We just finished another week in kindergarten. The weeks seem to be flying by. The children in Mr. Gibbs' class are unstoppable! As promised, I will continue to differentiate instruction to meet the needs of every learner. Once your child reaches a level of mastery, I will raise the bar even higher. Mr. Gibbs is constantly raising the bar and is so proud of everyone in his class. It is hard to believe that kindergarten orientation was nearly four months ago! It feels like yesterday I was meeting all of my new parents and welcoming into the classroom hive!We had a great week and completed several activities that will prepare us for our upcoming field trip. We also read and extended a book read in class. On Wednesday, we celebrated the 50th day of school by making a special snack and writing another class book. We ended our day on Friday. We had a special ice pop party because our class received 2nd place in the box top contest! We also began our primer words and learned two new letters.
As stated, Wednesday was the fifth day of school. As we are learning to count to 50, Mr. Gibbs thought he would use this time to celebrate. There is always a reason to celebrate - so today, we did! Each child brought in a special snack item composed of fifty. We counted each and mixed them together to create a special trail mix. This was very fun for the students and they especially enjoyed the large cheese balls (Trevor M. brought those in). "Mr. Gibbs your tongue is blue!" No wonder they like them, they make your tongue turn blue. We also made a class book discussing the first fifty days of kindergarten. There is a video at the end of this post of "50 Days of Kindergarten," by Mr. G's class. As always, we celebrate by making hats, glasses, and necklaces. We wore them around school today to show our pride. We are happy to have been in kindergarten for 50 days! 
This is a picture of our updated word wall. As you can see, it has two colors. The words in yellow are our pre-primer words. The new orange cards are our primer words. Your child can now recognize fourty-six words. Wow! This is a big accomplishment. We will continue to work with five new words a week (in alphabetical order) from the primer list. Remember to practice these words at home. These are the most common words in books that children will encounter in the early grades. As a former first grade teacher, I think that learning these words is critical! Students had a chance to practice with one another today using flash cards before they were tested. Children are learning how to solve their own problems and work very well with one another. Watch as they learn and grow!
I think I am just as excited as they kids about our first kindergarten field trip! We are going to see Slim Goodbody's presentation of "Bodyology!" I remember watching him as a child and even remember doing "Deskercise" in elementary school. Slim Goodbody is best known for his wacky and silly outfit. This week, we created a craft that looks very similar the the shirt he wears. We also worked with our fine motor skills and laced it. Finally, we made and created a brain hat! Aren't these shirts just adorable? We are learning the insides of our bodies as we prepare for next Thursday's field trip. 
Gibbstown is currently in it's final stages! We learned more about vehicles and transportation this week. We learned different methods of travel. Students should be able to tell you different methods of transportation on land, in air, and in water. Today, we made our vehicles and placed them in Gibbstown. We have bikes, motorcycles, vans, and cars. We even have some trucks. This is coming along nicely. Next week, we will learn about signs and symbols. Next week, we will add special road signs to our town. Finally, we will learn about map skills and conclude our unit on neighborhoods. 
Jack was named our terrific kid this week. Jack has been doing a fantastic job with following the classroom rules. Jack is doing his personal best and has shown great improvement in his academics. I am very happy for Jack. Jack enjoyed celebrating the 50th day of school. Jack also learned that he is a great writer because he uses the word wall and his sounds. Jack (as well as most others) is writing three sentences! Way to go Jack! Jack enjoyed helping create pages for our two class books, "Duck on a Tractor," and "50 Days of Kindergarten." Please stop by and read our books - each student wrote a page and illustrated it. I am so proud of them all! 
Our class received an ice pop party today. Your class won second place in the box top contest! Our class did a great job at turning in our box tops to help raise money for our school. When our name was announced on the intercom, every child was happy. Remember there is currently a thanksgiving contest at Samsula - let's help our community and donate today!
Finally, next week will be a fun week. Remember there is no school on Wednesday and Thursday is our field trip (more information will come home next week). We will have homework next week and will continue with our next set of primer words. We will be working with Vv and Jj (can you believe we only have two letters and sounds left?) The words are: be, black, brown, but, and came. Students will have a writing numerals test this week. Students should be able to write numbers to 20 and identify them accordingly. Friday is not a popcorn day (every other Friday). As always, volunteers are appreciated. If you can't volunteer in class, please let me know and I will send something home with your child. Your child should be writing at least one complete sentence using a capital letter and period; however, most children are writing much more. Please write with your child nightly (even if it is a simple prompt: What I liked most about today was...). Writing is something we do daily and it is something the children enjoy. Remember to write using proper procedures: top(line), mid(line), base(line). Student's should be familiar with the procedures. I want to again thank you for sharing your amazing child with me! We are doing great things in kindergarten - and with that being said, HAVE A FANTASTIC WEEKEND!
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