Speech & Language:  This week we will be practicing multisyllabic words.  We will be making a watermelon and enjoy a snack of watermelon squares contributed by Farrah!

Sharing: The Tiggers will share this week.  It is our last sharing assignment of the year!  Children will share about their summer plans so you can include maps, photos, drawings, etc.

It is hard to believe there are only 29 more days of school!  This year has flown by and the children have grown so much.  We have a lot packed into the last few weeks of school including playing on our improved playground and in our fantastic playhouse!

Thank you to those who helped with the Silent Auction by donating items, time and by attending the event.  It was a fun evening and I enjoyed seeing so many Room K families in attendance!

This week we will continue with our Sight Word Books and Journal writing.  The children have become very independent while working on their Morning Work each morning and are taking pride in their work.  We have been enjoying reading games including Sight Word Soup!  Easel painting has been a big success too.

In math we are focusing on problem solving skills and expanding our mathematical thinking by figuring out ways to solve problems such as with manipulatives, drawing pictures and working with partners.

We are going to be creating a sea life mural by adding to a background with student made fish, sea stars and other sea life.  This is all in preparation for our upcoming field trip to the Santa Monica Aquarium

Our schedule this week will be:
Monday:  Let's Find Out! magazine
Tuesday:  Speech & Language, PE, gardening
Wednesday:  Art Trek, Yoga, Council
Thursday:  Easel Painting, PE
Friday:  Planet Bravo, Sharing, Homework Review, Library, Big Buddies

Remember to Vote in this important election for School Board on or before May 16!  It is critical!

Thank you all for everything you do to create an amazing learning environment in Room K!
Mrs. W.

Speech & Language:  This week we will practice the blend /dge/.  We will make jelly fish and enjoy jelly sandwiches contributed by Sophie!

Sharing: The Eeyores will share this week.

I would like to give a huge thank you to Harry, Damien, Nick, Jamie, Andy, and other crew members for completing the task of building our new playhouse in just 3 days!  This week it will be varnished and then it will be ready to go!  The children are beyond excited and have been watching the entire process.  We have the most amazing village working together to enrich our children's growth through play.  Thank you!

This week we will be reading and writing!  We will practice our "perfect printing" and begin new Morning Work that includes language arts and math.  The children are becoming independent workers and are learning to ask their peers for help, giving some children a chance to take on leadership roles.  They are gaining pride in completing work to the best of their ability.

We will continue our math journals and enrich both reading and math with games and manipulatives.

The children enjoyed the addition of easel painting and we will continue that on Thursdays during reading rotations.

We will be doing some planting for special Mother's Day Surprises and continuing our gardening with Eric on Tuesday afternoons.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the Silent Auction this Friday evening!  It should be a fun event for all!

We are enjoying the lovely Spring weather and the comfortable days with our Room K family.
Thank you for all of your support and help in Room K,
Mrs. W.

Speech & Language:  This week we will practice the sound of /B/.  We will make butterflies and our snack of bananas will be provided by Nico!

Sharing:  The Tiggers will share their Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes this week.

Spell Check:  Congratulations to Room K for 100% participation in this year's Spell Check!  We did a great job raising money to support our school and most importantly, 11 of our Room K students scored 100% on their Spell Check.  I got many comments during the day about the great work we do in Room K!  Thank you for your support.

Hooray!  Our new playhouse has arrived!  It will be assembled by a team of devoted parents headed by Harry (Sophie's dad) and we cannot wait to enjoy it!  Huge thanks to those who have offered to build the playhouse and for those who contributed to this ambitious Doners Choose project.  It has been my dream for years to enhance our kindergarten playground and this amazing playhouse is a great start.

Here is an image of the playhouse. 


Readers:
As many of you know, we have completed our Letter People books.  Many of the children are emerging as readers now and some are fluent readers.  We will continue to differentiate language arts in order to meet each child's needs.  Some children dictate their words and sentences to us, we use highlighter for some children so that they can write their own words, some write with a little spelling assistance and others write on their own with some "invented" spelling.  The most important thing is that all children feel like writers and feel that they are making progress.  The "perfect printing" practice has made the children more aware of the necessity of legible printing and all of the children are happy when their stories are read aloud to the class.

We will continue with our rhyming books for a few more weeks and we will continue journal writing.  We have added easy reader books, moved up a level on our Starfall program and are adding story writing to our illustrations.

Art:
This week we will add easel painting on Thursdays.  Thanks to Koren and Vikki, our Thursday volunteers, we will transition from Letter People to outdoor easel painting.  Each group will rotate through the outdoor art station and have an opportunity to paint.  We will begin to prepare the paints and other materials on Monday, the 17th and Tuesday the 18th.  We will have paint cups, our paint aprons, large paper, brushes and of course the easels.  This will be a complete center and we can add additional days for painting once we get it going.

We still have a couple more Art Trek lessons with our wonderful Art moms, Laura, Maribel and Pearl.  Beginning in late April early May we will be studying ocean habitats to prepare for our field trip to the Santa Monica Aquarium and our study of our impact on our environment.  We will be transforming our classroom into an underwater scene and tidepool environment while we learn about different ocean animals and fish.

Guest Readers and Morning Fun:
It has been so fun in Room K in the morning between 8:00-8:15 (or so).  It feels like a party with our Room K family congregating to support the children as they transition from home to school, from play to "work" (their school day).  Many of you have had the opportunity to observe your children interact in the school environment, to chat with each other and me in a casual atmosphere and to look around the classroom at the work we are doing in class.  This is one of my favorite things about Room K!  We have also had many "guest readers."  A "guest reader" is a parent who reads a story to the class first thing in the morning.  It can be a story from our class library or your child can select a favorite story and you can read it to the class.  The children love hearing different voices read and they love hearing the variety of stories.  This is a quick and simple way to be involved in our class!

Thank you all for your support, involvement and commitment to your children!
It shows!
Best wishes,
Mrs. W.

Speech & Language:  This week we will be practicing the sound of initial /s/.  We will make a snake charmer and our snack of snap peas ( a favorite!) will be contributed by Ms. Youmna!

Sharing:  The Winnie-the-Poohs will share this week.  Remember, this month the sharing topic is Mother Goose Rhymes.  Please have your child prepare to present their favorite rhyme.  They can dress in a costume, use puppets, drawings or props to enhance their presentations.