Learning Makes Me Hoppy

l St. Josephs Schoo

Week of December 12-16

Whats Hop-pening in Kindergarten

Caribou are Cool!
We learned that caribou are reindeer! We also learned many other facts about these creatures. For instance, both male and female reindeer have antlers, they are herbivores, etc. And of course we learned how to sign reindeer. We made paper plate reindeer. These are hanging in the hallway and in our classroom windows. They are all jumping or posing in the hopes that Santa sees them and chooses them to be on his special team for Christmas Eve. We also made reindeer room fresheners, by simply putting a bar of soap inside a bag decorated like a reindeer! We used some candy canes to create a reindeer Christmas gift! We are working on a reindeer book made out of brown lunch bags! And we made a reindeer headband earlier in the year. We also made It was interesting each day to see who chose to make their reindeer Rudolph and who wanted to be another reindeer. We created a white foggy scene and added a red dot...Where is Rudolph??

Handwriting
We worked on writing the lowercase letter b and t this week.

Science
We would love to give any houseplants a new home in our classroom after the Christmas vacation. Send them in! We started to grow crystals this week! The kids are so excited to see the end results! Dr. Terrific made Rice Crispies jump off the table up to a balloon he was holding. He created static electricity on the balloon and then held it above the cereal. Crazy and fun!

Religion
We are still waiting! We really love adding ornaments to our Jesse tree and hearing the stories that coordinate. This week we received pencil top erasers, some candy, and a note saying that Mrs. K had to give double behavior bucks on Friday!! Waiting is fun!!!

Computers
We enjoyed watching some video of caribou and rereading the Foot Book online. This story nicely reinforces the concept of adjectives as opposites. We watched another classic Sesame Street video on opposites. We also are learning some Christmas sign language.

Reading
We just began the ell family this week and will continue to learn it next week. We are really trying to notice the different sounds the letter I and the letter A make in words. We are doing sorting jobs in pocket charts, we are playing listening games to determine which sound is in a word. We read the nonfiction story titled Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer. We talked about reality versus fantasy while we read stories this week. We had fun using adjectives to describe Santa and his reindeer this week. This could be a fun game in the car! Pick an object and use those juicy words to describe it.

Candy Candy Candy!

We will be building gingerbread houses during the week of 12/19. Please send in a bag of candy and a tub of frosting for us to share and decorate our houses with. on MONDAY!

MILK JUGS!!
Please start saving and sending in your clean 1 gallon milk jugs!! WITH CAPS ON!!! We will build an igloo with them...we need about 500!! Drink up!!

Math
We acted out story problems with our pennies this week. We had pretend pockets and took turns telling how many pennies we needed to add or subtract. Mrs. K assessed one to one correspondence this week. The kids counted cubes and showed me a number card that matched the set. We also graphed our eye color by making a little picture of our eye! Most of us have blue eyes.

Dont Forget...
Set aside some items for your childs time capsule that will be made at the end of the school year!

Please consider...
volunteering to speak for career day. We

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pot.com http://k5sjbb.blogs
have only one scheduled so far!! K4 & K5 are looking for guests for our own Career Day event on January 31st, during Catholic Schools Week. You are invited to come in and speak to us for about 10-15 minutes or so. If you have a friend or relative that would be interested in talking to us, please have them contact me. & Christmas Party January 20th-K4/K5 Hosts Mass January 31st-Career Day February 22nd-All School Ash Wednesday Mass at the Basilica March 28th-Milwaukee Symphony

Mystery Readers
Contact me if you are interested.

Pajama Day
K5 will have a pajama day this MONDAY 12/19.

Book Collection
After Christmas vacation, the whole school will also be collecting new and gently used books for another mission project. If you come across any over the vacation, set them aside for this wonderful cause!

The Chicken Fund

We earned..$39.43!!!!! That means with my doubling that, we will have $80 to donate!!! WOW!! We will discuss other items that can be purchased for the villagers.

Catholic Schools Week Mass

1/28 & 1/29

Next Weeks Theme Gingerbread Next Weeks Words: big, for, get, he ell family words

Dont forget to sign up to participate in the Mass for Catholic Schools Week. We would

love to have some students do a small reading! Turn in your forms by Wednesday
12/22.

Blanket Cutters
We need your help! Our school wide service project for January is to tie ties on blankets that are sent home with newly adopted children. We will be doing this project with our buddy classes. However, we need help preparing the blankets for tying. The ties need to be cut by an adult. Please contact me if you would be willing to take some home to prepare for us. We are hoping to have them available to take home before Christmas vacation.

Important Dates
Monday, December 19:

PAJAMA DAY!!
Elleighana is the Student of the Week! Library Books Due Send in Gingerbread House Candy!!

Tuesday, December 20: Happy Birthday Mason! Mandatory Christmas Concert 6:30pm (be in classroom @ 6:15) Wednesday, December 21:

Christmas Party
Hope to see you around 9am for our party. We probably will begin our Gingerbread houses closer to 8:45ish just to allow enough time for all our fun activities. Please feel free to come early! Also, please do not forget the ornament exchange!! Send those in ASAP next week so I can be sure everyone has one!! Thanks!

$1 Dress Down Show & Tell **FC**

Thursday, December 22: Early Release @ 10:30am Christmas Party @ 9am

Upcoming Dates
December 16th-Muskego Library Visits Us! December 22nd-Secret Ornament Exchange

Friday, December 23: NO SCHOOL until 1/3!!! Merry Christmas!!

Questions or comments? Please email kkawczynski@stjoesbb.com or call 262-662-2737