Fill Someone's Bucket

Last month we read the book titled, Have You Filled a Bucket Today?  The idea is that everyone carries around an invisible bucket that holds good thoughts about themselves.  When we show others that we care, we fill their bucket.  When we do so, we feel also feel good, and therefore fill our own bucket.  Showing people you care can be as simple as saying hello.  It can be making a card or saying "I like the way you play basketball."  The possibilities are endless.  We also talked about how people sometimes dip into someone's bucket by calling them names or ignoring them.  We decided as a class we want to be "bucket fillers" and not "bucket dippers."  Students are encouraged to "fill someone's bucket" throughout the day by writing a message to a someone on a raindrop in our classroom bucket.

Literacy Kits and Take Home Books

We will begin our Take Home Book Program and Weekend Literacy Kits in January.

Take Home Book Program

Beginning the second week of January, your student will receive a take home book each Monday, along with a class response journal. This will be part of their weekly homework.  The aim of this program is to support family literacy and develop reading comprehension. By reading aloud and with your children, you are helping them in significant ways.

-When you hold them and give them your attention, they know you love them.

-Reading to them will encourage them to read.

-Books are one way of passing on your moral values to your children. Readers know how to put themselves in another's shoes.

-When students are exposed to stories of multiple reading levels they gain a stronger understanding of story structure and language.

-Exposure to lots of literature builds their vocabulary and decoding skills. Most importantly, it helps them build positive associations with reading. 

Please carefully read the introduction letter that will go home with the first book bag so you know how to make the most of the book bags and help your child complete the assignment.  Please also remember to include the time spent reading these books into your child's monthly reading log.

Optional Weekend Literacy Kits

We are also beginning our Weekend Literacy Kit program in January.  You may remember signing up for this program at Back-to-School Night.  You see when your child is scheduled for a kit at the classroom website.*  This optional program allows students to take home a themed kit packed with quality books and family activities.  The goal of this program is to promote literacy as a fun family activity.  Your child will receive their kit on his/her scheduled Thursday and return it the following Monday.  Please help ensure that all the contents are returned to the kit in good quality so the next family may enjoy them.

*If you are scheduled to get the "Under the Sea" kit, please consider picking your child up in a car that day, as the kit is a bit cumbersome and may be difficult to walk home with.

Writing

Students have begun to write in their school journals more.  At this point in the year, students are learning to write using inventive spelling.  Students are encouraged to just write the sounds that they hear in the words. Research shows that this is a developmental stage in writing which helps students learn to read and write independently.  At this stage in their writing, it is okay that they do not spell words correctly.  It is important to allow them to experiment with the sounds in words to learn to read and write.  We only want to hold them accountable for what they have learned so they feel empowered and not overwhelmed when writing.  The English language has so many rules and exceptions to rules in spelling that they will learn as it becomes more developmentally appropriate.  You can help by encouraging them to write notes, letters, lists, and stories at home. They might even be motivated to keep their own at home journal.  At this point, the letters that students should be able to recognize and tell you the sound for are s, m, r, t, b, n, h, a, v, and c.  Please let me know if you have any questions about inventive spelling.
 

Math Update

Along with exploring shapes, students explored sorting and patterning in December.   The objectives were...


-To sort objects by size, shape, and color.
-To determine their own way to sort objects and explain how they sorted them.
-To identify a pattern and extend a pattern.
-To create their own pattern.
-To translate a pattern (ex: red, red, blue, red, red, blue------> A, A, B, A, A, B).

You can continue their learning at home by encouraging them to sort socks, coins, or toys and making patterns out of them.

We also continue to explore numbers 0-10 with various hands-on Marcy Cook games in which they have to order numbers, play logic games, and find numbers on a 1-30 chart.  Please continue to practice these numbers at home. Students can count items around home to continue to strengthen this skill.

Paul Klee and Eric Carle Art

Students examined the contrasting colors of Paul Klee's Golden Fish.  They then used crayon resist along with Eric Carle's techniques of creating textured papers and collages to recreate their own Paul Klee art.

Here is Paul Klee's Golden Fish.

Here are some student re-imaginations.

Eric Carle Unit

Before break, we finished our Eric Carle unit in language arts. Through this unit, students learned...

-Authors and illustrators are real people who often draw inspiration from daily life.

-About the process that authors and illustrators go through to publish a book.

-The reading comprehension strategy of Questioning.  We created “I wonder” statements as we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Mister Seahorse. “I wonder” statements are a starting point for asking meaningful questions as we read. Readers who ask questions are not only more engaged as they read, they also form more meaning as they strive to find answers to their own questions.

-The reading comprehension strategy of Retelling/Summarizing.   As we read Papa, Please Get the Moon For Me, we talked about how good readers stop during their reading to reflect on what has already happened and make predictions, so they better remember the story.  We also talked of the importance of retelling stories in our culture.

-The reading comprehension strategy of Schema.  Good readers draw on background knowledge to better understand the story.  For this strategy, we used the book Pancakes, Pancakes.  However, before we read, we made pancakes in the Discovery Room from scratch.  This helped students build their schema so when we read Pancakes, Pancakes we were able to make real world connections and better understand the reading.

Integrating art into this unit was easy, as Eric Carle is renown for his artwork.  We watched a video on Eric Carle's technique of making textured paper and collages.  Inspired by Eric Carle, we made our own collages to create our own version of Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?  Below are some excerpts from our class book.

Ms. Patel's Second Solo Week

Ms. Patel successfully completed her second solo week in November.  During her second solo week, Ms. Patel...

-Reviewed previously taught consonants with students through various games and practice lessons.

-Developed student's self-esteem with an "I Like Me" unit.  

-Taught students to identify and tell about the following shapes: rectangle, square, triangle, and circle.  Students compared and contrasted shapes and told the characteristics needed for a shape to be classified as a rectangle, square, triangle, or circle.  They concluded the week by making "Shape Monsters."

During this time, Ms. Patel was also busy finishing up her classes at SJSU.  She has now earned her credential and we wish her the best in her future as a teacher.  She hopes to visit the classroom a few times before the school year is over.

Mrs. Patel's Solo Week

Our San Jose State University student teacher, Mrs. Patel, has been doing a wonderful job assisting student learning in Room 36.   She recently completed her PACT, which is a requirement for all teaching credential candidates.  She did a wonderful job teaching students about the letter T.  The students enjoyed her interactive and fun lessons and were very well behaved.  One of her last requirements in the credential program is to teach the class for two weeks on her own.  


Her first week will begin on November 1st.  Her second solo week will begin on November 28th.  I am confident that she will do a wonderful job.  She deeply cares for each and every student.  She will continue to follow the curriculum that I have laid out and will use the strategies and techniques observed in Room 36, as well as those taught at SJSU, to best meet the needs of your students during those two weeks.  


If you have any questions during the week of November 1st or 14th, feel free to direct them toward Mrs. Patel or email me.  I will be on campus and communicating with Mrs. Patel daily about student progress and behavior.

iPod Touches

This month, we began using iPod Touches in Literacy Centers.  iPod Touches provide students with tactile opportunities to learn penmanship, sounds, letters, and words.  The students are highly engaged by the colorful animations and immediate feedback that the iPod Touches provide.   Eventually, they will be part of our Literacy Center routine, and students will have 15 minutes of access to them once a week.  If you are curious about the iPod Touch program at Eisenhower, or want to know about the games that they are playing, feel free to visit the following website:  http://www.cupertino.k12.ca.us/eisenhower.www/.

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?

Last week we asked, "How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin?" On Wednesday, we looked at three different sized pumpkins and guessed which pumpkin had the most seeds. Most students guessed that the biggest pumpkin, had the most seeds. Which one would you guess had the most seeds?



We then cut open the pumpkins and dug out the slime, stings, and of course, seeds! We were left with 30 messy hands!  That afternoon, I washed all the seeds and placed all of the seeds next to their matching pumpkin.  The next day, students estimated how many seeds they saw.  Then, we worked together to count the seeds by groups of ten.  We learned that size may not matter.  The biggest did not have the most seeds.  The middle sized pumpkin actually had the most seeds.  Below are pictures of some of the results.  Unfortunately, I did not photograph the biggest pumpkin.

Animals 2 x 2

Eisenhower is lucky to have a wonderful hands-on science program, called FOSS, which is developed by the University of California.  Our first science unit was Animals 2 x 2.  In this unit, students are taught and expected to...

• Develop a curiosity and interest in the living world around them.
• Observe and describe the structures of a variety of common animals—fish, snails, earthworms, isopods, and chicks.
• Compare structures and behaviors of different pairs of animals.
• Observe interactions of animals with their surroundings.
• Communicate observations and comparisons.
• Acquire the vocabulary associated with the structure and behavior of animals.
• Handle animals carefully, and participate in the care and feeding of classroom animals.

As you may have remembered from a previous post, we started our unit by observing red worms, which we later put to work in our worm bin.  After the worms, we observed goldfish and guppies.

On day 1, we observed their structure and recorded our observations in our science notebook.  We also formed "I wonder..." statements (questions) about fish and read a non-fiction book to find some answers.

On day 2, we talked about what fish need to survive.  We learned about responsibility and made sure that our fish were comfortable and well taken care of.

On day 3, we introduced a tunnel into the fish tank and observed their behavior.

On day 4, we observed guppies and recorded our observations with sketches in our science notebook.  We noticed how they were similar to goldfish and how they were different.

After observing worms and fish, we decided to observe even more animals!  What about insects and spiders?  Fortunately, one of my father's past hobbies was to encase insects and spiders in plastic.  He was happy to share his collection with the kindergarteners so they could compare and contrast insects and spiders.  We are still studying the differences.  I was amazed at the detail that the kindergarteners included in their insect sketches.

Uesugi Farm Field Trip

On October 7th, we joined the other kindergarten classes for our first field trip of the year!  We excitedly loaded our bus for Usegui Farm in San Martin.  Being the first school bus experience for many students, this was a very thrilling part of the trip!  However, the farm experience eventually did outweigh the fun of the bus trip.  Below are pictures of some of the highlights of the pumpkin patch.

 The infamous pumpkin pyramid with the golden "Pumpkin King" on the very top.

 View of the corn maze.

 As we wandered through the corn maze, we stopped to read signs showing interesting facts about bees. Bees play a very important role in the life cycle of the pumpkin.

 No wonder we did not get any pumpkins in our garden this year!  We need to attract more bees!

 After the maze, students walked through a "lab" depicting all the different stages of pumpkin growth.

 First, there are the seeds.

Then, come the first leaves.

 Then, come the flowers.  A flower needs to be pollinated at least 15 times before it can grow a pumpkin.  That is why bees are so important! 

Then, comes a little green pumpkin.  Can you find it? 

Finally, the little green pumpkin grows into a big orange pumpkin! 

Below are some views from the train ride.