Ask me all about our Gingerbread Men!!!  They ran away!!!!!!!!!!
We opened up Mrs. Brady's tray and there was nothing but a foot and a note!!!  We used our reading strategies and followed the clues all over the school!  We went to the Library, Mr. Hibbert's Office, Mrs. Newton's classroom, Mrs. Woodington's room, the Nurse's Office, and Mrs. B's Math Room.  
Everywhere we went, we used our manners and our strong kindergarten voices to ask questions, make predictions and try to solve the problem!!!  Finally, we found them.  Mrs. Humphrey caught them and closed our classroom door so they could not escape again....FEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  What fun we had reading and thinking together!!!  We even noticed that the Gingerbread Men used a repeating line!!!!   After we caught them we decorated and enjoyed them.  We think they were the best cookies ever!!!   YUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ask me all about my snow clothes!!!
We come in every morning and unpack all by ourselves.  We make sure that our boots are under the bench and our snow things are hung up. Then we go and find our Welcome Activity.  This week, the friend with the neatest area got to put a Warm Fuzzy in the jar!!!  We were so excited.

Please continue to send in snow clothes with your child, even though we have not been outside lately.  If the weather is warm enough, the children will go out!  The following ideas are very helpful for your child...

• Label all clothing
• Send snow clothes in a separate bag
• Make sure your child has shoes to put on (slip-ons, crocs, sneakers, etc...it is hard to dance, sit criss-cross,  and move around in big snow boots!!!)
• Send in a few extra pairs of socks for their basket (sometimes we come in a little wet!)

Thank you so much for your continued support at home!!!

Ask me all about The Gingerbread Man!!!  During Shared Reading we have been enjoying different versions of this favorite tale.  We are reflecting on our favorite parts, making wonderful text to text connections, singing gingerbread counting songs and creating gingerbread men for our classroom!  
It is so fun to look closely at literature.  We have noticed so many things....author's word choice, repeating lines, setting, character behavior, etc....READING IS SO EXCITING!!!!!

Ask me all about the letters Ww and Hh.   Ww makes and air whooshing sound.  If you put your hand in front of your mouth you can feel the air coming out!  The letter Hh is very tired.  When Hh needs to sit down and rest, air comes out of his mouth..."Hhhhhhhh" Poor H!
In addition to our Secret Password, we have been using our Smartboard to help us with our letter/ sound awareness.  Each day we read a special Big Book that highlights sound/symbol correspondence.  During Literacy Stations, we have fun working with a partner and using our gigantic pointer finger to read the text.  We take turns while we are reading our Just Right Books.  How fun!!!

Ask me all about our Science Inquiry!  Two weeks ago we used our sense of touch to figure out what was hiding in our "Feely Box".  It was an ear of Indian corn.  We noticed that it was bumpy, light, long, and smooth.  We wrote about our observations in our new Science Journal.  We decided to put the Indian corn in a tray of water.  We made many scientific predictions about what we thought would happen.
Today we used our sense of sight to look closely at the Indian corn to see what has happened.  We used a new scientific tool called a magnifying glass.  We noticed many, many things.  Take a look and see what is happening in our Science Corner!!! Our Indian corn is GROWING!!!  We recorded the new information and observations in our Science Journals.   It's so cool!!!!  

Ask me all about being a "careful writer".  We have been looking closely at our work.  Each day some friends use the document camera to share their writing.  Everyone loves to see their writing up on our Smart board.
We highlight ways that the writer has been careful.  We ask lots of questions....Did you take your time?  Did you use pencil first for your picture plan?  Were you thoughtful about what you wanted to write?  Did you work neatly?  We love complementing each other and seeing each other's stories.  
After we share a piece of writing we add and idea to our "Careful Writing" chart.  Next week we are going to be looking at the word "I' (It always needs to be a capital letter because it is so important!) and talking more about how to use all of the words we have been adding to our word wall.  Writing is so much fun!!!!!!!!!!!

Ask me all about Shared Reading!!!  We have been enjoying the book Mrs. Wishy-Washy, by Joy Cowley.  We just LOVE it!!!!  We have been using the book to talk about Picture Walking, sight words, quotation marks and many other concepts of print.  We love to read the book together with our reading partners!!!
Today we practiced Retelling.   We acted out the story several times, starting at the beginning, using the character names and story language!  It was so much fun!!  We all wanted a turn to be Mrs. Wishy-Washy!!!

Ask me all about our newest Kindergarten friend!  We now have 15 children in our class!  Today we spent the day showing him around and getting to know each other.  We went over our Kindergarten Promise and added his hand print to our poster. Then we played a fun name game, building a giant spider web!!   We also showed him what Readers, Writers, and Math Workshop look like in our school.  One of our friends even said..."It's like September all over again, only it's day 62!"    

Ask me all about how lucky we are!!!  
Yesterday, Mr. Hibbert surprised us with a new iPad for our classroom!!!  We already have it up and running and we are using it for so many things!  We use it during Reader's Workshop to go on Lexia and work on letter sound, spelling & word work apps.  We use it during Writer's Workshop to record our story ideas and to practice letter formation.  We use it during Math Workshop to practice our counting, math facts, and number/quantity recognition.  We are so busy!  
We also use it to take pictures and record all of the great thinking happening in our classroom.   When we come back together to share at the end of a lesson we can actually see the work that friends were doing while they explain their thinking.   We love to look back at our learning to see how far we have come.   Our iPads help us learn in so many ways!!!   Thank you, Mr. Hibbert!!!