Muffins with Mom

Tomorrow morning is Muffins with Mom!  If you have not yet send in your RSVP and you plan on coming, please visit the Thursday folder.  You will be sent to a link on how to sign up.

http://www.cedarburg.k12.wi.us/cms_files/resources/PTO%20-%20MUFFINS%20WITH%20MOM%20AND%20MATH1.pdf

See you tomorrow morning!

Thorson Cares

Thorson's Student Council is doing their spring fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project.  This week, students are able to help in a variety of ways.

1. All week students are able to bring in a $1 to be a part of a gift basket raffle.  In this gift basket there are a number of gift cards to places like Cherry Berry, Target, Dicks, etc.  All the money collected will go to the Wounded Warrior Project.

2. Students in our class should bring in pennies.  These pennies will be counted and given to our student council to give to the Wounded Warrior Project.

3. Students are able to bring in their favorite stuffed animal on Wednesday if they donate a $1 to the Wounded Warrior Project.

4. Students are able wear a hat on Friday if they donate a $1 to the Wounded Warrior Project.

Thank you for all your support in this matter!  Let's show that Thorson Cares!

Please Bring In Pennies This Week!

In our Everyday Math Series, there is a lesson on Class Collections.  Students are asked to collect a specific item and bring it to school.  As a class we will be able to a variety activities with our collection.  For example:

1. We will be able to group the items by 10

2. Periodically weigh the collection a scale

3. Use tally marks to keep track of our collection

4. Use collection date to generate number stories.

I would like our class to collect pennies.  I would love for our kindergarten class to help out the Thorson Student Council with their Spring Fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project.  Our pennies will be able to be used as a learning tool AND they will go a great cause.

I know that there will also be lots of other special fundraising events to help the Wounded Warrior Project in the next few weeks so I understand if you do not wish to participate in bringing in pennies.  However, if you are willing to help out, please send in pennies with your child starting next week Monday, April 28- Friday, May 2nd.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks so much!

Take care,

Mrs. Rocky

PALS testing on Wednesday, April 30

It is time for your child to participate in the Spring PALS test.  This is a state mandated test helps provide me with information on your your child performs in fundamental reading skill areas that help with the skill of reading.

I will be testing your child ALL DAY on Wednesday, April 30th.  Please be sure that your child is HERE at school ON TIME on this day.  I would appreciate that all appointments and vacation days be planned for another day. 

For more information on PALS, please feel free to visit the following website.

http://www.palswisconsin.info/parents.shtml

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you for your support!

Wear Yellow Tomorrow

Last day of Earth Week tomorrow!  

Please wear YELLOW tomorrow for our walking school bus.

Mrs. Rocky will be at Hefner's tomorrow morning if you want to meet to walk to school. 

 Other locations are Georgetown Park and Lion's Park.  

Please look on Thorson's Thursday Folder page for more information.

Newsletter-Our Week In Review

Dear Parents,

Welcome back from Spring Break!  Everyone appears refreshed and happy to be back!  We are enjoying a week of celebrating "Earth Week" with recognizing the value of recycling, reusing and reducing.

Com. Arts:

Our unit the next three weeks is "Amazing Creatures". The theme for this week is "Interesting Insects".  Our big book is "Beetles" and our guided readers are: "Bugs", "Insects" and "About Insects".  We are focusing on the letters: "G,g and W,w" . As always we continue to review all letters and star words.  We also continue to work on phonemic isolation, blending and segmentation.  The strategy this week is asking questions and the skills are classifying and categorizing. 

Writing:

We continue to write daily and integrate our writing into science, math, art and journaling.  The students look forward to making books and are spending most of their "rest" time writing, on I-Pads or computers. 

Math:

We are working on money, time, problem solving and story problems.  We also try to incorporate journals and games played with partners as much as possible. 

Reminders:

April 24th is "Fine Arts" night at Thorson School.  It is a night that showcases the beautiful art our students have completed and their musical talents as well.

April 25th is "Walk to School" day.  Please note the three locations on the Thorson website. 

Thank you for all of your support!

Have a great weekend!

The Kindergarten Teachers

Wear White Tomorrow

Earth Week Continues!

Please wear WHITE tomorrow to celebrate Earth Week.

Pennies for a Great Cause

In our Everyday Math Series, there is a lesson on Class Collections.  Students are asked to collect a specific item and bring it to school.  As a class we will be able to a variety activities with our collection.  For example:

1. We will be able to group the items by 10

2. Periodically weigh the collection a scale

3. Use tally marks to keep track of our collection

4. Use collection date to generate number stories.

I would like our class to collect pennies.  I would love for our kindergarten class to help out the Thorson Student Council with their Spring Fundraiser for the Wounded Warrior Project.  Our pennies will be able to be used as a learning tool AND they will go a great cause.

I know that there will also be lots of other special fundraising events to help the Wounded Warrior Project in the next few weeks so I understand if you do not wish to participate in bringing in pennies.  However, if you are willing to help out, please send in pennies with your child starting next week Monday, April 28- Friday, May 2nd.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks so much!

Take care,

Mrs. Rocky

Writing acrostic poems with our 3rd grade buddies

We wrote spring poems with our 3rd grade buddies. It was a lot of fun thinking of words that remind us of spring!

Book Orders Due Thursday!

Shop Online: scholastic.com/readingclub
One-Time Class Activation Code: HFYK6

Dear Families,

You can shop and submit your order online or return the printed order form with payment directly to me. No matter how you order, every purchase you make earns FREE Books and educational supplies for our classroom.  Book orders and payment are due on Thursday, April 24th!

The arrival of the book box is always a highlight-thanks for making it happen!

Happy reading,
Mrs. Rocky


Ordering online is fast and easy:

 VISIT scholastic.com/readingclub
 ENTER the one-time Class Activation Code (top of this letter)
 SHOP from a carefully curated selection of the best books, value packs, and Storia eBooks
 SUBMIT your order and earn FREE Books for our classroom
 All book orders will be shipped to our classroom so we can celebrate the joy of reading together!

Earth Week- Wear Green Tomorrow!

We are continuing with Earth Week!  

Tomorrow, Tuesday, April 22nd, please wear GREEN to school.

Graphing with jelly beans

Tying Shoes!

Looking for something to do in the airport?  Looking for something to do on that long car ride to Grandma's house?  Looking for something to do over Spring Break?

Try practicing tying shoe laces!  We would love it if EVERYONE in our kindergarten class would be able to tie their own shoes!

We are excited for more friends to join Club Laces!

Earth Week Celebration

When we all return from spring break, it will be Earth Week at Thorson.  

Please check in the Thursday folder for more details.  I will also do my best to remind all of you what special things will happen at school.

On Monday, April 21st, please wear BLUE to school.

Measuring with jelly beans!

The Easter Bunny came to visit us!!

Happy!

We had a a little dance break yesterday morning.  The kiddos wanted me to share this video with all of you on our classroom blog.  Enjoy!

Newsletter-Our Week In Review

Dear Parents,

We have had a busy and exciting week with anticipation of the spring break and warmer weather!  The students are enjoying being outside without all the gear!  We still ask that they bring a light jacket as the temperatures do change quickly.

Com. Arts:

Our theme this week is "What's in my Garden?". We have been reading about what is needed for plants to grow and how to care for them.  Our theme book is "Sunflower House" and the guided readers are: "It Was Here", "I Like This Flower" and "Kim's Garden".  Our letter is "U,u" and "K,k" and the star words are a review of little, said, here, was, and, and what.  We continue to work on phoneme blending, segmentation and deletion.  Our strategy is to recognize story structure and draw conclusions.

Writing:

We continue to work on punctuation, story structure, use of interesting words and letter formation.  We incorporate writing into art, science and math daily.

Math:

We are working on patterns, counting out 10's and 1's, and working on addition and subtraction problems. There is continuous assessing to meet the student's needs. 

Science:

We continue to work on Plants and Animals. Hopefully we will be spending more time in our Nature Center as it warms up.

Reminders:

We will be doing our PALS testing the week of April 28th. It is important that all students take these assessments that week.  It is a mandate from the state.  

We thank all of you who donated treats to the classroom! It is much appreciated!

Have a great spring break with your families!  

The Kindergarten Teachers

Meet Rocky

Our kindergarten friends from Minnesota, Mrs. Langan's class (@mrslangan on Twitter) asked us to name one of their new fish for them!  Our class decided on Rocky.  We thought that this would be a great way for them to remember all of us. 

Our class will send tweets to them to find out things about their kindergarten.  We found out so far that they did Jump Rope for Heart too!  They also earned ducks!  We also find out what the weather is like and compare it to our weather.

We learn that when we are on Twitter, we always have to be with an adult.  We also have to say nice things to our Twitter friends or else they might not want to be friends with us.  We always tell something that is true because we don't want to be telling lies.  Finally, if something doesn't seem right, we don't talk to those friends anymore.

We like sharing our experiences with our Twitter friends!  It has been fun getting to know them!

Spring Break Plans?

Dear Families,

If you plan on leaving early for a spring break vacation, please be sure to contact me as well as the school office.

If you are wondering what a good time to pick up your child,  (if you are planning a half day) it would be at 11:35am.  This is right before our recess/lunch time.

Wondering about other times?  Please refer to our Daily Schedule page that is on this blog.  I have placed it there for you so you know what your child is doing throughout the school day.

http://mrsrockyskindergarten.blogspot.com/p/daily-schedule.html

Thank you!

Safe travels to everyone!

If You Want to be a Badger!

Let's go Badgers!

Hopefully we will all be celebrating a Badger victory on Monday morning!

 In kindergarten today we sang "On Wisconsin" and we did a little "Jump Around"  We also sang "If you want to be a Badger"  Enjoy the video of the kiddos singing!  

Let's Go Bucky!

The Wisconsin Badgers are in the Final Four! 

We all predicted that this would happen! 

Please wear your Badger gear tomorrow or RED tomorrow to help cheer on Wisconsin to a victory!

Let's Go Bucky!!

Newsletter- Our Week In Review

Dear  Parents,

Happy April!  It's here and hopefully will bring some warmer days!

We had a very busy week.  The play was wonderful on Tuesday.  We saw "Stuart Little" and all of the details were sent home in a program.  The students had a great time and were a very good audience. Thank you to all the helpers who joined us!

Com. Arts:
Our theme this week is "Seeds and Plants".  Our big book is "Seed Secrets" and our guided readers are: "Seeds", "From Seed to Plant" and "Seeds, Seeds, Seeds".  We are working on phoneme isolation, phoneme blending and phoneme deletion.  Our letter is "U,u" We are also working on recognizing text and retelling.

Writing:
We continue to work on writing skills daily.  Our focus is correct letter size, punctuation, word choice and asking the question, "Does the story make sense?"

Math:
Math is a constant review of skills.  We are focusing on addition and subtraction, number sense and problem solving.  We still encourage counting on and back, writing numbers correctly, and sets.

Science:
This is integrated into our writing and com.arts weekly.  We are covering both plants and animals the rest of the school year.

Reminders:
Friday, April 11th is the last day of school before Spring break.  Please send a note to your child's teacher if you are going to be gone prior this date.  Thank you!

We have lots of lost items outside of 5-K and are hoping they will be claimed. These include mittens and hats.  We do show them to the students every week to claim.

Thank you for all of your support.
Have a wonderful weekend!

The Kindergarten Teachers

All Star Words Have Been Introduced!

All of our Star Words have been introduced!  If you have been keeping up with us, your child should know all 54 Star Words.  If not, there is still time to have them mastered!  Please be sure to keep working on past Star Words with your child.

Thanks!

Wear Blue Tomorrow!

April is Autism Awareness month.
To shine a light on this issue, we are asking that everyone at Thorson wear BLUE tomorrow.

To learn more about Autism, please visit

http://www.autismspeaks.org/what-autism