Happy Holidays Everyone!!

Hope you all enjoy your time with your families over break!  I will miss all of the little people, but I know this is a very special time in their lives and it needs to be shared with family.  I would like to thank all of you for the wonderful goodies and presents your children gave me for Christmas!  It was very thoughtful of you!  Also, to all who donated their time or items for a party yesterday a huge thanks!  I think all of the little people had a great time!  Pinning the nose on Rudolph was a fun adventure along with playing Christmas Bingo!  The cookies were delicious and the juice hit the spot!  Thank you! Thank you!

Below you will find our last two newsletters.  I felt a little weird posting one last week after the tragedy in Connecticut. I just want you all to know I love your children and will do my best to always protect them!   

Hope you all enjoyed your very special reindeer!  And, again, Happy Holidays!! 

Teachers Supporting Teachers

Teachers Supporting Teachers 

{fundraising campaign for the teachers and children of Sandy Hook} 

Little Miss Glamour Goes to Kindergarten is sponsoring a fund raiser for the students and teachers of Sandy Hook.  I'm linking up by donating 100% of my earnings on TPT from now till January 14th.  Please help support this effort!  Clear out your wishlists or give a TPT gift certificate to a teacher for the holidays or "just because"!  Thanks!

Flat Gingy!!

First of all, let me say "thanks" to Christie over at "First Grade Fever" for the super fun craftivity!  They turned out so stinkin' cute!  We even ended up with one one-legged GB Man.  The little people had instructions to stack all of their body parts so they wouldn't lose one.  And of course, one of the little angels lost a leg and I didn't have any extras!  Yikes!  So, new invention a one-legged GB Man.  He really is adorable!

We read many different Gingerbread Man stories, but I think my favorite one with a little of twist was "The Gingerbread Man Loose in the School" by Laura Murray. In this story after a class leaves for recess, their just-baked Gingerbread Man is left behind. But he's a smart cookie and heads out to find them.  During his hunt for his class he meets the gym teacher, the art teacher, the nurse and the even the principal.  I wish I had found this before school started this year.  It would have been a wonderful lead into meeting all of the people in our building.

Our gingerbread activities were so much fun!  Some of our activities included:  a "My Gingerbread Man 'is' 'can' 'has' Map", "Describe Me" map, a "Part to Whole Map", "Label Me Gingerbread Man" and a Venn Diagram comparing the Gingerbread Man and the Gingerbread Girl stories.  And for math we studied pictures of gingerbread houses and cookies for Math Talk, as well as, doing story problems on the Smartboard for our problem solving activities. 

Christmas Tea!!

Today was our Christmas Tea!  The boys and girls looked so sweet and they were precious visiting with Santa Claus, eating their cookies and singing Christmas carols.  This is a very special time for our little ones and this tradition at our school came just at the right time! 
My pictures didn't turn out as well as I would have liked, but they do give you a little bit of an idea how close we all have become this year!

Enjoy!

Silence for Sandy Hook Elementary

Today, Teachers Pay Teachers has announced that 10% of sales will be going to Sandy Hook Elementary School. 

Donations will also be accepted.  Send to:

Sandy Hook School Support Fund

c/o Newtown Savings Bank

39 Main St.

Newtown, CT 06470 

Or you and your students can send kind words to:

Sandy Hook Elementary

12 Dickenson Drive

Newtown, CT 06482

Inferring with No, David!!

Whew!  Writing about our inferences is hard work!  The little people are super at looking at pictures from the "No, David" books and making inferences.  We look at the evidence or clues in the pictures combine it with their background knowledge to make a decision about what they think is happening in the picture.  Below you will find a couple of example of a writing activity we did to go along with one of the pictures from "David Goes to School."  It was lots of fun and a little challenging for kindergarteners.  But, they were amazing thinkers!!

Here is the picture we used for this writing activity.

Here are our inferences!

 Our pictures of David along with our inferences!

 

 A couple of close ups!

   

What is David Doing?  David is doing paint.

My inference... I inference David is painting.

A clue that helped me make my inference...  David will get paint on the girl,

 because he has paint on his hand.

 What is David Doing?  He is getting paint on the girl.

My inference... He is going to get paint on the girl.

A clue that helped me make my inference...He has paint on his hand.

Whoo!  Whoo!  Owls!!

I am so pleased to present our "owl family glyphs" to you!  They are adorable!  We spent time last week learning all about owls.  The boys and girls had some connections to bats and other creatures.  A connection is when learning about something reminds them of something else they already know about, have read about or have experienced.  Making connections was the first comprehension strategy we learned this year.  Now, we are focusing on inferring.  However, our schema comes in handy everyday.   

 We have been using the "No, David" books to strengthen and learn about inferring.  Inferring is using their "schema" or "background knowledge" along with clues or evidence to make inferences or draw a conclusion about something.  Today we did an activity where we asked "23 Questions" and used the answers to the questions to make an inference about what we thought was in the "Mystery Box".  We wrote 4 of the clues or pieces of evidence down on our "It's a Mystery" sheet and then we drew a picture of what we thought was in the box.  We guessed everything from a rainbow, to a spider.  It was really a "gingerbread man".  We are learning so many things in kindergarten!!  It's amazing!!

Here's just a small sample of our "No, David" pictures we've been studying for inferring!!