Smile!

Hello and howdy do, SK families!  We smiled brightly through our week in SK, especially for the camera on Picture Day this Friday!

Ask your SKer about what we were doing in the top photo (the smile game!) and all about their learning this week in our classroom:



Science:
Waiting for Wings: watching a video from Mrs. Pierson's room, of a Monarch emerging from its chrysalis!  Ask your friend which body part emerges last, and why.  We also learned that the Monarch butterflies, all of them from Canada and the United States, migrate to Mexico together.. there are so many all in the same place that it looks like fall.  Orange "leaves" (wings!) everywhere.
Emerging: when a butterflies "comes out" of the chrysalis, we call it emerging - our chrysalis' are becoming transparent, a good sign that the butterflies are almost ready to emerge.  The black wings were really showing through this afternoon, and friends were thrilled to keep a close watch on our friends!
Insects: exploring the world of insects, and comparing insects with non-insects
Body parts: we know that insects have a head, thorax, abdomen, two eyes, a mouth, antennae, six legs and come in all colors, shapes and sizes.  We love singing the insect song... ask your SKer to teach you and sing along together!



Language:
Daily Five: checking for understanding means to stop after a page and ask questions; who, what, where, when, why and how.  We can ask a friend these questions ("Read to Someone") or we can ask ourselves these questions while we read too ("Read to Self"); we are working to increase our stamina and sit EEKK with our buddy while we Read to Someone.  We love sharing our reading with a friend, checking for their understanding... and then taking turns!
Journaling:  We are "Working on Writing" in a meaningful way: documenting our days in SK! We are working hard on three important components of our writing; capitalization (the first letter in the sentence), spacing (finger or pencil spaces are great!) and ending punctuation.
Printing: We're building our confidence as we carefully form our "pull-down" letters (starting at the blue sky, or red fence, and pulling down the green grass.)  Encourage your SK friend to get good practice writing I, i, L, l, T and t, especially in the context of our star words, found on the inside cover of their SK Book Box.  (I, like, the, etc.)






Math
Numbers: looking at numbers in new ways!  Using counters to create "trains" (connected groupings), we took them apart in different ways to examine what's "inside" of a number... inside of 6 we found 1 and 5, 2 and 4, 3 and 3!
5 Frames: W
Zero the Hero: celebrating our second Zero the Hero day!  On day 20 of SK we sang our Zero the Hero song, and started using our number line to count in three different ways!
Counting: by ones, fives and tens, with the help of our Days in SK number line!  We clap for ones, pat our laps for fives, and tap our heads for tens.  This rhythm is strengthening our counting.  Practice your counting with you SK friend, and add in the claps, pats and taps to highlight number patterns, and have fun too!  

Bar graphs: collecting data, tracking how many days we'd had caterpillars, how many days we've had with our chrysalis, and comparing the columns of our bar graphs.

Books We've Loved This Week
"The Bee's Sneeze" by Ellis Nadler
"Q is for Duck" by Mary Elting 
"A was Once an Apple Pie" by Edward Lear
"The Very Lonely Firefly"by Eric Carle 
"Chrysanthemum" by Kevin Henkes 
"The Grouchy Ladyburg" by Eric Carle 





Extra!  Extra!  Announcements:
Superstar: Our Superstar celebrations will begin with our first friend, Sofia, on September 28th!  We will always send our Superstar poster/tube home many days in advance so that you may help your SK friend prepare for their celebration (and so that you can be sure your calendars marked, in hopes that you can attend our classroom fete!)  More details shared at Back to School Night, and enclosed in the Superstar poster/tube that you'll receive ahead of time.
Computers: Our SK friends practiced using a mouse and a laptop with Mrs. Pilarzyk this week; the good practice will come in handy when we take the ERBs (used as a tool for baseline assessment) in the upcoming week.
Hallway pick-up: If we are walking to car circle and you catch you SK friend on the way, we thank you kindly for catching our attention and saying "I'm taking ______" so that we have an accurate count when we get out to the front circle!
Cozy Up: Please remember that our SK friends spend nearly 50 minutes of good outdoor fresh air play time together after lunch and before rest.  As the temperatures simmer down, please encourage them to wear long sleeves and long pants or tights, and to bring a warm jacket.
Phone Calls: This weekend we will be giving each family a call to check in with you on your child's transition to SK.  This is a short, informal time to start a conversation that we will follow up on during conferences.  No worries when "the teacher calls!"

Have a weekend filled with smiling, grinning, beaming faces!