WELCOME BACK EVERYONE!!!!!

Dear Parents:
I am sorry that it has taken so long for me to post on my blog but I could not get into the blog for a few days and had to figure out what was going on.... Anyway, when things work, it is wonderful but when things break down....boy... it is extremely frustrating. I am happy to be up and running again. So.... Happy Chinese New Year....Happy 100 Days of School....Happy Valentine's Day and I hope that you all had a Happy Vacation Week!!!! I have missed all your children and cannot wait to see them on Monday.

Before we left on vacation, I told the children that the day that we come back from our vacation - Monday - is the 100th day of school. Well….actually…. if we did not have a snow day… it would have been. SO MONDAY IS NOT THE 100th DAY OF SCHOOL BUT IS THE 99th DAY OF SCHOOL. THE 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL IS ON TUESDAY. So that will be the day when we will celebrate our 100th day!!!! As I have originally told you, we will celebrate the 100th day with a PAJAMA PARTY. So the children will be allowed to wear their most comfortable pajamas to school on Tuesday. We will celebrate by reading many of our sleepy time books. It will be a fun day with a lot of fun activities. I cannot believe that it has been almost 100 days. Do you believe it? Your children are doing amazing work and have matured so much these last 98 days. As a teacher...it makes me so happy to see all of them love school and enjoy every subject and to be reading and writing and doing difficult math problems everyday. The children in Class K-207 will certainly be ready for the rigors of 1st Grade. We have been doing a lot of work on our math curriculum getting ready for the 100th day. We made links with construction paper and the children figured out that it would take ten links to get to 100 if each link was 10. The links are inside the classroom for all to see. We also worked on the question - How many hands does it take to get to 100? The children of Class K-207 painted their hands and grouped by 5's (fingers) to find the answer. Do you know how many group of 5's make 100? Come look at the painted hands on the wall outside our classroom. We also read the book - Emily's First 100 Days of School by Rosemary Wells and learned the song - 100 Bottles of POP on the Wall. Our shared reading is a poem this week is entitled 100 days and it is to the tune of Ten Little Indians. We looked at some the 100 objects that your children brought into class and counted them by 5's and 10's. We will continue doing this next week so….if you haven’t brought in the 100 objects, you still have time to do this next week. We are going to be looking at our straws on Monday. We will notice that they are grouped by 9 tens and 9 ones and that on Tuesday - our big day - our straws will be grouped as 1 one hundred - 0 tens - and 0 ones. Very exciting stuff!!!

I would like to remind you that the Kindergarten Classes will be going on a walking tour of CHINATOWN SUNSET PARK on Friday, February 26, 2010 and will be having lunch at Pacificana Restaurant, located at 813 55th Street, Brooklyn, NY. We will be having an authentic Chinese lunch and will be seeing the Lion Dance. The children will be leaving the school around 9:40 a.m. and will walk around the Chinatown neighborhood – if the weather is appropriate - where we will see many live creatures – turtles, crabs, etc. Lunch is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. This is the Year of the Tiger - 4707. Have a healthy appetite. The food is very good. Even though we were supposed to only bring 5 parents, I have included additional parents to come along - since they have not been on trips with the class before. I will let you know who the lucky parents are next week. As parent helpers, this goes without saying, that we need to watch all the children in the class and not just our own. Thank you in advance.

Here is an overview of what your child is learning this month.

Reading Workshop: This is a new unit of study where the children are story detectives. They are noticing and defining patterns in their texts and using these patterns to help them read their books.

Writing Workshop: This is also a new unit called How-To Books. How-To Books are types of procedural writing. Each of your children will be a teacher this month and into the next month! It empowers the children to get them to think about what they know how to do really well. I have had a mix of How-To's so far. They are all hilarious. Please have a conversation with your child about all of the things that he or she knows how to do, make or play! It is important that you child be able to teach us how to do or make something step-by-step.

Bed Time Stories: Our Winnie-the-Pooh study has been a great success so far! Pooh has met a lot of new friends. The children are so excited about this unit.

Word Study: We are learning so many sight words. The children have received a list of the word walls and will need to know these words both in their reading and writing processes. Ask them about the Word Wall Fairy who visits our class sometimes!

Shared Reading: We are reading Big Books and the children are getting familiar with all the sight words and patterns. It is really exciting.

Social Studies: We finished our Beautiful Stuff unit. Our Beautiful Stuff self portraits are currently on the bulletin board outside our classroom. Please stop by and take a look….They are amazing. We will be starting our Playground study with our staff developer, Rene Dinnerstein, in early March. It goes without saying that Class K-207 is very excited about this new unit!

Math: We are skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s. We are playing addition Top It with our classroom playing cards, playing Math Bingo and are working on not-so-easy math word problems. We are very busy in math!!!

That is all for now. As always, if you have any concerns or questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Check out this great literacy website: www.starfall.com. The children love it.

Fondly,
Ms. Graham

PS: Also on Thursday, February 25th, Class K-207, together with our Class Buddies, Class 4-304 (Ms. Milledge's Class), will celebrate our winning of the Penny Harvest with a Pizza Party in the Multi-Media Room. The Time of the party will be at 2:10. I will be decorating the room during my prep at 1:20. If anyone would like to come and help out, that would be great. The school is supplying the pizza for our classes. The parents in Ms. Milledge's class will be supplying the plates, etc. I am requesting our parents supply the drinks. If anyone could supply a bottle of juice, etc. on Thursday afternoon, it would be greatly appreciated by me and Ms. Milledge. Thank you in advance.