, or they can read a page and I read a page. The bottom line is that I want them to take as much ownership over this activity as possible 🙂 

What type of book?

Whatever book they want! From BOB books to picture books. It’s their choice of whatever makes them feel comfortable and CONFIDENT J

List of read-aloud dates and students:

1. Ellie  3/23
2. Genevieve 3/24
3. Logan 3/29
4. Dominic 3/30
5. Jada 4/21
6. Claudia 4/27
7. Maddie S./Izzy 4/28
8. Nakiya 5/11
9. Pranav 5/12
10. Tyler 5/18
11. Maddie K.  6/1
12. Sthanika 6/2
13. Sadie 6/7
14. Donovan 6/8
15. Quentin 6/9
16. Oscar 6/13
17. Byron 6/14
18. Nadia 6/15
19. Cameron 6/16

Opted Out (for now?)

Henry

Steele

Nicholas

Author Ryan Higgins visits D2!

The kids loved having Ryan!

In the afternoon, the kids got to see a presentation by visiting author and illustrator, Ryan Higgins.  Genevieve brought in Mother Bruce a while ago, and children loved it.  I wanted to jog their memory a bit so, earlier that morning, I read another one of his books to the class.  The kids were then super excited to meet the actual author!

Ryan talked about how, as a child, he loved writing and drawing, even though he wasn’t the “best” in class at writing or drawing.  But, because he loved it, he practiced a lot and worked really hard at being an author.   This was a good point to make, especially as some of the kids still struggle with

Bella the seal, mermaid, princess fairy (with a crown on her bum!)

being the “best” or over-emphasizing/idolizing others who may be really good at
something.  Ryan also read his newest book, Be Quiet, which the kids also enjoyed listening to.

NEW! Friday Skill Sharing Schedule (9:00-9:30am)

Nadia shares her skills with a Cat’s Cradle Sting!

Children will have an opportunity to explain, demonstrate and field question/comments
on ONE (1) skill of their choice. Some have to decide WHICH SKILL because they thought of two. Those children have an (*) next to their name. They have 5-10 minutes each. You can discuss with them how they may want to show their skill, what props they might need, how they will utilize the space of our classroom safely, and help them prepare for this public speaking opportunity by rehearsing it with them. I will prepare the children to be encouraging, kind, and respectful audience members. Some children already told me what they chose as a skill. So that’s why some names already have a skill in parenthesis. If your child has not chosen a skill, yet, please help them choose and prepare before their debut! Please see the following sign-ups, this week’s in bold:

• March 31: Cici (Flexibility), Genevieve (Art)
  

  Byron shares his prowess at the UNO card game!

   

• April 21: Byron (Karate) and Nadia (Cat’s cradle)
• April 28: Tyler (Dance moves), Ellie (Drawing), Logan (?)
• May 5: Donovan (Hockey), Pranav (Gymnastics), Maddie S. (Gymnastics)
• May 12:  Dominic (Basketball), Oscar (T-Ball) and Jada (Gymnastics)
• May 26: Maddie K (Gymnastics) and Henry (Gymnastics)
• June 2: Sthanika (_________) and Nakiya (Teaching reading)
• June 9: Cameron (Gymnastics) and Nicholas (_______), Steele (Protecting)
• June 16: Quentin (Running) and Sadie (Dance moves)

Science: Solar Ovens and Ink Transfer with Gak

SOLAR OVENS

A month or so ago, a few of the Room 7 kids playing outside during afternoon

The solar oven makers!

Exploration noticed kids from Room 12 making solar ovens outside our classroom.  Kids from both classes ended up working together to build an oven to heat up marshmallows.  It was a really enjoyable experience for our Room 7 kids that participated, so we wanted to set up this activity specifically for our class.

This week, the kids learned about the power of the sun and worked in teams to build their own solar ovens.  I explained the basic concept of how a solar oven worked by converting the sun’s energy into heat and then trapping that heat to “cook” something.  One child pointed out that a solar oven was similar to the leprechaun trap, except that we were “trapping” heat and not leprechauns!

The weather  did not cooperate…but we tried, anyway!

I then assigned teams of 2-3 students to work together as an engineering team to build their solar oven.  While we had unlimited access to cardboard pieces, aluminum foil, saran wrap, black construction paper, and tape, each team only got one cardboard box (the oven base).  So this was a great opportunity for many of the kids to work with new friends and practice communication and compromise.

The kids first tested marshmallows in their oven, and later got a ziploc bag of gak to heat up.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature wasn’t fully cooperating and it was drizzly and cloudy for most of the day, but that didn’t stop the kids from testing their oven and making observations about their marshmallow/gak!

Explain the solar oven as a convention and their challenge!

INK TRANSFER WITH GAK

After the kids had a chance to “heat” up their bag of gak in their homemade solar oven,

The only time we will EVER write/draw on tables 🙂

we showed them an interesting property of gak.  We asked the kids to use washable markers to draw/write on the laminate tables.  When they pressed their piece of gak onto the markings, they discovered that the ink transferred onto the gak!  They could then knead the piece of gak to erase the image and start again.  The kids really seemed to enjoy this! Some discovered that their white piece of gak started to turn colors, and a few worked on scribbling and transferring ink to obtain the perfect hue for them.  Others preferred drawing elaborate rainbows and designs and watching the picture transfer to their gak

Exploring was fun!

piece.  And there were many that enjoyed writing their name or different words and discovering that it transferred backwards!

NOTE: Amber brought up the idea of using other types of ink or medium to test whether that transferred to gak (e.g. newsprint, sharpie markers, crayons, etc).  That would definitely make a fun science experiment for kids to do at home if they want!

The ink printing was so cool!

Christine also shared a science model using metal balls and magnets that represented how glue and borax reacted to form gak.  The metal balls were the “glue” and magnets were the “borax”.  I honestly don’t know that the
kids really made the connection of how this represents the chemical reaction between glue and borax, but many seemed to enjoy just playing with the magnets.

Next week, we’re going to go back to space and freeze dried foods, something we touched upon briefly from the NASA space day and field trip.  After that, we’ll move into activities around osmosis/diffusion, and that will take us to the end of kindergarten!

Demo: Using magnets and metal balls to show how borax (magnets) and glue (metal balls) interact to make gak!

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