A Valentine's Day Message

The 100th Day of Kindergarten

On Friday we celebrated the 100th day of school. This is always such an exciting day for kids as they realize how long we have been in school. As a homework project the kids came with an items that had 100 of "something" on it such as a shirt with 100 notes or a hat with 100 buttons. The day was filled with fun activities such as writing 100 words we know how to spell, reading books about the 100th day, writing about what they would do with 100 dollars, making hats and silly glasses, and counting to 100 different ways. Here are some highlights from our day.

Reading Strategies

Over the last couple weeks we have been focusing on reading strategies that will help us to be better readers. Kids at this age learn many ways to help them decode words which will in turn help them have better comprehension. Many of these strategies may seem simple to an adult, but to a child, they are effective approaches to becoming a fluent reader.

One of the first and most important strategies we teach our young readers is to
LOOK AT THE PICTURES.

What that means is that before a child begins to read the words, he/she must take a look at the picture and decide what they notice that will be important to the story. Who is in the picture? What is happening? Where does it take place? Please don't discourage your child from looking at the pictures to help him/her figure out what the text is about.

Good readers always look at the pictures!

Kindergarten Awards Ceremony

Here are the highlights from our 2nd 9wks Awards Ceremony. Thank you Mrs. Matharu for making our slideshow.

M is for Melody

Last month our book of the month was M is for Melody. Our class wrote our own alphabet book to go with our musical theme and we put it on a voicethread. We hope you enjoy our book. Just open the link below.

M is for Melody by Mrs. Harbour's class

The SOUND of Science

Over the last couple weeks we have been learning about sound in Science. The kids have had such a great time learning where sound comes from, how sound travels, how animals use sounds, and sounds that are around us. We've had lots of great explorations with sound as well. One of the fun things we did was make instruments. The kids were given a set of materials and asked to brainstorm ways they could use these materials to make sound. They worked as groups to make all kinds of things over a series of a week. We made drums, zithers, tamborines,and horns. We also made wind chimes.





















They watched as Mrs. Harbour and Ms. Peters explained how sound vibrates and travels in sound waves through a demonstration with a cup of water and a tuning fork. We could actually see the vibrations in the water! We also did a class activity that showed up how a sound wave actually moves.

Sound Waves

In a video we watched, we learned how different animals use sound waves as in echolocation. As an extension activity we brought in empty water bottles, filled them up with different amounts of water, and learned how to blow into the bottle and make sound by making the water vibrate.





The sound it made depended on how much water was in each bottle. Below are some really cool websites. We weren't able to go to all of them in class due to time but the kids would really enjoy them at home.

Find Sounds

BBC schools

Magic School Bus

Crickweb

Back into routines!

Well we come to the end of our second week back at school from holiday break. Somehow that first week back feels like the first week of school again. Trying to get kids back into routines and struggling with getting up at 5:30 in the morning.

Since we have been back we have been busy. To begin with, our intern began last Thursday (Ms. Peters). She is in her final stage of education and will be teaching full time in a couple weeks. She is excited about getting to know your child and learning from them as well. She has a lot to offer and will continue to make every day a positive learning environment for your child. Having an intern is a great experience and the kids love her already. We are finishing up our current math book and will begin working on new investigations with counting and surveys. It is a fun book and the kids will love it. In Reader's Workshop we have been working on reading strategies that will help us become better readers. Make sure you ask your child daily to tell you what strategy we worked on and have them practice that with his / her book in a bag. In Writer's we have been revisiting narrative writing. We are learning how to write fictional stories which include beginning, middle, and end. I can't wait to post their work up next week. Science has been a lot of fun for the last two weeks as we learn about sound. We have been exploring what makes sound and what needs to happen for sound to occur. For the last two days we have been making items that are easily used for sound. We were unable to finish out exploration today but will finish tomorrow. I will post pictures this weekend of our fun filled science lessons.

Over the next couple weeks I will be finishing up end of the 9 weeks running records and complete our state assessment. Make sure your child gets plenty of rest and is at school every day.

We are almost at the half way point...let's keep up all the great work!