March 29, 2019 Newsletter

Dear Parents,

We have been very busy preparing our projects that will be displayed at our Kindergarten Museum this Thursday, April 4th.  We hope you are able to visit our museum from 9:00-9:45am that day to see some of the children’s amazing artwork!  We have finished all of our artwork for all the continents except for Asia.  We did make some Asian scrolls with landscapes and started painting Indian elephants.  We will make some Chinese lanterns next week to wrap up our museum projects.

We finished our topic in math and will continue to work with teen numbers next week.  I also sent home a list of the sight words your child knows.  Please continue to practice these words at home with your child.

The most exciting part of our week was that all eight of our eggs hatched!  There has been a lot of peeping going on in the Kindergarten hallway!  The students were excited to observe a part of the life cycle of a chicken right in our classroom and they have enjoyed watching how the chicks have already changed in a short period of time.  The chicks will stay in our room for a few days next week before returning to the Science Center.

I have enjoyed the first few conferences I have had with some of you and I am looking forward to the rest that are coming up over the next couple of weeks.  Please check in with me if you need a reminder about the date or time of your conference.  We’ve already got some artwork on display so you will be able to get a little sneak peek before the actual museum!

Have a great weekend!

Melanie Duncan

PS...We will be going to the library on Wednesday.  Please have your child return his/her book.  Please be sure to return all class books too.  Thanks!

Also, let us know when you would like us to send all your child’s snow gear home (snow pants, boots, etc.).  I’m sure you are as excited as we are to put all that stuff away!

March 22, 2019 Newsletter

Dear Parents,

We have been busy working on our art projects for our museum on Thursday, April 4.  We hope you are able to come to it!  We finished our Egyptian hieroglyphs, did Scottish tartan weaving, and made sunflowers (similar to the impressionist Vincent Van Gogh).

We made a class book called “It Looked Like Spilt Milk” that has started circulating.  We also made Car Books and Color Flip Flap books.  Both projects required students to use sight words to write whole sentences.  These are all great books for your child to read and reread at home.

We have been doing a lot of work with our sight words in school but I would also encourage you to continue practicing these words with your child at home.  The more he/she sees them and reads them in different contexts, the more familiar the words will become. 

We’ve learned a little more about eggs and chicks this week and watched a video Miss P. made about candling the eggs to check for fertilized and developing eggs.  The eggs should be delivered to our classroom on Monday.  We will be watching the eggs every day to check for cracks and baby chicks!

We are looking forward to learning more about the countries that our students’ ancestors have come from next week.  We will list the different countries with student names and even look up many of them on Google Earth to see where they are in relation to where we live.  If you haven’t returned the form about where your child’s ancesters came from, please try to by the beginning of next week.  The students have been learning a lot of neat facts about continents.  We learned a little about Europe but have spent most of the week learning about Africa. 

We enjoyed a special show this morning by “New Friends,” a barber shop quartet competing this weekend.  You will have to ask your child about it!

Have a great weekend!

Melanie Duncan

PS… If you are interested in volunteering in the classroom during the month of April, please email me to let me know which day(s) you are available.  The volunteer time is from 10:10-10:55am daily.

March 15, 2019 Newsletter

Dear Parents,

We had a great week in Room 115!  We finished learning about Australia and made a couple of neat Australian art projects, including kangaroos with Aboriginal dots and Tukutuku panels from New Zealand.  We can’t wait for you to see them on display at our Kindergarten Museum on Thursday, April 4th!  We will be focusing on the continent of Africa for most of next week.

The students finished their All I Am books and brought them home after reading them to a partner.  It's great when they have to think of all the things they are and what they want to be.  We've got very talented children! 

The students have also been very busy writing. They have been working hard in their journals. We talked about different sight words and working on spelling them correctly in their writing. They are doing a great job!  I would continue practicing these sight words at home with your child to help them learn them even better.  They also made a color flip-flap book where they wrote different sentences using some of the different color words. 

We will start a new topic in math working with teen numbers.  The numbers 11-20 are some of the most difficult numbers from 0-100!  If possible, please encourage your child to practice counting these numbers often.  Have them count peas on their plate, snack items (popcorn, grapes, berries), etc. and practice looking for and writing the numbers. 

Ms. P. from the Burlington Science Center presented the Chick Hatching Show on Tuesday afternoon.  She taught us all about chick hatching, parts of an egg, and about the life cycle of chickens.  Ms. P. has already visited the farm to get eggs and put them in the incubator.  She will be delivering the eggs to our classroom soon so we can watch the chicks hatch!

Progress reports for grades 1-5 went home recently.  Kindergarten won’t have another progress report until the end of the year.  I will be sending the conference schedule for our parent/teacher conference that will take place either during the end of March or beginning of April by the beginning of next week. I do feel that it is important for us to meet to discuss your child’s progress before the end of the year.  Please let me know if you need to reschedule.

We are going to the library on Wednesday.  Please return library books and all class books too.

Have a great weekend!

Melanie Duncan

March 8, 2019 Newsletter

Dear Parents,

We’ve had a busy week in Room 115 with a lot of excitement!  It was a short week with a snow day on Monday but we still got a lot done.  We spent Tuesday afternoon exploring some of the Forces in Motion experiments that we had introduced before vacation.  The students enjoyed exploring magnets, playing a shuffleboard game to explore friction and pushing, using gears and ramps, and seeing which objects were affected by wind from a fan.  I’ve included some pictures below.

We focused on the continent of South America this week.  We read several books about the rainforest and the animals that live there and also made a toucan project and carnival masks.  These will be on display at our Kindergarten Museum.  We hope you will be able to make it at 9am on Thursday, April 4th to see those projects and many more!

The students have also been working on their “All I Am” books that will go home next week, writing in their journals, illustrating poems, and reading in their small guided reading groups.  We have about one week left in our current math topic before we begin working with teen numbers.

The most exciting part of our week was getting our class pet!  Miss P. dropped off Galileo, a corn snake, and even came in today for a feeding lesson.  The students enjoyed learning the difference between a human skull/jaw and a snake skull/jaw.  They learned a lot about what snakes eat and got to see the snake eat a real, dead mouse!  It was certainly exciting!  There are pictures below.

We will not be going to the library this Wednesday due to a scheduling conflict but you are welcome to return books whenever your child is done with them.  The Francis Wyman Used Bookstore will be this Wednesday morning for those who would like to participate.  Students are welcome to bring either a quarter or a book from home to trade.

We did go outside for recess several days this week and it was chilly.  Please make sure to send your child to school with a warm jacket, hat, and gloves/mittens.  Snow pants and boots are optional for students who would like to play in the snow.  Also, please be sure to label all winter clothes with your child’s name and have them practice putting these items on and taking them off independently.

I sent a conference questionnaire home earlier this week.  I will be scheduling our second round of parent conferences the week or two before April vacation.  If you could complete and return the questionnaire by the end of next week, it would help me put the schedule together.  Also, if you are volunteering in the classroom and would like to do your conference while you are here, please let me know.  I can meet with you while the students are at recess from 9:35-9:55am.  I am looking forward to talking with each of you about your child’s progress.

The Francis Wyman Family Carnival is tomorrow from 10am -2pm.  There will be lot of great games, prizes, raffles, food, and fun.  I am planning to be there with my children for part of it and would love to see you all there!

There is NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS ON MONDAY,  the 11th.  It is a Professional Development Day for teachers.

Also, don’t forget to change your clocks this weekend for Daylight Savings Time!

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Melanie