Ms. Farmer

Sea Star News

It's hard to believe, but there are less than 15 days of school left!  Wow, this year has flown by! 

April was an exciting month.  One of our many highlights was our trip to Cagel's farm.  We couldn't have chosen a more beautiful day, and we were delighted to have had so many parents joining us.  The children really enjoyed their trip to the Dairy Farm.  Thanks to everyone who accompanied us.

Now to the hightlights of May...

Curricular Matters: 

Writing

We're continuing our simple directions focus.  The students have been writing to tell how to do all sorts of things even like driving and flying. Don't worry we've made it clear that they are to tell us how to do these activities as if they really knew how.  I think we're safe.  The students made mud pies using real mud, leaves, and grass, and then they wrote to tell how to make these scrumptious delicacies.  They also made mud pies to eat this time using chocolate pudding, Oreo, and a couple of unassuming gummy worms.  They wrote to tell us how to make this tasty treat.  The kids even shared the treat with our Principal and the office staff; who, the children said, enjoyed the treat immensely.

Another fun treat that they made and wrote about was trail mix.

This week we'll make pizzas and peanut butter sandwiches and we'll write to explain how. 

We'll continue the Simple Direction theme until the end of the school year.

Hopefully we'll make brownies or cupcakes as well.

Language Arts

We're continuing Guided Reading.  The students are making good progress with their reading.  They are reading more fluently and with greater intonation.  Please continue to allow them to practice reading Guided Reading books at home.  Please be sure to send the books back to school daily. 

Our focus during the last few weeks of school will be blends, diagraphs, and syllables.  Last week we worked on "th" sound.  For the next few weeks the sounds we will work on will be ch, sh, and wh, respectively.

Math

Review skills and concepts learned this year.

Social Studies

Our world - we're continuing learn to locate the continents, our country, and state on maps and globes.  We're also focusing on using the compass rose and finding location using directional clues.

Science

Animals; pond life, and ocean life

Health

Safety; How to deal with strangers and inappropriate interactions.

Important Information:

One of our students, Jacob B. has been in the hospital.  He has been there about a week .  I trust that he will be home by the time this post publishes.  The children all made get well cards for him.  They have been so concerned and sweet.  We all miss him and wish him a complete and timely recovery!

New Student:  We'd like to welcome our new student

Asahnti T. to our class. 

Dates to Remember

May 2nd

Last day to check out books at the Media Center

May 9th    

Return All Library books - The classes who have all of their  books turned in by this date wins a Popsicle Party.  So please send all library books in by the May 9th.

We want to get Popsicles! 

May 14th -  Preview day 

Kindergarten students get to visit first grade!

May 16th

Field Day! / Spirit Day! 

May 19th - 23rd  Final Five Fabulous Fun Days!

Day 1 - May 19th 

Game day; bring your favorite game to school.Please label everything. 

Day 2 - May 20th

End of the year celebration!  - Join us in our classroom for our End of the Year Celebration!  The students will be singing a few songs and I will hand out Star Certificates and attendance awards.

Day 3 - May 21st

Pizza & Popsicles

Day 4 - May 22nd

Outside day - bring your favorite outside toy: hula hoop,

skip-it, balls, cricket game, jump rope, bubbles, etc., label everything!

Day 5 - May 23rd

Movie & Popcorn Day

Watch for further details to be sent home about the final five....

**Last day of school - Remember no book bags or lunch boxes .  Use disposable bags to transport items.   

   

 

SEA STAR NEWS

                Welcome back to school following Spring Break!  I trust everyone had a happy and relaxing time away.

It's hard to believe, but we have less than 30 days left in this school year!  Wow, time flies when you're having fun!

However, there's still a lot to cover before the end of the year.  So hold on to your hat, we'll be riding hard all the way to the finish line. 

The following will be our academic focus:

Writing:  Simple directions

Students will continue writing to give direction for familiar and even unfamiliar task.

Guided Reading:  Book Level C, D, & E.

Book level is determined by ability to fluently read and comprehend the text.

I will continue to send books that have been read in class home for practice as needed. 

Math:  Subtraction

Students will continue to practice subtracting.  They have learned to identify subtraction sentences, the minus sign & equal sign.

Social Studies:  Our World

Students are learning that there are 7 continents, and that the continent we live on is North America.  Students should know that we live in the United States of America. They should  know that our neighbor to the north is Canada and our neighbor to the south is Mexico.  Students are also learning that our country has 50 states, and that the state we live in Georgia.  Students should know that our school is in Marietta which is in Cobb county.  Students should be able to tell in which town they live and where they were born.  They should be able to point out water & land on a map or globe, and they should know that globes and maps are models of particular areas.

Science:  Animals & their habitat

Health:  Safety

Accelerated Reading:  Many of our students have been participating in the Accelerated Reading Program.  They have been reading specially designated books and taking test to determine their level of comprehension of the text.   I am so proud of their accomplishments in this area.

Star Students:  Our final Star Students were Mackenzie and Fahed respectively.  Thanks parents for gathering pictures and other artifacts to help us learn more about your child.  It has been a thoroughly enjoyable opportunity!

DATES TO REMEMBER: 

April 18th - Kindergarten trip to Cagel Farm

May 1st    - Pre-K students visit our class

May 14th -  Our class previews first grade!

Save the Dates....

May 20th or 21st -  End of the year Classroom Celebration.  Parents invited.

Watch for final date selected.

 

SEA STAR NEWS

Spring has sprung in spite of Winter's refusal to give up easily or gracefully.  Today we even spied snow falling outside our window.  I'm not kidding, snow in March in Marietta.  Well I'm confident the cold weather won't stick around too long and thankfully.   

It's been a busy time for us with report cards, GKAP, and 100's club testing and then there has been been all the celebrations.  Starting with Jacob's birthday on March 12th, Mrs. Kauss' on the 13th, Grace's on the 16th and Ruby's on the 19th, then there was St. Patrick's Day on the 17th and our Spring celebration on the 21st,  whew it's been a month of celebrating! Don't think learning has suffered.  It has not.  Celebrations are short and occur during discovery center or recess times.

Academics....

Guided reading

Students are continuing to make good progress.  Everyone is reading in level C or D books.

We've been sending books home for students to practice reading at home.  Please send the books back to school the following day.

Please don't read the books to the student.  Allow the child to sound out and figure out unknown words.  Books that are sent home have already been read by the child in class. So they should be pretty comfortable reading them.

Writing

Our writing focus is Simple Directions.  Students have written directions for tying shoes, dyeing eggs, making a cake, surfing and much more. Students are still practicing writing words by using sounds, capitalizing the first letter in a sentence, names, months, etc., and other appropriate grade level skills.  We write daily for about 40 minutes. 

Math     

Addition  -  Please provide activities for children to practice adding sets at home, i.e. two arms for brother and two arms for sister is 4 arms in all.

Science 

Rocks  - Please send an egg carton to class for students to store their rock collection.

Social Studies

Our World

Health

Medicine & drugs

SNACK

Please continue to send a healthy snack to school.  Please do not send cookies and potato chips or candy for classroom snack. 

Check with your child to find out what they would like for snack.  Children simply throw away snacks that they do not want.  They do not eat them.  Fortunately lunch is about one hour after snack.  So they are not without sustenance for too long.  Sometimes I hear student's say "my mom or dad knows I do not like this kind of snack" and the next thing I know the snack has been thrown in the garbage.  It is such a waste.

   

Self Care Skills

Please work with your child on self care skills like shoe tying; putting on, zipping, and snapping coats and sweaters.  By this time in the school year kindergartners should not be relying on teacher to take care of these needs.  If they still cannot tie shoes, it might be a good idea to allow them to wear shoes without laces.

Students are also expected to be able to manage their snacks on their own. Please don't send anything that is too complicated. The idea is to help students be as independent as possible.  We are almost at the end of the kindergarten year.  We want students to be fully ready for first grade.  Please don't send your child to school in clothes or shoes or with snacks that are too difficult for them to manage. 

Star students

Our final Star Students for the school year have been Jimmy & Mackenzie.  It's been great learning more about Jimmy & Mackenzie and their families.

Well we only have eight days until Spring Break.  I hope everyone has a fun filled break.  I've heard about many fun trips on which students will be going.  I have asked if I could tag along perhaps in a suitcase, no takers, just smiles.  After break there are about 6 weeks until the end of kindergarten, wow! How time flies when you're having fun!

Days to remember

Art Enrichment Day - April 4th

Spring Break -  April 7 - 11

Field Trip to Cagle's Farm - April 18th

WISH LIST:

Bottles of 409 or similar cleaners for tables, etc.

HAPPY SPRING!

 

February is a very busy month for the Sea Stars.  We had an awesome Valentine's Day party yesterday!  The mailboxes that the kids made at home were beautiful.  Thanks Sarah's mom, our room mom, for organizing the party and thanks Stone's mom & Ruby's mom for coming in to help.  I heard many  children say that yesterday was the best day of their lives.  But I also heard that when we had our picnic, went to the Governor's Mansion, and during our Halloween party.  I'm just glad they're having fun! 

Take a look at the learning we're up to:

Language Arts

We're continuing to read in our Guided Reading books.

Skills practiced:  Sounding out unknown words and reading sight words.  Learning about contractions, possessives & compound words.  Practicing reading blends & other word parts.

Writing 

Our focus is Narrative writing.  We are learning to organize our writing by beginning, middle, and ending.  We're continuing to use capital letters appropriately in our writing, punctuation marks, finger spacing, a real challenge for us, and to phonetically & correctly spell words. 

The spelling test have gone well. So far the words covered are:

is, it, in, am, at, the, me, we, my, and, get, you.

Most students have spelled all of the words correctly on spelling test.  I can definitely see the progress as their writing word bank increases.    Next week is a short week and a review week.  We won't introduce any new spelling words.   

Math 

We're learning to read numbers to 30, graphing, and counting money.  Ongoing skills developed; counting 1 - 100, counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's to 100 and counting  sets of increasing amounts.  Encourage your child to practice counting at home. 

We've had a lot of fun with graphing.  We surveyed all of the other kindergarten classes to find out what thier favorite flavor ice cream is.  Our students actually went into all of the classes and explained the survey to the other students.  They passed out the survey sheets, counted them, and used tally marks to communicate the results.  They then helped create the graph. 

The students did a fabulous job. I am so proud of them. It was a very involved process, but they had fun and learned a lot.  And in case you're wondering and have not seen the graph outside of our classroom.  Chocolate is the favorite flavor ice cream of kindergarteners at Nicholson Elementary School!

Social studies 

We're learning more about communities.  Continue to point out various important places in your community. If anyone has an interesting job as a community worker, please come and share with us.  We had a fireman talk to us today about fire safety.

Science 

We've finished our unit on living and non living things. 

Jacob brought in the cutest little furry hamster to share with the class.  Her name is Lucy.  The kids loved having Lucy come to class.  Thanks Jacob and Mom for bringing Lucy. 

Further extending our living things unit, we now turn our focus to plants.  We are growing sunflowers in our classroom.  The students are learning about what plants need to live and plant parts.

Health 

Our focus is Healthy teeth.  We have a lot of activities planned to help students learn the proper way to care for their teeth.  We even have  tooth brushes & tooth paste to send home.

Star Students

Stone & Sebastian have been our latest Star Students.  As always we enjoyed learning more about them and their families.  Our next Star Student will be David.

Don't forget Monday 2/18 is President's Day and 2/19 is a teacher work day. Students get to stay home!

As usual, thank you for all of your help and support this school year.

Have a fun February!

Sea Star News

Welcome back to school!  We are geared up for a rigorous second half of the school year.  I trust everyone had as wonderful a break as I did.  I am very happy to be back with my students. They are so wonderful, sweet, kind, and so willing to work hard.   

This is a very busy time for us in terms of assessments.  We are currently administering the GKAP, The Georgia Kindergarten Assessment Program.  This is an assessment that is given to all kindergarten students in Georgia.  The purpose of the exam is to assess the student's progress in a number of academic and social areas.  We are also completing evaluations for the Report Cards and the 100's club. 

To be a member of the 100's club students must have mastered 100 facts.  We will have an awards assembly for students on January 22nd to induct them into the 100's club.  Each student will be given a medal and congratulated on their achievement in front of the student body.

Report Cards will be given out during conference time, January 22 - 28. I have given out conference times.  If you are not able to meet with me during your scheduled time, please let me know, so that we can find a time that works.    Conferences are scheduled for 20 minutes, one right after another.  Therefore, I will need to conclude conferences after 20 minutes.  If you need more time, we can schedule a later appointment. 

Letter of the week

Our focus letter this week was "Gg", hard "g" as in girl and soft "g" as in Georgia.  The students are very good at recognizing this distinction. 

January 14th the letter of the week is "Ii".

Math

Our focus is writing, recognizing, and making sets 0 - 30.  We are also learning about ordinal numbers, positions first - tenth.   Please provide opportunities for your child to practice these skills at home. 

Guided reading 

Each day we read guided reading books.  These are Kindergarten level books.  Students practice matching words to speech by pointing to the words as they read.  Students are taught to recognize punctuation marks at the end of sentences.  They practice sounding out unknown words and they read sight words.  They are also questioned for conprehension.  These books increase in difficulity and are selected based on the skill level of the group. We currently have three reading groups in our class that typically meet daily. 

Word Study

Students have been introduced to nearly 50 sight words and 50 word parts: blends, endings, etc.  They are learning to blend words to sound them out and to listen for the sounds in words to help them write words.  I am very happy with their progress so far.

Spelling test   

Yes, we will begin spelling tests.  These will be nonstress spelling test.   I will grade, but not use the results in any evaluations.  The purpose of the test is to build writing vocabulary. We will start with three words each week and then move to five words near the end of the school year.   The students will be tested on Friday.  We will probably not have test on short school weeks.   I'll see how things go and make decisions as indicated. 

This week words are:  is, it, in 

The first Spelling Test will be Friday, January 18th.  We will provide activities all week to help students learn to spell these words. Please help at home as well.  Spelling test papers will be posted in our classroom. Number correct will be noted but everyone will get a famous kindergarten "happy face"!   

Writing

We are starting narrative writing. The students began this week by telling what fun things they did during break and then what they plan to do better this year.   We are continuing to focus on capitalization at the beginning of sentences & for special words and punctuation at the end of sentences.  Students are practicing making sure to use a finger space between words & where to begin writing on their paper.  Students are also being introduced to commas in the date & apostrophes to show possession.  You might comment on these conventions as you read stories at home to your child. 

Science

We are learning about living and non living things.  If you have old magazines at home with good pictures like National Geographic, etc.  Please send them to school so that we can use them in various projects.  If you have a friendly pet that you'd like to bring in as example of a living thing that would be great.  We'd like to learn about what that pet needs to stay alive and healthy and other pertinent facts.  Please be sure the pet has had all required innoculations.    

Heath

We are focusing on proper nutrition.  Students are very good at recognizing healthy snacks and other foods. Please encourage the development of this health habit by sending only healthy snacks to school each day for snack time.  The students know the difference.  They are not happy when they find or their friend notices that their snack is not considered healthy.  They want to bring and eat healthy.  What a great opportunity to foster a life long habit of healthy eating.  Please make a concerted effort to support their good choice.

Social Studies

Our focus is Community.  Please point out places in your community to your child, like a police station, fire station, library, grocery store, bank, etc.   Also, make sure your child knows the city and state where they were born.

Star students

Our Star Student prior to break was Hope K.  We loved her pictures,

her favorites treasures & her favorite snack, goldfish crackers!

Next week Star Student -  Jennie W. 

We can't wait to celebrate our friend Jennie.

DATES TO REMEMBER

January 21          Dr. Martin Lunter King's Birthday - No school

January 22 - 28    Early dismissal, Conference week

Birthdays 

Alexis S. - December 21.

Jimmy R. -January 5

Hannah D. January 11.

Sites for Students

Here are a few skill development sites: www.starfall.com

                                                        www.harcortmath.com

Also see our Nicholson home page for a listing of excellent sites for kindergarten students. Simply Click on the Computer Lab tab.

As always thank you for you continuing help and support!

Have a Super New Year!

NEWS FROM THE SEA STARS

Can't believe there's only one more school week before Christmas! The children are extremely excited and so am I. We've had a fabulous week. Our trip to the Governor's Mansion was a fun way to kick off our Celebrations Around the World Unit. Thanks to Jacob's mom & dad, Alexis' mom & dad, and Sebastian's mom for accompanying us on the field trip.  Then on Friday, our students grabbed their passports and took a plane to Mexico where they learned about the celebration of Las Posadas.  Las Posadas is a re-creation of the pilgrimage of Mary and Joseph as they sought shelter for the birth of the baby Jesus. It is an event that is still widely celebrated in Mexico. Monday our class will travel to China to celebrate the Chinese New Year and then to England, Sweden and finally on Thursday to Israel to celebrate Hanukkah!

We expect to have a lot of fun this week! 

STAR STUDENTS

Alexis S., Stephan B., & Jessie Pearl S.

We loved seeing all of their pictures, special treasures, reading their favorite books and of course sharing their favorite snacks: s'mores, little chocolate cakes with chocolate frosting, and triscuts with the kind of cheese that sprays from the can respectively.

Having a Star Student is a nifty way for us to get to know our friends and their families better and a good way to get some really neat snacks.

The following is a overview of the curricular areas covered:

LANGUAGE ARTS

Letters Ee & Ff - NOTE the last two weeks prior to break are review weeks.  Also, while our focus is one letter a week.  We actually are exposing the students to all the letters and letter sounds. We are continuing to introduce the new sight words published, but we are also exposing the students to other sight words, word parts, i.e. blends, digraphs, dipthongs, etc. Hopefully you too have seen a lot of growth this marking period.

WRITING

Writing to tell what we know or have learned.  We're also continually working on capital letters at the beginning of a sentence and in special words and punctuation marks at the end of sentences.  We are also encouraging more percise and clear word choice.

Math

Money & time

Please challenge your child to identify coins and to count coins. Students should be able to tell the time to the hour. They should be able to identify the hour hand and the minute hand.  It is a very good idea to get your child an analog watch, one with the numbers on it. Having the analog watch will be helpful as your child is learning to tell time now and in the next few grades as the skill becomes more complex.

SCIENCE

Learning more about what is present in the sky during the daytime & nighttime.

SOCIAL STUDIES

Learning various ways people celebrate holidays

More NEWS

We'll have to say good bye to Stephan B. His last day is scheduled to be December 21. We will miss him, but we know he'll love his new home near the beach.

Another of our students has left our class, Carlos S. We will also miss Carlos.  We also wish him well!

The good news is we have a new student. Jimmy R.  Jimmy is a fine addition to our class. We are glad to welcome our new friend.

November Birthdays

Fahed A. - November 17th. 

December Birthdays

Alexis S. - December 21

Events to remember

December 21 - Pajama Day 

The rest of the school is wearing Pajamas to raise money for Relay for Life. They are paying $1.00. We are exempt, but Relay for Life is a very worthy cause.  It raises money to help in the prevention of cancer. If anyone wants to donate a dollar for Relay for Life, it would be greatly appreciated.

December 21    Last day of 2nd Marking Period

                      Last day of school prior to Winter Break

January 8         First day back to school!

                      3rd marking period begins

** Stay tuned for report card distribution date & information regarding conference scheduling,

Thank you from myself and Mrs. Kauss for the gift card & beautiful flowers for Thanksgiving. The flowers made a great centerpiece for both our Thanksgiving tables and gift cards are always nice.

I am so lucky to have such a great group of students and parents. Thank you for all of your help and support this year. I am sure we will have a tremendous 2008!

Happy holidays and best wishes for a safe a prosperous new year!

BARNS AND NOBLE NIGHT

Please join us at our first annual Barnes & Noble Nicholson Night!

When: 

Thursday, December 6th from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Where:

Barnes & Noble at 50 Barrett Parkway, Kennesaw

click for Directions and Link to Barnes & Noble

What: 

*A Special Performance by Ms. Kneuer and students

*Nicholson teachers and Mrs. McWhorter reading holiday favorites aloud

*Nicholson teachers gift wrapping purchased items from 6 to 9 p.m.

*A chance to dress as your favorite storybook character

Why: 

A percentage of all purchases made by Nicholson family and friends on December 6th, 7th, and 8th will be donated to our school.

R.S.V.P.

By coming to our Nicholson Night!  Look for familiar Nicholson faces!

Click to see the official flyer

Download barnes_noble_night.doc

Please join us at our first annual Barnes & Noble Nicholson Night!

When: 

Thursday, December 6th from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Where:

Barnes & Noble at 50 Barrett Parkway, Kennesaw

click for Directions and Link to Barnes & Noble

What: 

*A Special Performance by Ms. Kneuer and students

*Nicholson teachers and Mrs. McWhorter reading holiday favorites aloud

*Nicholson teachers gift wrapping purchased items from 6 to 9 p.m.

*A chance to dress as your favorite storybook character

Why: 

A percentage of all purchases made by Nicholson family and friends on December 6th, 7th, and 8th will be donated to our school.

R.S.V.P.

By coming to our Nicholson Night!  Look for familiar Nicholson faces!

Click to see the official flyer

Download barnes_noble_night.doc

SEA STAR NEWS

November 20, 2007

This has been a short school week, but we've been busy reviewing letters/sounds, sight words and much more.  We've written about What we are thankful for and about Our Families.  In math, we are learning about length, height, and capacity.  Please provide opportunities for your child to practice these skills at home.  Perhaps they can even help measure ingredients for the dinner this holiday! 

We hope everyone has a safe and wonderful Thanksgiving.  I certainly have a lot to be thankful for: a wonderful group of students along with their families, a terrific coworker Mrs. Kauss, living in Georgia where it's warm much of the time, and living in the greatest country in the world! 

Have a wonderful Holiday!   

November 16   

Thanks for coming to our Thanksgiving Play.  We hope you enjoyed our performance as much as we enjoyed presenting it. Many of you even came back for our Thanksgiving Feast.  The food was yummy and we enjoyed having lunch with so many of our parents.  It's  been an awesome day and we've had a blast! 

The letter this week was "Cc".  We engaged it many activities to reinforce this letter.  We've also spent a lot of time working on Thanksgiving projects and props for our feast and play.  We have learned much about the history and significance of this important holiday.

Grace was our Star Student.  She shared the cutest pictures of herself and her family.  She also shared one of her favorite treasures a Belle doll.  We read two of her favorite books Barbie On Your Toes and The Magical Ballet Slippers, and we loved sharing her favorite snack goldfish colors.   

November 9, 2007

We've packed a lot of of learning and fun in this week.  We've been practicing diligently for our Thanksgiving Play.  The students are eager to share their performance with our Kindergarten families. 

On Friday the 16th, we celebrated Veteran's Day at Nicholson.  We had a wonderful Veteran's Day performance by our Nicholson Star Brite Chorus.  They sang many patriotic songs to honor veterans as we sang along with them.  There were a number of veterans in the audience including Ruby's granddad, Mr. Morton. The veterans expressed their thanks to us for honoring them.

Our class has talked a lot about the service and sacrifice of our soldiers for our country.  It is awesome to see the compassion and gratitude of even our youngest citizens for those who have done so much to preserve our freedom and way of life. We at Nicholson truly honor and are grateful for the men and women who serve our country!

SEA STAR NEWS

10/22 - 10/26      

Our letter focus was Hh.  We learned the letter/sound for Hh through many activities and games.  We also began our study of bats.  We were thrilled to learn a lot about this  fascinating creature.  We learned that bats are nocturnal.  That the vampire bat sucks blood.  That bats use echolocation to find food and avoid obstacles.  We thought that bats were blind, but we learned that this is not true.  Although they are color blind.  Ask you child to tell you something he/she learned about bats.  We made sock bats (thanks for sending in those black socks).  We made bat clips and we ate bat food!  We had loads of bat fun! 

Our Star Student was Hannah. Her picture poster was adorable.  We enjoyed learning more about Hannah and her family. She also shared her favorite book, Dora's Big Sister and her special treasure some animal friends.

Social Studies

Our focus is "My Friends".  We are learning more about our classroom friends, and we are sharing about our friends in other places. 

Science/Health

Our focus is Rocks/Soil and in Health we are learning about growth and development. 

Math

We are finishing up our unit on numbers 5 - 10 and starting a unit on measurement.    

   

10/29 - 11/2

We completed our Bat unit and began our study of Owls.  The letter of the week was "Oo".   

I hope everyone had a fun Halloween! 

We had a great party in our class.  Ruby's dad, grandma and granddad attended along with Sarah's mom and Grace's mom.  We made a neat craft and had lots of treats and fun!

Social Studies

My School

Science

Motion

Health

Disease Prevention

Remember Monday and Tuesday are student holidays.  Enjoy your time at home with your child.  Next week the letter of the week is "Cc"  We have introduced 26 sight words so far.  Make sure your child knows all of the sight words and the letter/sounds introduced. 

Jessie Pearl was the Star Student this week.  We enjoyed her pictures and her book Pony Party.  It was a big hit!  Jessie Pearl brought her favorite snack Triscuits with the squirt out of the can kind of cheese.  She also shared her favorite treasure a lovely little black kitty.

IMPORTANT DATES:

11/8   Math and Science Night at Nicholson

11/16  Kindergarten Thanksgiving Play / 8:15 A.M. (even though

          the PTA calandar says 8:00).

11/16 Thanksgiving Feast  - lunchtime

12/12  Field Trip - Governors Mansion / Chastian Park - lunch

                Please join us there.

Have a terrific weekend!

Check back often for more pictures.....

   

Autumn on the beach

Kindergarten is Fun!  Some of our recent activities included: during "p" week, a picnic on the playground that tuned into a picnic on the carpet in the classroom due to some uncooperative wind.  Nevertheless all the "p" food was great.  We had: peaches, pears, plums, peanut butter sandwiches, popcorn, potato chips and a couple different types of pickles.  We had pink lemon aid and punch and an apple pie.  It was a terrific "p" picnic.  Some students said it was their first picnic!  Thanks parents for sending in all the "p" treats!  Thursday  was pajama day!  It was super fun.  Every single person in our classroom was wearing pajamas, even ... (drum roll) Ms. Farmer and Mrs. Kauss!  We ate popcorn and watched Peter Pan.  Friday we wore pink or purple and we ate Popsicles while finishing our movie.   I wish I had a "p" word to tell you how wonderful our week has been.  Since Mrs. Kauss just supplied one,  this week has been perfectly picturesque.

Jacob B. was our first student of the week.  His picture collage got us off to a delightful start.  We loved seeing him as a baby, at different stages, and also some of his family members that we'd been hearing about.   He read  his favorite story and brought one of his favorite snacks to share with the class, Rice Crispy Treats.  They were yummy!

The week of October 15 - 19 was review week. We reviewed skills and concepts covered since the beginning of school. In Math we've continue exploring numbers 6 - 10. 

In writing we are writing sentences about things we've learned about or things we know.  We are continuing to practice adding more detail to our illustrations, using conventions correctly, i.e. adding capital letters at the beginning of a sentence, using periods, question mark and the students favorite exclamation marks at the end of a sentence.  We've been learning and writing about pumpkins and we even tried some sentences about (ew!), dirty diapers.  I thought the topic would inspire some strong word choice and did it!.   We're also working on developing and enriching ideas.  The students seem to really love to write. 

October 15 - 19 Sarah was our Star of the week.  We loved the pictures of her family and her cute little baby pictures.  We also enjoyed one of her favorite snacks cheese and crackers.  The little finger shaped crackers were perfect for dipping into the cheese.  We also enjoyed sharing her favorite book.      

On Friday we went to the Cherokee YMCA. We had a tractor ride, made a crafts, listened to a story, and played on a terrific playground. We had a great time! Some of the students said it was the best field trip of their life (all five or six years of it)!  It was the first time some of the students had been on a school bus which proved to be a little anxiety provoking for some of them, but by the end of the trip it was very exciting and fun for all. I love sharing so many first with the students!

Next week our letter of the week is "Oo".   Report Cards will be sent home on Monday.  Please sign the receipt card and return it to school as soon as you can.  If you have questions or concerns contact me and we'll set up an appointment.  Email is the best means of contact for me.  I can be reached @ shearon.farmer@cobbk12.org or send a note in your child's folder.

Our star student for the week of Oct. 22 - 26 is Hannah D.  We can't wait for Hannah to share with us some things that are special to her and to introduce us to her family.

Keep working with your child on the sight words.  Sight word mastery is fundemental to reading sucess.  We have introduced 20 sight words to this point.  Soon we will introduce the 100's club at Nicholson.  Each grade has a set of criteria that students must master in order to be a member of this elite group.  The students also receive a  medallion of achievement to wear around their neck.  The Medellin is a wonderful symbol of the students mastery of essential skills. A large part of our criteria at kindergarten is sight word mastery.  Students should additionally know the letters names and sounds,  and the words presented thus far.  It is critical parents that we do everything possible to help the students master these necessary skills.

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying the cooler weather and watching the leaves change colors as much as I am.  Continue to have a great Autumn! 

and remember...

                water conservation!