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!

An Egg-celent Baker's Dozen!

It's been a week for the birds here in SK P217 - we have all become proud mamas and daddies to 13 new eggs... Read on for more details!

Science
- Egg Delivery: The eggs arrived in a big unmarked brown box!  We peered carefully inside and were delighted to find a baker's dozen bluish-green and spotted eggs.  WOW!
- Good Guesses: Friends brainstormed what they guessed might be inside.  Snakes, chicks, turtles, rabbits, chickadees, sparrows, parrots...
- Narrowing Down: We wanted to sort out what could be in our eggs, and what could not.  We watched Reading Rainbow's "Chickens Aren't the Only Ones" and learned a boat load about how different creatures lay eggs, and what they look like!  We had to cross off "rabbits" from our list, since furry animals are born alive, and we took off choices like "turtle" since the size and shape (white and round) didn't match ours (colored and oval).
- Oviparous/Viviparous: Your SK scientists are professionals at this!  Ask your friend to sort animals for you (in a picture book, from puzzle or a game, or a list you make up yourself!), saying the words "Oviparous" and "Viviparous" to identify how they birth their young.  (Remember, "O" looks like an egg, and "Viv" sounds like "born alive" - we also know that animals with fur and hair are never oviparous...like us!)
- Turning: We're in charge of turning our eggs an odd-number of times each day (8-10-12-2-4) and making sure the air is humid enough inside our incubator.  We want it to feel like a safe, warm place - just like it would feel if mom were sitting on them!
- Egg Compare/Contrast: We had narrowed down our list to two good choices based on size and shape... chicks and parrots.  It was time to compare and contrast the look of these sort of eggs (up on our Smart Board) with what we have in our incubator.  Turns out, chick eggs look a lot like what's in your fridge (white and oval and small - not like ours!) and parrot eggs look like - also not like ours!  We found pictures of mallard duck eggs and BAM!  THOSE were our kind of eggs! 
- It's a Duck!  Turns out, we're the proud parents of 13 duckling eggs.  Quack-tastic!

Daily Five
- Word Families: This week we tackled -ug and -ut!  Tug, bug, lug and cut, gut, rut!  Our friends are such experts now; challenge them to double (or triple!) letter add-ons, like shrug or strut!
- Decodable Books: Coming home this week, we have a fresh batch of decodable books.  They have been living in your SKers' school book box and are ready to come home to roost in the black decodable book boxes you all have at home.  They include loads of word family words and star words from our word wall.  Even when the plots aren't so thick, they make for good practice at sharpening our quick-reading of these imoportant words!
- Third Grade Buddies: This week we went to our 3rd graders room and brought along books from our own book boxes to read!  We also enjoyed our buddies' choices for us, as they kept in tune with our days in SK, selecting eggs/spring books to share!
- Book Box Shop: We cleaned out our book boxes and are shopping for fresh ones first thing on Monday morning!  It's always fun to give our books a farewell in favor of exciting new stories to read and share with friends.

Language
- Journals: Our SKers have been journaling up a storm this week as we explore and take note of the exciting egg adventure we're off on!  Topics have including egg observations (what we can see... color, size, shape, feeling) and ways to care for our eggs (turning gingerly and slowly with gentle, clean hands, knowing that we are the moms and dads!)
- Printing: T/t and O/o: This week's alliteration is brought to you by the letters T and O!  Friends twisted and twirled their way through trick and terrific words to tie together, writing alliteration pages for their printing books!  They opened olives in October with oviporous octopuses!  Challenge your SKer to an alliteration-off, stringing together words that all begin with the same letter (and make good sense)!

Math
- Centers: Friends have enjoyed a few rotations of our new math centers, getting good practice and sharpening their skills.  Ask them to count forward, backward, skip-count, and more!  Ask them about teen number pairs ("Ten and what number makes 17?  Ten and four more makes what number?) and number partners ("You can make the number 6 lots of ways... like what?  1+5, 2+4, 3+3, 0+6!)
- Counting: We continue to count forward and backward, by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's (down from 30, and up to 100!)  We count during calendar, on our number line, pairing up friends, while we waiting on the rug, anytime we can - try it at your house too!

Reminders/Announcement
- Wacky Weather: Please help your child equip himself or herself the night before school with boots (rain or snow, still!) and a coat to match the forecast.  Thank you!
- The Mother's Day Art Show: On May 8th we welcome friends to bring their wonderful moms, mamas, mommies (only!) to our art extravaganza in their honor.  We look forward to celebrating with the lovely ladies in our SKers lives!

April Showers!

Despite the dreary drizzle, we managed to have a bright and cheerful week in SK! Read on for all the details, and ask your SK friends about....



Daily Five
- Book shop: finding "just right" books to freshen up Read to Self and Read to Someone
- Short vowels: identifying, sorting, reading, and writing words with short /a/ and short /i/ medial vowels (cat, have, am, sad, pig, big, little, him)
- Third Grade Buddies: meeting with 3rd grade buddies in our room this week, sharing favorite stories with each other.
- Word Families: adding -ed, -ug, and -ut to our word family wall this week - WOW we are reading and writing hundreds of words now, with this enormous resource for words.



Language
- Spelling Quiz: our first SK "spelling quiz" - 18 word wall words in all!
- Free Write: writing from our own brains without teacher prompts...for twenty minutes!



Math
- Number pairs: 1+5=6, 2+4=6, 3+3=6... so many different number stories can have the same ending/answer!
- Teen Number Partners: "ten and some more" make our teen numbers... a bundle of 10 + 3 = 13, a bundle of 10 + 7 = 17
- Counting: forward by fives/tens to 100, forward by 2's to 30, backward from 20-0... so helpful for doing math in our brains! Especially subtraction (and even multiplication!)
- Centers: new round of math centers means fun with friends while learning and practicing the above skills!



Journals/Printing
- Scrapbook pages: MAM Field Trip ("first, then, last" multi-sentence story-telling format)
- Let's Illustrate: Guided drawing to emphasize details and setting... our pictures add to the written words and tell their own story!
- Alliteration: I/i practice + writing..."Isabel's iguana itched inside the infirmary!"

Reminders/Announcements
- Weather gear: Please do check the weather (weather.com or your phone's weather app!) each evening (or the morning if you're an early bird!) and set out your friend's gear with them... better yet, ask them to take charge and ask what they need to get ready for the next day! Many friends are upset at school to be told that they can only play on the black top without boots, or that we don't have extra hats to share. Thank you for your help in preparing them for the elements!
- Vision screening: We are happy to be attending the vision screening through the nurse's office next week.  If you have any questions, please get in touch with Kathleen Roebber kroebber@usmk12.org.  Thank you!
- Special Picnic:  Coming right up!  On Monday, April 15th, we welcome Fiona to bring in a healthful picnic for 18 hungry SK friends.
- Superstar: Krista will celebrate her big day on Tuesday, April 30th!  We'll send home everything she needs the Friday before with plenty of information for the whole family.
- Thankful Teachers: We were thrilled to celebrate our spring birthdays with our SK friends on Thursday.  As former camp counselors, Tanya and I asked the friends to help us build a classroom "campfire" and enjoy s'mores in a bag (golden grahams, chocolate chips, and marshmallows) while we read camp books and took camping questions.  It was such a good time; thank you for helping us celebrate, SK friends!
****We are posting today's blog one day early; Mrs. Duffey is out tomorrow 4/12.  We'll resume regular Friday postings next week!  Thanks, friends.

Picture Problems

Hello SK friends and families!
Every so often, you give me good feedback on the blog and let me know that the photos are not accessible from home.  How frustrating for all of us!  Each week, on Picasa, I uncheck the "only you can see these photos" and select "limited, anyone with the link".  This precaution ensures that only you can view pictures of your children (and not strangers on the internet, searching "kindergarten" or "classroom").  Still, every once in a while, this glitch acts up; thank you Melissa for letting me know that it has happenned yet again this week.  If any of you know of a quick fix, I'd be thrilled to hear your hot tip!
With my big thanks for your understanding, and your help,
Jane

Artful SKers!

This was a week of reuniting as an SK family, story-telling about our adventures, and enjoying the process and product of art!  Read on for more details about our time together this week...

Language
- "-et" and "en" family: two new word families joined our ranks!  Bet, get, jet, let, met...ten, when, den, Gwen... there are loads in this bunch!  Challenge your SKer to find (or think of) some that have even more than one letter at the start (like "forget" or "chicken"... those are tough ones!)
- New Decodable Books: We welcome Book #11 and #12 to our friends book boxes that include our new word families.  With two new books, we'll keep them here at school for one more week and then send them home in 4/12 folders to be added to your black book boxes at home. 
- et/at/en/an: comparing word family words, friends worked to distinguish tricky medial vowel sounds and ending sounds too.  
- Journals: beginning/problem/fix-it stories from Spring Break!  Ask your SKer about the story they wrote detailing the trials and tribulations (in a three-part story form) of their time away from school.

Printing
- Alliteration: Our SK friends have made it through all of our letters, so we're starting fresh from the beginning, and writing alphabet alliteration sentences!  We started with the letter "S" and worked together to brainstorm loads of words (and action words!)  "Summer, Sophia, swim, spin, shimmy, sun, school" were a few of our friends' great ideas.  SKers chose words to write, and penned their own sentences like "Sophia spun in the sun with Summer at school in the spring!"  (Wow!)

Math
- Quarter Coins: noticing the size, shape, color, thickness, edges, illustrations, dates, and differences from quarter to quarter - WOW we have coin detectives in our room!
- Quarter trades: trading nickels, pennies, even dimes, for quarters.  Ask your SKer how many of each type of coin could be traded for a quarter, and if they'd rather have 25 pennies or 1 quarter in their pocket...
- Lady Bug Spot Addition/Subtraction: working in pairs, friends pulled two ladybug cards; they started with the ladybug with more spots, and then "counted up" (i.e. "5 + 3... 5, 6, 7, 8") and wrote down their number story 5+3=8.  They also did the same thing when we started subtracting spots, beginning with the larger number and "counting down" (i.e. "5 - 3... 5, 4, 3, 2"), writing down their number story 5-3=2. 
- Surveying: writing questions about their spring break (questions are new for us!), friends surveyed everyone in the room, and marked an x under "yes" and "no" - it was a great opportunity to share their experiences while focusing on the things that others did too! 

- Bar Graphing: compiling our data from above, friends shared how many "yes" responses they got and we charted the results.  Turns out, heading to the pool was the most popular activity, while visiting Cincinnati and having a monkey on one's head were more rare!



A is for Art
- A is for Art Book: enjoying a few pages a day, we've been sharing the works of art from A through Z that we looked forward to viewing at the museum!  We loved learning about when the artist lived, and where they came from... it was a spectacular preview!
- Eric Carle: our SK author provided loads of inspiration through his beautiful video detailing his entire artisitc process, start to finish, aimed at children five and six years old!
- Eric (or Erica!) Carle Artists: relishing the opportunity to create their own "pretty papers" (Eric Carle's name for the painted paper he cuts to use in his collages), friends painted, stamped, brushed and swiped two full size sheets for future use in our art work.  Magnificent work!
- Marina Lee: our sensational Artist in Residence came back for her second session with our SK friends.  We were thrilled to revisit our clay footprints we made earlier this year, glazing them to be put permanently (!) in the ground at our USM playground.  We even got to drum and play the xylophone before painting them too.  All of the above will work to create one of the first ever sonic playgrounds!  What a joyful time for our young artists.

 

Reminders/Announcements:
- Weather gear: While we are not longer slipping into snowpants (!), we still need all friends to come each day with boots, hats, mittens and coats.  It can get mucky, wet, and chilly this time of year!
- Show and Share: A new round is coming up next week!  If your child comes home with news that the next day is their special helper day, they may select TWO things to bring in - the two items can either be a pair, or opposites (i.e. favorite socks... or a black crayon and a white crayon!)  They'll need to give friends three clues to guess their objects with, so practice the night before or on your way to school!
- Rummage at the Rink: You're all receiving more information about our USM Rummage Sale coming home in tote bags today (4/5/13) - thank you for your help in this community effort!
- Thank you!  So many of you were here to help with car circle this week.  We feel so fortunate to have such a kind and generous band of SK families - thank you!
- Art Museum Photos: We'll be adding art museum photos later on today (Friday) - thanks for your patience!