READ across AMERICA WEEK!!!!!! and some pictures!

This week in reading we will focus on the works of Dr. Seuss by reading them ourselves and have guest readers reading as well. The week is filled with fun activities...dressing silly....rhyming like crazy...eating green eggs and ham...and celebrating books and Seuss. I am so excited about this week as it is my favorite week in elementary school.

The family times came home tonight and the letter of the week is Hh. Snap words are: do, that, and are!

Practice Practice those snap words! Kids should know them in a snap. Books will come home this week Tuesday and Wednesday. Please make every effort to send books back the next day. THANKS!

During math we will continue to work on meeting the calculator, ROLL and RECORD (practicing two digit numbers), and teen numbers too. 

Writer's workshop will consist of:

a writer's celebration of our YOUNG author's small moment stories with the middle room

the writer's rubric (what a 3 star paper looks like)

rhyming in sentences using our conventions

silly sentences practicing conventions and spaces

perfect printing on the lines

Science: We are learning about fabric. 

I look forward to seeing you all either on Tuesday or Thursday. 

Remember no school on Friday!

COZY cave day!

Getting cozy!

Make that a cozy cave "P" party...that includes popsicles

And a cave movie with POPCORN!

And word work in the cave with your headlamp on!

Caves with FRIDAY CENTERS happening!

WE love Geo boards!

SHORT week and a visitor...

It's a 4 day week! Wahoo! Thank you presidents! We will all have lots of catching up to do! Kindergarten has a new pet! It's a ringed neck dove named "Sweety". Sweety is 14 years old and has been living at the Alta school that long I believe. We are very excited to have her be a part of our classroom and learn more about her and how to care for her.

Sweety loves to land on your head...so if you don't like that you just put your hand on your head and wave it around. It seems to work.

Otherwise just be quiet and let her land on you. She is harmless!

We are wrapping up our YOUNG AUTHOR's stories and art work...kids have done a nice job with their SMALL moment stories. 

It's been a GLUE festival around here for a few weeks....many thanks to my VOLUNTEERS...you rock!

Other than that...we will be wrapping up a few assessments this week for Parent/Teacher conferences next Tuesday and Wednesday. Your scheduled time was sent home today in your child's red folder. Please mark it on your calendar and fill out the attached form and send it back to me by Friday. The form really helps me be prepared on what you would like to discuss and manage our time, so if you have some specifics please write them down and send them back.

On another note, I have been pulling teeth (not really) to get books back to school the next day. The books always come home Tuesday-Thursday. Please read them and ALWAYS stick them back in your child's red folder. It helps me teach my guided reading groups the following day. Kids that leave their book at home miss out on learning opportunities.

Reading this week consists of DRAWING conclusions. We began our unit of study this week by playing and practicing the game of charades. Kids learn to draw conclusions from a given action. Tomorrow we will be at it again, but adding drawing conclusions from verbal cues. Kids are picking up on this comprehension skill and began relating it to reading today right away. It was so cool!

Writing this week will consist of wrapping up the finishing touches on our YOUNG author's stories, free writing in our journals and learning to grade our writing based on a WRITING rubric, and taking our MID YEAR writing ASSESSMENT.

Math will consists of:
1. Creating and extending patterns
2. Review estimating
3. Writing numbers, counting from different numbers, and interrupted counting
4. Introducing MEET the calculator.

SCIENCE will consist of:
1. Meeting "Sweety" and learning how to properly care for our new animal.
2. FABRIC investigations....that include exploration of fabric and feely boxes AND a fabric hunt (What is fabric used for?)
Also, Mrs. Farrier is extending my FABRIC unit with painting self portraits on burlap in art...(by the way...they look amazing)

Looking forward to seeing you next week.
Mrs. G

Alta School goes sledding!

Alta Eagles got "Heidi" to the top of the mountain...meaning they have been following the rules. They earned a sledding trip to Badger creek.

Happy Heart!

Oh man! It's a big week! But it's a short week!

Yesterday the ski races were a BIG success! Today we are going sledding at the BYU center. The kids have worked hard and pushed "HEIDI" to the top of our mountain! We are rewarding them with a fieldt trip. Yeah! We will be delivering valentines later this morning. Check out our boxes in the pictures below. The kids worked really hard and with the help of Devon's grandparents (Maureen and Dennis) we were able to get all 10 boxes finished in under an hour! :)

This week I will wrap up a few assessments for report cards coming up the last week in FEBRUARY. Remember if you need a special time or day please let me know as soon as you can. 

February 28th and March 2nd are OUR conference dates. 

 Reading this week will consist of wrapping up our UNIT on inference and starting to look at DRAWING CONCLUSIONS. We will be using a variety of both fiction and non fiction texts.
Letter of the week: Oo
Snap words to practice: you, they, of
Kids are working their way through their WORD working levels! Kids are trying to see how high they can get.

 Writing this week will consist of our COVER picture illustration...and wrapping up our endings! We will work for another week or so on revising...editing and fixing and fancying up!

 everyday math lessons will consist of the following:
1. Pattern block template
2. The addition symbol
3. The growing train game (practicing addition)
CLICK HERE to watch a cute ADD'em up video!

 Remember no school on Friday...teacher inservice day and Monday is Presidents' day! Wahoo! 4 day weekend for you!

Months macarena by Mrs. G's class!

Life in the little room...100th day!

100th day of school in Mrs. Griffin's class.

 100th day NOUN hunt!

 10 nouns each = 100 nouns total!

 Come on in...BUST through the hundred day door!!!

 Noun practice with a friend.

Blowing out the 100th candle in our 100 day trail mix!

 Counting out pieces for trail mix!!! 

 10, 20, 30, 40...

 99...100!

 Brother and Sister share!

Colored marshmallows are the BEST! 

Tuesday is the 100th day! Wahoo!

Wowie Wow Wow! Can you believe your little kindergartner is 100 days smarter?  I can't! I am very excited to be celebrating the 100th day with my class. We are going to be having lots of fun! We will be making some shirts that look like this...

 We will be making some trail mix that looks like this...everyone is supposed to bring in 100 pieces of some type of snack mix and we are mixing them all together to make 100th day trail mix! Yum!

 This week in reading:
Our letter is Ff.
Our snap words are review: for, with, look and see
WE are still focused on Inferring while reading. We will be focusing on one anchor lesson all week using different texts. Readers will determine meaning of unknown words by using their schema, paying attention to textual and picture clues, rereading, and engaging in conversations with others.
Some texts include but are not limited to the following:
Grandfather Twilight
How many days to America?
Oliver Button is a sissy
Fireflies
Fly away home

Books will be coming home Tuesday - Thursday with your child. Please read them...and ALWAYS send them back the following day. This helps me with your child's reading group. Keep tracking READING minutes on the reading log. Logs are due at the end of the month.

Book order books should be delivered on Tuesday. Please let me know if your books are a Valentine surprise.

Writing Workshop:
This week in kindergarten we will be wrapping up our YOUNG AUTHOR'S stories. Kids are learning about possible endings, how to add to a piece of writing, conventions, and revision. During our reading and writing times we will spend quite a bit of time on our illustrations for your Young Author's book. Our illustrations are made up of 4 pieces: Cover, character, setting and action. This is a huge project and volunteers this week will likely see lots of cutting, pasting, planning and gluing!
Speaking of glue: our class needs gluesticks....if you have any around the house or if you would like to donate more, please do!

During Math this week:
number line math (practicing addition and subtraction) 
Pattern block practice
Top it and more card games
Playing addition top it
Teen practice with dice (practice identifying teen numbers at home and writing them too)
Pattern block template 

Other things to know:
This week through the end of the month students will complete a variety of assessments for reading, math and writing. 
Conferences are the last week in February. If there is a better day that works for you, please let me know as soon as you can.