Have a wonderful break!

Mrs. Parnell and Mrs. Hoyt wish everyone a wonderful break and a Happy New Year!  Be sure to write in your new journals!  Let us know about what you do during your time away from school.  We will be looking forward to getting back to work and learning about creatures in the ocean in January!

Polor Express Day!

What a wonderful time we had celebrating our Polar Express Day!  Clad in our pjs, we visited the library with our stuffed, fury friends, for a special reading of The Polar Express.  Then back to Room 101 we went for a wide variety of fun activities.  We re-created an image of the Polar Express train with ink and stamps, frosted holiday trees, played the dreidel game, made festive frames, and more!  Our afternoon was topped of with a special viewing of the movie version of our theme for the day!

We put the FUN in Fundations!

We sure put the FUN in fundations today!  Actually it was our lesson on the new Touch IT  board that was installed in our classroom!  What a fun time we had this morning practicing our letter recognition and letter sound connections!  We are very impressed by how well everyone did with both the letters and the board!

We have been reading and working with various editions of stories as well.  We have read and discussed various editions of The Nutcracker.  Mrs. Parnell is even teaching us some of the dances.  If you have The Nutcracker music at home, play it for your children.    We are also exploring the story The Polar Express.  Tomorrow will be our Polar Express Day!  Mr. Lyons will be reading to us in our PJs.  This afternoon we hope to start our comparison by previewing some of the Polar Express movie on our new Touch IT board.

The board is sure to be a new and exciting addition to our classroom!

We learned about Electricity, Electricity!

Mrs. Parnell shared an enlightening lesson about electricity this morning!  Thanks to hands on resources from the Science Center we were able to test various items to see if they are conductors or non-conductors.  Then we created electrical circuits!  We created light and sound.  Be sure to check with your child and ask him/her about the fun we had today.

Math Time in Room 101

Math is done in the afternoon in room 101.  We use many approaches to our lessons.  Small and whole group, lots of manipulatives and discussions.  A favorite of the kindergarteners is time on the computers and ipads.  One of our favorite current math activities is called break the trains.  Students create a "train" of connecting cubes that is made up of repeating patterns  "the cars".  After the train is created (using about a dozen cubes), students must record the train on paper and then segment, or break the train, into cars.  It is pretty challenging.  Try it at home.  You could use colored cereals, different coins, or even Lego pieces to create trains. 

Supplies Needed

Room 101 needs foam trays........the kind fresh fruits and veggies come on.  If you have a few, please send them in with your child. 

Thank you!

Bus Safety

The Burlington Police Dept. Safety Officer visited us this week to help us review and practice bus safety.  After a brief presentation Room 101 boarded a bus in front of the school and practiced what to do in an emergency situation.  We were such great listeners that each student was given a special badge sticker!

We have been doing a great job at listening to special presentations.  Ms. May, our guidance counselor,  sent a special star eraser home earlier this week!

Thanksgiving Feast!

Today we had our Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast. On Monday we had a fashion show and students selected the costumes they would like to wear. We graphed our selections. All Pine Glen kindergartners dressed as Pilgrims or Native Americans and enjoyed a fabulous feast which included singing and socializing with our friends in room 102 and 103. In addition to our lunches we tasted our homemade butter on crackers, ate yummy popcorn and a Squanto snack for dessert!

Book Fair is Coming!

Room 101 will preview the book fair books on Monday and will make purchases on Thursday.  Mrs. Parnell and Mrs. Hoyt will help students to write a  wish list of books students would like to purchase.

Pine Glen Scholastic Book Fair

December 5-9, 2011

All proceeds go to the Pine Glen Library & Technology Center

Monday, December 5  

Preview Day         

   

Tuesday-Thursday, December 6-8

Student Shopping Days (TBD)   

Friday, December 9

Parent Conferences

Parent Holiday Shopping Day

“A book is a gift you can open again and again.”--Garrison Keillor

Support the Book Fair Online

Monday, November 28--Monday, December 12

All purchases will be sent to Pine Glen after the Online Book Fair closes on December 12.  

Scholastic ensures that orders will be delivered to Pine Glen prior to the holiday break.

Don’t forget to add the 6.25% sales tax! 

Visit the Pine Glen Book Fair Home Page for more information:

Candy Counting Homework

Mrs. Parnell gave the kids a special homework assignment for the weekend.  After reminding everyone to be safe, stay with an adult and carry a light, she told them not to eat any candy while out trick-or-treating. 

As a special assignment she asked them to count their Halloween candy before they ate any.  On Monday students will be asked to report how many pieces of candy they collected while trick-or-treating.   We have been counting some big numbers in our classroom and we hope to do some comparing. 

Please help your child with their counting.  We like to make groups of 10 when we count in the classroom.  You may find this approach helpful at home.

Owl visits Pine Glen kindergarten

Ms. P. of the Burlington Public Schools science center paid a visit to the Pine Glen kindergartners this week.   She brought an Eastern Screech Owl named Cricket.  We learned all about owls.  They are in the bird family, are nocturnal and do not really like people to touch them.  Cricket is special because she likes to live at the science center.  She was injured and unable to return to her natural habitat of New England forests. 

We learned about the owl's eyes, feathers and neck.  Did you know that an owl has twice as many neck bones as a human?!  That is how an owl can turn its neck nearly 360*.   Ms. P played a CD with the many different sounds that different species of owls make. 

Room 101 really enjoyed learning about owls.  Today we shared some of what we learned in our journals.  Students found what they learned about owl talons and pellets to be particularly interesting.

Batty Good Time

Pine Glen Room 101 had many bats flying around the room this week.  The storm over the weekend caused a delay in our celebration of Halloween, so instead of celebrating for just one day, we did all week!  This week we wore our candy cane necklaces and bat hats.  We did many projects and games with candy corn, marshmallow ghosts and candy pumpkins.  Students had to count out candy corn, practiced ordinal numbers with the ghosts and played a listening game with the pumpkins.  We finished our Halloween counting book, and read many Halloween stories.

Listen to this

We have been listening to great stories at our listening station.  Thank you for our recent donation.

Rain....no problem!

If the weather is frightful, no problem!  We try to get into the gym to run around.  On a recent trip we played Messy Back Yard.  The kids cleaned up the gym wonderfully.  We are sure they can be of great assistance cleaning up their own yards from the recent storm.

Computers are up and running!

Our "Bob Cart", classroom computer station is up and running.  We have a 4 person station that we can now use every day along with our ipads.  We love using them!

Big Math Measurements!

Room 101 has been doing some big math measurments.  We have compared the length and width of dinosaurs (pictures that is).

Great Day at the Zoo!

We had a wonderful day at the Franklin Park Zoo on Friday.  Animals from all the animal families were on display for us to view.  Scroll down through the pictures below and ask your child what animal family these animals are in.  Be sure to ask why........they know the characteristics of all the families we learned about.