Field Trip Permission Slips

If you have not returned your child's permission slip for our field trip to the farm, please send it your child's homework folder.  Also, we have a few chaperone positions still open if any families are interested.  Thank you!

We Have Been Ghosted!

Earlier this week, we found a ghost-shaped bag of treats hanging on our door!  That means that another class in the building had "ghosted" us, a Harlan tradition!  After we chose something from the bag, we hung a sign outside our door so that other classes know we had already been ghosted!  We then snuck the bag over to another classroom to leave them some treats as well!

Halloween Reminders

Tomorrow, Wednesday, Oct. 31, our class will be celebrating Halloween!  Please remember to send your child in their normal clothes, with their costume in a labeled bag for them to change.  In the morning, we will be enjoying our regular math and reader's workshops.  Following lunch, we will be watching a special Magic School Bus episode about bats and spiders while we put our costumes on for the parade.

The Halloween parade will begin at 2:15pm, with our class party running from 2:30 - 3:30pm.  All families are welcome to attend!  Our room parents have done a fantastic job of planning our class party, complete with activities, treats and stories!

See you all tomorrow!

Picture Re-takes

Picture re-takes will be next Thursday, November 8.  If you are interested in taking pictures, please send in the original pictures with your child on Nov. 8.  Please let me know if you have any questions. 

NO SCHOOL next Tuesday, November 6

This is a gentle reminder that there will be NO SCHOOL on Tuesday, November 6.  School will resume the following day on Wednesday, November 7. 

Specials Schedule for the Week of 10/29 - 11/2

Monday (C) - PE (Please remember to bring your gym shoes)
Tuesday (D) - Art and PE (Please remember to bring your gym shoes)
Wednesday (A) - Media Center (Please remember to bring your library book)
Thursday (B) - Music
Friday (C) - (Please remember to bring your gym shoes)

Also, our Halloween parade will take place this Wednesday, October 31 at 2:15pm.  Our class party will follow from 2:30 - 3:30pm.  Please have your child wear their regular clothes to school on Wednesday with their costume in a bag with their name on it.  Room parents will be available on Wednesday to help the children get into their costumes after lunch.

The room parents have planned a fantastic party and all families are welcome to attend.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Fall Frolic Fun!

We had a blast at this year's Fall Frolic!  There were so many games, activities and prizes!  Our classroom was used for the cakewalk, so it smelled nice and sweet all night!  I hope all the families had as much fun as I did!  Here are some of our friends and their families enjoying the fun!

Classroom Volunteers

We have lift off!

Our live on-line sign up sheet has been created and launched on our blog!  Now you can check to see what days/times are available for volunteering in room 100!  We can always use another pair of hands and eyes in kindergarten!

The link can be found on the left side of our blog, and can be used as frequently as you want!  All you need to do, is choose an available date and time and click.  You will then be asked by Sign Up Genius (the site host) to enter an email address and name.  Once submitted, you will then see your name reserved on the spot of your choice. 

A few parents have already been our guinea pigs and used the link to volunteer, and it seems to be working pretty smoothly!

If you need help with this new blog feature, please let me know!

Husky Packs

Today, our school, had it's first Husky Pack meeting of the year!  Each pack is lead by a different staff member and consists of about 12-15 students from different grades.  This is one of Harlan's ways to increase school community!  For this first meeting, each pack played getting to know you activities.  As the kindergarteners were dropped off at our door, every one of them was so excited to tell me what they did in their pack!



Ooops!

Last night I accidentally reposted the form about magnetic letters and it was sent out as an email update!  I am sorry about that!  I will be sending home a great list of magnetic letter activities for each family to use at home.  You did not have to order letters to receive the activity guide.

Heavy and Light

We revisited the concept of weight this week in math.  This time, we became the pan balance ourselves.  We learned that in order to be balanced, there has to have the same amount of weight on both sides!  We did this by using cups that we filled with marbles to make one side heavier.  We were able to actually feel our heavier cup go down just like on our pan balance!

Mystery Reader

Last week our class welcomed Dominique's mom as our mystery reader.  She read us 2 great books!  Thank you for joining our class!  We have been having so much fun guessing who the mystery reader is each week!

Building Vocabulary

The Vocabulary Parade was a HUGE success!  The kindergarteners looked fantastic in their color word costumes!  Our classroom has never looked so bright!  I wish I had pictures of our class, but my phone chose to stop working that morning, so I was without a camera!  I did get a picture of our Building Vocabulary wall that each student in the school contributed to!  I also got a picture of Mrs. Stayer, our parade leader who dressed as "miscellaneous!"  Thank you to the families for helping to make this a wonderful event!

Fall Frolic

This Friday, October 26, will be Harlan's annual Fall Frolic!  This is a special event where families are invited to participate in games and activities, win prizes and enjoy a fun filled evening with friends!  Tickets are available in the front hallway of the school. 

What:  Fall Frolic
When:  Friday, October 26
Where: Harlan first floor classrooms

I hope to see everyone there!  If you need more information, please let me or the office know.

Harlan Daisy Troop

All of the girls in our class should have brought home a flyer about the new Daisy Troop at Harlan!  The first meeting is scheduled for tomorrow, Wednesday, October 24.  Ms. Demski, our troop leader, will be available to answer any questions at the meeting.  Her contact information is also included in the flyer.  Please let me know if you have any questions!

Vocabulary Parade Reminder

This is a gentle reminder that tomorrow, Friday, October 19, our school will be throwing our Vocabulary Parade!  Please remember to have your child wear their chosen color as much as possible.  Also, the color word should be written on either the front of their shirt or on a sign that is visible and clear to read.  The assembly will begin at 9:15.  Thank you for the home support!  I look forward to seeing all of the colorful costumes!

Also, each Harlan student contributed a "word brick" to a display in the front hallway as we practice "building our vocabulary."  If you have a chance, please check out our color word contributions, where we wrote our word and illustrated something that is our color!

Graphing

To go along with the color words we have been learning, we graphed our favorite colors!  We learned that graphs are a way to show information and every graph has a title.  We also practiced using the words "most" and "least."  Here we are pointing to the color that had the most votes and the color with the least votes!

Sound Clips

Another great game we have been playing is matching pictures and sounds using mini clothes pins.  We get really excited when we match all the pictures!

Paint is More Than Just Coloring!

Today, we practiced identifying the beginning sounds of a given word and then tracing that letter into a bag filled with paint!  This was a wonderful way to isolate sounds, strengthen our fine motor skills, switch between upper and lower case letters and practice our handwriting all-in-one!  We even played a fun game called "Thumbprints."  Each time we correctly identified and wrote a beginning sound, I would put a thumbprint on their bags.  At the end of the game, we counted how many prints we all had!

Listening Center

This week, we have been introduced to our listening center!  At this center the children are able to listen to stories while following along in their own book.  We practiced how to use the headphones, put CDs in and how to push play and stop.  We also practiced touching the words as they are read to us! 

News from the Office

10/18 Thursday – Popcorn Sale from 10-11am.  Bring in $0.50 if you are interested in purchasing a bag of popcorn. 

 

10/22 Monday – 10/26 Friday:  Frolic raffle tickets will be on sale in the lobby during lunch.  Bring in $0.25/ticket for a chance at 6 amazing baskets of goodies.

Magnetic Letters Reminder

I have had a few families ask if it is too late to order a set of magnetic letters.  I will be able to accept  orders through this Monday.  It would be wonderful if each family had a set to work with at home.  I will be sending a list of great activities that can be done with magnetic letters home next week.  Thank you in advance!

It Tastes Like...

This week, we finished our study of our five senses. Our last experiment revolved around our sense of taste.  First we looked at two cups marked A and B.  Inside were two white piles that we wanted to identify.  First we used our sense of sight, but they looked the same.  Then we shook the cups to use our hearing, but they made the same sound.  Then we rolled a little between our fingers, and they felt the same.  We then smelled both cups, but they didn't have a scent.  Finally, we decided we had to use our sense of taste to know what was in the cups.

 First, we dipped toothpicks in a cup of water.  Then we dipped the wet toothpick into a cup for us to taste.  We repeated for cup A and B.  After using only our sense of taste, we were able to correctly identify cup A as salt and cup B as sugar!  We love when our lessons taste good!





Mystery Reader

Today we welcomed Grace's mom as our Mystery Reader!  She read us a wonderful story called Grace for President.  We had a great time listening to the story and talking about our favorite part.  Thank you for joining us today, Ms. Sears!

Vocabulary Parade costumes

Next Friday, October 19, our class will be participating in the Vocabulary Parade!  At the parade, each student at Harlan will be dressing up as their chosen vocabulary word!  Next week, our class will be learning about color words.  To go with this, the kindergarten team is asking that each kindergartener chooses their favorite color word.  If you have not already doe so, please fill out the Costume Planner sheet that was sent home earlier this week.  Please remember that you do not need to purchase costumes for this event.  After choosing their color word, your child can wear clothes of that color to the parade.  You can even decorate a shirt with pictures/objects that are the chosen color as well!  Also, the color word needs to large and visible on the costume for others to read.

My favorite color is yellow, so I am going to wear as much yellow as I can find!  I can't wait to see all the kindergarteners in their color costumes!

Harlan Media Center website

I have just added the Harlan Media Center website to our list of links.  Here you will find

-access to our library catalog
-WorldBook online encyclopedia
-PebbleGo
-Tumblebooks
-IXL Math
-Raz-Kids
-AR Home Connect and more! 

These resources are available at both school AND home!

Specials Schedule for the Week of 10/15 - 10/19

Monday - Media Center (Please remember to return your library book)
Tuesday - Music
Wednesday - PE (Please remember to bring your gym shoes)
Thursday - Art & PE (Please rememebr to bring your gym shoes)
Friday - Media Center (Please remember to return your library book)

Music Class

Mrs. Cooper shared these pictures with me of our class in music.  This was from their Fall Walk activity.  This was a great way of introducing the kindergarteners to rhythm instruments, which represented the pieces of fall they brought to class!

Also, I have included Mrs. Cooper's Harlan Music Room website as a link on our blog! 



Beginning Sound BINGO

Here we are playing beginning sound BINGO!  We are having so much fun matching letters to different pictures based on their beginning sounds!  Sometimes, just to make it trickier, we each have 2 sheets of pictures to look at!

Top It

We love to play card games in kindergarten!  We use the cards to put the numbers in order, create tricky teens by placing a "1" in front of other numbers, and play our new game Top It!  You may know this game as "War."  We practice putting cards on top of our partner's card and see who has the bigger number!  This helps us understand the connection between numbers, where numbers are on a number line and increase our number sense.

The Train Game

As we learn more about numbers, we have talked about joining and taking away.  Yesterday, we played a game using unifix cubes and different colored dice.  We first rolled a green dice and took that many cubes to build a train.  We then rolled a red dice to see how many cubes we would take away from our train.  We went back and forth as our train appeared and disappeared!

Counting On

In math, we have been practicing counting on from a given number.  We did this by rolling two dice.  First we decided which dice had the bigger number.  Then we started with that number and counted on from there using the other dice.  For example, if we rolled a 5 and a 2.  We would point to the first dice and say "5," and touch the dots on the other dice, saying "6, 7."  This is a great game to practice at home!  It is helping us to understand that we don't always start counting at the number 1.

Reading Buddies

We were so excited to meet our 2nd grade book buddies this week!  Ms. Woch's class joined us for a reading of one our favorite books, But No Elephants, before pairing up to read together.  The kindergarteners showed their buddies how we have practiced reading the pictures and using the beginning sounds of words.  The big kids also read stories while the kindergarteners practiced touching each word and turning the pages.  We can't wait until next week when Ms. Woch reads us her class' favorite book!

Bus Safety

This week, the kindergarteners met with one of our bus drivers, Ms. Jen.  She taught us all about bus safety, both on and around the bus.  We were able to learn to walk 10 feet in front of a bus so that the driver can see us, what the different lights mean, what the emergency exits are for and how to sit safely on the bus.  A great big thank you to Ms. Jen and her bus Betsy!

Specials Schedule for the week of 10/8 - 10/12

Ooops!  I forgot to send the schedule for this week last weekend.  Sorry about that!  This week we will be going to:

Monday - Art & PE (Please remember your gym shoes)
Tuesday - Media Center (Please remember your library book)
Wednesday - Music
Thursday - PE (Please remember your gym shoes)
Friday - Art & PE (Please remember your gym shoes)

Happy Birthday Clifford!

Today we celebrated the 50th birthday of Clifford the Big Red Dog!  50 years ago yesterday, the very first Clifford book was written by author Norman Birdwell!  We read the book Clifford's Birthday Party and enjoyed some special treats - cookies shaped like dog bones and Clifford himself!

Happy 50th Birthday, Clifford!