April 5, 2012
Dear Families,
How wonderful it feels to finally have spring upon us!
KP is gearing up for our new unit about spring, with a special focus on insects.
As we prepare for this unit, I encourage you to start the conversation with your child. A walk around the neighborhood or a careful look around your backyard will guide you in talking about the changes that are taking place in the environment. Yesterday I woke up to the beautiful sound of a flock of birds outside my window. Today I was awoken by the gentile wind, tapping on my window. What a precious reminder that a new cycle is here! Books are always a great way to start a fun and meaningful conversation. Here is a list of some of the books that we will be reading in KP.
- What’s the Weather Today? by Allan Fowler
- Have you seen Bugs? by Joanne Oppenheim
- My Spring Robin by Anne Rockwell
- Backyard Insects by Millicent E. Selsam
- Over in the Meadow by John Langstaff
- It’s A Good Thing There Are Insects by Allan Fowler
- The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
- Caterpillars and Butterflies by Usborne Beginners
- Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
- Down Comes the Rain by Franklin M. Branley
I would like to take this opportunity to thank those of you who have been able to visit our class as guest readers. I truly value and appreciate your effort and support as it builds upon the idea of parents and teachers working together.
Have a wonderful and relaxing April vacation!
Mrs. Paris

Literacy:
April is National Poetry Month and so KP will be growing poets! We will begin a new poetry unit during Writers Workshop. This is an exciting and energizing topic. The children will explore and discover new ways of looking at ordinary things by describing them using their “poet’s eye.” They will explore and savor the language to find their “poet’s voice.” KP will learn that poems have their own “special music” and that poems sometimes have a pattern- a special order. We will also explore the idea of “showing” our feelings in our poems, not just named them.
The students will continue to participate in activities to foster phonemic awareness through our study of word families and our ongoing phonics, word study lessons and guided reading.
We will read many fiction and non-fiction books connected to our spring unit. In our author studies, we will be learning about the talented author and illustrator Lois Ehlert.
All About Social Studies:
In our new unit, we will look at Community Helpers. We will explored the following overarching essential questions:
- What is a classroom community and how does it help us?
- What does it mean to be part of a community (my family, my school, a nation, the world)?
- What jobs do my family members do in my home and community?
- What goods and services do the people in our community provide?
- Why do people work?
- What kinds of jobs do people do to earn money to buy things they want and need?
Please contact the room parents if you would like to come in to talk to the class about the job you do.

Our dramatic play will be turned into a puppet theatre. The children will spend time retelling and creating their own stories. They will be able to carry on the roles of puppeteers and taking turns being a member of the audience.

Math:
Chapter 6: Stories in Numbers, Words, and Pictures
A Word From The Classroom: “ Children practice counting and sorting collections as they encounter additional contexts for addition and subtraction. They continue to use the number line (the Number Road) to represent addition and subtraction as forward and backward jumps respectively, and work with addition and subtraction situations that describe joining sets and separating them paying special attention to making 10 as well as adding and subtracting 10 from any number.
In this chapter, we will make connections between number sentences, stories, and pictures. We will practice adding and subtracting, and learn how to order events and how to share a whole object or set of objects equally between two or more people.
Some Highlights of Chapter 6 will include:
- Pairs that make 10- To find pairs of numbers that make 10
- Taking away from 10- To use numbers pairs to complete subtraction sentences
- Adding and subtracting with 10 and money- To compare the results of adding 10 or subtracting 10
- Recording number cube tosses- to practice graphs and making graphs
Learning Goals:
- Model, create, ad record addition and subtraction problems
- Explore addition and subtraction as inverse operations
- Explore patterns by making, adding, and subtracting 10
- Describe, compare, and order evens and situations
- Explore equals shares, halves, and doubles

Vocabulary:
Above, below, horizontal, vertical, inside, outside, left, right, odd, even, symmetry, tally.

Science:
Through our insect unit, we will be involved in wonderful scientific discoveries. We will set up an insectarium (insect zoo!) The students will research and write signage about various types of insects.
In addition, we will conduct a number of experiments with plants and flowers. One of these experiments will be the popular “Colored Carnations.” This experiment allows for the understanding that plants use their roots to absorb (drink) water from the ground. We will explore the question, “How do cut flowers stay alive without roots?” Children will learn through this experiment that the stem of the flower absorbs (drinks up) the water and carries it to the leaves and flowers.
We would love volunteers to assist us with these experiments or who are willing to bring in their own. Also, if anyone has any expertise in plants and insects, don’t be shy, come and share your knowledge with us!

A Super Cool Volunteering Opportunity!
We will begin an “Artist Study” series beginning with Georgia O’Keeffe. I would love to have parents continue this series by coming in and
reading (or tell) KP about a particular artist of their choice, it can be as elaborate or as simple as you want, maybe include some autobiographical information, sample of his/her work, etc. Then follow up with an art activity that explore the artistic medium that the artist used/uses. Please let the room parents know if you are interested and they will arrange a time for you.

All About Technology:
The children will utilize the Graph Club software to create different graphs (table, picture, bar, circle) to organize their data.
Additional activities include:
- Writing word problems and number sentences
- Creating spring scenes
- Typing poems
- Drawing insects and labeling their parts
- Drawing plants and label their parts
- Using Voicethread to share our learning

SAVE THE DATE!
Kindergarten Poetry Night will take place on Thursday, May 31st from 5:00-6:00. This event has become part of the kindergarten tradition at Runkle. The kindergartners will present their published poetry books during this event. This is one event that you won’t want to miss!
More details to follow…