Weekly Report

We've been rolling right back into our daily routine after spring break! Our trip to the Museum of Transportation on Thursday was definitely the highlight of the week! We had a terrific time! If you haven't checked out our pictures, please take a look. 

*This coming Wednesday is an Early Release Day. If your child's transportation will be different than usual, please let me know. 

*April book orders are due on Monday, April 10 (not this coming Monday) by sending the order form to school or ordering online. There's a coupon for "buy one, get one free!"

*On Thursday, April 13, we'll be having our annual Kindergarten Egg Hunt! Please send in at least 21 plastic eggs filled with a non-edible treat. (Some ideas are fuzzy little chicks, rings, stickers, small slinkies, rubber erasers, tattoos, and rubber bouncy balls.) You can send these in any time, but I definitely need them by Tuesday, April 11, so that I have time to prepare for the hunt. Look here to see our classroom party/events sign up. 

*We're looking forward to our field trip to Purina Farms Easter Village this coming Thursday! Packets of information are coming home today for all of our chaperones. Please take a few minutes to look that over, and contact me with any questions you might have. 

*All of the children will need a sack lunch with all disposable containers, including a drink, on Thursday. We will decorate lunch sacks in class on Wednesday to send home as a reminder for you. We will be eating lunch at Purina Farms. We'll wear Peep shirts again, so that we can easily spot all of the members of our class. Please be sure that you have your child's ready to go!

April Reading logs are in binders. Please set your goal for April. (A goal of 20 books or more is perfect!) We were very excited today to see how many friends read more than 20 books, and how many even read 40 or more! Wow!! We were able to clap for LOTS of friends!

In our reading groups, we are working hard to remember what we're reading, and answer lots of "wh" questions about the book! We're practicing every day to build our reading fluency. Please continue reviewing sight words at home, because knowing them "in a snap" helps build that fluency!

I LOVE reading the Peeps' opinions about things! This week, we've been working on opinion books. Many of the children are on their second book. They are writing about a TV show they like, or their favorite food, or a movie that they DON'T like. Each time we write our opinion, we add details to explain why we feel that way. Please ask your child to tell you all about their opinion books!

We've been connecting our math lessons this week to our study of transportation. The Peeps are writing equations, and graphing! We're getting really quick at solving addition problems when they're on a worksheet, but it's a little more challenging to generate problems for others. We're writing vertical and horizontal equations, and remembering where the addition signs and equal signs (or lines) go!



We know about three categories of transportation: land, water, and air. We've learned about how things move with pushes or pulls, and talked about cause and effect. We LOVED experimenting with magnets today, and seeing how the poles of a magnet will attract or repel. We'll continue working with our magnets next week, too. In binders today, you'll see some pages from our unit on motion and forces. You can re-read and review those at home if you like. They can even count on your child's reading log!

Our "current events" topic for today was that Crayola has decided to retire their dandelion crayon. This is one that we all have in our crayon box, so we found it and compared it to regular yellow. Some friends decided that they'd have to take special care of this crayon, since they won't find a new one in crayon boxes next year. We'll have to see what crayon takes dandelion's place!

Monday is A Day - Art

Tuesday is B Day - Music
It's Election Day! Be sure to vote!

Wednesday is  C Day - P.E.
Please have your child wear tennis shoes.
Early Release Day today; 1:40 dismissal. Please let me know of any dismissal changes. 

Thursday is D Day - P.E.
Please have your child wear tennis shoes.
Purina Farms Field Trip--please be on time for school, as we're leaving early. Be sure that your child has a sack lunch with a drink. (We'll send a paper bag home on Wednesday.)

Friday is E Day - Library/Technology
Please remember library books. 

Click here to view our lunch menu.

Dates to Keep in Mind:

Monday 4/10: book order due in class or online
Tuesday 4/11: please send eggs to school with non-edible treats inside them, if you haven't already
Thursday 4/13: Kindergarten Egg Hunt (time to be announced)
Friday 4/14: No School
Friday 4/21: Long School Night at Grant's Farm

Enjoy the weekend!

Our Field Trip to the Museum of Transportation

We had a very exciting trip today! There are three posts...Part 1, 2, and 3. If you'd like to read them in order, you can click on the side bar to see individual blog entries. Or you could scroll to the bottom. I hope you enjoy seeing the Peeps' adventures today! Stay tuned, because next Thursday we'll be on the road again!

Museum of Transportation Part 3

After our lesson in the Train of Thought, we had a bathroom break and ate a pretzel snack!

We saw this big blade that would go on the front of an engine...it's for cutting ice that might be on the track!

This is a snowplow! It would spin the snow, and blow it over the top of the train through a hole on top.

Next, we walked to board a passenger train that's almost 100 years old!

 

You can only tour this Pullman train on a field trip...it's super special!

The passageways are very narrow. On either side are compartments for people to sit while they're traveling! 

Here are the Peeps, sitting in the dining car. Did you know that the first "kid's meals" were invented on passenger trains?

As we were sitting in the dining car, we could hear thunder outside. We knew that storms would be coming soon! We got off the passenger train, and quickly did a little more touring. We saw the Daniel Mason, the Museum's oldest train. This train was running when Abraham Lincoln was president! (We know about him!)

As we got off of the cabooses, it was starting to rain. We got to go in the Car Museum! (This is the first class that has ever gotten to tour there!)

Our bus came as close as it could to the door. We didn't have to walk far and we didn't get very wet at all. What a lucky day!

We waited for a few minutes on the bus while it poured rain. Then we headed back to school for lunch!

We had a wonderful field trip today!

Museum of Transportation Part 2

After our train ride, we walked to the Train of Thought, which is the education car. We had a class all about different types of transportation, and we made our own train to take home! It was very interesting to have a class inside a train car!

 The boys and girls were asked to name different types of transportation, and classify them as "air," "land," or "water." They built a graph together.

 

 

 

Then they learned about the parts of a steam engine! They needed this information to build and decorate their own trains. Miss Peggy, the teacher, was so impressed with how hard the Peeps worked!

Here we are, building our trains!