Upcoming Career Day! :)

CAREER DAY!!!

Oostburg Elementary will host its 2014 Career Day the morning of May 14th.  We would love for you to consider sharing your unique career experiences with our K-5th grade students!  We are looking for volunteers to present an interactive/hands-on 20 minute experience to introduce your career to spark an interest in our students’ future career goals.  Students would love to see any equipment you use and or receive any handouts to take home with them.  The program will run from 8:30 (set-up) to around 10:15 (3 rotations of 20 minutes from 9:00-10:00).       

If you would be interested in volunteering, please contact Matt Heinen at matt.heinen@oostburg.k12.wi.us.  Thank you for your consideration!  

Publishing Party & 100s Day Pictures

Publishing Party and 100s Day Project Pictures!

Enjoy pictures from a Publishing Party and some 100s Day Projects! :)

Publishing Party - TOMORROW!

Publishing Party

In our writer’s workshop lessons, we have been discussing how writers fix up, edit, and “fancy up” writing.  Tomorrow we will be having an Author’s Celebration!  We have been writing lots of great “How-To” papers and have been creating one masterpiece to share.  During our party, children will first read into a circle of their classmates, and then share their entire piece with a smaller group.  After a toast of juice, they will spend some time snacking and talking over our writing so far in our room!  It is a celebration of the hard work and time that they have put into their writing.

Friday, January 31^st we would like the students to dress up for the party.  This is a publishing party just like real authors do and we want the children to see how important their success in writing is.

Thank you for all of your support!

Hundreds Homework

Hundreds Homework

The "Hundredth Day of School" is coming up!  We are planning a big celebration and this homework assignment is in preparation for the giant event!

Here's what to do:
1. Brainstorm things you and your family could easily collect in quantities of 100.
2. Choose something from your list and gather 100 of that item.  It may be a collection you already have or a new collection.  Collections may include toothpicks, stickers, Cheerios, buttons, pennies, legos, etc.  The more creative, the better! :)
3. Design a unique way to display your collection!
4. Be sure you have counted exactly 100 of your item in your display.
5. Bring your collection to school by Tuesday, February 11th. 

We can't wait to see your collection!

~ Kindergarten Team

 

 

Arctic Animal Study

 

 

Arctic Animal Study

 

Look at what we have been learning about Arctic Animals! 

We have been specifically studying reindeer, penguins, and polar bears!

 

Readers Workshop

·         Generating questions about arctic animals using the words who, what, where, when, why, and how and then using non-fiction texts, magazines, and videos to find answers to our questions

·         Identifying unknown vocabulary in our non-fiction books, learning the vocabulary by turning to the glossary, then using the vocabulary in our partnership conversations

·         Describing what reindeer, polar bears, and penguins CAN, HAVE, and ARE

·         Learning words with multiple meanings (buck &  buck, heard & herd, pray & prey) and thinking about other multiple meaning words we already know 

·         Talking about what these word endings mean (-s, -ed, -less, -ful)

·         Using KWL charts to decide what we already KNOW about the animal, what we WANT to know about the animal, and then what we LEARNED

·         Identifying the main topic and key details of a nonfiction text

·         Describing the features of a fiction vs. non-fiction text

·         Comparing two non-fiction texts in a T-chart

·         Identifying major events in a story

·         Retelling stories with key details using the words beginning, middle, and end

·         Summarizing a story

·         Thinking aloud about characters, setting, and major events

      ·         Recognizing and producing rhyming words
      ·         Making text to self, text to text, and text to world connections from our
           books as well as telling why a part in the book is our favorite

·         Increasing our stamina to read independently for 40+ minutes

·         Using our strategies to decode tricky words in our leveled books (Ask your kids what these mean! :)   )
- Eagle Eyes
     - Lips the Fish
     - Stretchy the Snake
      - Skippy Frog/Kangaroo
     - Peekin' Poodle
     - Flippy the Dolphin

Writers Workshop

We have been writing "How To" papers that teach our reader something we have expertise in!  Each of our papers includes specific steps that teach, numbered steps, a picture for each step, and labels that teach.  We have been including teaching diagrams in our writing and have also been practicing using the words you, first, next, then, finally, etc. in our papers.  With partners, we have been revising our steps so that they are both clear and specific, and also in sequential order.     

 

Here are items that we are continually working on to improve! :)

·         Re-reading our pages to add more sounds or vowels

·         Using finger spaces! (If the word includes 2 or more letters, it needs a space after it)

·         Using "storytelling" words (juicy words!) that make our details more exciting

·         Writing in complete sentences

·         Increasing our stamina to write for 40+ minutes independently

·         Including a vowel in each word we write

·         Including correctly spelled snap words in our writing

·         Including motion, emotion, and speech bubbles across our pages to make our writing more exciting for others to read

·         Increasing our stamina while writing independently

·         Giving our writing partners helpful feedback by providing them with ideas to make their writing more readable

·         Using ending punctuation

·         Using only capital letters for the beginning letter of a sentence and names

·         Using a checklist to evaluate our writing

 

 

 

                                            Snap Words!

Keep practicing your 37 snap words!  These snap words are found regularly in our leveled reading books and words we frequently write in our papers! :)

 

 

 

 

Math 

 

·         Addition problems

·         Naming shapes

·         Telling about shapes and comparing them

·         Counting and making sets

·         Identifying numbers 0-30

·         Writing numbers 0-20

·         Counting by 1's to 100

·         Counting by 10's to 100