Quick update on art

I will not be sending art home this afternoon, but I hope to have it ready in the morning for anyone to pick up. Whatever is not picked up in the morning will go home with students in the afternoon.

Final week in kindergarten

Here are some notes about the week...

On Monday, we walked to the river to see the fleet depart.

The USS Franklin

Tuesday is a relatively normal day with our last guidance, music and P.E. classes.

On Wednesday we are heading to Chapman for Field Day and for lunch with our reading buddies.  Be sure your child is dressed in shoes for running and clothes for the weather.

Also, Wednesday morning is our last assembly. This will be a chance to celebrate  our wonderful crazy first year at the Ramona, and a last chance for coffee and conversations.

Thursday is the last day of school.  We will be having a party in the classroom to celebrate and to talk about each student.  The party will tentatively start at 1:00 (keep an eye out for updates) and families are invited!

I hope to send art home with most students on Tuesday afternoon.  I plan to keep art at school for everyone whose family I see daily.  Let me know if I need to do anything special to keep your child's art safe.

I look forward to seeing everyone Thursday for our classroom party!

A few things

Our class will be the featured attraction at Wednesday's Assembly.  The students will be reading their writing about fun & healthy things to do this summer.  I asked them to think about things that are fun and healthy (and warned them that video games do not count).  We will write about this Monday and practice our presentation on Tuesday.  As a bonus we will have coffee!

Also plan to attend the assembly on the following Wednesday when we hope to talk about our first year at the Ramona.

We are a little low on snacks.  Please consider one last round!

Have a wonderful weekend!

This week in kindergarten

Here is a short post for a short week...

Be sure to note that our last day of school is June 15, not June 9th, due to all of our snow days!

Tomorrow (Wednesday) we are heading to the main campus to see Madagascar (the play, not the movie) and to visit a first grade classroom.  We also hope to squeeze in a good recess, lunch and a visit to our reading buddies.

A cast visit from animals from Madagascar

We are deep into assessments -- it is amazing to see how far students have come over the course of the year..

Next week is our last "normal" week; five days, no field trips, and a regular schedule that includes walk to read and switch in the afternoon.

We are working on plans to walk to Jamison Square with our reading buddies on June 13th.  It would be wonderful to have some volunteers.  Please let me know if you might be able to help.  We also will be heading to the main campus on June 14th for Field Day.

I am excited about our end of the year party, scheduled for the afternoon of Thursday June 14th.  All families are invited to help our young scholars celebrate the end of an amazing year.  Sarah (Tess' mom) is organizing this.  I hope to provide final details early next week!

Our trip to the zoo

We had a wonderful time at the zoo today!  We got to see some bears playfully fighting, some monkeys swinging around, a hippopotamus climbing out of the water, and many other fun (and scientifically worthy) animals.

Thank you so much to all our wonderful volunteers!

Expect to see some very tired children this afternoon...

This week in kindergarten ZOO!

Hi all:

The big news of the week is our zoo trip.  We will be going with Ms. Davenports class.  The basic plan is to leave here around 8:40, catch the streetcar to the MAX, then the MAX to the Zoo.  We will wander around the zoo and eat lunch, and aim to return to the Ramona by 1:30.

Because of our departure time, there will be no Wednesday morning assembly!

Please be sure your child is in comfortable walking shoes and in weather-appropriate clothing (The forecasts for that day range from a high of 62 to a high of 69).  Also, if your child is bringing a lunch, PLEASE BE SURE TO PACK THE LUNCH IN A PAPER BAG AND PLEASE BE SURE IT IS ALL DISPOSABLE!

Volunteers -- please be here by 8:30 and, if possible, please bring a backpack so we can haul lunches.

Apart from our zoo trip, we will keep working on our basic academics.  We had a great time working on "mouse sized books" last week. This week our writing will focus on animals.  We have been working on making sense of addition and subtraction (and even exploring around the edges of multiplication).  Due to the field trips, we will only "walk to read" on Friday.

Thank you for the ongoing donations of snacks!!

This week in Kindergarten

Our field trip to the zoo is next Wednesday, May 24th.  We will be taking the streetcar to the MAX train and taking MAX to the zoo.  This is our last major field trip of the year.  We need several more volunteers for this trip.  Please let me know if you can attend.  Oh, and please get those forms back!

Speaking of field trips, we have a few smaller field trips planned including two visits to Chapman -- we will be visiting first grade on the 31st, and participating in Field Day on June 14th.  We also plan to do a walking field trip with our reading buddies on June 14th.

Our last day of school is June 15 (not the 9th!).  That afternoon we hope to have some sort of celebration.  Sarah Groom is organizing this (let her know if you can help).  This is a great time to celebrate all of our students and their accomplishments.  All parents are invited!!

Also our volunteer tea is on Tuesday, May 30th at 3:00 at the main campus.  If you have volunteered in the classroom or for kindergarten in any way, you are invited.

I am not sure I had a chance to thank everyone for all the wonderful things that happened during teacher appreciation week.  Thank you for the wonderful food, for helping your child write wonderful notes and for all the other acts of kindness.

This week will include writing mouse sized books in response to the book The Library Mouse.   We will be learning a bit about Africa, and reading some African folktales (speaking of Africa; this morning I read this fun story in the Guardian about robot traffic signals in Kinshasa -- I shared the story and we looked at pictures. You can see the pictures at https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2015/mar/13/kinshasa-traffic-robots-robocops-in-pictures).

We have deep thinkers here in kindergarten.  In response to a class discussion that somehow made it's way to the subject of whether aliens were real, one child responded "they have to be real because there is an infinite universe."  How can one argue with that!