Welcome back!

I hope you all had a nice, relaxing break with your family! We are back in the swing of things up here and have a few reminders for you…

1. Please read below for a quick note from our Principal….
Parents- If your child is a car rider in the mornings, you must wait in the line to drop off your child next to the curb. There is no other drop off area and no crossing guard in the parking lot. As an option, parents may park their cars and walk with their children into the school. Please do not double park on Wade or park close to or in front of the entrance/exit to the parking lot.

Also, it is a State Law that no hand held cell phones may be used with in a school zone. This includes the parking lot at Spears Elementary in the mornings and afternoons.

These procedures are in place to ensure the safety of all students at Spears. If you have questions, please call the school office, 469-633-2900. Thank you for your cooperation.

2. Picture retakes are tomorrow!
If you are getting retakes, please send the original picture packet with your child tomorrow to school (complete with cd if you bought one!). Make sure and let them know to tell me or stick a note in their red folder if they are taking retakes so I will know! Thanks! There are more picture packets in the office if you need to order some more or order retakes.

3. The deadline for our Angel Child is on Wednesday, December 2nd.
If you have gifts or clothes at home please send them with your child or bring them to the office.

4. Only 15 more days until Winter Break!
Can you believe it? We are on the countdown up here!

Mrs. Dooley

Thanksgiving Feast

Whew! What an incredible day we had in Kindergarten! I have so many pictures to share with you. The first set of pictures you'll see are from our Thanksgiving Feast this afternoon. Each child chose whether they were a Pilgrim or Indian, and wore the headband or hat they made. I read them a story and we talked about all of the people and things that we are thankful for this year. It was absolutely precious!

The next set of pictures is from a special writing lesson we did this morning. I invited Camille Bryant from the Literacy Department to come and talk to the kids about organizing their ideas in order to write a story - the very beginning stage of writing. We've talked in class about how stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. Today the kids made up a story and then wrote down (in pictures) the beginning, middle and end to their story. Tomorrow we will finish up the lesson by writing our stories and sharing them with each other. The kids were excellent listeners for our guest!

Enjoy the pictures! I hope this gives you a little glimpse into our day! See you tomorrow at the Turkey Parade! If you want to take your child home after the parade just let me know by writing it in their red folders. I plan on packing the kids up before the parade to help with dismissal. We plan to be done by 2:30 in order to come back to the room and get our things together to take home. When it's over I can send your child to the office to meet you, or have them walk out in the carpool line. If you think your child will need help gathering up all of their things you can come down and help them. Please help us out by not staying in the hallways for too long during dismissal so that we can get all the kids out effectively. Our little friends can get nervous in big crowds and easily get into the wrong line to go home. Again, there will be a lot of people attending so you'll definitely want to be here by 2 to grab a spot against the wall in the hallways. The other grade levels will be sitting against the walls in the cafeteria cheering us on! I can't wait for you to see all of the floats! I have some very creative parents!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you! The holidays are so much fun with little ones!

Pilgrim Stew :-)

Writing Lesson

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Week of Nov.16 - Nov.20

What an exciting week to be in Kindergarten! We are having such a great time learning all about the first Thanksgiving! We made Indian headbands and Pilgrim hats today to get ready for our feast on Thursday. Since we have so many fun lessons and special activities planned I have decided to not have Literacy Centers this week. Instead, the work that comes home this week will be taught in small group or whole group. I will continue to meet with my guided reading groups every day this week.

Today we had a very special lesson with Mrs. Hunt in the computer lab. You'll see the surprise this week! We have worked very hard on this in class!

Tomorrow we will continue learning about Thanksgiving.

On Wednesday afternoon our class will meet with Ms. Sayklay for Guidance. Thanks for sending in Rachel's Challenge links from home!

For Thursday please don't forget to send in your item for our Thanksgiving feast. (You can send it earlier if you'd like.) We will have our very own celebration during snack time as a classroom family. Parents do not attend this celebration. I'll take lots of pictures!

Friday is such a special day for us! The 2nd Annual Turkey Parade is at 2:00. The entire school has been invited so be sure you are here by 2:00. I will not need volunteers so when you come just find your spot in the building. The classes in other grades will sit on the perimeter of the cafe. Parents will be able to line up along the hallways in the front of the school, gym, library area and also in the cafeteria. Get those cameras ready!! If you need a shoebox or potato please let me know! Also, if your child's float is finished you can go ahead and let them bring it early and I'll store it in the room for you - whatever is easiest! Please pass along any pictures you take from the parade so I can submit them for the yearbook and post them here on the blog. We have many parents who will not be able to come to the parade on Friday. I'll be leading the kids around so I will not be able to take pictures. THANKS!

Please let me know if you have any questions! Happy Thanksgiving!

Reminders & Notes about November Activities

A few reminders & tidbits to mark on your calendars and make you aware of...
Our schedule will be extremely busy up here at school til Winter Break so get ready! We have a ton of fun things planned! I'll start with November:

* PTA has the list of winners from the silent auction at the Carnival. They will contact you in the next few days if you are a winner.


* Our word wall words have been updated to include my and pink. We will celebrate our color word by wearing pink on Thursday!


* Tomorrow, Wednesday (11/11/09) the kids will have a visit from the Nutrition Lady. She is going to talk to the kids about nutrition and the food pyramid. You'll see lots of fun papers coming home about healthy food and making good choices when it comes to food!

* I will not be at school on Friday so should you need to get a message to your child just let the front office know. My sub is a regular here at Spears and knows our routine in Kinder so she'll be checking folders and sending home any necessary papers. No sickness - just a little weekend getaway!

I have several really important notes coming home over the next 2 days!

HOLIDAY ANGELS

Tomorrow in your child’s red folder will be information about our classroom Holiday Angel this year! Each year, Spears receives information about families in our district that need extra help around this time of year. Please read over that and see the attached information about our little 4 year old boy! Join me in making his holiday special this year!
Some important information to remember is…
1. Please send the gifts in unwrapped.
2. Please label all gifts with our Angel number.
3. Make sure all gifts are new, not used.

Spears Kindergarten Turkey Parade

You'll get this exciting note tomorrow as well. This is a date to mark on your calendars and get the cameras ready!

Fall Feast

Coming home on Thursday will be a note about our classroom feast. This is an event we'll celebrate as a classroom family. Highlighted on the note will be something we'd like you to send in with your child. If you would like to donate any other item on the list you can just in case someone forgets or is unable. We'll share amongst classrooms if we need to! Thanks for your help!

That's all for the month of November! In between all of this we're continuing Guided Reading and all of our other center work. The kids and I are also working on a nice little surprise to share with you before the Thanksgiving holiday. They are really enjoying learning all about this holiday! Hang in there with the busy schedule and let me know if you have any questions!

Reminders 11/04/09

* The Spears Carnival is this Saturday from 11am-3pm! You can pre order your tickets which saves a lot of time in line on Saturday!
* The silent auction at the carnival is where Bella, our class pet, will be for sale. Bella, the book If You Give a Pig a Party, a scrapbook of the class’ adventure with Bella and a Spears backpack will be auctioned off during the carnival. Also, you can bid on a McDonald’s after school date with yours truly! One afternoon the Kinder teachers will meet the auction winners at McDonald’s for a snack and play time!
* Book orders went home on Monday. I'll place the order next Friday so if you want to order just turn it in by then. Thanks!
* Wear something w-h-i-t-e to celebrate our color word tomorrow!

Have a great night!

Thanksgiving Feast - a note from the cafeteria

Thanksgiving Dinner in the Cafe will be served on 11-19-09. This is not a mandatory event here at Spears. The Spears Cafe just calls it a Thanksgiving Dinner. The Cafeteria staff would like to know how many parents are planning to eat with their child on that day. Please let me know as soon as possible so that I can give them a headcount in case they need to order and make extra food for everyone! If you have any questions please contact the Cafe manager, Melinda Andrews at 469-633-2953. Thanks!

Rock Unit

Have you heard? We are not calling ourselves Kindergarteners this week. We are GEOLOGISTS studying rocks and their properties! So far we have talked about all the great things that are made of rocks. We were so amazed to learn that rocks are all around us - even in our pencils! We can't wait to show you all the fascinating things we are doing with our rocks this week! We are working very hard and know you will be so proud of us! Look for ALL work this Friday!

We can write with rocks!

Let's go find rocks!

I see one! Where? Where?

Over here! Can we go over here?

Rock hunting is awesome!

Can we keep ALL of these?

How many works can we have? This is so much fun!

I found the best spot! Everyone hurry to this tree!

Math Centers

Here's a little glimpse of your kids working in small groups during Math today. They needed to be up and moving (Thank goodness the rain finally disappeared!) so I decided to have a few activities spread around the room for them to rotate and explore. It worked out so well! The kids had a blast and didn't even realize all the learning and practice that was involved! It was so neat to walk around to each group and listen to them sharing and working together. The kids are learning some great social skills!

Center 1 - SORTING: The children used task cards to sort buttons by size, shape, thickness or color.

Center 2 - PATTERNS: The children used books and task cards to complete patterns and build their own using unifex cubes.

Center 3 - GEOMETRIC SHAPES: The children had task cards to follow. They used attributes blocks to build things out of shapes. (owl, sports car, bird, butterfly, just to name a few)

Center 4 - COUNTING WITH A 100 CHART: We have a big one we use for Calendar each morning, but this time each child had their own. Using task cards that told them the directions, the kids counted by 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, and 10s. Their favorite was counting all the way to 100!

Center 5 - MEMORY: What a great game that involves taking turns and working together - all while using those memory skills. A skill needed to learn all their math facts!

Properties of Water Science Experiment

I wanted to post pictures of our Science experiment from last Friday (10/30). It was called Red Droplet Green Droplet. We got to use safety goggles and droppers for the first time as we learned about some properties of water. We discovered that the mysterious red liquid did not have the properties of water and later found out that it was due to the dish soap that was mixed with the liquid. The green liquid moved easily like water on the wax paper and we later learned it was really just water with food coloring. Your children are GREAT scientists!

Andrew & Surina
Marshall & Brandon

Selena & Cole

Ayden & Devin

Kevin & Nathan

Riley Mae & Tristan

Katelynn & Taylor

J'Niya & Kaitlyn

Zoe & Ella