Goodbye! Farewell!

We are sad sad sad to be saying bon voyage to our SK Friends after a short and (bitter)sweet final week of school!



Things that have traveled home to you:
- Scrapbooks***
- Ducky Journals
- Art Bags (filled with every which artifact from our SK classroom for your child!)
- Father's Day Gifts
- Sleeping Bags
- Extra Clothes
- Art Boxes
***You will notice that the Field Day entry is picture-less (feel free to print a few favorite shots from the blog - they'll be up by the end of this week!) and that the Last Day in SK scrapbook page has been glued into books (what a great way to reflect on a BUSY final day at school...ask your SKer to write about it!)  Thank you for helping your SKer to extend their learning from school to home!



Things to do this summer (also coming home in Friday Folders)
- Summer Journals (writing and illustrating about summer adventures!)
- Everyday Math Homelinks book (more good ideas for finding math in your days!)
- Decodable books (the last black and white books to add to your SKer's black box)



Our most heartfelt thanks to each of you, and your munchkins, for your positive energy, your endless support, your kind words and your generous gifts.  We feel absolutely honored, priveledged, and downright lucky to have worked with your children for the past nine months. 

We're wishing you all a dynamite summer filled with loads of spectacular memories made together!

Lots of love,
Jane, Tanya, and Kristen



(P.S. Some SKer's have asked how to keep in touch with us over the summer.. we'd love to!  You can reach us at...
Jane: jane.e.duffey@gmail.com or 712 E Lexington Boulevard, Whitefish Bay WI
Tanya: tschwartz6658@gmail.com or 2400 E Olive, Shorewood WI
Kristen: klinzmeier2@usmk12.org or 4839 N Berkeley Boulevard, Whitefish Bay WI)

Water, Sun, and Fun!

It was a small but mighty week in SK!  Read on for more details about our jam-packed four days...



Scrapbooking Parties - Thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers for helping our SK friends fill up the pages opposite our writing about important events in SK!  We loved backing photos, decorating borders and adding memory-boosting photos to our written work. 

We Love Dads - We've been working hard and having fun all in the name of D-a-d this week!  We'll be sending home a gift for the man at your house on Friday but patience if you please!  (It's for Father's Day!)

Fun in the Sun - What a beatiful day we had outside together on Thursday, soaking up the sun, splashing through the sprinkler, popping bubbles, giving the bikes a "car wash", sidewalk chalk-painting, and even doing the limbo!  We were all craving popsicles by 1:30 and it felt great to cool off!

White Elephant Sale - We supported our First Grade Friends, and got a sneak peak of what's to come next year, at their big event on Friday!  The money they raise will go toward Rainforest aid - let's all keep the animals and their habitat in mind!

Lunch Al Fresco! - Friday was a great day for a delicious lunch outside.  We had a ball together, under the sun and in good company.

T-Shirts - We made t-shirts covered in SK memories that we can't WAIT to wear on Monday at Field Day!  (We'll keep them here at school and pop them over our clothes on the big day so they don't - oops - get left at home over the weekend!)

Coming Home Friday:
- Sleeping Bags
- Friday Folders
- Art Boxes

Coming Up Next Week
- Picnic Lunch on Monday - can't wait to see you all in the front circle if you can make it!  (Don't forget to bring a tasty lunch for you and your SKer!)
- Field Day - We'll let the games begin directly after our lunch in the front circle.  Games will be on the Tennis Courts and on the football field.  Feel free to stay and watch from the bleachers if you like.
- Yearbooks - We'll having a signing party next Tuesday with all of SK - what fun!
- 1/2 Day - Sad but true, next Wednesday (our last day) is a short one with an early dismissal. 

Coming Home Next Week:
- Father's Day Gifts (Monday)
- Extra Clothes box (Monday)
- Art Bags (filled with loads of treasures!  Encourage your SK friend to set up an "Art Show" to give meaning to their creations, sharing with you what each item is, how they made, and why.) (Tuesday)
- SK Artifacts (everything they've used from around the room this year!) (Tuesday)

 

 

 

One Full Week!

*****UPDATE: Pictures are up on Picasa!*******

We have been having a week filled with feathered and fluffy goodness.  Read on for the details about what's been happening in SK P217, and what's left to come in our final 8 school days!  (You're not missing anything; we're adopting a bit of a new formal for these last  few weeks since our days have been and will be anything but ordinary in SK!)



This Week

- Toodles, ducklings!  We were sad to bid adieu to our nine sweet mallards, goldens and pekin.  But we're thrilled to report that, through Duckgrams, we've kept up to date with our feathered friends (now enjoying life on the farm!)
- Fantastic on the Farm!  We all learned so much (and had a spectacular time!) at Green Meadows on Friday.  We milked cows, rode ponies, fed pigs, petted sheep, jumped in the hay barn, banged on the music wagon, and went for a spin on the tractor ride!
- ABC countdown!  We enjoyed Outside Learning day, Puzzle play, the Quiet challenge at rest time, Reading in unusual places, and Sack Lunch day in the farm!



Next Week
- Memorial Day: Enjoy your Monday off with family and friends!
- ABC Countdown: please check your calendars and talk with your SKer about upcoming T, U, V, and W days!  (We have one posted at our classroom door too, for reference.)
- T-Shirts: We are thrilled to be creating our SK T-Shirts next week, a special tradition at USM!
- Top Secret: We may be creating something special for a special someone in your family who has a special day coming up in June...we've said too much already!
- Scrapbooking Parties: Thank you again for your kindness and generosity at volunteering to help next Thursday and Friday mornings at our Scrapbooking parties!  We have everything we need, so please just bring your helpful hands!
- Fun in the Sun: We are looking forward to enjoying a sunny afternoon next week Thirsday, just SKers and teachers, out in the fresh air playing games and enjoying treats together!



Still to come...
- Field Day!
- Yearbooks!
- Art Bags/Sleeping Bags/and lots more from every nook and cranny of our tower room... coming home with your SKer on our final short week.  (Ask them to put on an art show for you, setting out all of their treasures and taking time to explain each to you - how they made it, what it means, what they learned.  It will make for a meaningful experience, give them good practice speaking clearly about something important to them, and help to close our their units of study with you as their eager audience!)

Duckling Darlings!

We couldn't believe our eyes when, finally, our sweet feathered friends hatched from their eggs and joined our SK family this week!  Read on for more details...

Daily Five/Language
- Journaling: We wrote loads about our ducklings this week!  How we were feeling as they began to make pips in their eggs, and how their hatching process unfolded, were both complex topics to practice upper case, finger space, ending punctuation (plus our First/Then/Last form!)
- Memories: We used our M is for Memories day to write Mrs. Linzmeier notes about our favorite days in SK so that she'll know how much fun she'll have when she returns to SK next year!
- Printing abc/ABC: We showed our stuff and wrote our best lower and upper case alphabets - it was hard work and FUN to see how far we've come!
- Word Wall Words: We wrote our list of word wall words from start to finish and WOW are we experts by now!  These words come up in so many books, and in so much of our writing, so we're feeling extra proud to know them so well! 

(Our friends watching our Pekin hatching on the big screen - the iPad was perched atop our incubator, and, this way, lots of friends could get a good live view at once!)

Science
- Development: We each made books to illustrate and explain how our ducklings formed inside their eggs.  Ask your SK to complete the four step "life cycle of an egg" for you at home!  Egg...
- Hatching: We were THRILLED to watch our ducklings hatch in live time, and on the big screen, with the help of our SMARTboard!  Everyone had a good view and we were collectively mesmerized by our sweet "Alexa" the Pekin, emerging from her egg.  WOW!
- Care and keeping: We are taking gentle care, keeping our voices soft, our hands out of the brooder, and giving our ducklings food, water, and warm light, plus cushy shavings to rest on.  We are good mamas and daddies!
- Compare and contrast: We observed one of our ducklings, and then a chick from our neighbors across the hall, to notice what is similar and different between the two birds.  Ask your SK to clue you in!

Math
- Venn Diagrams: To illustrate more clearly the differences and the similarities between ducklings and chicks, SKers created Venn Diagrams that showcase features belonging to both birds.  It was tough work but REALLY helped us better understand same and different!

Announcements/Reminders
- Sleeping Bags: Please be sure that your SKer's bag has gone through a HOT thirty minute dryer, and that it's back at school for these final days - thank you!
- Farm Field Trip: We are so looking forward to our time at Green Meadows next week!  Please look inside your SKer's Friday Folder for all the details.  (Sunscreen, nut-free disposable lunch, long pants!)
- Scrapbooking Parties: We thank you for kindly volunteering to come in on Thursday/Friday May 30/31st!  We will have all of the photos ready for friends to come and choose from, back on pretty paper, and glue into their scrapbooks. We will need your help to ensure that they each find photo(s) that match their entries (i.e. Holiday Sing, Spring Tree, etc.) and glue things in properly.  Again, thank you!
- Picnic + Field Day: We hope you'll join us in the front circle at 11:15 for a fun picnic lunch, (and if you'd like to watch Field Day from the football bleachers you are welcome to.) 
- Thank you!  An extra large thank you from way down deep to Mrs. Wine for her beautiful "Welcome Duckies" treats.  What fun we had, celebrating the big birthday hatchday!

Patiently Waiting!

We are itching to meet our ducky friends in SK P217!  Friends are predicting a Monday hatching - how thrilling is that?  Read on for more details about our week in SK...



Daily Five
- Rhyming Word Family Stories: Friends loved crafting their own "-at" family rhyming sentences, inspired by our H is for Hat day!  "The cat sat with the rat on the mat and went SPLAT into the fat bat!"
- Word Family Review: With only 17 days left here in SK together (can it be?!), we are working through Word Family games, strengthening our tough spots and sharpening our strong points.  We can read SO many words, thanks to -am, -at, -ap... -it, -ip, i-ig...-op, -ox, -ot...-et, -en...-ut, -ug, -un.
- Word Wall Words Review: Just like our Word Families, we are reading and writing up a veritable storm in SK!  A, am, and, can, come, dad, do, for, go, have, I , is, like, love, look, my, mom, me, no, on, of, see, the to, we, what, you... phew!  Challenge your SKer to find these words when you're reading together, when you're out and about, or when writing a card (wink, wink, Dads!) this weekend!



Language
- Printing Alliteration: Friends crafted new additions to our Alliteration ABC book in our printing journals this week... they are fiends for some good alliteration lately, so give them a letter and challenge them to fit four, five, even six words into a sentence that all start with your letter of choice!  They are up for the challenge.
- Journals: With m-o-m on the brain, our writing turned to the Mother's Day Art Show.  We scrapbooked an entry about our favorite memories from this special night, just us and mom!
- Poetry Writing: As we celebrated all the things our mamas do for us, we used poetry to tell our special ladies how they make us feel.  (No peeking until Sunday!  They're in your goody bags...)



Math
- Coin Identification: Friends are becoming EXPERT coin identifiers!  The trickiest one is still that silly nickel... it's bigger than the dime, but it's worth less!  It's smaller than the quarter, but it shares a LOT of similar features (it's pretty big, very thick, and silver).  Pour out your piggy bank or change jars and get sorting with your SKer!
- Coin Exchanges: Believe it or not, SKers worked hard (and succeeded!) at completing coin exchanges (WOW!), trading five pennies for a nickel, two nickels for a dime, and even two dimes + a nickel for a quarter!  Our goal was to "lighten our coin load" and carry as few coins as possible without losing money.  They did it, and made it to one dollar!
- Coin Addition: Friends worked in pairs, rolling coin dice five times each, collecting coins, and then adding up their personal totals.  The friend with a greater value amongst their five coins had to hand over the loot to their partner!
- Telling Time: We are really doing it - telling time in SK!  We are focusing on telling time to the hour, noticing where the short hand is pointing and, when the long hand is at the twelve, saying "it's ___ o'clock!" with a flourish!  We're also writing in analog to match our "hand clocks" (4:00, 8:00, 12:00).



Science
- Inside the Egg: After peeking inside of our eggs with a candling machine and noticing so many amazing parts (who would have thought that all that was hiding inside a little egg!)
- Life Cycle of the Egg: Egg, Embryo, Fetus, Duckling... we are becoming experts!  To show all that we know, we created multimedia illustrations using melted yellow and red crayon pieces, wax paper, and sharpies!  They look REAL!
- Hatching: We can't WAIT for hatching to begin late this weekend or early next week!  We are setting up an iPad camera and night light with a live feed for you all to follow if your friend is itching for a look while away from school - more info coming next week!

Announcements/Reminders
- J is for Joke Day: We've had a terrific time with our ABC countdown!  Help your SKer prepare a great joke for Monday
- Hunger Task Force: Our friends in 2nd grade are running REALLY low!  Please bring in a can or a box of any type of food you like, if you can! 
- Jump Rope for Heart: Mr. Landgraf is still searching for parent volunteers to make our JRFH event possible!  Please e-mail him at mlandgraf@usmk12.org if you would like to help out.
- Scrapbooking Parties: Thank you for all of the kind support for our Thurs/Fri May 30/31st 8:30-10:00 parties!  We so look forward to welcoming you and your helping hands as we scrapbook our SK memories!

 

 

 

Pip Pip Pip!

Daily 5
- Word Families: "-ig" and "-ip" are welcomed to the neighborhood this week!  Ask your SKer to find/make as many as he or she can over your weekend together!
- Star Words: "are" and "here" join the list!  Both are so helpful to have nailed down, both for our reading and our writing. 
- Decodable Books 16 and 17: We've added two new books to our ranks that focus on spelling patterns that help us to stretch, chunk, blend and decode as we work on our "bigger picture" skills (below).  They'll both be coming home in next week's Friday Folder.
- Visualization: while reading a chapter each day before lunch of "Funny Frank" friends have been reclining, closing their eyes, and "seeing" the story in their brain!  This strategy builds comprehension and helps friends to think more deeply about what they are reading (or listening to being read.)
- Summarization: this new skill is a tricky one, but friends are working hard at pulling out the most important parts of a story and using them to create a "short form" or summary.
- Third Grade Buddies: Another week, another chance to read "EEKK" (elbow elbow knee knee) with our friends who know us well (and always remember to bring a great book to share that revolves around our current units - wow!)



Language
- Journals: We journaled about our eggs, and the big changes happening inside them, this week in SK!  We are focusing on editing our own week after we feel like our thoughts are complete, hunting for upper case letters that are out of place, looking to spruce up our spacing, and really thinking hard to see where one thought ends and a punctuation mark belongs.
- Printing: our friends wrote alliteration stories using the letter "D/d" and "C/c" - can you think of your own to share with your SKer?  Don't forget an upper case D/C-word, a lower case d/c-word, and action word(s) too!  Can you concoct a catchy sentence of your own creation?!  Do you dare to dig deep and delve into a delightful D piece?




Math
- Number Ordering: 8, 4, 6, 2... 14, 12, 11, 17... 81, 51, 21, 31... 63, 68, 65, 62 - we worked hard at sorting these groups into smallest to biggest with strategies like "Look at the first number... if it's the same, then we need to worry only about the second number!" or "Look at the first number... if they're all different, we only need to worry about the first number!"  More simplifed... "Same, second" and "Different, first"
- Counting, counting: We continue to work toward our end-of-SK goals, counting by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's, as well as counting backwards through the twenties, teens, and down from ten!
- Time: We offer lots of ways for friends to interact with the clock, telling time to the hour and making the clock tell the time they have in mind (using a Judy clock).  We are thinking lots about the long hand and the short hand, and what pointing to the twelve means.  Help your SKer's develop this important skill by hunting for "hand" clocks around your house or neighborhood and asking questions to help them think more about telling time (and why it's so important)!

Science
- Turning, turning: We continue to wash our hands thoroughly, gingerly turn the eggs, give them a "bath" (spritzing them with water) and keep quiet when we're nearby.  We are good mamas and daddies!
- Predicting: friends predicted the date our eggs will hatch (displayed outside our room) - won't you
- Inside the Egg: We candled our eggs (again!) and were AMAZED at the changes we observed!  Ask your SKer about the embryo, the blood vessels, and the air sac - how have they changed?  How do you know?  What did they look like, and what do they look like now?  What do you predict might happen next?  Our friends illustrated their observations and wrote about their findings.  They made predictions and are thinking carefully about our possible hatching dates!
*****Cracking Open*****: We were lucky to have two eggs that we could take a peek inside... one that we candled had shown no development last week, and one had shown only a little.  We saved the one that was growing only slightly and slowly, but when we candled again today, we were sad to find that it had not grown any more.  We decided to be scientists and learn what was going on inside both eggs.  The one that had never shown any development was tough to crack (duck eggs must have a thicker shell than chicken eggs!) and it looked just like the eggs our mom and dad bake with at home... egg white, yolk, shell and shell membrane.  Then we cracked open the duck egg that had only started to grow and WOW did we notice a difference!  The yolk had turned a milky white/yellow and spread into the egg whites, and we could sing thick stringy bits attached to a TINY embryo.  It was amazing!  We tried to guess what could have happened.  "Did it get cold?  Did it forget to get turned?  Did it get sick from another egg?  Did it die?" were all very good questions.  Ask your friends what their prediciton is, as to why four of our 13 eggs are not going to be hatching with our nine strong and healthy eggs.



Announcements/Reminders
- ABC Countdown: Check your calendar for info on what's coming up next week!  We've had such fun starting our final 26 day countdown in SK...can you believe it?!  (E is for Estimation on Monday - no need to bring anything from home!)
- Mother's Day Art Show: Don't forget!  On May 8th from 6-7 we welcome our SKers and their mamas to Mellowe's Hall to enjoy all the beautiful masterpieces and refreshments too!
- Green Meadows Field Trip: We are thrilled to be heading to Green Meadows at the end of May!  Please keep your eyes peeled for more information in the coming weeks about dress, lunches and other guidelines.

The Inside Scoop

This week, we were all abuzz... it was time to look INSIDE of our eggs!  But how?  Friends offered many good ideas: "Let's get an X-Ray!  We need a CATSCAN!  What about the camera that goes inside my mommy's belly when she's going to have a baby?  Can we crack them?"  Read on for more news about our egg-citing process..

Daily Five
- Word Families: team games and partnered activites, as well as individual Word Work, all centered around our latest additions -ug, -ut-, -un (plus an unusual word family not from our master list, but quite fitting with all the eggs in SK... -uck!  Duck, cluck, truck, muck...we found it in our fiction Duck books all over the place!)
- Chunking: reading and writing both use lots of tools - we love to chunk our words instead of stretching ever single sound!  To-day... today!  Duck-l-ing...duckling!)
- Book Shop: friends emptied out their book boxes and used their smarts to select new books that are a Just Right Fit for them!  Fresh books often mean a renewed interest in Read To Self and Read To Someone!

Language
- Printing: A/a starred in our alliteration show this week!  Ask your adventurous SKer all about how A/a acted in his/her alliteration story this awesome, amazing week!
- Journals: Our journaling has gone ducky.. read more about our "egg" work in the Science section.

Math
- Math Stations: our last round of math stations has come and gone this week - friends loved writing their own addition and subtraction stories, using a variety of tools to inspire self-created equations!  They spun for different numbers of fruit to add/subtract, they pulled cards to write number stories, they grouped popsicle sticks into 10's and 1's to write teen numbers... they are experts by now!  Next up: the focus shifts to time and money, our big push for spring!
- Real Life Number Stories: we used our diverse duck eggs (tan!  brown!  bluish green!  white!) to tell adding/subtracting stories for friends to sort out answers to.  Things got really interesting once we candled the eggs (read on below!) and we found out that some eggs did, and didn't, have growing ducklings inside.. more number stories to tell, write, and solve!

Science
- Theories: SKer's illustrated and dictated their theories about what is going on inside our eggs now, and what will happen over the next few weeks.  It was thrilling to compare and contrast each other's ideas about the growth and development of baby ducks inside of their eggs over time!  We are also looking forward to revising these theories, as we continue to gain more information.
- Egg Charting: Friends charted many things about our eggs... first: how many we have (13).  Then, their different colors (5 blue/green, 1 brown, 2 tan, 3 white).  Next, what was inside of them (9 with air sacs, blood vessels, dark spots, 3 with only a golden yolk inside, and 1 with something in between... hmmmm!)
- Candling: We found out all of the above information when we "candled" our eggs, using a bright light that shines up and through the egg, illuminating its contents for us to observe.  It was a magical time, all huddled together in the deep dark playroom beneath the school, thrilling with each egg that showed growth, and puzzling over our mystery eggs that hadn't been growing at all.
- Candling Before/After: Friends illustrated their idea of what we'd see both before we candled, and then again after we candled.  They demonstrated such good thinking, and attention to detail!  Many friends knew interesting pieces of the egg puzzle... like that breaking an egg would hurt the duckling ("They're not fully grown yet!  They need more time to go!") or that the yolk inside has an important job ("It's duckling food!").  We look forward to doing more reserach and learning more about all the different parts inside the egg that we began observing this week.

Announcements/Reminders
- Mother's Day Art Show: Invitations coming soon!  Please save Wednesday May 8th from 6-7pm to attent the show (just mamas and SKer's, please!)
- Krista's Superstar: We're looking forward to celebrating on Tuesday, April 30th!
- Back Soon!  Mrs. Duffey will be out Monday to take a test, and Friday to travel for wedding festivities... our dear friend Mrs. Peterson will be here!