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!

This week in kindergarten

First off, my apologies for not posting for several weeks.  It has been super busy.  I have sent out several emails regarding Art Ball and Run for the Arts.  If you did not receive these, let me know so we can figure out email issues.

Art Ball was fantastic.  Our display of each child's work looked great in the gym on Friday night, and our cityscapes made Room 6 look like an urban center.  Many thanks to our artist in residence and Chapman parent Morgan Korn for the cityscapes.  The portfolio displays were the product of a huge amount of work by a team of kindergarten parents. Many thanks to everyone who helped, and especially to Molly Porter who both coordinated volunteers, and put in many long hours.

The Run for the Arts was also wonderful.  Thanks to everyone who volunteered for this event, to everyone who came out to cheer for their child and friends, and to everyone who solicited pledges and got their child's pledges in.

Our new "walk to read" program is working well. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday students are fanning out to the four different classrooms to read and learn with other students who are working on similar concepts.  Ask your child which teacher they are meeting with and how it is going; feel free to let me know how your child perceives this change.

Here are a few events coming up in May:

On Tuesday, May 9th at 9:00 we have the Fall Kindergarten information meeting.  Please tell your friends with incoming kinders.  This is a child-friendly event -- we will be hosting next year's kindergartners in the room.

On Wednesday, May 10th, our class will be featured at our weekly assembly.  I have no idea what we will be doing; it will be slightly lower key than our March presentation of Henny Penny.

On May 24th, we are heading to the zoo for a field trip.  Look for information and a release coming home soon.  We need lots of volunteers for this trip!