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Week 36
Just a few pictures of our review week.

Teach Your Monster to Read - a classroom favorite.
read read read

We read a couple of books this week.  The first was Max's Words.  Max is the youngest of three boys.  His older brothers get a lot of attention - one for his coin collection and the other for his stamp collection.  Max would like just one stamp or one coin, but his brothers are not sharing.  Max decides to start a collection of his own and begins clipping words from magazines and newspapers.  His brothers laugh at his collection until he shows them how his words can make some exciting sentences and even stories.  Soon they are envying his collection and even willing to trade a part of their collections for a part of his.

Starting our own word collections from the newspapers/magazines.
book read read read read

Or second book was Sparkle and Spin.  This book has a nice rhyming text.  It simply explains what words can do.  (Some can name things.  Others can make us feel a certain way.  Etc.)  After reading it, we practiced writing our sight words with our wikki stix.  I know there are a lot of pictures here, but I kept hearing, "Teacher, look! I did it!" and "Teacher, take a picture of my word!",  so here they are.
 book read read read read
 read read read read read read read read read read
Week 35
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Week 35 is our close to the reading series.  We are finishing the year with Pet Show and Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the Last Day of Kindergarten.  In Pet Show, a neighborhood is holding a pet show.  All the kids in the area bring their pets to participate.  Archie was going to bring the neighborhood cat, but when it's time to go, he can't find the cat.   As the prizes are being awarded, a women being followed by the cat shows up just as Archie shows up with a jar .  The judges award the women with a prize for her cat before anybody has a chance to explain that it's not her cat.  Then they asked Archie what kind of pet he has.  He tells them he has a germ which wins the prize for quietest pet.book


In Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the Last Day of Kindergarten, the kindergarten class shows up for their last day of school.  They clean out their desks, put away all the classroom supplies, then enjoy the rest of the day with a water sprinkler and an awards party.  As the book ends, we see Miss Bindergarten leaving school with tickets to Hawaii - because that's what teachers do the minute we get the kids out of the door.)  OK, so our day won't be quite the same, but we do have some fun planned, so keep your kids in school until the very end!!


Because we had MAPS testing this week, we didn't have as much Daily 5 time, but we did squeeze in a litt
le bit.   Below they are working on some rhyming with their partners. 
rhyme rhyme rhyme rhyme 
In our listen to read center, we heard Bang! Boom! Roar! A Busy Crew of Dinosaurs.  This book is an ABC book about dinosaurs and construction.  Most of my books are generic, but the girls usually give better reviews than the boys, so I put this one out in hopes of the boys finding some enjoyment in it.  I was not disappointed.
L2R 
Week 34
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Week 34's theme was about growing up.  We began the week with a book called Baby Brains.  In this story, our main character is born with great intelligence.  At 1 week old, he asks his parents if he can go to school.  The next week he goes to college and gets a degree in medicine.  NASA's scientists hear about Baby Brains and ask if he can go to space with them.  He performs very well at everything he is asked to do.  But when he is taking his first space walk, he looks around and suddenly yells "I want my mommy!"  Poor Baby Brains is rushed home and decides to take life at a slower pace except for weekends when he continues to use his medical degree to work at a hospital.book

Our second book was called Look at Us.  This book was actually made by a kindergarten class that took pictures from their year in school and described some of the things they did in kindergarten.  The kids were quite interested to see some of the things that they did at their school that we also did at TJES.  

Qq and Yy were our letters this week.  We have also been adding some of the letter sounds that are more of a 1st grade standard.  We now know the short and long sound for each vowel.  We have figured out that c and g both have a hard sound and a soft sound.  And since we have been reading "by" and "my" for quite some time, it didn't take long for them to realize Y says /y/ sometimes, but it can also make and i sound or and e sound.

Our words this week were "take" and "off".
book
Rabbit Ears was our listen to read story for the week because it follows the "growing up" theme.  In this story, little rabbit is a rabbit who knows what he likes and what he doesn't like.  And he doesn't like getting his ears cleaned.  In fact, he does everything he can think of to avoid getting them cleaned.  But when an older cousin comes to stay overnight, little rabbit sees him cleaning his own ears without any fussing.  Little rabbit realizes that he is big enough to clean his ears too.

Below are a few pictures of the kids playing Boggle Jr.  They were so fun to watch.  Even those who tend to be very quiet became quite animated when they spelled the words right.

spell spell spell spell
partner reading                                        more partner reading

Week 33
book
This week, our books were about trying new things.  The first, The Little Engine bookThat Could, tells us about a small train that breaks down.  After asking several large engines to help and being disappointed by their lack of willingness to help the little train meets a very small engine.  The small engine has never pulled a train across the mountains, but is willing to try until the task is completed.

In our next story, You Can Do It, Curious George!, we find George getting in trouble again because of his curiosity, but he refuses to give up until he finds something that he is good at.  Finally, he sees a forest fire and contacts the fire station to save the day!

Our words this week were "look" and "out".  Our letters were Ww and Zz.

In our listening to read station, we heard Splash!, a story about a baby elephant who is hot after a long, hot day on the savannah.  He wanders to the water hole with his mother and the other animals.  When he playfully splashes the others, they look angry at first, but then they all join in the fun and leave refreshed and ready for sleep.
 book
Week 32
bookThis week our books were told from a young child's point of view.  In the first, Someone Bigger, the main character begins the story by telling us that he and his dad had made a kite and were about to go out to fly it.  He is excited to try it out, but because the wind is so strong, his father, who is being pulled off the ground by the kite, tells the boy that he can't fly it because this kite needs "someone bigger".  Other adults and even zoo animals try to help his father get the kite under control, but each is pulled up.  The boy runs along asking if it is his turn yet, but the response is always the same.  "This kite needs someone bigger."  Finally, the boy gets a hold of the string, and he, with the help of the others is able to get the kite down, proving that sometimes someone small can help too.book

Our next book was One of Three.  This time a young girl is telling the story.  She describes things that she and her two older sisters do together until the older sisters leave her behind.  At first, this hurts her feelings, but after spending time with her parents she realizes that being one of three can be fun even when it's a different kind of three.

Our letters this week were Ll and Ww.  In kindergarten, it is often difficult for students to make the Ll sound so we hear more of a Ww sound when they try to do that.  This is not something that causes a lot of worry at this age.  It's a developmental stage that is often reached later.  However, if your child is one of those that has difficulty making the Ll sound, you may be able to help him/her develop it by modelling the tongue position used to produce this sound and then letting them look in the mirror to find that spot for themselves.

Our words this week were "have" and "help".  The kids did really well with these words!
book
I put two silly books in the listening to read station this week.  We started with The Underpants Zoo - an imaginative story about what kind of underwear animals might wear if they were to wear them.  The lions would like royal looking underwear.  The elephants would be jumbo size.  The sloths would prefer comfortable ones.  Each phrase is accompanied by a silly picture of the animal in their underpants.
book 
Clumsy Crab was the next story.  Crab is having trouble with his big pincers.  They keep getting in his way when he is trying to play with his friends, causing him to trip and even break his hiding spot when they are playing hide and seek.  When Crab becomes the seeker, he finds his friend octopus tangled in seaweed.  Finally, his huge pincers come in handy as he is able to free octopus from the seaweed.
 
Week 31
In our 31st book week, we were assigned books about finding things that we are good at.  We opened the week with Curious George Makes Pancakes.  In this story, the man with the yellow hat takes Curious George to a pancake breakfast.  As usual, George's curiosity gets him in trouble when he starts making pancakes without the permission of the chef, who thinks it is no place for a monkey.  By the time he is chased away, George is a sticky mess from the syrup.  He finds a tank of water to wash in, but doesn't realize that it is a dunk tank until he is dropped into the water.  After he climbs back up and is dunked again, a line begins to form.  The fundraiser ends up making more money than it has ever made before because of his willingness to sit in the dunk tank and ability to make delicious pancakes.book

In Something Special, we meet a little raccoon who is trying to find something he is good at.  His sister is a good piano player, but when he tries, she covers her ears.  His brother is a computer whiz, but when he tries, even the computer screams at him.  His dad is a good cook, but when he tries, nobody is hungry any more.  He can't even do tricks that his dog can do.  After attempting many activities, he finally finds something that he is good at and enjoys the pride of accomplishing something on his own.

Our sight words for this week were "do" and "down".  They were a little bit confusing because they begin the same, but after a few days, they seemed to do ok. 

We also learned about the letter Uu.  Quite a few of the kids have been having a hard time differentiating between the sound of the letters Oo and Uu.  We will be spending the rest of the year doing a lot of work on vowel sounds to help them hear the
bookdifferences.

Our listening to read station had The Hiccupotamus as our story this week. This is just a silly rhyming story with some fun wordplay in the made up words along with some goofy illustrations to add to the humor. 

After a week of hard work, Mrs. Brazell reread Curious George Makes Pancakes and we all enjoyed a quick pancake midmorning snack.   

pancakes pans pans
pans pans pans pans
Week 30
book
This weeks readings involved making food from scratch.  The first, Bread Comes to Life, showed the steps of making bread, beginning with sowing the seeds.  We see the grinding, the mixing, the kneeding, the dough rising - twice, and the baking.  We see many kinds of bread.  By the time we got to the end of the book, I could almost smell the bread!
book
Our second book, Pie in the Sky, is told by a child who tells us about a tree that is in the yard of the house they moved to.  It begins in the fall, when they see buds on the tree.  In the spring, the child tells us about the flowers blooming and the cherries beginning to grow.  They watch as the cherries ripen.  They see birds, butterflies, fireflies, and even a raccoon enjoy the cherries, until finally the cherries are ripe enough for them to pick.  They then make a cherry pie - "the best pie they have ever had."
 
Because we are ending our fifth unit, this week was a review week.  That means there were no new words or letters, but we did have time for our listening to read station.  We listened to Barnyard Fun, a story about a mischievous sheep who pranks the other farm animals on April Fools Day until Horse turns the tables on Sheep.  At the end of the week, we heard Easter Parade.  A quick little book about celebrating with the Easter Bunny leading a parade down the street.
 book book 
In our Working with the Teacher station, the students did some work on sounding out CVC words.  They did such a great job!
CVC CVC CVC CVC CVC
 
Week 29
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In reading, we opened our week with Red Eyes or Blue Feathers.  In this informational text, we learn about how colors of animals help them survive.  Besides discussing animals that change colors in different seasons, this book also explains how animals' colors help them to hide, attract mates and warn others to stay away.book

Chameleon, Chameleon also talks about animals' colors.  But this book focuses on the chameleon alone.  The main character in this story is a chameleon who has to leave his tree to find food.  We see how his colors change with his mood and how he and the animals he meets communicate with each other until he finds food and is safe in another tree.

We added the words "he" and "no" to our sight word list and the letters Hh and Kk to the list of letters we now know well.
book
In our listen to read station, we heard Mouse's Birthday - a story about Mouse celebrating his birthday with his friends which included a cat, a dog, a cow, a horse and even a farmer.  They each squeezed into his house in a haystack to attend his party.  When it was time for Mouse to blow out the candles on his cake, all his friends helped blow, which caused his whole house to be blown down.  Fortunately, his friends help him adjust to a new house and keep the party going.
 
Week 28
  Our main focus in readibookng this week, was to look at the sequence of story events.  For this reason we were assigned two books that look at life cycles.  In the first, Oscar and the Frog, Oscar the kitten sees some tadpoles.  Because he doesn't know what they are, he asks his friend, a frog, what they are.  Frog explains that they are baby frogs that hatched out of eggs.  This confuses kitten even more.  As he continues to ask questions, he learns that living things can
come from eggs, seeds, or be born alive.  They also talk about what they eat and how long it takes to mature.
book
Our next story was Zinnia's Flower Garden.  This story starts in the spring, when Zinnia is preparing her garden for planting.  As the story continues, she plants the seeds, waters them, weeds and waits for the first sprouts to appear.  As they grow and bloom throughout the summer, she picks them and sells them.  In the fall she collects their seeds for the next year.  Finally, in the winter, we see her making plans for the next spring.
 
We worked on the sound of Ee this week.  As we saw when adding the other vowels, we gain a huge group of new words that we can read and write.  The sound of Ee is very close to the sound of Ii, so it is a difficult one.  All the extra practice that you can squeeze in will be very beneficial to your child.

bookOur sight word for this week were "all" and "she", so keep and eye out for those too.

In our listening to read station, we heard Cows in the Kitchen.  This is a fun book, written to the rhythm of Skip To My Lou.  In this story, the farmer falls asleep and his animals sneak into the house.  The cows make a mess of the kitchen, the hens get into the hat rack and the sheep get onto the sofa.  When the farmer wakes up, he chases them all out, but quickly falls asleep again.  Can you guess what the animals do when they see he is back asleep?

We are getting to be great readers!  Check out your kids below.
                         
Group1           Group 2 (minus a few)           Group 3             Group 4          Group 2 with 1 more

In our word work station,  we started a new kind of paper to reinforce our sight words.  You may have seen it come home.  The kids read the word.  Then they trace it, color it, stamp it and write it.  They seemed to enjoy it so I think you will see more of them soon.
 rsc rsc
Week 27
This week our books were both about tigers, but the real emphasis was on the growth or change characters experience. 
book We started the week with A Tiger Grows Up, a nonfiction book that describes a booktiger's life cycle from birth to adulthood. 

Later we read Leo the Late Bloomer.  Leo's friends have all learned how to draw, read, write and make things.  Leo is struggling to keep up with them.  His father is worried about his lack of progress, but his mother says that Leo is just a late bloomer and that they need to have patience.  They wait throughout the seasons, until finally, Leo blooms.   

This week we began studying 2 letters.  We worked on Jj and Xx.  We studied the words "good" and "said".  We have talked about quotation marks in the past, but now that they are able to write "said" in their own writing, we will hit harder on those.

In our listening to reading center, we heard
a great story for talking about how characters change called "You're Finally Here!"  The main character is a rabbit who was waiting for a reader to come read his story.  At first, he is excited to see somebody come read his book, but then he starts talking about how long it took us to get there and he gets annoyed.   When he realizes how angry he is sounding, he sounds a little embarrassed and welcomes us back.  His mood changes several times as he talks about his wait and how happy he is to have company.  However, when he gets a phone call, he rudely turns his back and ignores the reader.  As we are closing the book we can almost hear him yelling, "Wait!  Come back!"
 book
Week 26

Our week's books were about being a friend.  We started with Simon and Molly Plus Hester.  Simon and Molly are bookbest friends until Hester moves in.  When the three of them play together, Molly sometimes agrees with suggestions made by Hester instead of always doing what Simon wants to do.  Simon begins to feel left out.  Eventually, Simon overhears Molly telling Hester that Simon is a great bike rider and could teach her how to ride.  Molly adds, "He's my best friend."  Simon then realizes that that he has no reason to feel bad and that Hester can also teach him a few things.

                                             
T
he Best of Friends is abookbout two best friends, both named Robert.  One goes by Rob, the other by Bobby.  As we read the book, we found many similarities   between the boys but also many differencesDespite the differences, the boys remain best friends.
 

We spent the week learning about the letter Oo.  Adding vowels always makes a huge difference in our reading.  Now, we can read words  from the _ob, _og, _om, _on, _op, and _ot families.  That gives us a huge number of new words that we can read!

Our new sight words are "make" and "play".  Both are tricky to kindergarteners, because we really focus on the short Aa sound and neither has that sound.

book
In our listening to reading center, we heard When You Need a Friend.  In this fiction book, the small animals become upset when they hear that there is a storm coming.  Badger comforts them by helping them reinforce their homes and spends the night with them.  In the morning, their homes are all fine, but they find Badger's home destroyed.  With all the friends working together, they are able to help Badger rebuild.

We start every day with letter naming and saying the letter sounds.  We are also practicing blending sounds together to make words and segmenting words into the individual sounds so that we can write.
  We are becoming very fluent at each of these activities, which is really improving our reading.  This week we also spent some time working on our rhymes.  Below are a few pictures of the kids matching rhyming pictures. 
rhyme  rhyme  rhyme
while the rest worked on a computer reading program.
read
Week 25
book
This week was a review week in reading.  We are finishing our unit about exploring outside.  The books we were given to read were Duck & Goose and Curious George's Dinosaur Discovery.  In Duck & Goose, these two friends find what they think is an egg.  They begin arguing about who gets it and both climb up onto it to keep it warm.  After waiting quite some time for it to hatch, their arguing turns to discussing their hopes for their baby.  As they talk, they feel movement and become very excited, thinking it is time for their egg to hatch.  They quickly realize it was just a small bird kicking the "egg" because she wanted to get their attention to ask if she could play with their ball.  They finally realize that they were sitting on a ball the whole time and with their friendship renewed, they go off to play with their ball together.

bookIn Curious George's Dinosaur Discovery,  George and the man with the yellow hat go to visit a quarry, where archeologists are doing a dinosaur dig.  As usual, George is very curious, but after watching for awhile, he's disappointed in the lack of excitement.  He decides to try to help, which, in typical Curious George style, causes lots of trouble.  But as luck would have it, the commotion he causes soon results in an helpful outcome.

The only word we added to our sight word list this week was "from".  We didn't have any new letters, as it was a review week.
book
Because we had Monday off and a play during our reading time slot on Friday, we only had two days of Daily 5 this week.  We did get time to do a little bit of our listening to read center and in that center we heard How to Catch a Star.  I chose this book to go along with our science unit which is about space.  In How to Catch a Star, a boy who enjoys star gazing decides he would like to catch a star.  He tries a number of different ideas, but has no luck.  He finally gives up and walks home, but on the way, he sees a starfish washed up on the beach.  He thinks it is a baby star that has fallen from the sky and is happy to be able to catch it and take it home.
 

Week 24
bookWe started the week with Nicky and the Rainy Day.  In this story, the bunny family is stuck inside because of the rain.  Nicky suggests they go to the desert to enjoy the yellow sand.  The rest of the family tells him why that is improbable, so he suggests a trip to the mountains where there are beautiful blue cliffs.  As each of his ideas is voted down, Nicky comes up with a new idea until the rain bookstops and Mom takes the family for a walk in the meadow where they get to see many colors in a rainbow

Our second book was Sheep Take a Hike.  These sheep pack up their backpacks and prepare for a hike.  Unfortunately, they lose the path because of the thick underbrush and then, as the fog rolls in, they
fall into a pond and lose their compass.  How will they get back?  Ask your child to retell the story.

We worked on the sight words "go" and "for" and the letter Dd.  That is a tricky letter.  The lowercase b is so close to the lowercase d and the sounds are hard to hear, so take a little time to reinforce that one when you see it on a sign or book or in
a magazine.
book
We had enough Daily 5 time to do two books in our listen to reading center.  Since February is Tooth Month, we listened to Bear's Loose Tooth.  Bear's friends try to help him pull his tooth, but can't get it to come out.  After they give up, Bear wiggles his tooth with his tongue and it falls out, but then he finds another one wigglingbook

We followed that up with No Sleep For tho Sheep.  In this story, every time sheep lies down to sleep another farm animal comes to the door an makes a noise which wakes him again.  Finally, Sheep gets to sleep just before Rooster crows "Cock-a-doodle-doo!"
 
Week 23
This week, our reading series focused on water and water animals.  One-Dog Canoe was our first book. book This is a story by author Mary Casanova, who is from Minnesota.  She wrote about a young girl who takes her dog out for a quiet canoe ride.  As they are paddling along they meet other Minnesota animals that each ask, "Can I come too?"  The girl tries to tell each animal that it is a small canoe, only large enough for the passengers that are already on board, but each animal jumps into the canoe anyway. Eventually beaver, loon, wolf, bear and moose have all crowded into the canoe.  Then frog comes along...

This book kind of has a specially place in my heart.  My brother lives on a lake in MN, and we've found that no matter where we travel as a family, the weekend we spend at his house each summer is always the best weekend of the year.  There's something special about sharing the lake with the MN animals early in the morning before anybody else gets out there.

The kids seemed to enjoy this book more than many of the others we've read.  If your child enjoyed it, look for Mary Casanova's One-Dog Sleigh at the library.  I haven't read it yet, but it looks like the same type of format, so I think they would
enjoy it.

bookOur second book is called In the Big Blue Sea. This is a very repetitive, rhythmic and rhyming book, which makes it fun to join in on.  Many of the kids were joining in by the time I got just a few pages into the story.  In this book, the author invites us to go swimming with him and asks "What kind of fish would you like to be?"  After the first couple of pages that show kids getting ready to go diving, the pictures are all photographs of different kinds of salt-water fish of different colors.  The text repeats "Splish!  Splash!  Splish!  Would you be a (color) fish?"

Our letter of the week was Rr and our sight words were "will" and "be".
book
We are back into a full round of Daily 5.  In our listen to read center, we heard Snow Dog, Go Dog.  (It doesn't really fit with the theme of the week, but it's still very much winter here in ND, so I decided to stay with that theme for awhile.)  This book opens with the text "Tinka is a play dog, a yay dog, a loves-to-romp-all-day dog."  As you can see, it's another book with great rhythm and rhyme.  A boy takes his dog out to play as it begins to snow.  They are both enjoying the snow, but then, Tinka gets excited chasing after another dog and gets lost.

If your child enjoyed this story, I just found 2 more stories about Tinka that follow the same type of pattern.  Look for Cool Dog, School Dog and Fun Dog, Sun Dog.  They all look adorable!

Below are our 5 Daily areas
D5
Work with a teacher
D5
Read to Self
D5
Word Work
D5
Computer
D5
Listening to Reading
Computer isn't actually a part of the Daily 5, but we have some really good reading programs that the kids work on.  Number 5 is really writing, which we do during our Daily 5 time and during our regular writing time.
       
Week 22
We started the week with a book called It Is the Wind.  In this story, a young boy is trying to figure out what he is hearing.  He asks if it could be an owl hooting, a frog croaking, a hinge creaking, a dog howling, or several other sounds.  In the end, we are lead to believe he heard all these things because the wind blows and causes many other things to make noises. 

Our second book was I Love Bugs!  This story is about a boy who goes bug hunting and gives simple descriptions of all the insects he finds.  In the end he returns home to find his favorite bug - his baby sister dressed in a ladybug costume!
book  book 
Our letter of thebook week was Gg and our sight words were "this" and "find". 

We had a little time for our Daily 5 routine, but with the short week, it was another week of less than I'd like to see.  We did get to have a few more kids go through the listening center, so they got to hear
All to Build a Snowman, which we started last week.  This story is all about cause and effect.  The kids in the story go out to build a snowman and as they are working, snow drops from a branch and startles a crow which sets off a series of other events.

Here are a couple of pictures of the kids working on a computer program called Ticket to Read and in the listening center.

D5   D5 
Week 21
In our
book reading series this week, we talked about science.  We started with the book called Dear Mr. Blueberry.  This book begins with a little girl named Emily writing a letter to Mr. Blueberry, telling him she saw a whale in the pond in her back yard, and asking for advice about caring for that whale as he doesn't seem to be well.  Mr. Blueberry responds by kindly explaining that whales can't live in ponds because they only live in salt water.  The Emily writes again the next day, saying she put salt in the pond and the whale seems to be doing better.  Each time she writes to update Mr. Blueberry on how her whale is doing, he responds a little bit more forcefully about it being impossible for a whale to live in a pond and gives her more scientific facts about whales to prove his point.  Eventually, Emily writes that it is a very sad day, because her whale has left.  However, she later sees him at the beach where they get to say their farewell.
book
Our second book is called What Is Science?  This book just gives many examples of what we might study about in a science class or as a scientist.  It has a nice rhythmic rhyming pattern, fun pictures and gives us a look at what the word "detail" means.  So after talking about what the big question is - "What is Science" - we talk about all the many details in the book that answer that question.
 
The letter of the week was Ii, which opened up a whole lot of new words for us.  We can add all the _ib, _ig, _in, _it families.  This is when things start to really take off.  Although we haven't spent a full week on each letter, we continue to review the letter names and sounds each day, so most of the kids know a majority of them.  Once we work on the short i sound, they start realizing that they can write a whole lot of words.  Usually we see the confidence grow by leaps and bounds at this time of the year and they take off!

The week 21 sight words were "is" and "how".  We've been seeing "is" in a lot of our easy readers, so that wasn't difficult for them.  "How" was a little bit of a problem at the beginning of the week because we just learned "now" 2 weeks ago and the h and n look so similar, but when I make them slow down and look at the beginning letter they seem to do ok.

We had a limited amount of Daily 5 this week because Friday was our 100th Day of School party (see the activities pg for more on that.) and on Wednesday we had a really difficult day.  I don't know if it was lack of sleep, too much sugar at breakfast, or the stars and planets were out of line, but we had very little attention on anything important and a whole lot of "Teacher, he did this." and "Teacher, he did that."  I decided to cancel any attempt of them working on their own and slow things down for the day, so that left only Tuesday and Thursday for Daily 5. 

We used All to Build a Snowman in our listen to read center.  Since so few got a chance to hear it, I'll keep it out for next week and give you more on that then. 
Week 20
bookWe started our reading with How Many Stars in the Sky? this week.  This is the story of a boy who can't sleep, so he decides to count the stars from his bedroom window.  Because his view is partially blocked, he goes out to his tree house to continue.  His view is still blocked, so he climbs down and finds his dad looking for him.  After he explains what he was doing, the boy's dad takes him to find a better place to count the stars. bookOur next book was What a Beautiful Sky!  This is an informational text that talks about the things we see in the sky.  It starts with the sights we see during the day and mentions several different types of clouds.  Then it looks at our night sky and shows a few constellations  and ends with fireworks.                        
This was a review week, so we didn't have any new letters to study.  That gave us a chance to get all the new kids caught up on the last four letters we've introduced.  Having a review week also means we didn't have any new sight words, but because we have seen the word "here" in so many of our books, we added it to our list and practiced it all week long.

Our Daily
book 5 was run partially as an introduction to the new kids and partially as independent stations, so they got to have a little bit of say in what they did.  (That's the beauty of Daily 5.  When the kids get to choose which activity they are going to work on, they are much more motivated.  The exciting part this week was that quite a few of them chose writing.  THEY NEVER CHOOSE WRITING!!!!!  It was so great to see that.)  The part we did together was the Listening to Reading center, so that we could show the new kids how to fill out the follow-up form.  We used What Will the Weather Be Like Today? as our story.  This book simply asks the kids to predict what the weather will be like then gives them many examples of weather with pictures that add a lot of detail to the story.  It also has a nice little rhyming pattern to add to the rhythm of the story with phrases like "The cockatoo likes it steamy and hot.  The mole (pictured sleeping in his hole) doesn't know if it's raining or not."

Below you can see that we had a few kids working on the computers while others worked on their color words. - Not an easy task.  First they had to figure out which way the letters should be turned.  Then they needed to get the letters in the right order.  In doing this I think I learned the secret to teaching.  The faster I took pictures, the faster they built their color words.  This is only about half of the pictures, but the rest were even more blurry than some of these are so these are the ones you get.
v color color color color color color color color color color color color color color color
book Week 19book
 This week, the books from our reading series were about animal homes.  The first, Home for a Tiger, Home for a Bear, is a book that talks about animals that live together in different habitats.  Next we read Turtle Splash!, which talks about 10 turtles sitting on a log.  Throughout the day other animals come to the pond and scare away one turtle at a time.  At the end of the day, the last turtle joins the others at the bottom of the pond to rest.

Our letter of the week was Bb and our sight words were "are" and "now".

Because we gained 5 new students, we didn't do a real Daily 5.  Instead, we did each area together as a class to introduce the new students to the procedures of each area.  Snow! Snow! Snow!  is the book we used to introduce them to the listening center.  This story is about a group of friends who go sledding and the excitement of flying through the air when they hit a big bump.
 book
Week 18
 
book Our week started with a couple of books about nature.  The first was A bookZebra's World, and informational text which took us through the changes seen in a zebra throughout the first year of it's life.  The second What Color Is Nature? is a book that talks about items of each color found in nature.  It talks about where to find colors in nature (gardens are the best places) and finding things of one color or more.

Our letter of the week was Ff and our sight words were "you" and "what".  Now that we're doing 2 words each week, and with this being a short week, some of the kids had a little trouble remembering the words.  To make matters worse, we've already learned "white" and "with", so many of them were confusing "what" with those words.  And complicating matters even more, all this came just in time for our break.  We usually see kids forget a few words over the break, so if you have any free time during the next 2 weeks, have your child practice those words.

bookIn our listening center, we heard Bad Boys Get Cookie.  In this story, two really bad wolves hear somebody yelling for help.  When they find out a cookie has disappeared, they introduce themselves to the cookie's owners as detectives and take on the job of catching that cookie.  But that is one smart cookie who keeps these two bad wolvbookes working.


On Thursday, we added a book or our own - The Gingerbread Boy.  After reading about this naughty little cookie, we did some cooking.  At snack time, we frosted and decorated our cookies and ENJOYED!!  The kids all agreed that gingerbread cookies are delicious!


cookies  cookies  cookies  cookies  cookies  cookies  cookies  cookies  cookies 
Week 17
This week's reading starbookted with Storm Is Coming!, a story that begins with a farmer who tells his dog to round up the animals because a storm is coming.  When dog races out barking "Storm is coming!", the animals all get scared and stampede back to the barn.  They hide in fear wondering who Storm is.  As the clouds roll in, they are thankful that the sky is becoming dark, so that it will be harder for Storm to find them.  As it begins to rain, they are thankful that their footprints are being washed away so that Storm won't be able to follow them.  As the storm grows, they continue to be thankful for each part of the storm that they think the sky is sending to help them hide from Storm, until finally, farmer comes to tell them it is safe to come back out.

Our next story was Snow.  (Sorry, I forgot to get a picture of this one.  Hopefully, it will be here
book early next week.)  Snow is a simple story that begins with an owl observing that the snow will be coming soon, then a number of other animals mention how snow effects them.  (The geese will be flying south, the bunnies will turn white, the bear is feeling sleepy, etc.)  Finally, the owl comes back into the picture to bring us to the end of winter saying, "...soon it will drip drop away.  Yes, I know snow, but I sing spring!"  This story has some nice vocabulary, and uses the pictures to tell part of the story, so we get to talk about graphic features and looking for clues to answers to our questions that the author doesn't give us.  But the new thing that we really got a lot of practice on from this story was quotation marks.  Every animal gets a chance to add a short thought, so we booksaw LOTS of quotation marks.

In our listening center, we heard Snowmen at Work.  This book goes along with the one we listened to last week (which I had forgotten to list, but it's down below now).  In this Snowmen book, the same young man from the last book wonders what kind of jobs snowmen might do like dentist work, running a store or delivering pizza.  He's always got some interesting ideas that the kids find quite entertaining.

Our letter of the week was Nn.  Ask your child to sing his song and do the actions for you.  They're very good at the part where we sing "He's neat and right in style."  Our sight words were "with" and '"my".

Week 16
book   book
In our reading series this week, we read a couple of books about the changes we see throughout the year.  The first, Jump Into January, gives a brief description of the weather in each month, then has a number of items that can be found in the pictures listed on the bottom of the page.  It's a great book for talking about making comparisons, as the pictures show the weather changes nicely.  It's also a good book for finding some interesting vocabulary.  We learned what shutters are for, found a seagull and after finding goggles on a skier in the winter months, somebody found another pair on a swimmer in one of the summer pictures.

Every Season begins with "I love spring." followed by a list of things that the authors likes about spring, until they say, "but then summer comes and...I love summer." with another list of things the authors enjoy in that season.  The story continues through the seasons until they get back to "I love spring."  It is another great book for making comparisons as they discuss many activities we do in each season, the weather and even foods we eat.
book

In the listening center, we heard Snowmen All Year, a story told by a young boy who wonders about what snowmen do
throughout the rest of the year.  He imagines them enjoying the year filled with his  favorite activities, like flying kites, celebrating holidays and swimming.

We had a review of the letter Aa this week, we practiced making lots of words with the short a in the middle.  Some of them weren't even real words, but that's ok, because that helps us learn to blend sounds together so we can read words more fluently.
tats
We are now in the time of two new sight words per week.  This week our words were "come" and "me".  I'm guessing you probably noticed our sight word tattoos that we started giving this week.  I promise I will only use washable ink.  They get the kids excited and help them remember the words, so they will come home with tattoos every so often. 

We also had a chance to play one of their favorite games.  Sometimes we play this game with words or numbers, but this week we used letters.  The kids each get a stretchy, sticky hand.  They use is to snatch up a letter card.  If they can tell me the name of the letter (or sometimes a word that starts with the letter) they get to keep the card.  The last round is always the most exciting, because sometimes we have more kids than cards.  It's amazing how hard they work to get that last card even if they struggle with letter names!

 swat  swat  swat     
Week 15 
Since we had a short week, we ignored the teacher's manual and focused on Thanksgiving for a couple of days. 

bookWe started off our week with a book called 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving.  This is one of my favorite Thanksgiving stories, not because it is intellectually stimulating, but because I love the art work and some of the word work.  The story follows the wording and rhythm of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, but is about a kindergarten class that takes a field trip to a turkey farm.  The kids and turkeys become fast friends and are having a great time until somebody notices an ax near by.  When they ask what it is for and the farmer tells them, the kids become distraught, so the farmer and teacher run off to get each child a drink of water to help them calm down.  Upon returning, the adults find that the children have calmed themselves and are ready to board the bus.  You'll have to ask your children for the rest of the story.  Having me tell you wouldn't be nearly as adorable as the book is, but maybe having your child act it out for you would be!

Since
bookSplat has become a class favorite, we used Splat Says Thank You! in our listening center.  We're trying to get the kids to stay focused for a longer period of time.  This was a little longer listening time and not quite as exciting as some of the other Splat books, so it kind of tested some of the kids.  In the story, Splat's friend, Seymour the mouse, is not feeling too good, so Splat makes a book for him to lift his spirits.  Splat lists a number of ways that Seymour has helped him in the past and thanks him for each kind deed, but Splat is having a hard time getting Seymour to feel better. 
ww
During our word work time we did a couple of activities.  Below the kids are working on making CVC words on the alphabet arches. 

              ww  ww  
On Tuesday, webook read the traditional tale named Stone Soup.  For those of you that don't know the story, there are many versions, but in this one three soldiers have been walking for days without food.  When they come upon a small village and ask for food and a place to eat, they get a lot of negative responses and excuses, as everybody is nervous about the three strangers in town.  However, the soldiers then ask if they could simply borrow a large pot to make stone soup out of water and a couple of stones.  This gets the villagers curious.  As their stones are cooking the soldiers make comments about how much better the soup would be if it only had ___.  Each time they fill in the blank, one of the villagers decides that maybe they could find a little bit of that food to share in hopes of seeing or tasting the end product.

Well, you can't read Stone Soup without discussing what a "huge feast" is and how even if you only have a little, when you work together everybody benefits.   And of course that needs to be followed up by making Stone Soup.  But you'll have to turn to the activities page for those pictures.  This page has enough other pictures.
book
Turk and Runt is a fun book about two turkey brothers.  Turk is a big talented turkey that can dance and play football.  Runt is not so big or talented, but he is much brighter than his family members.  Turk and their parents are very excited that it is November, because they believe this is when people come to pick the biggest turkeys to perform in plays or play football.  Runt tries to convince otherwise, but nobody listens to Runt.  After Runt saves Turk from doom twice, a little old lady comes looking for a little turkey for herself.  Finally, Turk understands what is going on and helps his little brother out.  But they're not out of the woods yet...
book
Since we had enough time for one more Thanksgiving story, I chose One is a Feast For Mouse.  This story starts with little mouse sneaking out of his hole after Thanksgiving dinner has been served.  He spies a green pea and decides, "One is a feast for me." so he grabs it and starts back to his hole.  Before he gets too far, he notices other leftovers, and because "his eyes are bigger than his stomach", he gathers up more and more food.  By this time,  the cat has awakened from his nap and chaos ensues.  Again, the pictures are adorable and this story teaches a little lesson about the dangers of being greedy without being preachy.
Week 14
book    book    book
This week's books started with David's Drawings.  This story begins with a little boy who notices a tree as he is walking to school.  He decides to draw a picture of it, but then each of his friends thinks, "It needs something." and adds to the picture.  When he goes home, he notices the tree again and draws another picture of it.  This time his sister thinks it needs something...

Next, we read Mouse Shapes, which we had read earlier as an introduction to shapes.  This time we read it for what it could teach us about reading.  Mouse Shapes is about three little mice who run and hide from a cat.  When the cat leaves, they come out of their hiding place and realize that they were hiding in a pile of shapes.  It's a great story for talking about punctuation, because it has a good deal of conversation involving simple statements, exclamations and questions.  It also gave us a chance to talk about reading with expression rather than sounding like robots, as it has excitement when the mice run from the cat, whispering when they are hiding and and a little bit of giggling as they call the cat a "scaredy-cat" after they use the shapes to make big mice that surprise the cat and scare him away.

Feast For 10 is the book we used in the Listen to Reading center.  It is a Thanksgiving counting book which describes a day in the life of a family that goes shopping for groceries and then prepares a Thanksgiving meal.

Because we are at the end of unit 2, we had a review week which means there were no new letters or sight words.  However, we have run into some difficulties in our writing when we run into sounds that we don't talk about with our alphabet.  As we've been writing, we have had to find letters for the /th/, /sh/, /ch/ and the /ing/ sounds.  Some of the kids are getting quite good at remembering how to write those sounds, so even though they aren't officially kindergarten sounds, we put up our posters to help them remember how to read and write those letters and sounds. 

During our Daily 5 time, the area that seams to hold us back the most is the Read to Self time.  They just want to share way too often.  This is strictly a time to practice reading ALL BY THEMSELVES.  No help from teachers or friends or anybody else. Just doing the best that they can do reading the words or reading the pictures when necessary.  If they can do this for 10 minutes, we can have 10 minutes to work with small groups or individuals in any area needed, but we've been having trouble getting to that 10 minute mark, so we took a little extra time to practice this skill.  They did a great job finding a quiet place to read where nobody else would be distracting them and then reading THE WHOLE TIME!

  r2s    r2s    r2s    r2sr2s
Week 13
book  book  book 
We started off the week with Good Morning, Digger, a story told by a little boy who watches as different machines come to his neighborhood to build a community center.  That was followed up with What Do Wheels Do All Day?  This book explains how we use some wheels to work and others to play.  Since we were on the subject of wheels, I put The Wheels on the Bus in the Listen to Reading center.  This book is about two girls who go to buy new winter coats with their grandma.  After shopping they sing The Wheels on the Bus while waiting at the bus stop.  They get so into the song that they miss the bus, so they have to take a taxi.
Week 12
 This week's books wbookere about movement.  We started with Jonathan bookand His Mommy, a story about a young boy who goes walking with his mom.  But their walk isn't just walking.  They run, dance, hop, zigzag, etc., until they return home walking backwards. 

The next book is called Move!  This book describes two movements an animal may make then compares it to another animal that moves in that way.  For instance - A rabbit hops and dances.  A spider
dances and floats.  A polar bear floats and swims.  And so on.

Our letter this week was Cc and our sight word was "to".  Because we added a couple of extras last week, we didn't do anything extra this week.  We just spent a little extra time practicing the list of words that we've already introduced.

In our Listen to Reading center, we listened to My Dad and I.  I figured because we had a mom book, it was
only fair to have a fun dad book to listen to also.  My Dad and I is a story told by a little boy who is learning all kids of things from his dad, but he is also teaching his dad a few things, because they are "very best friends."

And since we are in November, we added Bear Says Thanks.  This is a sweet little story about friendship and helping out without expecting anything in return.
book  book
Week 11
bookWe started off our reading with the tale of Pumpkin Town this week.  Pumpkin Town is about a pumpkin farmer and his 3 sons.  After cleaning up their harvest, they toss some seeds down the mountainside not realizing that the wind blew those seeds into the village below.  The next fall, they notice houses and fences in the village are being broken down by the weight of the pumpkin plants that came out of nowhere.  When they realize that it is their fault, they quietly sneak in during the night to clean up the mess they've caused.  Ask your child what happens next!
bookMice Sqeak, We Speak is a  rhyming story about animals and the the sounds they make when they communicate.  It uses some great text and graphic features that we can use as examples for them to follow in their own writing. 
book book
In our Listen to Reading center we continued with our Halloween theme.  The kids listened to Just Say Boo and The Spooky Wheels on the Bus.   Just Say Boo talks about what to do if you meet a ghost or witch or other scarey character when we go trick-or-treating.  The Spooky Wheels on the Bus is a take-off of The Wheels on the Bus song.

Our letter this week was Tt and our sight word was "we".  But because we are now sounding out words, we have also added "can", "at", "an" and "am" to the list of words we are practicing.

Besides doing the Listen to Reading center during our daily 5, we have a daily Read to Self, Word Work, Work with the Teacher, and Computer Work.  Here is a quick look of what we do.
L2R  L2R  L2R 
R2S
  L2R  R2S  R2S  R2Scomp  R2S  Me
During our intervention time, we worked on sequencing and identifying the letters of the alphabet.  Then we used them to write a few words.
rti  rti  rti  rti

Week 10
Unit 2 started with the letter Aa, which means we can now use our blending skills to sound out CVC words.  We did a lot of practice on the _am family this week.  We read _am words (like ram, Sam, jam, ham, yam, and exam) and read a story called Pam listenand Sam. sense

Our series provided books that teach us things.  The first is called Listen, Listen, and tells us about the sounds we hear throughout the seasons - including the pitter-patter of rain in the spring, the buzzing of insects in the summer, the crunch of leaves in the fall and the hush of a snowy winter day.

   My Five Senses is a book that talks about how we use our senses
to learn about the world around us and how they make us aware
of our world around us.  It also talked about how we often use several senses, but we may use some senses more than others in different situations.

Yo
We have been discussing periods as punctuation for the last couple of weeks.  The two books mentioned above introduced us to the exclamation point and the question mark, so we added a book or our own called Yo!  Yes?.  This story is about two boys who meet, and through very limited conversation with great punctuation, become fast friends.  I think the kids really enjoyed this one.  Look for it in the public library for a quick, fun and easy read!

Our word of the week was "see".  Keep your eyes out for it and point it out to your child any time you notice it!


During our Daily 5 time, we have added an area called Listen to Reading.  In the Listen to Read center, the students listen to a book on tape or cd, then complete a worksheet to show us what they got from the story.  This week we listened to a counting book about a field trip to the pumpkin patch called Pumpkin Countdown, and a story called Even Monsters Need a Haircut, about a little boy who spends one night a month cutting the hair of the local monsters
l2r
Week 9
It's hard to believe, but we have completed our first unit in reading! 

This week, we read about working together, so we started the week out with an old fable - The Little Red Hen.  This was the first story that we've read that has a moral, so we had a short discussion about what that word means. 

Later in the week we read Kite Flying.  This story is about a family that makes a kite together, then spends some time together flying their kite.  After the story, there are a couple of additional pages giving a short history of kite flying.  

We added the book Some Smug Slug to our reading list to reinforce the letter of the week.  This book uses many, many words starting with the letter Ss, which, as you've probably guessed, was our letter this week.  Because the author used words beginning with S whenever possible, we found some great vocabulary words like slope, snooze and succulent.  The other nice thing about this book is that it also has a bit of a moral, so we had another chance to review that new word!  The slug in Some Smug Slug is warned repeatedly, to not climb up on what he thought was a big rocky slope.  He ignored the warnings, only to find out in the last second that the slope was actually a hungry frog.  So sad for the smug slug.

   
       hen  kite  slug
Because we are finishing up a unit, we had a week of reviewing our sight words that we've been learning.  We also completed our first unit test.  These tests are not terribly difficult, but they are loooooooong for the kids to sit through.  Sometimes we can break it into two parts, but with out planned trip to the Pumpkin Patch we needed to make sure it was done before then, so we squeezed it into one long period.  They did very well for a first time test!
jobsWeek 8 
This week our reading series introduced us to a couple of stories about jobs people do.  The first is called Pizza at Sally's.  This story takes us through the process of making pizza.  Each page, like the front cover, has a picture to go along with the story and smaller pictures of items that are associated with the story.  These items are not labelled or even mentioned, but because of their presence, we know they must have something to do with the main picture.  This type of format gives us a great opportunity to teach all kinds of vocabulary and to get a whole lot of discussion going about how those items are related to each other.

 jobs

Our next story was Everybody Works.  This is an informational text.  There's not much of a story, but the photography gives great examples of different types of jobs and it relates those jobs together in a way that we don't often see.  For example, it talks about people who protect others, people whose jobs are hobbies, people who volunteer in their jobs, jobs children do and even jobs that animals do. 

lion


We ended the week with two fables - The Elves and the Shoemaker and The Lion and the Mouse.  After reading both of those traditional tales, we used the wordless version of The Lion and the Mouse seen here to practice retelling the story.  We also talked about what the main events of the story were and sequenced those events on a "first/then/last" booklet.  They did a beautiful job on this! Mm



We are done introducing the alphabet, so this week we started our week long study of the letters.  Each letter has a song and a little alphafriend to help us remember how the letter looks and what the letter says.  We started with the letter Mm, so ask your child about Mimi Mouse. 

 
Our new sight word is "and".  Keep an eye open for it! 

And the big excitement of the week was that we got to celebrate our first FUN FRIDAY!  That means we got to do something special with our reading.  Today we went back to Pizza at Sally's.  After rereading the story, each student got to make and enjoy their own cheese pizza!
pizza
  pizzaa  pizza  pizza  pizza
   

Week 7 
pet   pup  
As you can probably guess, our stories this week focused on pets.  In I Have a Pet!, we get to attend a pet show.  Each child presents a pet to the judge and describes what is special about that particular pet.  Please, Puppy, Please is a story about two children and the difficulties of taking care of their crazy little puppy.  The illustrations in this book are SO expressive.  You can't help but love this little trouble-making puppy.

We have been talking about NOUNS.  Yes, kindergarteners are learning that a noun is a word that names a person, place or thing.  This week we talked about nouns naming things, so we talked a lot about pets.

We finished our introduction to the letters of the alphabet and studied the sight word "the". 
Kindergarteners are great at recognizing it on our flash cards, but in different areas it is confusing to them, so watch for "the" in magazines, newspapers, computer adds or signs.  Point it out every time you see it until they realize this word is everywhere!

Here are a few pics of us practicing writing all of our sight words. 

site  site  site  site
And here we are working on the word "the".
 the   the    the      the
schoolWeek 6dino
This week's unit focused on school and using clues in the books to understand how people feel.  We started with Friends at School, which is about another kindergarten class and shows a day in their school.  It's a good book to get kids talking and making comparisons between our day in school and theirs.  Then, we read How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?  This story starts out with many questions about whether or not dinosaurs would behave rudely in school.  At the end, we find out they are very helpful and kind to their classmates.  It gives us another chance to discuss rules and procedures, with very exaggerated examples of what happens if we don't follow rules.   

We introduced the letter Pp-Tt while reviewing the other letters that have already been introduced.  We also introduced the sight word "like".  We had started working on number words before we combined the two classes, then backed off a little to give the other class time to catch up.  This week, we reintroduced the words one-ten and we are still working on color words.  There's no honeymoon in kindergarten!!  Once we start, the list grows very quickly!

We also jumped back into the Daily 5 Program.  We had slowed down on that program when we combined classes also.  But now that everybody has adjusted to the change we are taking off!  The students are responding beautifully!  We have 4 areas in which they work.  One group works with a teacher on sight words, letter work or reading.  Another works on a computer reading program.  (Teach Your Monster To Read or Starfall for now.  We will add others when they get faster at signing in on their own.)  A third group practices silent reading and the fourth group is doing word/letter work on their own.  Due to the changes, we really didn't get to ease them into the Daily 5 as we would have liked, but they jumped in with two feet and did exactly as we asked.  They are an amazing group! 
(Yes, I know the program is called Daily 5 and that's only 4.  We will be adding a Listening to Reading area later.)  

The last focus area this week was on beginning sounds of words.  First, we said a word and they had to tell us the beginning sound.  Then, we said two words and they had to tell us if the words started with the same sound.  Finally, we gave them a word and they had to think of the beginning sound and tell us other words that started with that sound.  These are great skills to practice with your child.  We have kids at each level, so try a few of each and see what your child can do, then go from there.  You could also add the I'm Thinking of a Word game.  Example - "I'm thinking of something that starts with /p/ that is used to write letters." 

Week 5
Last week, we finished the introduction to our reading program.  We are now in the first unit, which introduced the letters Kk-Oo, and the sight word "I".  We will now read two books each week.
 
build         family
This week, we had books that talked about starting school and being a part of a family.  We found out there are many, many kinds of families and did some comparing.  We also talked about what the "main ideas" of these books were.  Finally, we read a few poems that are in the back of What Makes a Family?, and found some rhymes.  We are getting better at rhyming already, but finding rhymes is a skill that we will need to continue working on all year long.

Before reading, we've been sliding in the rest of our color words, worksheets and books.  Here are the books we used -
purple  brown  black  white  pink
            
Week 4
The big news in reading this week, was that we got to use the computers!!!  Every kindergartener LOVES computer time.  Unfortunately, we have to start very slowly until they all learn how to log in, how to use the mouse and what to click and, even more importantly, what not to click. 
If you check your child's backpack, you will find a user name and password for TEACH YOUR MONSTER TO READ.  We will be using this site in school, but they are certainly encouraged to use it at home as well.

We introduced the letters Ii (for ink) and Jj (for jello) this week.  I should probably warn you.  When we are done introducing all the letters, you will be getting a very messy book with all of their work in it.  Not that their work is messy, but the book may be shedding a little dirt, glitter, jello, etc.  Be sure to take the time to have them read it to you, but you may want to do it outside or cover your table with newspaper before you take it out of their backpacks.


We are introducing our color words this week.  So you can see that we started each reading period with a book about colors.  We are also talking about why we read and what kind of books are available to us.  The book with the monkey on the cover is called I Like Books.  It is an easy read that introduces different genres that kids may like to read.  (No, I don't read Chinese.  It was the only picture I could find of this book.)  Our third book was about the big bad wolf looking for an easier story to live in.  After traveling to several different fair tales, he returned to the Three Little Pigs.  This gave us a chance to talk about what a fairy tale is and to have them retell some of the ones they knew.