End of year always makes me emotional, but man- this crew really got me good this year. I cannot say it enough and I hope it never loses it's meaning, but I am so lucky to have been their teacher this year! We had so many fun experiences, we accomplished so many goals, and we loved our classroom community hard. Making our class video/slideshow was so fun to listen to the snippets of live photos- the little bits of joy captured forever. I wish you all could've been a fly on the wall to hear our belly laughs, our jokes, and our thoughtful conversations.

We finished out our week with a mini room transformation day on Monday: camping in kindergarten! I had posted that fishing for CVCe words was the favorite, but then when they wrote about their favorite activity almost all of them wrote about reading by the fire or in the tent because they love to read... and that made my literacy heart want to explode!

We had field day on Tuesday and Graduation today!

Today's post is mainly just a photo dump, but please be sure to review your child's report card when they are released! (directions will be blasted out via email from FSE!)

Thank you a million times over. Please keep in touch!

My very last "With SO much love,"

Ms. Ham

We started wrapping up loose ends this week with publishing our "All About Books" and writing in our kindergarten memory books. We read "Leo the Late Bloomer" and wrote about how we bloomed as learners this year. We made flowers to hang next to our writing pieces too! We took our last unit math test and challenged ourselves to do addition and subtraction mixed facts within 20.

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: Substituting the middle phoneme

-Phonics: CVCe words

-Reading: Retelling key details

-Writing: Publishing our all about books, writing about how we grew like Leo, writing about our favorite parts of kindergarten

-Math: unit 5 test (missing numbers within 100, counting by 10s, counting by 1s to 100), addition and subtraction within 20 (challenge)

-Science: Wrapped up living things unit

FYI/Updates:

-We will be doing a mini room transformation day on Monday! :) I'm having a hard time letting go of kindie & they still talk about our room transformation days, so we're going to give it a go!

-Field day is rescheduled for Tuesday, but has moved indoors...please make sure your child comes with water bottles and snacks!

-Kindie graduation is Wednesday, May 25th at 9:30! Please make sure you can attend! Kindies go home after our celebration to start summer! (~11:30ish)

-Thank you to all who donated for making ice cream with our buddies! It was a highlight for our kids & the 5th graders for sure!

Have a wonderful, snowy weekend!
With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

We ended our living things unit with a big culminating project of "All About Books." On Monday, the kids got on PebbleGo to make a list of 3 potential living things they'd like to research, then we selected one. Each kid has a different topic! On Tuesday, we created our front covers and illustrated our animal. On Wednesday, we wrote and illustrated the first page of our book: the body of our animal. On Thursday, we wrote and illustrated the habitat of our animal. On Friday, we wrote and illustrated the life cycle of our animal. We aren't quite finished yet and will do Fun Facts on Monday, as well as the table of contents page. Then I will publish them for them and send them home!

They've worked so hard on these and if you saved any of their "writing" from August, take a moment to celebrate how far they've come this year. We started with labeling pictures with the letter of the first sound & now they're writing 3,4,5+ beautiful sentences about a topic they researched! This project incorporates so many of our standards: concepts of print, identifying key details, informative writing, illustrations support the message, etc.

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: substituting the vowel sound for a long vowel or short vowel (opposite of what it was)- If you change the /e/ in met to /ee/, what's the word? meet!

-Phonics: cvce words, soft c, soft g, silent e- all the rules! They are so strong in phonics!!

-Reading: identifying the main topic and key details, summarizing from what we read to put it in our OWN words to write about it!

-Writing: See above!!! :)

-Math: Counting to 100, finding the missing number in a hundreds chart, & I challenged them on Friday with addition within 20 (kinder standards are only within 10, but they've been begging for harder math!)

-Science: Living things' needs

-Social emotional learning: expectations!!! We are focusing on making the right choices and we've really been talking about how our choices are ours to make, but they also impact the people around us!

-1st Grade Tours: What was the best part of touring first grade? Do you remember your tour guide's name? What are you nervous about? What are you excited about? We talked about how it's completely normal and okay to have more than one emotion about big changes! I am so excited for them to go to first grade, but I'm also so sad for them to leave me. Check in with your kiddo- a lot of the behaviors we've been seeing are stemming from the anticipation of a big change.

Please see the sign up genius for making ice cream with our 5th grade buddies on Thursday. I try really hard not to ask for much throughout the year & I would really appreciate your support in making memories with our buddies on Thursday! :)

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

This week flew by with the PD day on Monday and iReady diagnostic testing. We switched gears to ocean animals, but read fiction stories about ocean animals this week and will read non-fiction next week.

We LOVED our centers this week. From living in Florida, I have so many hands-on centers that include seashells and fishbowls and shark toys! We will have new centers next week with sand.

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic awareness: substituting sounds in the final position

-Phonics: cvce words (mommy E), dividing syllables and labeling consonants and vowels

-Reading: identifying the characters, setting, and major events

-Writing: response to literature

-Math: measurement - comparing weight using the words heavier and lighter

-Science: living things

FYI/Updates:

-We completed iReady diagnostic for reading this week & will complete math next week! Please make sure your child is at school unless sick.

-Our class grew 144% on our reading assessment and I am so proud of them! Some of them have over 200% growth and surpassed their STRETCH growth goals. I sent home their report in yellow folders & highlighted particular things I think are beneficial for you to know! My main focuses for kindergarten are: phonological awareness, phonics, and high-frequency words because if they are strong in those foundational skills, they will thrive with comprehension as they grow as readers. Please reach out with any questions or concerns about your child's report, but mainly CELEBRATE your student's hard work this weekend! There is absolutely no sign of the pandemic when it comes to our data! :)

-Field Day is Friday, May 20th. More info. to come!

-Graduation invites went home on Tuesday! If you're anything like me in the highly emotional department, bring tissues! :)

-Book fair is next week! We will do our wish list on Tuesday with our buddies.

-Start finding those library books if they haven't been returned- our last library day will be 5/16 and I don't want you to get fined.

Have a great weekend,

Ms. Ham

We started the week off with our GLOW GAMES day for meeting our academic goal of 100% proficiency on skill 4 of the Quick Phonics Assessment: decoding words with digraphs! We did /ch/ bowling, /sh/ tic-tac-toe, /th/ ring toss, /wh/ golf, and digraph jenga (all of them). It was so much fun & the kids were so responsible despite it being a very different day! It pays off to work hard on our learning goals!

Then we continued learning about living things & plants this week, but switched gears to non-fiction texts. We did PebbleGo research, read comprehension passages about plants, and wrote "how to" pieces about plants.

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: substituting sounds in the FINAL position! Change the /t/ in bat to /g/ = bag. This is TRICKY!

-Phonics: cvce words, identifying vowels in words to break apart syllables & identify closed vs. open syllables, cvcc words, ccvc words

-Reading: asking and answering questions about key details in the text

-Math: counting to 100 by 10s, measurement and data: comparing length & height

-Writing: how to writing, publishing writing pieces

-Science: living things- plants, what plants need in order to grow and survive

FYI/Updates:

-No school tomorrow & Monday! Enjoy your long weekend :)

-Believe it or not, we started End Of Year assessments this week. I completed all of their phonemic awareness testing & reached out if there are any holes we need to fill by the end of May! If you didn't get an email from me, your child is 100% proficient in phonemic awareness. iReady reading testing will begin on Wednesday- please try to make sure your child is at school next week so we don't have to make up test sessions!

-Graduation invites were attached to the email sent with this weekly update! Please save the date & know that your child will be dismissed for SUMMER after our snacks and refreshments in the classroom around lunch time. They only have 21.5 days left of kindergarten!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

We continued our living things unit this week, but moved to plants. We are doing two weeks of it, so we spent this week reading fiction books and will read non-fiction next week. We read:

• Curious George Plants a Tree

• Are Trees Alive?

• Little Tree

• The Tiny Seed

• Tops & Bottoms (this was the favorite- the hares were SO tricky and Bear learned some lessons!)

Ask Your Child About:

• Phonemic Awareness: identifying initial blends, isolating the first sound in words with blends- this is HARD for us! What's block without /b/? lock. A lot of us omit the second sound and would say ock.

• Phonics: CVCe words, dictated sentences

• Reading: 5 finger retells- identifying the characters, setting, major events, problem, & solution

• Writing: We started publishing our writing this week- I typed some of their writing and their reading buddies typed some during reading buddies on Thursday! They loved this formality of this!

• Math: decomposing teen numbers into tens and more ones, number bonds, writing equations to decompose teen numbers

• Science: living things- needs

FYI/Updates:

• No school Friday 4/22- comp day

• No school Monday 4/25- professional development day

• We've been loving these science of reading songs to reinforce some of our skills:

  • Decoding Strategies- Blinding Lights

  • We Don't Talk About Bruno Reading Parody

  • Digraphs- Fancy Like

  • Blending CVC- Savage Love

Disclaimer: these are all on youtube & school has limits on ads so they're all kid-appropriate, but please supervise your child!

If you celebrate Easter, I hope you have a wonderful holiday with your family. You can repurpose those Easter eggs into phonics/word family activities with a sharpie! Just throwing that out there! :)

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ms. Ham

We've spent the last two weeks on life science standards with our theme being insects! We alternated between fiction and nonfiction texts to incorporate Eric Carle classics and learn details about insects. We did a combination of opinion writing and informative writing depending on the type of read aloud. We spent some good amount of time researching on PebbleGo and the kids were always adamant to ask our resident "bug expert" questions about insects, instead of me... which is so fun to see!

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic awareness: identifying beginning blends, deleting the first sound of a blend in a word -- this one is HARD for us!

-Phonics: cvce words + words with digraphs

-Reading: retelling stories with key details (fiction), identifying the main topic + key details (nonfiction)

-Writing: opinion writing, informative writing - 3+ sentences for all. We've been working on handwriting and using the lines correctly!

-Math: teen numbers

-Science: life science- needs

FYI/Updates:

-As the weather gets warmer, please make sure your child is bringing a water bottle every day! A lot of them are forgetting them daily.

-No School: Apr 22 & 25

-With CMAS testing for 3rd gr & up, our schedule was a little bit off this past week and will be next week as well! We've done well being flexible, but there's no SEL and sometimes our library time is impacted!

Hope you had a great weekend,

Ms. Ham

Welcome back from spring break! This week, I was constantly reminded of how magical kindergarten is in the spring. They're looking and acting so much like 1st graders now! We spent the week hitting geography standards surrounding maps and globes. We read lots of maps read alouds:

• "Me on the Map"

• "Mapping Penny's World"

• "There's a Map on my Lap!"

• "There was an Old Pirate who swallowed a Map"

• "Pete the Cat's Treasure Map"

We created a map skills book during writing time & all of our centers were maps & globes themed as well. They spotted Mrs. P's globe in the library and we asked to borrow it for the week & they're constantly huddled around it looking for locations on the globe!

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic awareness: identifying beginning blends

-Phonics: syllable types (open vs. closed), identifying vowels and consonants within syllables, words with digraphs, vowel teams

-Reading: asking and answering questions about unknown words (geography terms mainly!)

-Writing: informational sentences

-Math: story word problems (addition & subtraction) & story word problems with both addends unknown

-Social studies: distinguishing between a map and a globe as ways to show places people live, using geographic tools to describe places.

FYI/Updates:

-We are moving into a HUGE living things unit next week beginning with insects, but we will study plants and animals, too!

-We love the warm weather & love to do phonics practice with sidewalk chalk outside, but I don't have enough chalk for the whole class... if you're willing to donate some, we'd love that!

-I have IKEA on my to do list for this weekend to get another 8x10 white frame to add their class picture to the wall, but I dread IKEA. If you happen to have that on your list this weekend and/or enjoy IKEA, I'll happily venmo anyone who can save me from that experience! :)

Enjoy the warm weather this weekend!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

We hit some higher order thinking skills by applying our concepts of print with a wordless picture book unit this week. We worked to explain how the illustrations explain the story. We started off with "The Book With No Pictures" to emphasize the learning goal's purpose. The kids loved this book & think it's hilarious. On Thursday and Friday mornings there was a group around one of our fluent readers reading aloud to the kids & laughing. It was so precious.

Then we switched to wordless picture books:

• Float

• Pancakes for Breakfast

• A Ball for Daisy

• Chalk

Our centers were St. Patrick's Day themed & we did some St. Pat's math by using gold coins as our manipulatives (novelty is key!).

Ask Your Child About:

-phonemic awareness: the entire K spectrum!! WOO!

-phonics: vowel teams, silent e, diphthongs, digraphs

*We set a goal to have our class 100% proficient on Skill 4 of our QPA in order to earn a Glow Games room transformation!

-reading: RL.K.7 - explaining how the illustrations help tell the story

-writing: we focused on responding to literature this week by choosing a page in a wordless book to write what was happening in the illustrations with 3+ sentences!

-math: subtraction within 10, story word problems within 10

FYI/Updates:

-Thanks to all who attended virtual conferences! It's so fun getting to celebrate how hard these kids have worked. Our data is AMAZING!

-Spring break starts today at 4:00! We return on Monday the 21st

-Cap & gown pictures (cap and gown are provided by Dorian studios) are on Friday 3/25 at 9:30 am. We are asking for 3 kindergarten parents to volunteer to help with the process if you're willing! Email me if so. Order forms will go home on Monday 3/21 & I highly recommend purchasing them- they're my favorites!

-Spring sports: I am out of town for spring break & quite a few weekends in April, so if your child is playing a spring sport and they'd like me to attend a game, please send me a schedule ASAP so that I can make sure I can find one that works with my personal schedule! So many of them have been asking me. :)

Have a great spring break,

Ms. Ham

We had such a fun week reading Dr. Seuss books! This week is always magical because it's when they figure out they can read "real" books if they haven't already had that realization! It's so rewarding.

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: substitution in all positions

-Phonics: voiced vs. unvoiced /th/ sounds! They are rocking this & I'm so proud of their phonics knowledge. I didn't learn so many of these phonics rules until I started teaching & I just can't imagine how strong of readers they will be by the end of their schooling.

-Reading: identifying characters, setting, and major events (also reading for fun because some of Dr. Seuss's books are just SILLY!)

-Writing: we had a great combination of opinion pieces and informative pieces. We wrote about whether we would want the Cat in the Hat to visit us & what we would do if we were Things! (Those are going on the bulletin board- sorry!) We wrote about our silly socks and things that were wacky in Wacky Wednesday!

-Math: Finding the missing addend within 10, subtraction within 10

FYI/Updates:

-Spring conferences are this week. I edited all of the calendar invites to include google meets video conferencing. Please make sure you are on time as the conference slots are only 10 minutes! Your child knows his/her learning goals and progress (we celebrate EVERYTHING in room 53), so I'd prefer these to be childless conferences if at all possible. :)

-Spring break begins on Monday 3/14-Friday 3/18!

-Kindergarten cap + gown pictures are on Friday 3/25 and I will send order forms home after spring break.

-Save the date: Wednesday, May 25th will be a kindergarten graduation/continuation. Details to follow!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

We started the week off with TWOsday where we read "Two Hungry Bears" and "Two of Everything." All of our activities focused on the number 2 for 2-22-22! On Wednesday we moved on to Goldilocks and the Three Bears, continuing our compare/contrast standard from the versions of the 3 Little Pigs.

We read:

-Goldilocks and the 3 Bears

-Goldilocks and Just the One Bear (Baby Bear goes to NYC and does the same things Goldilocks did in an apartment... to find out that it's Goldilocks's apartment and they're both all grown up!)

-Goldilocks Returns (Goldi feels guilty so she goes back to "fix" the bears' house, but makes everything so much worse!)

-Somebody and the 3 Blairs (A bear named Somebody walks into the 3 Blairs's house in a flip-flopped version of the original).

-Goldy Luck and the 3 Pandas (Revolves around Chinese New Year. Goldy Luck goes back to help fix all the problems and is much kinder!)

-Leola and the 3 Honeybears: An African-American Retelling of Goldilocks (Leola is forgiven at the end of this version & the blackbird walks her home so she doesn't get lost!)

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: phoneme substitution

-Phonics: we've been working on secret stories for "ed," "or," and "al"

-Reading: comparing and contrasting the adventures of characters in familiar stories

-Writing: writing 3+ informational sentences to respond to literature

-Math: Decomposing numbers/Making 10- we loved working with a partner and cube trains to guess the missing addend to make 10!

FYI/Updates:

-Please sign up for a conference if you haven't done so yet! Conferences are 3/7 & 3/9.

-Thank you to those who donated snack!

-Spring pictures & class pictures are Tuesday 3/1 at 9:15 AM (be on time!!). If you're not sure about ordering another picture, I recommend ordering the class picture but waiting until the cap & gown pictures on 3/25!

-Dr. Seuss week starts Monday!

• Monday: Kid in a Hat- wear/make a silly hat

• Tuesday: Fox in Socks- wear silly socks (or bring them due to pictures!)

• Wednesday: Wacky Wednesday- wear mismatched clothes

• Thursday: Thing Day- wear a red shirt

• Friday: Bartholomew and the Oobleck- wear a crown or tiara fit for a queen/king!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ms. Ham

We had one last day of Valentine's books and activities on Monday & then we moved on to comparing and contrasting versions of The Three Little Pigs!

We read:

• The Three Little Pigs

• The True Story of the Three Little Pigs

• The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig (this was by far the favorite!)

• The Three Little Fish and The Big Bad Shark

• The Three Little SuperPigs

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic awareness: deleting sounds, substituting sounds

-Phonics: what sound does sh make? what sound does ch make? /ch/ but it can also say /k/ when they play conductor AND it can also say /sh/ (when it's FANCY like in our friend Charlotte!). what sound does th make? /th/ (unvoiced) but it can also say /th/ (voiced)

-Reading: comparing and contrasting the characters, setting, and major events in twisted folk tales compared to the original.

-Writing: descriptive writing! 3+ sentences is always our goal!

-Math: mixed facts addition & subtraction within 5, addition within 10

FYI/Updates:

-Progress reports went home today (a little early!) - please review your child's data & reach out with any questions or concerns

-Spring conference sign up is scheduled to be emailed out on Tuesday at 7 AM

-Tuesday 2/22: wear a tutu or a tie for TWOSday

-Class pictures & spring pictures will be March 1st

-We are completely out of snack! Please make sure your child brings 2 snacks every day!

-We are also completely out of baby wipes if you're willing and able to donate.

-No school tomorrow or Monday! Enjoy your long weekend.

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

This week was CRAZY in the best way. We started off with our 100th day of kindergarten celebration on Monday! This is always one of my favorite days in K. I always praise their character traits in our classroom, but I have to say: they are the CUTEST little old people!

We spent Tuesday-Thursday reading Valentines books and doing Valentine centers/activities. We created a couple of things for you guys at home as a surprise! They go home today.

Friday was our room transformation day: Kindercardiology! We scrubbed in and did some serious sentence surgery, did first aid addition, weighed some baby animals, fixed some broken hearts (onset +rime), did charts on patients (cvc words) and listened with our stethoscopes for syllables, etc. I put a few pictures in this update, but look on instagram for a lot more! :)

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: phoneme substitution in all positions

-Phonics: digraphs, vowel teams, mommy e words

-Reading: identifying characters, setting, and major events

-Writing: opinion pieces about "love" --- we discussed how love for kindies is a different kind of love! We can love lots of things and people as friends.

-Math: mixed facts addition & subtraction (watching for the sign!)

-Social studies: community

FYI/Updates:

-Our valentine exchange is Monday, 2/14! Valentines & boxes were due today.

-We would love donations of: extra snack and/or baby wipes if you're willing and able! :)

-Friday 2/18 is a professional development day (no school for kids)

-Monday 2/21: President's Day- No school! Enjoy your super long weekend!

-Tuesday 2/22: TWOSday! Wear a tutu or a tie to celebrate 2/22/22!

-Progress reports go home the week of 2/22

-Spring Conference sign ups will go live the week of 2/22

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ms. Ham

We had a fun week of reading fictional stories about groundhogs, making a prediction about whether the groundhog would see his shadow, and groundhog centers!

We hit subtraction hard this week & they're doing so well! We will move into mixed addition & subtraction soon.

Next week we will have 2 super fun days! Today is the first day we've had 100% attendance since November, so please make sure your child is here if they aren't sick! :)

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: medial sounds, substituting sounds in all positions

-Phonics: cvce words

-Reading: identifying the characters, setting, and main events

-Writing: Informational writing about groundhogs

-Math: subtraction within 5

FYI/Updates:

-Monday is the 100th day of kindergarten! Please have your child dress as he/she is 100 years old! Library books are also due Monday!

-Friday will be a special day but it's a surprise for the kids, so I'm not sharing what it will be! :)

-Valentines + valentine boxes are due on Friday!

-February progress reports are coming home soon!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Ms. Ham

We finished our last week of polar animals focusing on identifying key details about the different animals we read about.

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: identifying medial sounds

-Phonics: cvce words and cvc words with digraphs

-Reading: identifying the main topic and key details

-Writing: writing 3+ descriptive sentences about polar animals.

-Math: subtraction! We introduced subtracting with bowling. We took away how many pins we knocked down to find the remaining number of pins.

-Science: characteristics of living things

FYI/Updates:

-PLEASE practice snow gear. We are spending a lot of instructional time bundling and unbundling. I realize gloves are tough, but if they could be independent other than the 2nd glove, I would really appreciate it! :)

-100th day of school is Thursday, February 3rd. Looking at the forecast, if we were to magically have a snow day on Wednesday, we will bump it to Friday! :) Please see the letter sent home last week.

-We have a lot of fun things coming up in February/March and I don't want to frustrate you with our requests for fun outfits/activities, so if you're wanting to gather/purchase items all at once:

• 100th day (old people outfits): February 3rd

• Valentine's Day (see letter attached- box + 19 valentines to pass out): February 14

• Twosday (wear a tutu or a tie): February 22nd

• Dr. Seuss Week (crazy socks, hat day, wacky/mismatched, a red shirt for things 1-19): Feb 28-March 4

Have a wonderful weekend!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

We switched poles to the North Pole to learn about Arctic animals this week. We mainly focused on polar bears but also did some research on other arctic animals as well. We will continue with researching the other animals next week.

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic awareness: medial sounds

-Phonics: decoding CVCe words and words with digraphs

-Reading: identifying main topic and 3 key details

-Writing: informative writing about polar bears- we will continue our books next week!

-Math: addition within 5 (I've been pulling small groups to challenge those who are ready for much larger addition problems!)

-Science: living things

FYI/Updates:

-The kids would like me to tell you that there is a school store on Fridays if they want to bring piggy bank money.

-100th day: February 3rd (see attached letter for more info.)

-Your child needs a jacket if it's below 40* please!!

Have a great weekend,

Ms. Ham

We changed our schedule a lot to fly to a lot of different countries around the world this week! We stamped our passports for France, Germany, Mexico, Russia, Australia, Greenland, India, and returned back to the USA. With each country, we learned about the holidays they celebrate and compared the similarities and differences to our families' traditions. We also made a craft/project for each one:

• Shoes for Pere Noel in France

• Pickle ornaments in Germany

• Poinsettia flowers in Mexico

• Letters to Santa in Greenland (they mailed these in my North Pole Express mailbox, so they didn't come home!)

• Melted Snowmen in Australia (these are on our bulletin board!)

• Nesting Dolls in Russia

• Paper lanterns in India

• Holiday cards in USA

The kids had so many great quotes this week- one asked why we had so many pages in our passports and when I listed the countries we would go to, she said, "I think my mom will say no!" Another one made the connection to Australians saying, "Merry Christmas Mate!" that it's "just like pirates!" - we cleared that up, but they kept me laughing this week!

We also did cloze reading practice with our green Holidays Around the World journals and drew pictures to illustrate what we learned.

There are a couple additional holidays/countries we just didn't have time for, but you're welcome to finish the green journal over break if interested!

Ask Your Child About:

-See above!!!

FYI/Updates:

-I am done with EPRs and they release on Saturday! Please see the directions in the FSE blast for how to access your child's report card! I made individual comments, so please read them and reach out with any questions/concerns! :)

-Clothes: Please consider sending in a new bag of extra clothes when we return! We're finding that a lot of the kids have summer clothes in their bags because I asked for them in August! Long pants and shirts would be preferred!

-Tomorrow 12/17 is a teacher work day. Enjoy your winter break!!

-Thank you notes went home in yellow folders- please let me know if your child didn't get theirs home! :)

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

We've had such a fun 2 weeks with our gingerbread unit. We started with the original "Gingerbread Man" book and identified the characters, setting, and major events. From there, we read over 15 different versions to compare/contrast the characters, setting, and major events! The chant the cookie sings is usually a bit different and they loved that.

We had gingerbread centers with play-doh, felt gingerbread men, gingerbread CVCs, gingerbread write the room, etc.!

We did gingerbread STEM with our book buddies where they had to build a boat or a bridge in order for the gingerbread man to cross the river safely (& not have to ride on the fox's back)! Because as we know, cookies cannot go swimming or they will crumble!

We read "Tough Cookie" where the gingerbread man is so upset that he isn't sweet and isn't fast... but he finds out he's actually an ornament and made with glue! Then we made gingerbread ornaments with our volunteer! If your child has 2 homes, they made 2- one for each home! :)

We made gingerbread glyphs for some extra following directions practice! ;)

We did Gingerbread man chases for brain breaks... we did it all (even with iReady diagnostic tests, holiday shops, etc.!).

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: identifying the medial/middle sound

-Phonics: decoding cvc words and cvc words with digraphs

-Reading: comparing and contrasting the adventures of characters in familiar stories

-Math: making 10, missing addend

-Writing: we did a combination of informational writing and opinion writing these past 2 weeks! All about gingerbread versions!

FYI/Updates:

-Holiday shop was Wednesday. I tried my very best to have them communicate which purchase was for each person on the list to make sure they were buying for that person and not themselves, but I can't promise they came home with meaningful gifts for each person! Just imagine your trips to Target or Walmart, but with 15 kids instead of however many you have! I did my best, but holiday shop with kindergarten is a lot! ha.

-We will be studying about Holidays around the World next week to meet some of our social studies standards and embrace the holiday season. All of them have told me about elves or trees at home, so I'm fairly confident that they celebrate Christmas, but if your family has other holidays/traditions that you celebrate, could you please reach out to me? It is so important to me that everyone feels seen and heard in our classroom!

-My stepmom saw my caption on our picture about the finger lights for reading...I had a package at my door with finger lights for the kids a few days later. They went home on Wednesday/Thursday if your child was absent. The intent is for your child to point to the words in their books as they're reading... not to use it as a toy! :)

-With the holiday season approaching, I want to ask a huge favor of you guys... we have so many adults who help us and make FSE the best place ever. I feel pretty appreciated by my admin. and families, but our EAs, specials teachers, and support staff hardly ever get recognized. DCSD does Apple Awards and I'd love if you could talk with your child about who they would like to nominate for an award as an act of kindness. The past 3 years have been really hard & little notes reminding them that they make a difference can make such an impact!

You can nominate anyone, but here are some names to consider:

-Ms. Jen (EA)

-Ms. Krystal (EA)

-Ms. Stephanie and Ms. Lindsey (Regulation Room)

-Ms. Patti (school counselor)

-Ms. Carmody (art)

-Mr. Heller (PE)

-Ms. Trahnstorm (music- the kids call her Ms. T)

-Ms. Lesly (registrar/front office)

-Ms. Lonie (nurse)

-Ms. Jen (front office)

-Any of your child's service providers if they're on an IEP/ALP.

The link to nominate one/any of them is here. It doesn't take more than 2 minutes and they will appreciate it so much!

-Our holiday party will be Thursday, December 16th (no school Friday!)- The signup genius is here! Thank you so much.

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

We started the week with a BrainPop Jr! video on the history of Thanksgiving. We learned that the Pilgrims weren't always kind to the Wampanoag people and that there wasn't enough food at the first Thanksgiving, so the Wampanoag had to bring their harvested crops. It was a great developmentally-appropriate introduction to the history of Thanksgiving and why we have a big meal as a tradition.

We read so many great Thanksgiving read-alouds and some Indigenous peoples' tales! Our favorite Thanksgiving book was "One is a Feast for Mouse" and our favorite tale was "Coyote Steals the Blanket."

Our centers were so hands-on this week! They did "concepts of print" puzzles with food boxes, created Thanksgiving plates, made shopping lists, set the table with a letter correspondence activity, did push pin Thanksgiving art (this strengthens the tiny muscles in their hands for handwriting & they LOVE them), etc.

We made Turkey handprints with our Book Buddies on Thursday & we had meaningful conversations during community circle about things and people we are thankful for.

On Friday, we read "Balloons over Broadway" about the history of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and then we created our own balloon floats and shared them on the document camera! This was another favorite activity!

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: substituting sounds

-Phonics: VC & CVC words, words with digraphs, CVCe words

-Reading: identifying the characters, setting, and major events

-Math: Comparing numerals using words "greater than," "less than," "more," "fewer," and "equal."

-Writing: Last week of descriptive writing! We wrote about our turkeys in disguise and Thanksgiving foods. We also strayed from the learning goal on Thursday to write what we are thankful for!

-Social studies: comparing long ago & today

FYI/Updates:

-Book bags came home Friday! Please have your child read the books in his/her book bag as many times as possible and have them return on Monday! Many of the books are my personal books, so please take good care of them.

-iReady testing opens when we return from break, but I like to give them a few days to get back into the swing of things before we start!

-We are moving on to a gingerbread unit the 2 weeks after break & it is hands-down my favorite unit all year! Get ready for some *magic*!

Have a wonderful break! With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

We started hitting some economics standards this week with wants and needs! Our read alouds were an author study on Laura Numeroff with all of the "If You Give a..." books:

• If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

• If You Give a Pig a Pancake

• If You Give a Pig a Party

• If You Give a Cat a Cupcake

• If You Give a Dog a Donut

• If You Give a Moose a Muffin

• If You Give a Mouse a Brownie

We did picture sorts for wants and needs! One of my favorite kid lines from this week was when I was giving clues about the picture and my clue was, "Ooooh! I need a lot of this!" and one of the girls yelled, "It's the sun!!" without missing a beat. Catch us outside photosynthesizing on every sunny day all winter!

We also celebrated Veterans Day on Thursday with pebblego research and a veteran directed drawing! They turned out really cute.

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic awareness: substituting sounds in all positions

-Phonics: Tapping out and blending CVC words, reading decodable sentences!!

-Reading: identifying the characters, setting, and main events

-Writing: I gave them a writing assessment to see what they could do without me & I was super impressed. We are still working on using magic lines to write sentences using our sounds!

-Social studies: wants & needs!

-Math: numbers 6-10, adding 1 more (the goal is to be able to know one more WITHOUT recounting!)

FYI/Updates:

-Turkeys in disguise are due Monday!

-Our Thanksgiving feast is Thursday in the cafeteria (kids only, but in case you don't want to pack a lunch for your child.)

-Book fair is next week! We browse on Monday and the kids can shop during lunch, recess, or before or after school.

-We would love playing cards & plastic soap cases to store them in if you're willing and able to donate!

-No school November 22-26 for Thanksgiving break!

Have a great weekend!

With SO much love,
Ms. Ham

I was so exhausted from our Halloweek last week & field trip, so here's a doubled up weekly update!

We read all stories about all of the spooky characters last week and moved on to pumpkins this week! We focused on identifying the characters, setting, and main events.

We did some shared writing about all of the things that are "no more" since it's November!

We wrote about monsters, mummies, bats, and pumpkins.

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: substituting sounds, identifying medial sounds

-Phonics: tapping out & blending CVC words & CVCe words (mommy E makes the vowel a superhero vowel). We've also worked hard on s can sometimes say /z/ like in has, is, was. (Was is still a heart word because the a is a schwa and says /u/).

-Reading: identifying characters, setting, and main events.

-Math: We finished our 2d & 3d shapes unit and took our unit test. I will send them home as soon as I have the grades recorded. We started numbers 6-10!

-Writing: We are working hard to draw magic lines for each word in the sentence. We stretch our sounds to get as many sounds in the word as possible.

-Field Trip: What was your favorite activity? Who was in your group?

FYI/Updates:

-We are low on snack again! I bought a bunch in October, but if you don't mind sending some in for Nov/Dec, we would appreciate it.

-I found a website with resources that I am obsessed with! I will share some activities you can do at home ASAP. (& also update the resources tab on this website).

-November 22-26: Thanksgiving Break

Have a wonderful weekend!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

Things are getting pretty creepy & crawly in our room! We were engrossed with non-fiction texts about spiders this week, with the focus being on identifying the topic and 3 key details. They're able to talk about their learning goal and rate themselves on the scale at this point which is SO fun & so beneficial for focus! We started journal writing this week since we are so close to our goal of the whole class knowing all letters & sounds- we wrote sentences about spiders & webs each day!

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonological Awareness: Substituting syllables (change the gold in goldfish to star= starfish)

-Phonemic Awareness: Punching out the last sound in a word silently!

-Phonics: Tapping out & blending all 3 sounds in a CVC word. (+ some secret stories thrown in there!)

-Reading: Identify the main topic & 3 key details!

-Writing: Write 1 sentence about spiders using sounds

-Math: Comparing 2d & 3d shapes!

FYI/Updates:

-Please see my email about winter gear as the colder weather approaches! :)

-Please see my email about registering for the field trip! It is free of charge, but I need you to give consent for your child to attend and fill out the emergency contact sections.

-Fall break is next week!

-The field trip to Lone Creek Farms is Friday, October 29th! We will be gone from 9:00-3:00ish and come back to do the Halloween parade at 3:20. Please be prepared to send your child's Halloween costume in his/her backpack that day!

-Dr. Smith's last day was today & we will miss her a ton, but we are in great hands with Mrs. Jacques!

Have a wonderful fall break,

Ms. Ham

We did another week of learning about weather patterns and making weather observations. We made different types of clouds out of cotton balls & loved finding the different types at recess. We read "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" on Thursday afternoon & had a room transformation day on Friday! They had so much fun & it was the best kind of chaos.

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonological awareness: identifying & creating rhyme

-Phonemic Awareness: identifying ending sounds, substituting syllables

-Phonics: ALL letters & sounds, CVC words

-Secret stories: "sh" "th" "ch" "er/ur/ir" superhero vowels, sneaky Y

-Writing: we finished handwriting this week & I sent the books home with them unless they have a lot to catch up on. You can finish the handwriting at home if your child wishes, but please know that it is not phonetically appropriate for your child to read those sentences or some of the words. It would simply be for letter formation practice, NOT reading practice! :)

-Reading: identifying the main topic & 3 key details of non-fiction weather texts

-Math: positional words (above, below, beside, next to, etc), reviewing 2d&3d shapes

-Science: weather observations, weather patterns, how weather impacts humans and animals

FYI/Updates:

-Conferences are Monday and Wednesday night! They are student led, so please make sure you bring your child.

-Thank you so much to all who donated for our shape sorting for our cloudy day! They loved that activity so much.

-Fall break starts Friday afternoon! :) I can't believe we are done with 1st quarter already... until I look back at posts from August and see how much they've grown. I'm the first one to admit that my plate is TOO full right now, so I have to be intentional about slowing down & soaking up the joy and tiny victories in our room. Just a friendly reminder to do the same with your sweet kindie- they'll be 1st graders before you know it!

-Field trip to Lone Creek Farms: October 29

-Halloween Parade: October 29 @ 3:20. See FSE blasts for more info.

Have a wonderful weekend!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

We switched back to non-fiction texts focused around our science standards on weather patterns. We identified the main topic and shared at least 3 key details about the topic with shoulder partners. We asked and answered a lot of good questions about weather & we're ready to dive deeper next week! I have such FUN things planned for them- it's hard keeping it a surprise!

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonological Awareness: identifying & creating rhyme, segmenting syllables, counting syllables

-Phonemic Awareness: punching out final/ending sounds

-Phonics: ALL letters & sounds. We've really been diving deep into secret stories as we come across words with secrets in them. We've also been discussing heart parts/rule breakers, and schwa sounds in words. We clap the syllables in a word to draw lines for each, use our sounds, identify heart parts, and eventually blend all of that work back together to show how it is decoded. We NEVER guess at a word- we use our phonics skills! :)

-Reading: identifying main topic & key details in non-fiction texts about weather

-Science: recognizing and describing patterns in local weather

-Math: we took our unit 1 test on numbers 0-5! Please review the assessment sent home with the progress report. It was SUCH a "following directions" test & I went back and made sure they followed directions/didn't skip a question/etc... we talked about how sometimes math is a lot of listening and following directions! We also started a geometry unit on 2d and 3d shapes!

-Writing: handwriting lowercase letters & labeling pictures with as many sounds as we hear. For some of them, that's only the initial sound. For some of them, that's first and final sounds. For some of them, it's all the sounds they hear! This is developmental!

FYI/Updates:

-Progress Reports + math tests went home September 30th. Letter names & sounds went home September 23rd. The goal is to have our class know all letters and sounds by Halloween!

-Conferences are October 11 & 13. Please sign up for a time here!

-Save the date: October 29th- we will go on our first field trip to Lone Creek Farms & then will have our costume parade at 3:00. I will need 4 chaperones for the farm, but also believe parents can meet us there and not chaperone if they pay the admission fee. More info. to come!

-TS Gold/Kindergarten Readiness is due October 6th and I have it finished. The reports will go home next week in yellow folders.

-If you have fun run pictures from last week, please email or text them to me! I had a parent ask & I don't have any since I ran with them. (In my SUPER FAST shoes that got a little tired! ha. One of my favorite parts of teaching K is when they come in and show me their new shoes saying, "They're SO FAST!")

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

I know a lot of you appreciate short & sweet, but I just have to take a moment to say how impressed I am with this crew. There's been so many moments where I've looked around the classroom and thought, "it shouldn't be this easy yet." We've only been in school for 25 days and they are becoming so independent and efficient. I've noticed such huge gains in learning already and I hope you're noticing them too!

We switched gears to fall this week & will continue it next week- focusing on apples! Please see the signupgenius if you're willing and able to donate for Monday! One morning, the kids were all testing out their magnetic erasers on different items in the classroom during morning work (completely unprompted) and it shows why we do thematic units! They get so into each unit when all of our day is focused around a subject!

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonemic Awareness: ENDING sounds (we punch them out and they're so good at this, but the next step is saying the first sounds in their head and only saying the ending sound out loud)

-Phonics: ALL letters & sounds! Our goal is to have 100% mastery by Halloween! Their phonics is really differentiated in reading groups.

-Reading: identifying major events in the story & retelling/sequencing!

-Handwriting: ALL capitals (I sent home almost all of their capital pages so you can see- they've made such fine motor growth since those first couple letters!!) We started with magic c this week for lowercase & saw how c turns into so many lowercase letters!

-Math: Comparing numbers within 5 using greater than/more, fewer than/less, equal/same

-Secret Stories: We learned our first phonics secret story this week because /au/ and /aw/ were both in our read aloud titles! We learned that they are in love and when they're next to each other in a word, they hold hands and say "awwww!" s

FYI/Updates:

-If you haven't registered your child on Mybooster.com (see FSE blasts) for the fun run, please do so! I won't push fundraising on you all, but we are working hard to earn money for field trips and it's easy to share the link on social media!

-We had our first lunch bunch on Tuesday and it was the sweetest.

-We earned an art party for fun run pledges & we combined that with making our fun run flag. This crew LOVES to paint and draw. It is so peaceful in here when we do anything artsy!

-Fun Run is Thursday! Our theme is farmers for the pumpkin patch, so have your child dress in that theme (while also wearing clothes they can run in!) Also, please make sure your child has a water bottle & wears sunscreen!

-No school Friday 9/24 (PD day)

-Picture retake day is 9/28!

With SO much love,
Ms. Ham

We had a very hands-on week exploring motion and forces after reading non-fiction texts! We loved experimenting with magnets after reading "Magnets Push, Magnets Pull" and they got to break all sorts of classroom expectations to explore gravity (I let them stand on the chairs to drop things which they thought was pretty great!). This was the first week of an example of our integrated literacy units being focused around science and social studies standards. Every part of our day except for math had to do with pushes and pulls!

Ask Your Child About:

-phonemic awareness: beginning sounds, ending sounds, blending phonemes (/c/ /a/ /t/ = cat)

-phonics: Mm, Aa, Ss, Tt - We do the entire alphabet every single day because Benchmark only does one letter a week which won't address our standards quickly enough, but we "focus" explicitly on the letters I mention in the weekly update!

-reading: I can identify the main topic and retell key details! (our topic was motion & they're getting the hang of remembering details!)

-handwriting: C, O, Q, G, S, A, T, I

-math: writing numerals 0-5, writing numerals for the number of objects counted, "Beat you to Five" game + "Race to Trace" game

-science: Motion & forces!

-SEL: reviewing the parts of the brain: our watchdog (amygdala) and our wise old owl (Prefrontal Cortex) and how they impact our decisions we make! We read "When Sophie Gets Angry... Really, Really Angry" and "How Do Dinosaurs Eat their Food?" to work on mindfulness.

-Book Buddies: We made cards for heroes on Thursday with our 5th grade book buddies. We will read and do other STEM projects with them throughout the year! It is the sweetest and something I really missed when I was at a primary school. The "big" kids are so great with them!

FYI/Updates:

-We officially completed iReady reading + math diagnostic assessments!

-We started short(er) reading groups this week to focus on foundational skills and teach the routines of leaving their center to come to group & then returning to their centers.

-Library books due Monday!

-Pictures went home on Wednesday! You can still order online if you didn't yet!

-Their unit 1 benchmark books came home Tuesday & if you flipped through them, you'll notice we didn't do every page. The books are a supplement to what we're working on, so sometimes we do the activity in the book & sometimes we skip it depending on how appropriate it is for us! :) I promise we're doing BIG things in our room.

-We are moving on to a fall unit next week and will be doing an apple unit the following week! I will ask for apple donations mid-week next week (& volunteers!)- so keep an eye out if you're interested and/or willing.

Have a wonderful weekend!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

We had such a great week centered around "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" We talked about how almost all of us have read that book before, but just like watching our favorite movies, we read our favorite books again and again. We moved onto "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?" and "Baby Bear, Baby Bear, What Do You See?" to hit SO many reading standards! We also created our first class book: "Kindergarten, Kindergarten, What Do You See?" Each kiddo has their own page (name writing practice!) with their picture. The last page is Ms. Ham's Class looking at me!

Next week we move into some science standards with motion & force. The kids saw the hotwheels I had on my table as I was prepping for next week & they're so excited!

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonological Awareness: rhyming

-Phonemic Awareness: identifying beginning sounds, identifying ending sounds

-Phonics: Mm, Ss, Aa, Tt

-Reading: identifying the illustrator and describing what they do! (+ so many more, but that was our target)

-Handwriting: H, K, L, U, V, W, X, Y

-Math: writing numbers 0-5 (see poems for practice at home!)

FYI/Updates:

-No school Monday! (Labor Day)

-I rescheduled our library time next week for Tuesday! Make sure books come back on Tuesday!

-We are good on baby wipes + snacks for a while! Thank you!

-I'm still missing a ton of birthday books! I will be emailing families next week if you haven't turned one in yet. Please!

-We have a lockdown drill on Wednesday next week.

-You can attend our assembly on Friday at 2:50 if you check in at the office first.

-We will start reading groups on Tuesday. Get ready to see your child absolutely take off!

Have a wonderful long weekend!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

I am so proud of these kiddos with five full days of K this week. By the end of the day, they are so tired! It will get easier and just know that if they're having absolute meltdowns at home it's because they love you the most and it's where they feel safest. They work so hard at school and are doing really well validating & regulating their emotions.

We had really great read alouds this week focused around social emotional learning & kindness:

• Jared's Cool Out Space (calm down corner & tools)

• Jabari Jumps (taking risks, trying new things)

• Enemy Pie (making friends)

• Puppy Mind (focusing at school)

• Wordy Birdy (listening)

• Those Shoes (kindness & giving)

We started real academic centers & I'm almost through all of the beginning of year assessments. My goal is to start reading groups either by the end of next week or Tuesday 9/7 when we return from Labor Day!

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonological awareness: rhyming

-Phonemic awareness: beginning sounds

-Phonics: Mm, Ss (m, magnet, /m/) (s, sun, /s/)

-Reading: foundational skills- identifying the author and explaining what an author does (writes the words!)

-Mind Up/SEL : core practice of breathing, Inside Out zones of regulation activity, yoga

-Math: counting to 5 with 1:1 correspondence

-Writing: handwriting frog jump capital letters: E, F, B, D, P, M, N

FYI/Updates:

-Donations: if you are willing & able to donate baby wipes for our tables, we will happily accept them! These kiddos do some damage with their snacks and they aren't allowed to use Clorox wipes.

-Birthday books were due Friday 8/27! We are missing a lot and we have September birthdays coming up.

-Specials: we have art next week!

-Please check yellow folders every night! A lot are coming back with papers that should have stayed at home :)

-I will be out on Tuesday for a training. Please have a conversation to remind your child of expectations with a substitute!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

Well, starting the year off with early dismissals due to the HVAC wasn't exactly ideal, but we were so excited to learn how to do kindergarten life anyway. This crew is super sweet and so eager to learn! We started calendar routines, community circle, brain breaks, and TS Gold activities. We are so good at catching bubbles for the hall and they're already helping me to remember my pink vest and walkie for recess and dismissal!

*I forgot my vest on Thursday morning and asked them to help me remember! It was the perfect opportunity to talk about how grown-ups make mistakes ALL of the time and it is okay! The important part is that we fix them!

Since they're eager to share, we learned to snap our fingers and say "maybe next time!" if we don't get picked to be a helper or share. They clung to this pretty hard, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of you hear it at home too!

We graphed how we felt on our first day of kindergarten and retold the story of The Kissing Hand. We also made Chester the raccoon puppets so I could observe some fine motor skills!

We read some silly stories and started building our classroom community. These first couple weeks may not seem academically rigorous, but I promise you we go slow at first to go fast later. Establishing relationships is so important and they won't learn if they don't feel safe and loved!

Ask Your Child About:

-Reading: What characters were in The Kissing Hand? (Chester, Mama Raccoon) What was the problem with Edward the Emu at the zoo? (He wanted to be the coolest animal at the zoo and pretended to be a seal, a lion, and a snake.) Why did Penelope the dinosaur have a tough time making friends at school? (She kept eating her classmates!)

-TS Gold: What friends did you play with? Did you solve any problems? (They were so good about solving problems or sharing after I introduced purple mustangs!)

-Lunch: Which table do we sit at? (The middle one!) Who helps you at lunch? (Ms. Crystal & Ms. Lindsey)

-Playground: What's the rule for the slides? (Down the slide!)

-Community Circle: Can you show me how you introduce yourself for community circle? ("Hi, my name is ____ and my favorite color is ____.")

FYI/Updates:

-Digital boot camp starts on Monday! The days are themed:

Monday: Sports team day (wear a sports shirt or jersey)

Tuesday: Crazy sock day

Wednesday: Dress for success day

Thursday: Superhero day (no masks or weapons)

Friday: FSE spirit wear day

-PICTURE DAY is Tuesday! Picture order forms will go home on Monday in yellow folders.

-Back to School Night is Thursday @ 5 PM. I really missed getting to know my kiddos' grownups in real life last year, so please try to make it if at all possible!

-Please make sure water bottles are spill-proof! 2 snacks every day please.

-Your child's yellow folder will go back and forth to school every day! Please be sure to check it each night.

-You will need your car tag for dismissal starting on Monday! :)

Have a wonderful weekend!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham