Rockin' Readers!!!

Today we kicked off our Read-a-Thon with the theme, Reading Rocks!!!  We had an assembly to hear all about the great prizes we can win.  If we make our goal, Mrs. Bowman and Mr. Tinjum will sumo wrestle!!! 

We watched Mrs. Huettl perform as part of the Rockin' Readers teacher dance group.

After the assembly, we kept our momentum going and read with our buddies.  All minutes read at home and at school count towards our Read-a-Thon goal.

Our Mystery Letter today was the letter J,j.  We decorated our letters with jewels of all different shapes and sizes.

We are working on patterns in math.  We have four different pattern tubs that we are working through.  Students make patterns using pattern blocks:

Links:

Snap Cubes:

Each student will create their very own pattern book using Bingo Daubers.  I will be holding onto these books as an assessment piece and will send them home at a later date.

I hope you all have an amazing weekend and make sure to Read, Read, Read!!!  The first orange slip will be collected on Monday!

Love,
Mrs. Huettl

Wow!  What a day!

First of all, Happy 6th Birthday to our friend, Dylan!!!

This morning we finished our centers from yesterday.  I didn't have a picture of the balloon covered B,b from yesterday, so here it is:

We also practiced building our reading stamina.  We did such an amazing job!  We were able to read for 3 minutes without any distractions today!!!  We could have gone even longer, but we want to take it one step at a time. 

We had SMART time today and ended our time with the World Record Jammin' Minute.  If you would like to see what we did during the Jammin' Minute, you can look on Ms. Westman's webpage.  You can find it on the Somerset Website under academics, specialists, phy. ed.

This afternoon we had the honor of celebrating the life of George Lowe.  Mr. Lowe was a teacher in District #197 as well as a long time volunteer firefighter for the city of Mendota Heights.  Mr. Lowe passed away this week and the fire department requested that the students of Somerset come outside and be a part of his funeral procession.  We talked about how we were celebrated the life of a great man who made wonderful contributions to our community.  You could have heard a pin drop throughout the procession.  All the students were so respectful and you could tell by the tears in the eyes of the family how much our presence was appreciated. 

After the procession, we came inside to work on both our Mystery Letter D,d and our journals, so we were busy! 

Tomorrow is the Read-a-Thon Kickoff at 8:00 am.  Please make sure your child is to school on time, so that we can walk down to the gym together.  This is a very exciting assembly that includes a performance from the teacher dance group, The Rockin' Readers.  Mrs. Huettl just may be a part of that group....  All Read-a-Thon information will be sent home in Friday Folders tomorrow.

Enjoy your evening!

Love,
Mrs. Huettl

Centers

Good Afternoon!  Today was an exciting day because we started our centers for the first time!  Each week we will have four centers that students will rotate through over the course of two days.  This week we used our centers to catch up on our Mystery Letters. 

We decorated letter H,h by poking holes into the letter with paper punches. 

We decorated our B,b with colorful balloons.  Students only made one Mystery Letter today depending on the stations they went to, so check for the other Mystery Letter tomorrow. 

At the two remaining stations we used rip art to decorate an apple.  We will be using this apple to illustrate our apple poem from last week. 

We also used the laptop computers today!  We each have our own account on abcmouse.com, a fun interactive educational sight that you may have seen advertised on the Disney channel.  This sight offers a free subscription to public school teachers, so each student has their own individualized learning path that we will work on during our weekly centers. 

During SMART time today we added a few new activities.  We worked on our lower back muscles and pretended to fly like superman. 

We also had "hot lava letters" added to the balance beam.  We had to step over these letters while saying the letter name. 

We also practiced reading some of the teen numbers while making a table with our backs.  In the fine motor area, we traced different lines with dry erase markers and used some fall lacing cards.

This afternoon we worked on finishing our science notebook entries about the Dodge Nature Center and wrote in our journals. 

Tomorrow will be an exciting day!  We are participating in the world record Jammin' Minute at 10:00am!  Check our gym teacher, Ms. Westman's website on the Somerset page to see the Jammin' Minute.

Have a great night! 

Love,
Mrs. Huettl

Field Trip

Today was an "out of the ordinary" day!  We went to the Dodge Nature Center this morning.  First, we went inside and talked about parts of the trees and what trees need to survive.  We even got to dress Ellie up as a tree! 

Then we ventured outdoors and split into two groups.  We went on a nature hike looking for different trees and seeds.

We joined back up into one big group and played a game where we each a card with a picture on it.  We we got to run around and then go to a base.  The goal was to get all five things we need for a tree on each base: seed, soil, air, water, and sun.

Of course, we had to pose for a class picture!!!

This afternoon we had Spanish and Computer classes right after lunch, and then Mr. Tinjum came in for our Kindness lesson that we missed this morning.  By the time we were done with all these special activities, we had just enough time for choice time, and then we had to wrap up our day!

We will be extra busy tomorrow...the plan is to work on two Mystery Letters!

Have a great night!

We Are Readers!

This morning we began building stamina with our reading.  We talked about what to do when we "Read to Self" and we had some friends show us what to do and also what NOT to do!  Here is a poster of our expectations:

Today, our goal was to read for one minute without breaking our stamina.  That meant no talking or getting up and moving around.  Just sitting with a good book.  We talked about how we can read the words, read the pictures, or use the pictures to make up our own story.  We were successful!  We read for one minute today!  Next time, we will go for two minutes.  When we reach 7-10 minutes of reading, Mrs. Huettl will start pulling small guided reading groups!

Our Mystery Letter today was the letter F,f.  We glued feathers onto our letters, which is no easy task! 

We had to lift our fingers off our papers slowly, or we took our feathers with us!

During science today we talked about the different parts of a tree.  Then we labeled a tree picture in our science notebook, just like scientists do!  I think we have a good start on our tree knowledge, and we will be ready for the Dodge Nature Center tomorrow!

This afternoon we worked in our journals, and then Mrs. Huettl gave us the last couple of minutes to share our journals with a partner.  It was fun to show and be proud of our work, as well as get new ideas from our friends.

Tomorrow we are leaving for the Dodge Nature Center at 8:45.  Please dress for the weather.  We will be spending a lot of time outdoors!

Have a great evening!

Love,
Mrs. Huettl 

Apple Day

Good Afternoon!

We had so much fun in kindergarten today.  You could tell on the kids faces as they left the room, that we had a great day together!

This morning during snack we taste tested apples.  We tried red, green, and yellow apples.  They were delicious!!

Now we are working on a predictable chart for the type of apples we like best.  This chart will be hung up in our classrooms for students to practice their reading and tracking using pointers!

We met with our 2nd grade buddies this morning and discussed our favorite things to do at home and at school. Then we drew pictures of these activities!

During math today we worked on making goofy patterns with sound and movement.  Here is a video of one of our patterns!

Our Mystery Letter today was the letter E,e.  We added elephants and erasers to our letters to represent both sounds.

This afternoon we had a bus evacuation drill so that we know what to do if an emergency were ever to take place on the bus.  Even students that do not ride the bus to school took part in this drill, because we will all be riding the bus to the Dodge Nature Center on Tuesday!!!

Have a wonderful and relaxing weekend!

Love,
Mrs. Huettl