• Kinder Pod-Wide Spring Celebration: Friday March 31st before the potluck (10:30-11:45am). Some fun activities we will have include visiting baby chicks, eggs-ercise hunts, egg races, egg dying, egg decorating, a Passover cooking table, and planting!
  

  BIG MOMENT: Ellie’s first read-aloud to the class!

• Community Snack Schedule:  This week is the Carroll 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 family for snack last week!
• Spring Fun Faire: Saturday April 29th
• 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!
• Upcoming Field Trip:  Tuesday March 28th at NASA Ames Research Center which ties in nicely to the space unit we’re doing. Because of traffic we’ll need to leave as close to 8:30am as possible! See carpool list, below, but please don’t share with your little ones in case we make changes.
• The Spring Green Feast: On March 31st from 12:00-12:50pm, we’ll celebrate the coming of spring having a fun GREEN feast of all green foods provided by the bounty of the earth. Sort of like Stone Soup, everyone brings in an item to make salads, and that item also serves as a side dish for kids to choose from. Please view the sing-up genius HERE 
  

  Sign up for an item to bring 3/31!
  

  and feel free to add anything else ‘green’ you feel might be appropriate! We’ll do some revamping of the compost leading up to the big day. The Green Feast is to remind us of the wonderful gifts and mysteries of nature’s goodness 🙂

• Kinder Pod Performs for Community Sing! All families are welcome to join us on the last Fridays of each month for the sing. However, the kindergarten pod will be performing Friday April 28th for the school. Click here to see all the dates and who’s performing!
• Spring Break: NO SCHOOL Monday April 3 through Friday April 14th.
• FUTURE Parent Meeting Dates:  Wednesday April 26th, Wednesday May 24th, andWednesday June 14th.

AMES Field Trip Carpool List

Amber (Jada’s mom) 4 kids:

Jada
Genevieve
Donovan
Byron

Christine (Henry’s mom) 2 kids:

Tyler
Henry

Ale (Oscar’s mom) 2 kids:

Oscar
Logan

Mercedes (Ellie’s mom) 4 kids: 

Ellie
Steele
Dominic
Sadie

Shairstin (Nicholas’s mom) 2 kids:

Nicholas
Pranav

Arielle (Maddie K’s mom) 4 kids:

Maddie K
Sthanika
Cameron
Nadia

Trevor (Quentin’s dad) 4 kids:

Quentin
Maddie S
Claudia
Nakiya

Weekly Highlights

• Skill Sharing: Many children have brought in items and it’s become a contest. The items keep getting bigger and newer and have created some imbalance in the system of power
  

  A relieved Ellie smiles as friends clap for Ellie after she finishes her book! 

  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 what’s a skill. They gave the definition you see below. 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, starting March 31 🙂

• Ellie’s Read-Aloud: Ellie began the year not knowing how to read. So, she has worked very hard this year to accomplish her brain goal (learning how to read). She felt ready and asked on Monday if she could read aloud to the class. At first I was surprised, but it turns out it’s the same book she’s been practicing at home and asking to with me and other adults at school. She’d set her goal a while ago! (And here I just thought she loved Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham!) The children were very supportive and encouraging of her big moment, high-fiving her and shhh-ing friends who began to have side-conversations, now and again. Many were blown away by her new-found reading skills and immediately wanted a chance read in front of classmates, as well! So, a sign up is probably coming soon if they push for it 🙂
• Math: Introduced base 10 blocks for equations. We looked at the actual manipulatives
  

  Skill Sharing Schedule in lieu of toys!

  as well as drawings to help us: 10’s rods, 1’s cubes (called units or “baby ones”), and the 100’s flat blocks. They saw how 10 rods of 10 made a flat 100 block. So, then they asked about how to make 1000 and I told them it’s a huge cube, but I didn’t have it at the moment. So, instead, we made a make-shift one, by stacking 10 flat 100 stacks together to make a 1000 cube!) Children explored these materials freely first, building and making trains. But then, they began to add their rods, flat stacks, and unit ones up to see how big a number they could get. Many kids went over to join groups and share materials to increase their numbers. It was awesome! Later in the week, we used them to solve math equations demonstrating the 10s and 1s.

• Wednesday’s Parent Meeting: It went very well, and you can find the Parent Meeting
  

  D2 Space Odyssey Mission Day was out of this world!

  minutes here: Parent Meeting 6. We talked about how to support your child at home with math computation and number sense. We also did a small group exercise in comparing developmental shifts between older 5 year olds and 6 year olds with the help of Yardstick’s: Children in the Classroom Ages 4-14. Then, we shared out our findings and discussed our reflections about what we read and heard. MANY parents found this helpful! If you’d like the materials we used from Yardsticks, please email me.

• D2 Space Odyssey Mission in Rm 7: Amber planned and executed an AMAZING all day space exploration and training for our 22 little astronauts with the help of our room 7 parent and teacher community. Together the parents and I helped bring Amber’s vision into a reality…and boy did it exceed expectations! As Amber said, “Well, if we’re going to talk about space, space is big. Literally! So we had to go big!” Well done!!!
• Animal Visitor: Sheila (Claudia’s mom) brought a box turtle for the kids to see!
• Boys & Bathroom Agreements: Please continue to remind them! We found a giant
  

  Animal Visitor: Sheila brought a box turtle!

  pee puddle in the middle of the floor on their side…

• Literacy: Drawing and writing reflections on their favorite part of space day!
• Story Workshop: Children made their story workshop stories with the loose parts cart and we finished sharing the 5 stories from the previous week, on Wednesday via power point. Children have 10 seconds to look at someone’s work, then say what they think it might be. After, either I or they read their story and explain what the parts represent. They have time for 1 minute of questions or comments. So far, everyone has been warmly received and supported!
• Science: “Fluffy gak” with shaving cream!
• Art: Cosmic Sun catchers using plastic lids, white glue, liquid water color dye, and tooth picks!
• Just-Right Reading! Each morning, parents can help kids choose leveled books to
  

  Art: Cosmic Sun Catchers!

  take 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.
• Buddies: Buddy reading in P1 with fourth graders!

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

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:

• March 31: Cici (Flexibility), *Genevieve (Gymnastics/Art) and Oscar (T-ball)
• April 21: Byron (Karate) and *Nadia (Dancing/Singing)
• April 28: Tyler (Dance moves), Ellie (Drawing) and Logan (_________)
• May 5: Donovan (Hockey), Pranav (Gymnastics), Maddie S. (Gymnastics)
• May 12:  Dominic (Basketball) 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)

D2 Space Odyssey Mission Countdown: The Schedule For Our Space Mission Launch Day!

Reporting for duty!

Press Conference Lunch

Next, we enjoyed a “Press Conference Luncheon” (Snack inside the classroom) by 10-10:30 a.m., where they tasted the kinds of foods that astronauts eat in space.  Christine hosted a mini-lesson on states of matter, with freeze dried & plasma-like food using blueberries. How cool is that?!

After that, we entered into the theatrical portion of the play day.  Kids were granted access to mission control center, and encouraged to go through various stations of astronaut training exercises. The stations included a tube crawl, a lung test of blowing bubbles, a stamina test on the trampoline, an

Lung Capacity: 1 of 6 tests to pass before astronaut credentials would be given!

agility jumping test on the floor-size number line, a balance test, and a vomit comet test in a spinning chair. Once they passed these tests, they then took the Astronaut’s Pledge and got ready to enter space, beginning our count-down blast-off as we climbed inside our shuttle (giant tent in the middle of the room)! We watched a short launch video and reenacted going into space as they held on tight to their jet packs. While we were enclosed  inside our make shift shuttle, parent volunteers to rolled out bubble wrap to turn and turned on black lights to reenact our first stop: The moon! Children hopped out wearing their jet packs and happily bounced around, finding curious rocks on the ground…

We collected out moon rocks, which were river rocks that were spray painted with glow in

Moon rocks!

the dark paint and moon facts written on them.  They were encased  in a crusty shell of baking soda and pop rocks. They  dissolved the moon rocks’ crusty shell in a bucket of vinegar to unveil the secret moon fact written underneath it.  We shared the facts with each other, and it was meant as a fun take home home gift, however, most were left behind. (Feel free to grab on on the blue bench outside the classroom door!)

After that, we let the children play with their environment which led to a lot of “side

Dramatic Play: Impromptu-space missions!

missions” to pluto, mars, and more. We climbed back in our shuttle, for our second mission around our solar system, during which we watched a fun rap song video that told us cool facts about the planets! We ventured back to earth, climbed out, and played solar planet Q&A to test their knowledge of what they learned about the planets. Afterward, kids  had lunch and couldn’t wait to return!

Moon phases with Oreos!

Upon returning, there were several activities… They were given black paper or paper with solar planets’ stickers to map out where and how our solar system is laid out. (Parent: These can be laminated later as place mats!)  Trey, Jada’s older brother, led an out of this world informational food activity about moon phases involving Oreos. There were 5 different bio lab boxes set up to try out, two to four kids at a time at the station. This was their chance to mine for rocks, feel materials similar to the surfaces of certain planets, and a chance to test out what it’s like running a mini bio lab. Another station set up was called Stargazing for letters and number search. They had a chance to look at constellations and play with pretend computers to calculate missions and launches they led. There was even a simulated BLACK hole (made by Steele’s family) using a fan and a GIANT, GIANT GARBAGE BAG! They even painted the inside with stars. It was a huge hit with the kids. Joan,
Terra and Carol’s classes were curious and were encouraged to come during this free exploration time and thoroughly enjoyed the choices. Eventually, it was time for us to land for pick up.  So we climbed inside the shuttle (tent) and watched a shuttle landing video with Terra’s class who swung by towards the end. We safely landed and the astronauts were asked to get

THE BLACK HOOOOOOOOOOOLE!!!…

their jet packs for a classic post-landing picture outside. It was a phenomenal experience and the kids couldn’t have imagined something so surreal and HUGE! What a huge success for our community in pulling off something so grandiose and a wonderful testament to the visionary skills and leadership provided by Amber Martinez (Jada’s mom). Only in room 7 kindergarten, ya’ll!  🙂  If you’d like to send her a message of gratitude, please email her at snipit@ymail.com.

We finished dropping some sick space knowledge…That’s a rap!

Story Workshop & Sharing

Building Leprechaun Traps:

 Science, Engineering, Art, and Literacy come together!

Letters and Leprechauns!

Last week, we brainstormed ideas that children wondered about regarding leprechauns.
We wrote them down on the board. Later, students wrote letters to the leprechauns asking them all the questions they had. This week the Leprechaun Clan of O’Doole, McCleary and Green responded! Every day, they left us a new note in rhymes and riddles.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

What are “Simple Machines” to Kindergarteners?

I put together a powerpoint about simple leprechaun facts that would help us in building our traps and the children were SUPER engaged and glued to every fact! We also saw and discussed how simple machines help to “do the work for us” by using force in different ways to make our designs stronger without the use of technology.  I gave them examples of simple machines in the power point and in the moment with models. Then, we played the Leprechaun game, where they hid around the room and became ‘invisible’ and I made a simple machine trap with gold inside to trap them. They ran out quickly and tried to get it. They loved it! We played the game 2 times 🙂 Afterwards, we talked about how the trap had to be strong. “If we’re going to trap tricky leprechauns, then our machines need to be sturdy and strong without us helping it. Remember, they’re coming when we’re gone so the traps have to function soundly without our help!” Christine also brought plans her kids drew up in previous years to show how simple machines worked and she described the results based on the effectiveness of each design. They really thought about the aspects of engineering a good trap and use at least 1 of the 6 simple machines we covered:

1. Wedge
2. Incline
3. Pulley
4. Lever
5. Wheel & axel
6. Screw

Reading the letter!

 The Leprechauns’ Mischief

We read their rhyme and talked about safety agreements for entering the classroom, how

Opening the door….!!!!

to share whatever treats or things they left for us, and later one about how to help clean up the space. When we walked in, there were streamers on the ceiling, glitter on the floor, books that made pathways, green leprechaun glitter all around, gak poured into a pool, and almost ALL the building toys had been played with! Structures were left under tables and around traps.
They found little ladders and signs left by the leprechauns all around their traps! The leprechauns also gifted us cookies, chocolate gold coins, clover plants and purple flowers for the fairies, because they told their fairy cousins to come visit (since they had so much fun!) We looked and looked, but alas, we didn’t trap a single one! We gave them a run for their money, though, almost trapping 19 according to their letter to us. Additionally, they left a letter answering ALL our questions we wrote to them, last week. After having fun, and exploring the remains of their “party” on Wednesday night, we had to work together to clean up after them! Byron repeatedly said, “The leprechauns should have to clean up their own mess! That’s not fair!” He wasn’t wrong and many agreed! But what can you do? We cleaned it up, anyway! Later that day, each child wrote a reflection about what surprised them the MOST about the leprechauns’ visit!

Slideshow & Video of the Early St. Patrick’s Day Discoveries!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 Unexpected Scientific Fun!

Irish soda bread!

In the afternoon, we had an unplanned adventure where some of the kids chose to work with the 1st graders on another engineering challenge – building a (solar) oven that could melt a marshmallow.  All the kids received one marshmallow and had access to recyclable cardboard/plastic materials, aluminum foil/trays, and other random art supplies.  A few kids seemed confused at first about “oven-making” (“Where are we getting the electricity to turn our oven on?”) until they realized that they were trying to capture the sun’s heat.

• One child immediately went and got a skewer, put her marshmallow on it, and then ran out into the sun holding the skewered marshmallow up in the air so that it could catch the sun’s rays.
• One group of kids built a “pretend” campfire using paper materials, stuck their marshmallow on a skewer, and then “roasted” them over the fire.
• There were numerous kids that teamed up with some of the 1st graders from Room 12 to build an oven.  It was a really good team-building opportunity to work with a new group of kids.

Mark Those Calendars!

• D2 Space Odyssey Mission in Rm 7: Amber (snipit@ymail.com/(408) 505-5580) is planning anAMAZING all day space exploration and training for our 22 little astronauts, but WE NEED YOUR HELP! She sent an email about materials and volunteers she needs and is in desperate need of parent helpers! PLEASE COME TO THE CLASSROOM TOMORROW at 11am. We are excited for this space mission Odyssey OR as NASA would call it an, “Extended Duration Orbiter Mission” Day.  See details later in blog below!
• Community Snack Schedule:  This week is the Ho 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 Hunter family for snack last week!
• Pod-Wide Spring Celebration: Friday March 31st before the potluck (time TBD)
  

  Story Workshop

  Some fun activities we will have include visiting baby chicks, eggs-ercsise hunts, egg races, egg dying, egg decorating, and planting!

• Parent Meeting: Wednesday, March 22nd
• FUTURE Parent Meeting Dates:  Skipping February (short month, too many conflicts), Wednesday March 22nd, Wednesday April 26th, Wednesday May 24th, andWednesday June 14th.
• PSC Meeting: Wednesday March 15th 6:30-9pm
• Board Meeting: Thursday March 16th 6:30-8pm
• Field Trip:  Tuesday March 28th at AMES Research Center which ties in nicely to the space unit we’re doing. Because of traffic we’ll need to leave as close to 8:30am as possible!
• The Spring Green Feast: On March 31st from 12:00-12:50pm, we’ll celebrate the coming of spring having a fun GREEN feast of all green foods provided by the bounty of the earth. Sort of like Stone Soup, everyone brings in an item to make salads, and that item also serves as a side dish for kids to choose from. Please view the sing-up genius HERE 
  

  Sign up for an item to bring 3/31!
  

  and feel free to add anything else ‘green’ you feel might be appropriate! We’ll do some revamping of the compost leading up to the big day. The Green Feast is to remind us of the wonderful gifts and mysteries of nature’s goodness 🙂

• Kinder Pod Performs for Community Sing! All families are welcome to join us on the last Fridays of each month for the sing. However, the kindergarten pod will be performing Friday April 28th for the school. Click here to see all the dates and who’s performing!

Weekly Highlights

• No school on St. Patrick’s Day: On Friday 3/17 the staff had professional
  

  Animal Visitor: Frogs!

  development day, thus it was a 4 day week

• Leprechaun Trap Challenge: On Thursday March 16th, we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day! Our Leprechaun clan had to return to Ireland for St. Paddy’s day, so we think that’s why they came early 😉 In honor of this holiday, we engineered fun and effective Leprechaun Traps. The STEAM challenge was to create traps that had at least ONE simple machine and would decoratively entice the leprechauns inside the trap. Then, we left them over night on Wednesday and the leprechaun clan of 21 VISITED! See details, above!
• Irish Soda Bread: Thanks to one of Joan’s parents who brought some in and shared it with us!
• Animal Visitors: Sheila (Claudia’s mom) brought two different types of frogs for the kids to see!
• Boys & Bathroom Agreements: It came to our attention that the boys’ side of the bathroom was being misused, again. They were peeing on the toilet paper roll on the wall, on the floor, in the sink, on the rug, weren’t flushing, bringing toys into he toilet, and peed in a firefighter’s helmet in the toilet. So, all 4 classrooms of boys sat down with teachers to discuss the situation. So far, it’s been better, but please continue having the talk with your children (especially boys) about bathroom agreements and expectations. Thanks!
• Literacy: Writing design plans for leprechaun traps, making signs for their traps, and
  

  Decorating traps!

  writing reflections on the what was the most surprising aspect of our visit from the leprechauns.

• Story Workshop: Children made their story workshop stories with the loose parts cart and we shared all but 5 this week, on Wednesday via power point. Children have 10 seconds to look at someone’s work, then say what they think it might be. After, either I or they read their story and explain what the parts represent. They have time for 1 minute of questions or comments. So far, everyone has been warmly received and supported!
• Science: Engineering leprechaun traps and learning about 6 simple machines. They chose one to add to the trap.
• Art: Decorating leprechaun traps with various green materials!
  

  Go Noodle: Voting on a NEW champ!

• 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!
• 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.
• Monday and Thursday Treat:  The Leprechaun’s Gold movie and The Night before St. Patrick’s Day read-aloud video (since I lost my voice), along with two other read-alouds How To Catch A Leprechaun and Happy St. Patrick’s Day Curious George.

 D2 Space Odyssey Mission Countdown: The Schedule For Our Space Mission Launch Day!

THIS Monday March 20th, our astronauts in training will coming wearing white, blue or any NASA or American inspired clothing. They will check in at 8:30am, sign their name with the commanding officer (attendance) and pick up their badges and gear and will be guided through the exciting careers, cool technology and some history that space frontier travel has to offer our young cadets. Amber is hoping for a guest speaker(s) and parent volunteers to help guide this portion of the lesson.  “I have some material for this portion. However, I am happy to accept more ideas too.  If parents wants to help with this part, let’s meet ahead of time to create, talking-point, cue-cards together before the event.”

We will take a recess break then come back to enjoy a “Press Conference Luncheon” (Snack inside the classroom) by 10-10:30 a.m.  They will get to learn about how, what and taste the foods that astronauts eat in space.  Christine will host a mini lesson on states of matter, “freeze dried & plasma-like food”!  How cool is that?!

After that we will climb back in our shuttle, for our second mission around our solar system, which will be watching a guided projector activity on the ceiling of the easy up, about our solar system.  We will venture back to earth, climb out and play solar planet Simon says to test their knowledge of what they learned about the planets. A parent volunteer is needed to set up this scene by changing up the room by rolling up and putting away the bubble wrap and setting out Simon says game pieces.  Cue cards will be read by Teacher Kate or a volunteer and they have to figure out which planet to land on when the recognize the facts about that particular planet. Then, around 12:20pm – Kids will break for lunch.

Upon returning, there will be several activities… They will be given scratch art paper or paper with solar planets stickers to map out where and how our solar system is laid out. These can be laminated later as place mats! An out of this world art station to be set up.  Here they will create using the spice jar, a Nebula galaxy, as a take home memento. One or two volunteers would be appreciated here to help monitor them pouring colored water and glitter into the cotton ball layered jars, as well as hot glue gun the lid on.

There will be bio lab boxes set up to try out, two to four kids at a time at this station.  This is their chance to mine for rocks and test out what it’s like running a mini bio lab. Another station to be set up called Stargazing for letters and number search.

Other various themed activities will eventually guide us to a movement break out doors between 2ish-2:50 pm for pick up.    This will occur about 2 pm outside. I do want the kids to be totally surprised, so MUM is the word!

Amber Martines, C.R.S., G.R.I.

408-505-5580, snipit@ymail.com

Story Workshop & Sharing

Mark Those Calendars!

• D2 Space Odyssey Mission in Rm 7: Amber (snipit@ymail.com) is planning an
  

  Kinders left ME a morning message read when I returned from sick leave!

  AMAZING all day space exploration and training for our 22 little astronauts, but WE NEED YOUR HELP! She sent an email about materials and volunteers she needs and is in desperate need of parent helpers! Are you available Monday March 20th for part or all of this space mission Odyssey OR as NASA would call it an, “Extended Duration Orbiter Mission” Day?    See details later in blog below!

• Community Snack Schedule:  POST-PRESIDENT’S week break is the Hunter  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 Maxwell/Johnson family for snack last week!
• Pod-Wide Spring Celebration: Friday March 31st before the potluck (time TBD)  Some fun activities we will have include visiting baby chicks, eggs-ercsise hunts, egg races, egg dying, egg decorating, and planting!
• Parent Meeting: Wednesday, March 22nd
• FUTURE Parent Meeting Dates:  Skipping February (short month, too many conflicts), Wednesday March 22nd, Wednesday April 26th, Wednesday May 24th, and
  

  Leprechaun Trap Challenge: THIS Tuesday in Science!

  Wednesday June 14th.

• Leprechaun Trap Challenge: On Thursday March 16th, we’ll be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day! In honor of this holiday, we’ll be doing a fun Leprechaun Trap challenge as an engineering project in science that week! Children will build traps during science on Tuesday the 14th. See details further down about materials to bring! Then, we will test how well they work by leaving them overnight on Wednesday. Should be fun!
• St. Patrick’s Day: NO SCHOOL Friday March 17th (staff development day)
• PSC Meeting: Wednesday March 15th 6:30-9pm
• Board Meeting: Thursday March 16th 6:30-8pm
• The Spring Green Feast: On March 31st from 12:00-12:50pm, we’ll celebrate the coming of spring b
  having a fun GREEN feast of all green foods provided by the bounty of the earth. Sort of like Stone Soup, everyone brings in an item to make salads, and that item also serves as a side dish for kids to choose from. Please view the sing-up genius HERE 
  

  Sign up for an item to bring 3/31!
  

  and feel free to add anything else ‘green’ you feel might be appropriate! We’ll do some revamping of the compost leading up to the big day. The Green Feast is to remind us of the wonderful gifts and mysteries of nature’s goodness 🙂

• Kinder Pod Performs for Community Sing! All families are welcome to join us on the last Fridays of each month for the sing. However, the kindergarten pod will be performing Friday April 28th for the school. Click here to see all the dates and who’s performing!

Literacy: Leprechaun Letters!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Weekly Highlights

• Sub for Kate: Shalini subbed for me Wednesday and Thursday because I was sick.
  

  Campus Clean up!: Room 7 rallies to help the community!

• Boys & Bathroom Agreements: It came to our attention that the boys’ side of the bathroom was being misused, again. They were peeing on the toilet paper roll on the wall, on the floor, in the sink, on the rug, weren’t flushing, bringing toys into he toilet, and peed in a firefighter’s helmet in the toilet. So, all 4 classrooms of boys sat down with teachers to discuss the situation. So far, it’s been better, but please continue having the talk with your children (especially boys) about bathroom agreements and expectations. Thanks!
• Literacy: Handwriting and Letters to Leprechauns! Hopefully, they’ll swing by after getting the signal from our letters… 🙂
• Science: Gak, salt water and buoyancy experiments!
• Art: Rainbow paper craft and hidden messages using a white crayon and watercolor paint
• 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!
• 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.
• Math:  We did differentiated addition with coins that required kids to recognize coins
  

  Practicing adding coins together!

  and then add their sums (A: sums less than 20 with nickels, dimes, and pennies, B: addition by 5s or nickels only, and C: sums with all coins adding up to odd numbers and/or numbers above $1 requiring use of the decimal point), as well as board games and kakooma. Children wanted to make a store to raise money for the classroom field trips and in order to do that they agreed that they needed to learn how to add and subtract money to run their store.

• Buddies: We took turns in two groups playing steal the bacon outside and doing inside building choices with our 4th grade buddies.
• Scales: As an open ended morning math activity during free choice, children worked with scales to answer the provocation -how can you balance the scales? They used
  

  Building: Cooperation and collaboration!

  foam blocks, rocks, and shells.

• Sharing: We tried a different sharing structure, more akin to museum style. 5 children at a time sat at tables with shares and everyone has 2 mins per table to ask questions or give comments.
• Friday Treat: A Magic School Bus Gets Planted episode for part of Quiet Time/Beginning of Exploration.
• Friday Kinder Sing
• Campus Clean-up: Kids used trash pickers and filled 6 garbage bags in 20 minutes! They took turns using the trash pickers and did an excellent job as stewards of the school and super helpers of Salvador.

Art: Spring Rainbows & Secret Messages!

Money: Adding coins!

Leprechaun Traps: Materials Needed!

The kids will put on their engineering hats on Tuesday, March 14th and design and build their own leprechaun traps using recyclable materials.  These traps will be left out Wednesday afternoon, so that the leprechauns can “visit” the classroom in the night.  Who knows what the kids will discover Thursday morning!!

– boxes, especially interesting ones that have unique flaps or pre-cut holes

Campus Clean-Up: Practicing Stewardship

“Taking care of the things and people around us.”

D2 Space Odyssey Mission Countdown!

Empty plastic containers needed!

The Schedule For Our Space Mission Launch Day!

On Monday March 20th, our astronauts in training will coming wearing white, blue or any NASA or American inspired clothing. They will check in at 8:30am, sign their name with the commanding officer (attendance) and pick up their badges and gear and will be guided through the exciting careers, cool technology and some history that space frontier travel has to offer our young cadets. Amber is hoping for a guest speaker(s) and parent volunteers to help guide this portion of the lesson.  “I have some material for this portion. However, I am happy to accept more ideas too.  If parents wants to help with this part, let’s meet ahead of time to create, talking-point, cue-cards together before the event.”

We will take a recess break then come back to enjoy a “Press Conference Luncheon” (Snack inside the classroom) by 10-10:30 a.m.  They will get to learn about how, what and taste the foods that astronauts eat in space.  Christine will host a mini lesson on states of matter, “freeze dried & plasma-like food”!  How cool is that?!

After that we will climb back in our shuttle, for our second mission around our solar system, which will be watching a guided projector activity on the ceiling of the easy up, about our solar system.  We will venture back to earth, climb out and play solar planet Simon says to test their knowledge of what they learned about the planets. A parent volunteer is needed to set up this scene by changing up the room by rolling up and putting away the bubble wrap and setting out Simon says game pieces.  Cue cards will be read by Teacher Kate or a volunteer and they have to figure out which planet to land on when the recognize the facts about that particular planet. Then, around 12:20pm – Kids will break for lunch.

Upon returning, there will be several activities… They will be given scratch art paper or paper with solar planets stickers to map out where and how our solar system is laid out. These can be laminated later as place mats! An out of this world art station to be set up.  Here they will create using the spice jar, a Nebula galaxy, as a take home memento. One or two volunteers would be appreciated here to help monitor them pouring colored water and glitter into the cotton ball layered jars, as well as hot glue gun the lid on.

There will be bio lab boxes set up to try out, two to four kids at a time at this station.  This is their chance to mine for rocks and test out what it’s like running a mini bio lab. Another station to be set up called Stargazing for letters and number search.

Other various themed activities will eventually guide us to a movement break out doors between 2ish-2:50 pm for pick up.   Is there a parent who can pre-test and then run the water rocket activity on the day of the event (March 20th) for this activity?  This will occur about 2 pm outside. I do want the kids to be totally surprised, so MUM is the word!

Amber is always open to suggestions and comments and she appreciates all your help! Thank you to those few who’ve responded already  🙂

Amber Martines, C.R.S., G.R.I.

408-505-5580, snipit@ymail.com

Science with Christine: Gak, Buoyancy, and Salt Water!

Class Experiment: Buoyancy and Gak

Last week, when the kids had a chance to experiment with different materials and how they interacted with gak, there was a fair amount of interest in whether something floated or sank in gak.  We have previously discussed buoyancy and looked at some float/sink experiments with water, so it was great to see kids pulling from that knowledge source and creating experiments using gak as the liquid

Feeding on that interest, we conducted a simple experiment where kids hypothesize whether certain items would float or sink in gak.  The items we tested were a plastic toy, a small rock, a piece of dense foil folded into a square, and a piece of foil shaped into a ball.  We first gathered information about how those materials acted in water.  For each item, we did a body vote (we asked the kids to go to one half of the room if they thought it would sink and go to the other half if they thought it would float.)  They tallied the number of kids in each group.  A few kids chose to abstain from making hypotheses.

Body Vote: Picking sides for their hypotheses!

Kids then followed a similar process for making hypotheses on how those items would behave when placed in gak.  We observed that the gak was “thicker” (more viscous) than water and one of the kids explained that, last week, it took the entire recess period for a toy snake to sink from the top of a pile of gak to the bottom.  Thus, after placing the items into the container of gak, we let the container sit until after recess.

After recess, we analyzed the results.  We made the discovery that the items behaved the same with both gak and water.  If the items floated in water, they also floated in gak.

GUIDED ACTIVITY: How water affects Gak

We’re almost finished going through the various experiment ideas that the kids had proposed a few weeks ago around gak.  This week, we looked at “What happens when you put gak in water?”

To further expand on that subject matter and touch upon some of the learnings we’ve discovered already, the kids had a chance to explore the behavior of gak when it was mixed with water and also look at gak mixed with salt water.

Observations about Gak mixed with (plain) water:

• It gets stringy.  It’s cold. It’s squishy. (Genevieve)
• It gets soft. (Logan)
• It gets less sticky.  It feels like jello. It turns the water to the color of the gak. (Nakiya and Maddie S)
• It feels like poop. (Oscar)
• It smells like pee. (Quentin)
• It feels a little wet. (Henry)

Observations about Gak mixed with salt water:

• It squished out all the water, I hate this feeling!  The salt’s going in my skin.  It separates the water. (Genevieve)
• The color is getting lighter, the salt goes inside. (Nakiya)
• Mine’s not sticky anymore.  (Donovan)
• It gets harder.  If you press down on it, it looks like cells. (Claudia)
• It gets harder.  (Maddie S)
• It’s slobbery and it looks like a brain but it’s blue.  Not a good feeling.  (Ellie)
• I see really, really light white in my gak. (Logan and Oscar)
• Slobbery and wet, slippery.  It’s sticky, really sticky, gak is getting smaller in the water.  It’s slimy, it’s green on the table and blue in my hand (Maddie K and Cameron)
• Squishy. (Dominic and Tyler)
• Slimy (Jada)
• It’s turning into blue water. (Byron)

Overall, this was a great exercise to help kids verbalize their observations and focus on details when making these observations.

Making Gak (continuation from previous weeks)

We’re continuing to take a few kids at a time to show them how to make gak.  They’ve really been enjoying having the time to explore the two ingredients and figure out how each ingredient affects the final properties of gak.

We’ve gotten through 75% of the class, and many have asked to do it a second time, so we’ll continue having this station until we’ve satisfied everyone’s interest.

Some opportunities for further studies:

• Viscosity – kids noticed that the gak was “thicker” or “harder” than water.  We observed that things sank slower in the gak (compared to water).  There’s probably videos out there if we want to introduce this concept to their vocabulary.  We could also do some class experiments on this, such as bringing in liquids of different viscosity and timing how long it takes rocks to move through them.
• Using the metal balls/magnets to demonstrate how glue and borax works (I think we’ve gotten through enough kids to be able to bring that in next time)
• Osmosis – Especially since one of the kids mentioned how the gak blob looked like a cell, Christine thinks it would be great to talk more about how salt affects living cells in both plants and animals and Julie Olsen, our gardening parent, is very excited about this prospect!  Christine and I would love to do some version of the “how do plants grow in regular vs. salt water”.

(NOTE: Thank you Christine for always doing such detailed weekly write ups of the science experience!)

Mark Those Calendars!

• D2 Space Odyssey Mission in Rm 7: Amber (snipit@ymail.com) is planning an
  

  D2 Space Odyssey Mission on Monday March 20, 2017! Join us!

  AMAZING all day space exploration and training for our 22 little astronauts, but WE NEED YOUR HELP! She sent an email about materials and volunteers she needs and is in desperate need of parent helpers! Are you available Monday March 20th for part or all of this space mission Odyssey OR as NASA would call it an, “Extended Duration Orbiter Mission” Day?    See details later in blog below!

• Community Snack Schedule:  POST-PRESIDENT’S week break is the Maxwell/Johnson 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 Fierro family for snack last week!
• Pod-Wide Spring Celebration: Friday March 31st before the potluck (time TBD)  Some fun activities we will have include visiting baby chicks, eggs-ercsise hunts, egg races, egg dying, egg decorating, and planting!
• Parent Meeting: Wednesday March 22nd
• FUTURE Parent Meeting Dates:  Skipping February (short month, too many conflicts), Wedn
  esday March 22nd, Wednesday April 26th, Wednesday May 24th, and Wednesday June 14th.
• Leprechaun Trap Challenge: On Thursday March 16th, we’ll be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day! In honor of this holiday, we’ll be doing a fun Leprechaun Trap challenge as an engineering project in science that week! Children will build traps during science on Tuesday the 14th. See details further down about materials to bring! Then, we will test how well they work by leaving them overnight on Wednesday. Should be fun!
• St. Patrick’s Day: NO SCHOOL Friday March 17th (staff development day)
• PSC Meeting: Wednesday March 15th 6:30-9pm
• Board Meeting: Thursday M
  arch 16th 6:30-8pm
• The Spring Green Feast: On March 31st from 12:00-12:50pm, we’ll celebrate the coming of spring by
  

  Sign up for an item to bring!

  having a fun GREEN feast of all green foods provided by the bounty of the earth. Sort of like Stone Soup, everyone brings in an item to make salads, and that item also serves as a side dish for kids to choose from. Please view the sing-up genius HERE and feel free to add anything else ‘green’ you feel might be appropriate! We’ll do some revamping of the compost leading up to the big day. The Green Feast is to remind us of the wonderful gifts and mysteries of nature’s goodness 🙂

• Kinder Pod Performs for Community Sing! All families are welcome to join us on the last Fridays of each month for the sing. However, the kindergarten pod will be performing Friday April 28th for the school. Click here to see all the dates and who’s performing!

Provocation Example: How can you balance the scales?

Leprechaun Traps: Materials needed!

The kids will put on their engineering hats on Tuesday, March 14th and design and build their own leprechaun traps using recyclable materials.  These traps will be left out Wednesday afternoon, so that the leprechauns can “visit” the classroom in the night.  Who knows what the kids will discover Thursday morning!!

– boxes, especially interesting ones that have unique flaps or pre-cut holes

D2 Space Odyssey Mission Countdown!

Empty plastic containers needed!

The Schedule For Our Space Mission Launch Day!

On Monday March 20th, our astronauts in training will coming wearing white, blue or any NASA or American inspired clothing. They will check in at 8:30am, sign their name with the commanding officer (attendance) and pick up their badges and gear and will be guided through the exciting careers, cool technology and some history that space frontier travel has to offer our young cadets. Amber is hoping for a guest speaker(s) and parent volunteers to help guide this portion of the lesson.  “I have some material for this portion. However, I am happy to accept more ideas too.  If parents wants to help with this part, let’s meet ahead of time to create, talking-point, cue-cards together before the event.”

We will take a recess break then come back to enjoy a “Press Conference Luncheon” (Snack inside the classroom) by 10-10:30 a.m.  They will get to learn about how, what and taste the foods that astronauts eat in space.  Christine will host a mini lesson on states of matter, “freeze dried & plasma-like food”!  How cool is that?!

After that we will climb back in our shuttle, for our second mission around our solar system, which will be watching a guided projector activity on the ceiling of the easy up, about our solar system.  We will venture back to earth, climb out and play solar planet Simon says to test their knowledge of what they learned about the planets. A parent volunteer is needed to set up this scene by changing up the room by rolling up and putting away the bubble wrap and setting out Simon says game pieces.  Cue cards will be read by Teacher Kate or a volunteer and they have to figure out which planet to land on when the recognize the facts about that particular planet. Then, around 12:20pm – Kids will break for lunch.

Upon returning, there will be several activities… They will be given scratch art paper or paper with solar planets stickers to map out where and how our solar system is laid out. These can be laminated later as place mats! An out of this world art station to be set up.  Here they will create using the spice jar, a Nebula galaxy, as a take home memento. One or two volunteers would be appreciated here to help monitor them pouring colored water and glitter into the cotton ball layered jars, as well as hot glue gun the lid on.

There will be bio lab boxes set up to try out, two to four kids at a time at this station.  This is their chance to mine for rocks and test out what it’s like running a mini bio lab. Another station to be set up called Stargazing for letters and number search.

Other various themed activities will eventually guide us to a movement break out doors between 2ish-2:50 pm for pick up.   Is there a parent who can pre-test and then run the water rocket activity on the day of the event (March 20th) for this activity?  This will occur about 2 pm outside. I do want the kids to be totally surprised, so MUM is the word!

Amber is always open to suggestions and comments and she appreciates all your help! Thank you to those few who’ve responded already  🙂

Amber Martines, C.R.S., G.R.I.

408-505-5580, snipit@ymail.com

Weekly Highlights

• Dr. Seuss Reading Week: It was Dr. Seuss’ Birthday Thursday March 2nd, so we
  

  Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

  highlighted it by reading many of his books and doing related literacy activities to encourage rhyming and word ending recognition, which helps blending sounds as they learn reading.

• NEW Story Workshop Cart: Children made stories after using the NEW story workshop cart from the center pod. Children were so excited to use these new loose materials, and did some wonderful play with their imaginations! When they finished, we put them back (since it’s a recycled items activity), but snapped photos beforehand. The next day, some children were able to explain their stories and see their pictures on a slide show! Students took 10 seconds to look at each picture and use their own imaginations to make sense of how the materials were used first. Then, the story was read aloud and they were given time to 3 questions or comments. Children were very proud and their classmates were respectful and encouraging of their sharing!
  

  Cooking: Cat in The Hat parfaits!

• Cooking: Cat in The Hat Parfaits with strawberries, vanilla yogurt, and whipper cream!
• NO MORE Mud Puddles! Aside from some kids coming back from both recesses
  covered/caked with/bathed in mud from chest to feet (some with no change of clothing), there’s a sanitary issue. We recently found out that several of the large mud puddles children were playing in have been contaminated by dog poop. Several witnesses saw at least 5 dogs choose their spots and owners didn’t fish for the logs…So, please, tell your child that mud puddles are off limits!
• Literacy: Phonics with Dr. Seuss word families!
• Science: Gak making and experiments!
• Art: Dr. Seuss themed puppets using plastic cutlery and decorative materials. This
  

  Art: Dr. Seuss Puppets!

  inspired them to do plays with our puppet theater 🙂

• 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!
• 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.
• Math:  March calendars and money. We introduced money with pennies, dimes, nickels, quarters, and half dollar coins because the kids want to fundraise for a field trip. (They know Monterrey Bay Aquarium isn’t an option this year, but still were interested in selling goods to raise money for the classroom to do something fun!). They looked at the coins for qualities that identify each coins, then sorted the coins. Eventually, we did addition and subtraction practice with money. They did skits taking turned pretending to be a buyer and seller buying cookies for a $1.00.
• Buddies: We played on the playground together with our 4th grade buddies!
  

  Truffalla Tree Word Families!

• Truffalla Tree Phonics: Students helped each other in groups brainstorm and write down words for various word ending families. This was a mostly independent activity where kids worked together and circulated to each table of word families!
• Scales: As an open ended morning math activity during free choice, children worked with scales to answer the provocation -how can you balance the scales? They used beans and noticed that because they’re different sizes, that skewed the results. This week, they will try foam blocks.
• Sharing: Several kids brought in special items they wanted to share as an extension of our science discussion on models.
• Dr. Seuss Movie: Horton Hears A Who (25 mins)
• Friday School Community Sing
• Japanese Doll Festival: Akiko and Nadia did a wonderful presentation about Japanese Doll Festival that they celebrated March 3rd. Akiko brought in one of the foods typically eaten during the celebration. Nadia wore her traditional clothing and Akiko showed kids how to make their own paper dolls!

We read Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss over two days and then watched the movie!

Dr. Seuss Inspired Phonics!

Math

Japanese Doll Festival

Story Workshop Cart in Action!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Science with Christine: GAK

GUIDED ACTIVITY: Gak Experiment

We continued going through the list of “experiment ideas” that the kids had brainstormed a few weeks ago.  We did the following idea: “What happens when you add _____ to gak?”

Gak was available at tables, as well as the other materials, though some of the materials the kids needed to go outside and find (e.g. dirt, grass, sticks, rocks).  They attempted to do a simple write-up of the experiment, prior to experimenting since everything got very messy very quickly.

Materials included flour, salt, oil, nature objects, toys, etc.  Questions proposed to the kids included whether the final mixed product was a liquid or a solid, whether the various ingredients mix and dissolve into the gak or just stay separated, and whether the ingredients changes the way gak behaves (does it still ooze?  does it stick to your hand?)

There was some overlap of the other experiment ideas (e.g. several wanted to leave it out to see how it dries or want to freeze it).  We did it for a day. However, gak in art cubbies was not the best idea!  It was very interesting to see how they used gak with toys! See some quoted kid observations below:

• I put flour oatmeal salt and sugar into my back and it’s just like don’t know!
• Salt is pulling the water out of the gak!
• Salt changed the color
• Mesh: it goes through a little easy and it gets stuck

• Rocks: Gak sticks to them. We smoothed it up and put it on top, the octopus wassticking to the rock because of the gak.

• Sometimes when I stick the animals on and try to take it off the toys would stick and then the gak stretched and broke.
• Toys and gak: it sticks, doesn’t come off that easily,
• Grass: gak makes  float stuck
• Gak on a house: easy to clean off, slowly covers it, sticky, breaks,
• Gak on clothes feels cold and sticky
• You can’t see the color when you mix everything in
• I added mostly oats I put water oil and oil after I put dry stuff in then I added liquid
  and it was kid of dry and liquidy
• I added everything and it looked exactly oatmeal, it looked weird!
• I made a purple beautiful design- because I added a lot of  flour
• Stick and gak: The stick was stuck and when I tried to pull it really high and the gak stretched and broke! It’s strong!
• When I added only salt and it turned liquid and the gak separated from the water
• Animal hotel: We put rocks sticks salt and sugar in gak and it turned a certain color and mixed into a lot of colors together. All of those ingredients together made some kind of glue.
• I found out if you put flour and salt together and then I just go into the gak  and then it turned into more bits.
• Toys sink in gak: I put a pink snake in before recess and it was on the top and now it’s sunk inside. (Other kid) yeah! My triceratops sunk and now the gak is rising out of the container

  

GUIDED ACTIVITY: Morning Exploration Time (Gak Making Station)