Star of the Week--Ian!

We are pleased to announce our friend, Ian, is our

Star of the Week  for April 22nd-26th.

Check out Ian's star poster, circle map,

and the book we created for him!

Here are a few of Ian's favorite things:

Color: red

Best Friend: Braeden

Holiday: Christmas
Restaurant: Cheesecake Factory
Food: chicken nuggets

Center: computers

Book: Brown Bear, Brown Bear

Animal: sharks

Ian is a cool dude!

He loves his friends and

he has a great smile!!!

Ian is a fabulous reader too!

We have enjoyed getting to know

more about our special friend.

Meet Eric Carle!

We have just begun our second author study!

 Meet our special author: Eric Carle

On Thursday, we explored Mr. Carle's website:

http://www.eric-carle.com/home.html

What a fun website! Enjoy!

After reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar, we retold this 

delightful story to our reading partners.

Then, we read The Grouchy Ladybug.

We discussed what makes us "grouchy." 

Check out our grouchy ladybugs:

Camila is grouchy when her brother doesn't play with her. 

Aiden is grouchy when his sister plays on his moby. 

Reader's Workshop Skill: Inferring

It is so exciting to see my students reading so well!

We are up to 12 minutes of reading during our independent reading time.

SO AWESOME!!!

Our goal, by the end of the year, is to be reading for 15 minutes!

We are getting close! 

Last week, we continued to practice a very important reading skill: Making Inferences

When you infer, you are using clues and your
prior knowledge to help you understand what is happening in the story.

To review this skill, we played a little game using Mrs. Shelby's purse.

We took a look at some items from my bag and the

 kids had to make inferences about me based on the items I showed them. 

Let me tell you...it was funny! 

I love some of the stuff they came up with.

Next, we continued to practice our inferring skills
using a poem called I am ____.

As we read this poem, we had to infer what
creature or animal it might be talking about.

Let's just say, my kids are good! 

They came up with some great ideas based
on the clues we read in the poem.

Then, we created our inferences and wrote about it.

STAAR Testing Dates

Just a quick reminder:

April 23rd and 24th (Tuesday and Wednesday) are STAAR testing days.

No visitors are permitted on campus during these days.

Also, I will be out these two days to help with testing.
Please keep your child's guided reading packets at home on Tuesday and Wednesday.
However, they will need to return them to school on Thursday.

Thank you for your cooperation!

Poetry Writing

It has been a FABULOUS few weeks in Writer's Workshop!!!
My Kindergarteners are POETS!

WOW--it's amazing!

We have been reading, writing and learning

 all about different types of  poems.

Here are some of the types of poems we are writing:

Acrostic
Diamond/Shape 
I want, I hope, I wonder

Kara-Lyne's acrostic poem using her name

Lathyn's acrostic poem

Kasey's acrostic poem

We used our friends' names to write acrostic poems! So fun! 

I want, I hope, I wonder poems

We published our poems on Friday!

I just love my little poets!!! 

All About Plants

In Science, we are learning about plants. We learned the different parts of a plant: seed, roots, stem, leaves, and the flower/fruit. Also, we learned what a plant needs: water, sunlight, soil, and air. Lastly, we explored the difference between a young plant and a parent/adult plant. Here are some photos of our plant activities:

We know what plants need: soil, air, water, and sunlight!

Planting a Seed

Not only are we GROWing great kindergarteners...we are GROWing beautiful plants too! 

Please check out our sunflower seeds we planted two weeks ago! 

Elijah is excited about his seed!!!

We charted the growth of our plants in our Science journals each day.

Tagg is checking out his seed.

Braeden's seed has sprouted!!!

After two weeks, we have some stems and leaves!!!

Kasey loves her plant!!!