• 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.