Mrs. Porter's Kindergarten News

Class News... May 16, 2008

Class News….                                                                                                 May 16, 2008

Dear Parents,

                                                            

  have had a BUSY week!  Ask your child what they have learned about insects.  We had a wonderful Field Day on Wednesday.  Thank you to all of the parents who helped to make the day go so smoothly.  Tonight is Family Night School Celebration.  Be sure to come with the whole family from 6:00-7:00.  The last week of school we will be doing some special things each day.  Your child is encouraged to join in the fun. 

Monday, May 19:

Game and Puzzle Day

Bring in a game or puzzle to challenge a friend.

Tuesday, May, 20:

Autograph Day

If your child ordered a Year Book, they may bring it back to school if you wish for them to get autographs.  I will be presenting them with our class yearbook that will also have a couple of blank pages for autographs.  If you want your child to get their Kindergarten T-shirt (or another T-shirt) signed, they may wear it and bring a Sharpie pen to get signatures.

Wednesday, May 20:

Beach Day/summer birthday Celebration:

Dress in shorts, T-shirt, and wear your “cool shades”! Room Moms are planning some outdoor fun activities along with a summer birthday snack.

Thursday, May 21:

Reading Campout Day

Bring your favorite book.  (Please put name inside).  Wear pajamas and bring a flashlight for a pretend nighttime campout.  We’ll make sheet tents over the tables and have fun reading.

Friday, May 22:

Sundae Day!

Get ready to eat a BIG sundae!  We’ll join in with our Book Buddies to make ice cream sundaes.  Please send a favorite topping to share in a non-breakable disposable container.  (You can send it in any day this next week).

We will be sending home all projects, writing, etc. this last week.  Please check your child’s book bag for these items.  On the last day of school, children CANNOT carry ANYTHING home on the bus!  Do not send book bags that day.  Please send lunches in a throw away bag. 

Sincerely,

Denise Porter

Specials next week: M-PE, T-Art,

W-

PE

, T-Music, F-Music

Class News....May 9, 2008

**Sorry that this is a little late being posted.  Our server was down on Friday afternoon.

Dear Parents,

     We had a great Career Day today at GM.  We had several speakers and learned about careers at Walmart, Apartment Building Development and Lawyers.  Thank you to Mr. Rothwell and Mrs. Regan from our class who came to share. 

     Tuesday is our big performance day.  Please remember to send your child's bathing suit/ shorts by Monday.  We will be having a dress rehearsal and performing for 1st grade and our Book Buddies.  Join us on Tuesday in the Dining Room at 8:30. 

  We will have some fun during the last two weeks of school with out "Get Buggy" unit.  This will cover learning about the life cycle of some insects, their body parts, spiders, and summer safety.  We will also be doing lots of review and working on independent skills so that your child will be ready to take more responsibility for their own learning next year.  We will continue to read, write, and review many phonics skills and sight words.  In math, we will be combining addition and subtraction practice so that your child can get use to paying close attention to the "sign".

     Next Wed. 5/14 is Field Day for K-2.  Children should wear their blue  Kindergarten t-shirts.  They may bring a water bottle if they wish.  You may also want to apply sunscreen on their face and arms at home before they come to school. 

     We have completed our work in our Poetry Notebook.  You may keep these at home to enjoy as a keepsake from this year.  Please return all Kinder Keys folders one last time so that we can keep the laminated keyboard for next year's class.  We have also finished checking out "Take Home Readers".  If you still have one at home, please return on Monday.  All

Media

Center

books are also due back.

     Mrs. Guelzo, Ms. Melinda and I have all had a great week!  Your many treats, gifts, notes, flowers, food and affection have certainly made us feel special and appreciated.  What a fun place to work!

     I hope that many of you were able to attend our "Volunteer Appreciation Brunch" today.  We certainly do appreciate the wonderful way that you give of your time, talents, and enthusiasm in making GM the best school in town.  Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Denise Porter

Specials next week:

M-PE, T-Art, W-Field Day, T-none, F-PE

Class News..... May 4, 2008

Dear Parents,

       What a marvelous morning we had with Muffins For Moms.  We hope that you felt special and honored today.  Your children had a great time entertaining and sharing their writing with you.

     We will be spending all of next week preparing for the Under The Sea program coming up.  We had a big Kindergarten sing along today and the children are already doing great with the songs.  We will begin practicing specific parts and working on the risers and stage next week.  We will continue with several "Ocean" activities in the classroom to read and write about the ocean.

     In math, we will finish our chapter on Subtraction.  We have worked on the concept of "take away" in many ways using real objects.  We are also learning how to write number sentences (equations) vertically and horizontally.

     Congratulations to everyone in our class!! Every child earned a special "Math Rules" button for achieving our school math goal set for Kindergarten.  Each grade level has a different goal based on state standards and our schoolwide math goals.

    Next Friday is Career Day at Garrison Mill.  We will be hosting many speakers who will share their jobs with us.

      There are several aditional events coming up for you to remember.  Please note:

• Family Movie Night at Lassiter - Tonight at 7:00
• Foundation Garage Sale- Tomorrow 8:00-3:00
• Volunteer Brunch- Friday, May 9, 8:30-11:00

Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Denise Porter

Specials next week:

M-PE, T-Art, W-PE, T-Music, F-Art

Garage Sale

If you need to schedule a large item pick-up to be donated to the Foundation Garage Sale,

Please call Patti Lavender:  770-552-1162

We are planning to schedule pick-ups for Sunday afternoon, April 27^th, but we may be able to make other arrangements.

Class News... April 25, 2008

Dear Parents,

     We've had a "splashing week" in the ocean and have been working hard for the "Under The Sea" program coming up on May 13th.  You will receive information in your child's folder today about their part in the program.  Please let me know if you have any questions. 

     The children's ocean animal projects are due this next week.  We look forward to hearing them share and teach each other about their animal.  We will display them in the Media Center so that everyone can see them.

     We are also working hard to prepare for Muffins For Moms, coming up next Friday, May 2nd at 8:30.  This will be a time to honor Moms as well as share our spring jounal writing and perform a few special songs for you. 

     In between our many rehearsals, we will continue to read and write.  Everyone is doing well with their ability to write sentences related to a topic.  We have been working on transition words to help them sequence their writing ideas and put several sentences together to tell a story. 

     In Math, we will continue to practice subtraction.  We are also working on higher level thinking math  skills with our Exemplar program.  These are story problems that make the children really think and do mental math.  They must reason through a word problem and then come up with a solution and show how they got it. 

     I have completed each child's GKAP assessment for the last section and will be completing our final school goal assessments in writing, math, computation, and math reasoning this week.  Each child will also be given the DRA (Reading assessment) one more time so that I can pass on Reading level information to the First Grade teachers.

     Be sure to mark you calendars for the big GM garage sale on Sat. May 3rd.  We hope to raise lots of money for the new GM Foundation. 

Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Denise Porter

Specials next week:

M-PE, T-Art, W-PE, T-Music, F-PE

Class News... April 18, 2008

Dear Parents,

     We're "divin in" to our ocean unit and having lots of fun learning about many animals that live in the sea.  We've also been emphasizing environmental protection for our earth and the waters of the owrld.  If you have any special shells, books, or artifacts that your child would like to share, please feel free to send them in.  We are reading many fiction and non-fiction books about sea life as well as writing about what's in the ocean.  A homework project was sent home today with an assigned ocean animal for you to help your child do a little research on.  Please check the details of that assignment.  There are several purposes for this activity.  We hope that your child will learn a little bit about research and looking for answers to gain new knowledge, have the opportunity to share orally to increase speaking skills and confidence, and to have fun with you as you work together in a learning activity.  Keep this simple and child centered. Be creative, but it does not have to be a masterpiece.  It should be sent in to school on Monday, April 28th. 

     We are beginning to practice songs for our "Under The Sea" program on Tues., May 13th.  You will receive information regarding your child's part next week.                                                    

     In Phonics, we have been doing review of rhyming words, sight words, and oral blending of word families.  We have been doing a lot of writing to gain confidence in using the phonetic skills they have gained.  You will be amazed when you see their "Spring Journals" that we will share at Muffins For Moms on May 2nd. 

     In Math, we will be starting to work on the concept of subtraction next week.  Although this seems as simple as addition, it takes a lot of "real life" manipulation of objects to understand how this is the opposite of the addition facts that we've been working on.  Please work at home by practicing with sets of objects.  Tell simple story problems that involve addition and then subtraction while your child adds and takes away objects.  Then have them record that number story by writing down the "number sentence" that represents what they have done. 

     Have a great weekend.

Sincerely,

Denise Porter

Specials next week:

M-PE, T-Art, W-PE, T-Music, F-Music

GME Foundation

Garrison Mill has recently established a Foundation whose purpose is to provide resources above and beyond what the County and the Garrison Mill PTA is able to provide.  Please visit their web page to find out more about who they are, what they do, and help support their first fundraising event.  You can visit them at:  GME Foundation.

Class News.... April 4, 2008

  Dear Parents,

     We have enjoyed our spring unit on plants, seasonal changes, and living things.  Our seeds are growing very well.  We have been keeping Seed Diaries to record what we observe.  The children have loved watching them sproiut and grow.   

   We will begin a three week Ocean unit when we return from break.  This will include sea life as well as ocean habitats and beach fun.  Our main activity during this unit will be the annual "Under The Sea" program that Kindergarten has put on for many years.  You will be getting information soon about your child's part and any props of clothing needed.  The performances will be during the school day on the morning of May 13th at 8:30 am.  Be sure to mark your calendars and make arrangements to attend. 

     When we return from spring break, each child will begin bringing a "Take Home Reader" home each day.  The purpose of these books will be to practice reading fluency.  Now that they can read simple texts, we want them to learn how to read smoothly with good voices. 

     In math, we will practice one more week with addition before introducing subtraction.  Everyone is doing very well and can combine sets easily.  It is difficult for some children to make the transition from addition to the opposite operation of subtraction.  Please help your child at home by using manipulatives for counting, combining, and separating sets.

      Please remember to return your child's Registration card and envelope for next year as soon as possible.  These are necessary for class placement and enrollment decisions.  Do not seal the envelope.  Place 4 stamps and your address on it so that I can send your summer information to you at the end of the year. 

     Happy Spring Break!!

Sincerely,

Denise Porter

Specials the week of 4/14:

M-PE, T-Art, W-PE, T-Music, F-PE

Class News.... March 21, 2008

Dear Parents,

     We have been very "Lucky" this week!  We had a Leprechaun sneaking around our room earlier this week.  We tried to catch him, but only found his pot of gold.  Perhapse you can keep the hunt going at home. 

     Today was lots of fun!  We had just about half of our eggs survive the "Egg Drop".  There were many creative inventions for packaging raw eggs.  Everyone also enjoyed dying eggs and participating in the annual egg hunt.  The children are each bringing home an equal amount of eggs today in their baskets.   

      Our Living and Nonliving unit of study will continue as we move into spring.  We'll begin learning about plants and their needs.  This will integrate science concepts within our language arts curriculum.  Our letter of the week will be "Z".  As we complete this last letter of our alphabet study, our daily phonics instruction will include additional work with consonant blends, word endings, vowel combinations and sound blending to make words.  The conventions of writing will also be an emphasis.  Those include capitalization, puncturation, spacing, and letter formation.  Please continue to support all of these skills at home. 

     In Math, we are doing well with combining sets (addition).  At this age, our goal is to make sure that a firm understanding of joining together is understood before memorization of basic facts are mastered.  We will be doing many more hand-on acctivities to explore the world of addition.

     I hope you have a wonderful Easter weekend with your family.   

Sincerely,

Denise Porter

Specials next week:

M-PE, T-Art, W-PE, T-Music, F- Music

Class News..... March 14, 2008

Dear Parents,

     This week we culminated our Farm Unit with a real Farmer's Breakfast on Thursday.  Thank you to Mrs. Rothwell and Mrs. Perdomo for helping us cook.  We  also had a great day at the farm today despite the weather.  We had a hay ride, learned a lot about a dairy farm, fed some animals, felt the milking machine on our fingers and had some delicious fresh chocolate milk.  Thank you to Mrs. Regan, Mrs. Rothwell and Mrs. Hamel for helping to chaperone. 

     Our Living and Nonliving unit of study will continue as we move into spring.  Next week we'll talk about "Bunnies, Eggs, and Chicks".  In addition to some great stories, fun projects and science skills about "what comes from eggs"?, we'll hold our annual Egg Drop and Egg Hunt on Friday, March 21st.  Please read the additional flyers that came home today about these two events.  We will also be dying hard boiled eggs.  Please send two hard boiled eggs to school on Thursday for this activity.  They travel well if you wrap them in a paper towel and put them in a small butter tub type container. 

     In Phonics, our letter sound of the week is "Y".  We're almost to the end!  Everyone already does great with the sounds of the letters.  We are really working on many higher level reading strategies to begin reading fluently the simple sentences that they are able to decode.  Keep working on those 40 sight words please.  I will be finishing some individual assessment this next week and you will receive 3rd quarter Report Cards on Thursday. 

     We had a great week of data collecting and graphing.  On Thursday, we learned to use "Graph Club" which is a computer program in the computer lab.  Everyone designed their own graph and was able to explain their data.  We will begin working with addition this next week.  They will learn to create all of the combinations that can make each number set from 0-10.  This will be practiced using many different kinds of manipulatives and creating "number stories" so that their language will match the numer sentence they are working with. 

     Bingo Night is tonight.  I hope many of you will enjoy a great family time together.  Have a great weekend. 

Sincerely,

Denise Porter

Specials next week:

M-PE, T-Art, W-PE, T-Music, F-PE