Mrs. Richards' Reports

We have had a busy time in Room 137 building our stamina when reading. We're up to at least 15 minutes and we're using good reading strategies everyday by looking at picture clues, reading for meaning, looking for word chunks, and recognizing common sight words. In math, we continue to count on from a higher number, look for tens and ones, and writing number sentences. We are learning about magnets along with Miss Reichert's class. Our students are finding it really interesting! We will continue this inquiry after winter break. The Christmas concert was a huge success. We have been busy getting ready for Christmas too by making special Christmas presents and a tree with a chain to count down until Santa comes. On Thursday, we will celebrate earning five Golden Awards by having a Pajama Day along with watching a movie, eating a gingerbread man, and having hot cocoa. Our Holiday Celebration will be on Friday afternoon. The parents that volunteered to send something for this party have been contacted. The cold weather is fast approaching. We ask parents to dress their youngster as warmly as possible prior to their leaving for school. Even though some children ride the bus to school, they still will be spending a considerable amount of time outdoors on the playground, particularly during the noon hour. Our school district policy states that when it is not raining or when the temperature is 10 degrees or above, pupils are not permitted into the building until the usual time of 8:25 AM (unless they are having breakfast) and 12:45 PM for 4K so be sure to dress your youngster for our Wisconsin winters. On rainy days or when the temperature is below 10 degrees, pupils are permitted to enter the building at 8:15 AM and will spend the noon hour indoors. A red flag will be placed on the doors indicating early entrance due to inclement weather. Please be sure your child has a hat and a pair of mittens. PLEASE LABEL THEIR ITEMS SO IT’S EASIER TO RETURN IF THEY ARE LOST. Please have a Happy, Safe, and Merry Christmas! See you in 2013! Please take the following survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/mitchelltechsurvey

Mrs. Richards Reports

The First Graders really enjoyed their field trip to the Survive Alive House to learn about fire safety. Next year, the kindergarteners will get to go. This week, everyone will have some activities included in their homework folder about fire safety. It's definitely a good review for everyone. Please be extra careful with candles during the holiday season. A lot of fires are started by misuse of candles. With the holiday season starting, the children will be making Christmas stockings for St. Nick's this week and writing Santa with some of their question: "Dear Santa, What do you feed those reindeer any way?" In Math,we are working on place value by counting ones and tens and by naming a number in different ways by using number sentences, tallies, and tens and ones. Touch Math will be introduced as another to count on when adding. In Writer's Workshop, the children will make a list of some of their favorite things. They can choose from this list when writing. Please return your permission slip for the concert practice at Nathan Hale!

Mrs. Richards' Reports

Our class election was a lot of fun as the children filled out voter registration cards and then turned them in for ballots so they could vote for their favorite cookie The choices were oreo or chocolate chip. The oreo cookie was the winner!  Everyone got to eat an oreo cookie.  We talked about the fact that sometimes your choice is not the winner in an election, and that's the special part about voting because every vote is important and can change the outcome of an election.  We ended with making a bar graph and answering some questions about the graph.

We began learning about our American symbols: the flag, statue of liberty, liberty bell, bald eagle, and the White House.  Our focus was on the White House as the children painted their own picture of their vision of the White House, and we went to computer lab to look up new learning about it on various websites.

In math, we are working on determining which number is greater when using higher numbers. The students will also be counting and drawing tens and ones for numbers. In our math journal, we are solving word problems using adding/subtraction and explaining our work.

The end of November, the First Graders will be going to the Survive Alive House to learn safety methods to prevent a fire, how to stay calm, and how to evacuate a burning building. They will need to know their address and phone number. Homework will come home this week for them to use so they can practice.

Mrs. Richards' Reports

We have been learning about laws and government and what it means to be a good citizen.
Tomorrow will be election day across the country. Everyone will be voting like every good citizen should.
The children in Room 137 will be voting for their favorite cookie choice: oreo or chocolate chip.
We will have a ballot box and ballots. The children will have  to register to vote too.
We must be good citizens.
The children will also learn about our American symbols with our class focus on the White House. It will be a fun week!

In math, we will graph the cookie choice that won after we have made tally marks.
We are also doing a lot of counting in different ways in math and comparing numbers to see which is greater or less than.

I would like to encourage all parents to take a blog survey which will give us your input about our blogs.
Here is the survey information. Go to:  http://.surveymonkey.com/s/W5WTXMX.

Thank You!

Mrs. Richards' Reports

What a wonderful Halloween parade and party!  The treats and festivities were great! The children seemed to enjoy the games. Thank you parent helpers!  You helped to make everything run so smoothly!

In Reading, we continue to work on building stamina while reading and using our reading strategies during the Daily 5 rotations.  Please read nightly at home with your child.  In Math, we are counting, adding, and writing numbers. We are looking at the place value of numbers.

Our new Inquiry Unit is on government, its laws, and American symbols. We will choose one of the symbols to focus our study on. We may even have an election and voting!

Please send in some empty paper towel rolls for an activity. Thank You!

Mrs. Richards' Reports

The students did a great job with their new learning in the computer lab last week on their farm animals. Using pebble.go for their inquiry was great fun! Thank you Miss Nuss for your guidance! They will culminate that activity with labeling their farm animal.

It's kind of scary that Halloween is already upon us! We will be measuring and weighing  our classroom pumpkin, scooping out the pulp to feel the slimy stuff, and then estimate and count the seeds. We will end our pumpkin inquiry with carving a face. Students will be filling out a booklet as we go along.

On Wednesday, the children may come dressed in costumes for an outdoor parade. Parents may watch outdoors as well as we parade around the school. It's suppose to be 70 on Wed. Our Halloween celebration will be in the afternoon. Parents that volunteered were contacted about what to send.

No school on Thursday and Friday so enjoy some time with your child.  Spend some time relaxing with some good books and do some journal writing about what you did on your days off!

Mrs. Richards' Reports on Oct. 15, 2012

Last week, we were able to celebrate Fire Prevention Week with a special program with the West Allis Fire Department and Firefighter Will. The children were very engaged in both presentations!
 Monday is our long awaited trip to  Glacier Rock Farm. We will follow up this week with an inquiry unit on farm animals.  The children have already come up with questions about some of the farm animals.  They went on the website pebblego.com in the computer lab last Thursday with the assistance of Miss Nuss our Technology Media teacher. The children were introduced to researching some of the farm animals that they were interested in.  We will go back to the computer lab this Thursday to log "new learning" about an animal.
We are also going to drink white milk and then turn it into chocolate and strawberry milk as we learn about cows and milk. We will graph which is our favorite milk.
In Math, the students are working on writing addition number sentences and counting by twos, fives, and tens.
The kindergarteners will begin a kindergarten screening called PALS-K this week. It will be a good tool to evaluate student progress.
I want to thank all of the parents who came to conferences this past week.  I will be looking forward to seeing a few more of you this week!

Mrs. Richards' Reports October 8, 2012

It's a busy week ahead in Room 137 as we learn about Fire Prevention and safety. We have a special program on Monday morning. Last week, for our Inquiry Unit, we learned about living and nonliving things as we cut pictures from magazines for our class poster. We also sponge painted autumn trees which are living things.
The children enjoyed labeling their trees and writing a caption for them. We talked about labels and captions as being important nonfiction features in nonfiction books. We continue our study of living and nonliving things and nonfiction features as we learn about farm animals as we prepare to go to the farm.

* Please return your farm permission slips and money promptly. They were due on Friday!

We continue to work on building stamina while reading to self and with a buddy with a goal of up to 12 minutes.

In Math, we are working on writing numbers, counting up from a given number, comparing numbers, and writing number sentences. Please practice these concepts at home too!

*  There will be NO SPARC on Thursday due to conferences.
*  Conferences are this Thursday October 11.... 3:30 to 8:00pm.  Please be on time. 
*  Each conference will be 15 minutes to accommodate each parent. Please have any questions ready!
    I look forward to seeing all of you.     Your child is welcome to attend conferences!

It's October!

Hi Parents and Students in Room 137,

We are entering our first week of October by celebrating Rolin's birthday. Happy Birthday Rolin!
It was great fun at our Mitchell in Motion all school fundraiser. Everyone in our classroom got to participate because they brought in their permission slip signed. The blue shirts are your child's gift from the PTA.
The weather was beautiful, the children had fun at each of the events, and we ended with an all school picture!
Be sure to look for it on our school website in the future!

This is an update on what our school week will look like. The children have learned all five of the components for our Literacy Daily 5, so this week they will be able to choose some of their rotations that they can go to.
In Math, we are working on counting up from a given number, writing numbers, and making jumps on a number line to form addition and subtraction number sentences.

We will be doing a mini-inquiry unit on trees and leaves as living / nonliving things. The leaves sure look beautiful now with all of the fall colors.

A Monthly Behavior Calendar will be in your child's folder for you to sign and to take note of what color your child ended the day on. Please be sure to check the calendar, sign it, and discuss positively!

We're off to a wonderful week!

Mrs. Richards' Reports from Room 137

It is September 24 and our final week of this month already. We are onto Fall so make sure that your child is dressed appropriately for the weather!  On Friday, we completed our MAPS Test in Math, and the children really worked hard. This week we will do the Reading Test. Please be sure that your child is at school on Friday for the test. Our class has been doing the Daily 5 Literacy and Words Their Way with Miss Reichert's classroom for a couple of weeks already. The children are up to reading 11 minutes for Read to Self. That's amazing!  Please encourage nightly reading at home too! This week we will be practicing how to do Word Work as a part of our Daily 5 rotations.  Our class will also be teaming up with Miss Reichert's for Math this week! Our math unit is writing numbers and using the number line to add and subtract.  We will do an inquiry on Johnny Appleseed and apples.

Friday is our first ever fundraiser called, "Mitchell in Motion". You do not have to send money if you don't want to.  You can still participate.  We do need your signed permission slip though, so please return that as soon as possible so your child can get in on the fun on Friday!

This is a message from the office.  If your child is going to be out from school or leave early, please be sure that you send a note or call the office.

We have an afternoon snack every day. Please send a healthy snack like cheese, crackers, fruit, veggies...
No chips, cookies, or sugary treats!

News for Sept.10, 2012

September 10, 2012

We’re off to a great start in our 5K/1 combination classroom.  During the Daily 5, students will work on building stamina during Read to Self and practice Reading with a Buddy.  We also begin our mini lessons using the Reading Wall.  We will do a mini-inquiry unit on hot air balloons. We certainly will have to investigate the big hot air balloon rally in New Mexico which is coming up in October.  In Math, we will begin our study of Geometric shapes as the students move to various stations focusing on shapes and numbers.  Last week, we enjoyed reading books about pirates and their “stinky fish” behavior. We compared it to “good fish” behavior. The children made pirate hats and telescopes to spy for “good fish behavior”.

Our Specials Schedule

Phy. Ed.           Monday and Wednesday          Teacher:   Mrs. Cardwell

Art                   Tuesday                                    Teacher:   Mrs. Landowski

Guidance          Wednesday and Friday            Teachers:  Mr. Taube and Ms. Tupy

Music               Tuesday and Friday                 Teacher:    Mr. Buck

Library             Thursday

*  Please consider participating in our school fundraiser that came home on Friday!

Starting the Week of September 17. please check the Mitchell website for my newsletter in the classroom blog for Mrs. Richards.  Send me a note if you don’t have the internet!

Welcome Back Newsletter

It was so nice to meet all of the parents and children at the “Meet and Greet” last Thursday. Everyone is so excited for school to begin!  It will be an exciting year filled with a lot of learning and fun activities to engage all students.

          This week we will spend time getting to know each other and making friends. The children will learn about the Fish Program, and a letter explaining it will also come home to parents. We will have an all school “Fish” kickoff   assembly on Friday morning at 8:45. We will have a Fish assembly every week at the same time.

          For our Literacy during Daily 5, we will be working on building stamina when Reading to Self. The children will learn to pick ‘just fit’ books and how they can read the pictures, read the words, or retell the story when reading.

          In Math, the children will explore math manipulatives and learn some independent math games using dice, dominoes, and playing cards. We will be working on writing numbers, counting, and number operations.

Reminders for this week:

PIN night is Thurs. Sept. 6   

                                5:30 – 8:00pm.  Parents only!

Show and Tell on Friday Sept. 7   This is a one time only!

          Each child can bring one item for Show and Tell.  Help your child pick something that is important to them and that they can talk about.   It must fit in the gallon size ziplock bag that is being sent home.

Physical  Education Days:  Mondays and Wednesdays

·       Be sure to either wear or have gym shoes on those days!

Mrs. Richards     phone number:  604-4500  ext.1513

                              e-mail: richb@wawm.k12.wi.us

Junior Achievement

The kindergarteners in Room 137 learned a lot about themselves and their community from junior achievement volunteer, Mrs. Marcia Gabriel. They especially enjoyed learning about money and getting a bank to save their coins. The children made some connections when hearing the story about earning money for a new playground.  Here is a picture with Mrs. Gabriel and their junior achievement certificates.

Thank you Mrs. Gabriel for your 5 weeks with us and donating $50 to our playground fund.

Our Inquiry Unit on the Olympics

 For our Inquiry Unit on the Olympics, we have been getting together with two second grade classrooms, Mrs. Francour and Miss Rostermundt. The children have enjoyed making new friends, especially with these older kids. The second graders have been very helpful at working with and guiding the kindergarteners with our projects. We are getting some background knowledge about the olympics.  So far we have colored the olympic rings, made torches, and started painting huge boxes to make the big red bus used as transportation in London. Our focus will be on the host city of "London". We are learning about five of the important landmarks in London, such as Big Ben, a huge clock. Here are some pictures with our olympic buddies!

It's Xavier at the wheel!



Katrina and Jackson at the pizza parlor.



It's time to fix the cars for Tyler and Jackson!




Under construction for Dominic, Kaitlyn, Alex, and Mrs. Richards



We had a marvelous time at betty Brinn at the end of March. Here are some pictures of the children exploring in the grocery store, car fix it shop, and climbing structures.

Important Dates to Remember

Monday May 21              Brae's Special Week

                                        Band, Orchestra, and Chorus Concert 1:30pm

Wedn. May 23                NxGL  Meeting 6pm
Thursday May 24            Yell and Tell Program  1pm
Friday May 25                High Interest Day
Monday May 28             Memorial Day    NO SCHOOL
Tuesday May 29            Alyssa's Special Week
                                     ALL DAY ZOO FIELD TRIP
Friday June 1                PTA Carnival
Monday June 4             Tyler's Special Week
Tuesday June 5             Floral Presentation
Wedn June 6                Field Day
                                  Spring Fling Playground Fundraiser  3:30pm -7pm
             

In March, we also had the wonderful all school field trip to the Pettit Center for ice skating. It may have been warm outside that day, but it sure was cool inside. Some of the children had never skated before, but they sure gave it a great try.  It was fun to watch!  Here are some cool pictures!



Audrey, Xavier, and Dominic



Mariah, Eli, and Jacob

Kira, Alex, and Kaitlyn

Hannah and Jackson

Tyler and Katrina

Addisen with Mom



Bailey taking a rest



In March, we have been enjoying the wonderful spring weather and many terrific activities!

For St. Patrick's Day, we made shamrock people to hang in our rooms. They have been blowing in the breeze as our window has been open more often then I can ever remember before in March.

We have started our new Science Unit on Motion and Movement. The children are eagerly trying out how good their balance is on a balance beam. Using balance scales was fun too as the children used teddy bears, cubes, and blocks to try to balance items on their scales. They weighed dinosaurs, cars, and markers.

Mariah, Hannah, Lucas, and Jackson on a balance beam

Kaitlyn and Alyssa

Alex, Eli, and Xavier

Brae and Audrey

A Review of Fabulous February

February was such a fabulous month. Here are some of the highlights!

We enjoyed predicting if the groundhog was going to see its shadow or not. At the Milwaukee County Zoo, Gertie the Ground Hog did not see its shadow. So we can expect an early spring! Most of the children predicted  that the ground hog would see its shadow beacause they want more snowy days.

Writing and sharing valentines was great fun!  Our party was amazing, with wonderful treats that were healthy and tasty!

Abe Lincoln did a wonderful presentation. The children asked thoughtful questions!

Abe Lincoln's Presentaton