Pictures of our chicks will soon follow....stay tuned!! :)
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Poindexter Press for March 24th-28th, 2008
Dear Parents,
The chicks have arrived! All 6 eggs hatched between Monday and Tuesday and we have 6 happy, healthy chicks in our classroom. They will be leaving us Friday to go to their new home on a farm.
I was lucky enough to be chosen to try out some new technology in my classroom for the rest of the year and so the children are helping me do so. Each of the children has a “clicker” or “remote control” assigned to them and we use them to respond to questions I ask them. They punch in their answer and they all pop up on a large screen. I like using these with the children because it ensures that everyone is participating, and I am able to see quickly who does not understand and help them.
Today, I am sending home a packet of activities that you can do with your child during Spring Break. Please note that there is an updated Kindergarten Sight Words list attached. We added a few words and made sure that the color words and number words were also included. I am working on making flash cards for each family to help you practice them at home daily. I also introduced the children to a song about color words, which also helps them spell each of the color words, so be sure to ask them to sing it for you! ☺
Our week was spent catching up on odds-and-ends that we needed to finish from the first part of this semester. We talked more about caterpillars and how we will start seeing eggs soon on leaves. We also had the chance to use many of our center materials-Leap Pads, Alphabet games, extra computer time, Alphabet practice activities. The children spent 15-20 minutes at each station. Some children asked if there were any books that they could read, so eventually, we had a small group of children doing that as well. During Writer’s Workshop, we were each given a writing partner and I modeled what sharing with your partner was like. Each of the children sit knee to knee with their partner and take turns sharing what they will write about. It is then the partners’ responsibility to tell their partner one thing they liked about their idea and give them one suggestion or new idea to think about. This is the first group of children I have had who can have those conversations and be productive in doing so. They all have at least one person now who can listen to their story idea and validate it for them. ☺
Kristen Poindexter ☺
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Poindexter Press for March 17th-21st, 2008
Dear Parents,
It’s beginning to get crowded and farm-like in here! The chicken eggs are here! They arrived Wednesday when the children were out for conferences and will be hatching sometime next week-if all goes well! Our tadpoles are doing well too-only one did not make it, so that’s much better than my track record last year, when they all died! ☹
I have also shared a website with the children so we can learn about Peregrine Falcons. There is a nesting pair that live here in downtown Indianapolis, and the Department of Natural Resources added a few cameras to their nesting box (high atop Key Bank on the 31st floor). As of Wednesday afternoon, Kenny and KathyQ have two eggs in their next box, with 1-2 more on their way soon! You can check out their progress from home too! Just go to the IndyStar.com website and scroll down a bit, on the left side you will see a heading for “blogs” and click on “Falcon Blog”. There you can read updates that are posted, the latest Falcon news and if you look to the right, you can click on the pictures and view the images from their nest. The kids love it and ask about Kenny and KathyQ all the time. We leave the images up on the TV all day, so they can see what happens.
Thank you so much to all the families who took time to make it to their child’s conference time this week. You will find your child’s report card attached to this newsletter. If you were unable to make it, please give me a call and we can have a phone conference or schedule a time to meet later.
During this short week, we have been “lucky”! Monday, we graphed and sorted Lucky Charms cereal in honor of leprechauns and St. Patrick’s day. We wrote sentences telling things we are lucky to have, and had a discussion about the difference between feeling lucky about having food, clothes, and a home, and feeling lucky about having video games, toys, and technology. The children read their sentences out loud and Friday, we wrote some down on sentence strips and cut them apart, scrambled them up and put them back in order.
We have also moved on to solving 6x6 Sudoku puzzles. The children asked if we could move on from the 4x4 size! We have also begun starting our day with a problem solving journal page. We gather as a whole group and work on simple addition problems, graphing, counting, and measuring. Kristen Poindexter ☺
Poindexter Press for March 10th-14th, 2008
Dear Parents,
Attached you will find the schedule for conferences for Tuesday and Wednesday next week. If you did not return a sign up sheet, I have assigned a time for you. If you cannot make your time, please call me so that we can reschedule at a more convenient time.
We are hot on the trial of the wintering Monarch Butterflies. They are quickly approaching Indiana as they make their journey northward from Mexico. We spent time this week revisiting a big book we used in the fall and helping our brains remember the important Monarch vocabulary (egg, caterpillar, pupa, butterfly, metamorphosis, change, nectar, proboscis, flower)
During our math time, we learned several new games. We played “Snap” and used our cubes to help show addition problems. The children were each given 4-5 cubes and they stacked them up in a column behind their back. When I said, “snap!”, the children broke their stack in two parts and then had to tell their partner what their addition sentence was (2+3=5). They did very well at this game and for the most part do not realize they are doing addition! ☺ We also played Shake the Beans 4 & 5 this week. Each child is given either 4 or 5 beans, all painted red on one side. They shake the bans and drop them gently on their paper. They then find the math sentence on their Shake the Beans paper that shows the math sentence they see in front of them with their beans.
During our science time, we have been learning more about our tadpoles and the stages in their development. We will be learning more about them in the coming weeks as they grow and change. I also showed the children my “wave bottle”, I made using vegetable oil, water, and food coloring. The oil and water will never mix so they are able to see the water move in waves through the bottle. For extra fun, we added part of an Alka-seltzer tablet to the bottle and watched as it turned into a lava lamp!
It was great to see so many of you during Open House last evening. I hope you got to see the wonderful book fair our PTO set up for us, and that you were able to purchase some books for your child’s collection. Friday is the last day for the book fair.
If there are still any cookie dough orders out there, they need to be returned ASAP!
Kristen Poindexter ☺
Attached you will find the schedule for conferences for Tuesday and Wednesday next week. If you did not return a sign up sheet, I have assigned a time for you. If you cannot make your time, please call me so that we can reschedule at a more convenient time.
We are hot on the trial of the wintering Monarch Butterflies. They are quickly approaching Indiana as they make their journey northward from Mexico. We spent time this week revisiting a big book we used in the fall and helping our brains remember the important Monarch vocabulary (egg, caterpillar, pupa, butterfly, metamorphosis, change, nectar, proboscis, flower)
During our math time, we learned several new games. We played “Snap” and used our cubes to help show addition problems. The children were each given 4-5 cubes and they stacked them up in a column behind their back. When I said, “snap!”, the children broke their stack in two parts and then had to tell their partner what their addition sentence was (2+3=5). They did very well at this game and for the most part do not realize they are doing addition! ☺ We also played Shake the Beans 4 & 5 this week. Each child is given either 4 or 5 beans, all painted red on one side. They shake the bans and drop them gently on their paper. They then find the math sentence on their Shake the Beans paper that shows the math sentence they see in front of them with their beans.
During our science time, we have been learning more about our tadpoles and the stages in their development. We will be learning more about them in the coming weeks as they grow and change. I also showed the children my “wave bottle”, I made using vegetable oil, water, and food coloring. The oil and water will never mix so they are able to see the water move in waves through the bottle. For extra fun, we added part of an Alka-seltzer tablet to the bottle and watched as it turned into a lava lamp!
It was great to see so many of you during Open House last evening. I hope you got to see the wonderful book fair our PTO set up for us, and that you were able to purchase some books for your child’s collection. Friday is the last day for the book fair.
If there are still any cookie dough orders out there, they need to be returned ASAP!
Kristen Poindexter ☺
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Newsletter for March 3rd-7th, 2008
Dear Parents,
I’m baaack!! I am so glad to be teaching again! I have honestly never ever missed teaching this much! The children have jumped right back into our regular routines and helped me to remember some things I had forgotten! ☺
Incase you have not heard at this point, the TADPOLES have arrived in our classroom. They will be with us through the end of the year, unless they turn into frogs before that point, then we will release them into our Nature Center.
Speaking of the Nature Center, I was awarded a grant through DonorsChoose.org and The Washington Township Foundation to purchase Monarch Butterfly caterpillars and milkweed plants. I will order them in early April and the children and I will be planting the milkweed plants in early May and then will release the caterpillars. Their ideas were the driving force in me writing the grant; they wanted to see what a Monarch Butterfly looked like at the beginning of it’s life. They are on their way back from Mexico, so beginning this week, we will study the 2nd half of their lifecycle.
I also received another grant from DonorsChoose.org for Wisconsin Fast Plants. I learned about these plants while at a workshop last month and I knew the children would love to make a greenhouse and plant their own plants, so we now have all the materials to do so! ☺
The PM class will be taking their field trip to the Ruth Lilly Center on Wednesday, so be sure to send in your child’s money-I have only 3 children who have not paid at this point.
I will be sending home a sheet with your child’s conference time listed on it, on Friday of this week, so be watching for that. I have not received a large number of them, so if you see a sign-up sheet attached, you need to return it ASAP. If you do not return it by Friday, a time will be assigned to you. If you do not show up for your child’s conference, you can either call me for a phone conference or we can set up another time to meet. I NEED TO MEET WITH ALL PARENTS/GUARDIANS, to share my thoughts on 1st grade or Kindergarten retention with you.
Kristen Poindexter ☺
I’m baaack!! I am so glad to be teaching again! I have honestly never ever missed teaching this much! The children have jumped right back into our regular routines and helped me to remember some things I had forgotten! ☺
Incase you have not heard at this point, the TADPOLES have arrived in our classroom. They will be with us through the end of the year, unless they turn into frogs before that point, then we will release them into our Nature Center.
Speaking of the Nature Center, I was awarded a grant through DonorsChoose.org and The Washington Township Foundation to purchase Monarch Butterfly caterpillars and milkweed plants. I will order them in early April and the children and I will be planting the milkweed plants in early May and then will release the caterpillars. Their ideas were the driving force in me writing the grant; they wanted to see what a Monarch Butterfly looked like at the beginning of it’s life. They are on their way back from Mexico, so beginning this week, we will study the 2nd half of their lifecycle.
I also received another grant from DonorsChoose.org for Wisconsin Fast Plants. I learned about these plants while at a workshop last month and I knew the children would love to make a greenhouse and plant their own plants, so we now have all the materials to do so! ☺
The PM class will be taking their field trip to the Ruth Lilly Center on Wednesday, so be sure to send in your child’s money-I have only 3 children who have not paid at this point.
I will be sending home a sheet with your child’s conference time listed on it, on Friday of this week, so be watching for that. I have not received a large number of them, so if you see a sign-up sheet attached, you need to return it ASAP. If you do not return it by Friday, a time will be assigned to you. If you do not show up for your child’s conference, you can either call me for a phone conference or we can set up another time to meet. I NEED TO MEET WITH ALL PARENTS/GUARDIANS, to share my thoughts on 1st grade or Kindergarten retention with you.
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