Welcome to Mrs. Scott's Class!

I am looking forward to a "Hopping" great year in Kindergarten!  We will learn many new things and have fun getting to know each other!

This is my 10th year teaching Kindergarten!  Wow!  Time flies when you're having fun!  I have been married 23 years to my husband, John!  John and I are both K-State grads and love attending the football and basketball games when we can.  We have two awesome teenagers--Connor is 19 and is a sophomore at K-State, studying Mechanical Engineering!  Hallie is 16 and is a junior at Desoto High School.  She is on the tennis team and soccer team, along with everything else she can be involved in!  We are on the go with watching Hallie's events during the week and going to K-State events (mainly to get a chance to see Connor) on the weekends!

Mrs. Scott, Hallie, John, and Connor

Hiking at Mirror Lake State Park in Wisconsin

In July we took our vacation to the Dells,Wisconsin.  While there we enjoyed hiking, a water park, escaping an Escape Room, touring the Wisconsin River on a tour boat, and visiting family!  It was nice and cool there too!

I hope you all had a fabulous summer and are ready to watch your child grow leaps and bounds this year in Kindergarten!

I love my blog to communicate what's happening in Kindergarten, for adding pictures of the action in our class, sharing our year-long calendar with our letters of each week, sight words, and all events for CCE!  You can also find games for your child to play, a link for my Scholastic Book Order code and quick ordering on-line.

Please know that I will never add names to the pictures or in my communication.  Also, it is not a blog for adding comments as I want to keep any comments private through email.  I will send a hyperlink for my blog on the first school day of the week to your email.  If it changes when I send it, I will always let you know.  The best part is you can link my google class calendar to your calendar!!!  

I hope you enjoy our class blog as much as I do!

Happy First Official day in Mrs. Scott's class!

We had a day full of learning about Kindergarten!
This week we are going to read books about going to school.  We will learn how to turn and talk to our neighbor about our favorite parts of the books.  We will also learn how to count syllables in our names.

Today we talked about big lines, little lines, big curves, and little curves when making our handwriting letters.  Our handwriting program is called Handwriting Without Tears.  The class found out about "Mat Man" who is made with lines and curves, which introduced what we will be using to form our letters. 

Our sight word this week is: I
Color word: Red . We will wear red on Thursday and Mrs. Scott will supply the color snack!

Math this week!  We have Topics for each unit.  Topic 1 is Counting and writing 1 to 5.
In math we played a game about the numbers 1, 2, 3.   This week we are focusing on counting and writing 1, 2, 3.

Today we read a book called, How Full is Your Bucket?  We learned that each of us has an imaginary bucket that fills up when we are kind to others and they are kind to us, or drops fall out when we are not kind or someone is unkind to us.  We will work as a class to be kind and fill up our class bucket!  When it's full we will have a class party!

I'm working on uploading pictures on this new MacBook and on my blog.  I'll let you know when I get it figured out!  It's not compatible with all of my devices unfortunately.

Coming up!
Thur.  Aug. 22  Wear Red Today
                          Parent Info. Night 6:30 (please parents only if at all possible)
Tues. Aug. 27   Class pictures and individual pictures
Thurs. Aug. 29   Yellow Day

The week of May 13-17.

I hope all of you Mother's had a wonderful Mother's Day with your children! 

Today was a big day for our class!  We let our Painted Lady Butterflies free!  One of the butterflies never hatched, so 5 flew away!  Check out the butterfly journal we wrote in about the life cycle of our butterflies in their folders.

We also made a butterfly life cycle booklet for your child to read to you!

Reading/Science
This week we are going to learn about parts of a plant and how it grows.  We put a lima bean seed in a wet paper towel in a baggie and we will check it every few days to see what's happening!  It's fun to watch it grow too!  We are doing science galore in kindergarten!

Sight words:  their, were, school, first (The last two are great words to learn going in to first grade!)

Letter of the week:  long e  ---  e_e, ee, ea, ie, y

Math this week:  Sorting, Classifying, Counting, and Categorizing Data
Today we sorted buttons by: color, shape, size, and type (holes/not holes)
We will be doing picture graphing and graphing how many teeth have been lost each month!

Field Day Friday!  9:00-11:30
Please remember to have your child wear yellow!  
~I have small water bottles ready for your child with their names on them.  We can refill outside if needed.  
~Please refer to the email I sent you with the Field day schedule and map.  
~Remember to send a sack lunch with your child if they did not choose to take the cafeteria bag lunch.  No hot lunch will be served Friday.
~Wear tennis shoes!!
~Friday looks pretty warm, so shorts and tshirt would be good!
~Please apply sunscreen at home!  We won't have time to cover everyone before we begin!

Coming up!
May 17   Field Day
May 24   Last day of school--dismissal is at 12:05!

The week of May 6-10.

Farm Day was a great success!  We had a wonderful day (without rain) and wonderful parent help!  Thank you for your assistance to make it perfect if you were able to come!  See some pics. below.  I have so many, I had to choose!  The rest will be on our End-of-the-Year video that all will get.

In case I haven't mentioned this yet, you should be able to go back through the year on my blog and save any pictures to your computer.  Each blog is still in the archives.

This week we are  learning about Forces and Interactions: Pushes and Pulls.  We will have fun with this by using hot wheels!  Shh!  The class doesn't know it yet!

Sight words:  use, each (These are our spelling words too!)
Letter of the week--Long u  (u_e, ue, oo, ew)  We'll come up with words to sort in each long u spelling.

Spelling words:
this--th (thumb up sign) and is
use-- us with an e to make it a long u.
each-- ea (when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking.) ch (chopping sign)
their-- the and ir  (hard one)
were-- we and er

Math this week!
We are about finished with height, weight, and capacity.  You can help your child understand what is used to measure these attributes by talking about how things would be measured at home.  We haven't used rulers, just linking cubes to measure length.  We've used a balance scale to compare weight and a measure cup to talk about capacity.

Butterflies--One butterfly's chrysalis is turning black, which means it is close to hatching!  We have been writing in our butterfly journal about their progress.  

Coming up!

May 17  Field Day

May 24  Last day of school will be a half day.

The week of April 29-May 3.

Wow!  May came fast!

Thank you all for coming to our KDG Open House program!  We had so much fun sharing what we have been learning about in our Farm Unit.  I know it meant a lot to your child to be here and me too!

Farm Day this Friday!  Please check the sign up genius to see if any more spots are open if you are able to help us out!  We appreciate any help you can give.  Keep in mind, if you have younger siblings, you are able to come watch, but you won't be able to "man" a station.  Thank you!

We can get back to our routine this week!  In reading and science we are learning about Force and Motion, along with push and pull.  We will have fun using hot wheel cars with various ramps to show what level makes cars go faster.  We will also push the cars to see which cars go farther.  Then we will discuss how pushing and pulling can change speed and direction.

Caterpillars--I hope you had a chance to see our caterpillars Friday in the container!  When we came back today, they had spun their chrysalis!  More excitement in our classroom!  We will continue to follow their life cycle the next 2 weeks!

Letter of the week--Long Ii   Here are the different long i combinations we will talk about more this week!  (ie, i_e, igh, y)

sight words:  this, need  ( the class wrote sentences today in their journal using "need" in each.  They can just whip them out so fast now!  

Spelling this week!  Week 9!  
Tips:  which and what and white begin the same with wh .    The words: to, of, or... all have an "o" in them.  Seven has two e's, no i's.  Eight is just hard!  
The main thing I want is for the spelling tests to help them learn the words to read them.  I am not at all looking for perfection on spelling!  They are hard!

to, which, of, what, or
Bonus words:  white, seven, eight

Math this week!  We are on Topic 12 Measurement.  Today we learned about the attributes-length, weight, and capacity.  We measured length using linking cubes ( We learned that we need to line up the items so measure the length correctly).  We measured weight using a balance scale ( we learned that when the scale is lower on one side--its heavier.  When it's higher on the other side--that's the lighter weight.  So, when it's balancing in the middle--they are the same weight.

Capacity is our last attribute.  We found out that we can use a measuring cup to measure capacity of liquids and powders. We also found out that linking cubes cannot be put in a measuring cup to get an accurate capacity measurement.  
We sure learned a lot about measuring today!

Coming up!
May 3  Farm Day in the AM

May 17  Field Day

May 24  Last day of school will be a half day.

Chick pics!

We enjoyed watching Mrs. Casper's ducks swim today!

The week of April 23-26.

We finally made it to our Open House week!  The kids are so excited to sing our songs for you and show you their projects!  Please be here as close to 2:30 as possible, so we can begin our songs.  One student is a triplet and her parents will have to get to three classrooms, so I would like to sing first and view projects after.  Let me know if you are running late, so we wait for you.  Also, let me know if no one can make it for your child, so I can ask another parent to be a "sub" parent.  :)

Farm Day sign up genius-  Please consider volunteering any way you can!  I emailed it today!

Our newest living thing has arrived in our classroom!  Caterpillars!!!  We have six Painted Lady caterpillars eating and growing, eating and growing!  We will learn more about the life cycle of a butterfly the next few weeks!  Check them out when you come on Friday!

It looks like we have one chick "pipping" so far!  There is a tiny crack in the egg, since this morning.  I'm hoping it will progress over night.  We are anxiously waiting for more to start pipping!  Tomorrow is day 21!

This week we are reading about Sink and Float.  We will be doing an experiment on Thursday with items that sink or float.  Please send one item with your child in a baggie with their name on it by Thursday to experiment with.  Thank you!  

Reading groups this week!  Each group will have a Reader's Theater book to read with parts.  Enjoy having a part in the play and participating with your child!  Have your child take turns reading each part!

Letters of the week--ou and ow
sight words (not the required 50)  play, come

Spelling this week--week 8 words and tips for learning how to spell:  

there (the word "here" is inside)
word (the word "or" is inside)
when (action for /wh/ is pretending to blow a whistle)
your  (the word "you" is inside)
they  (the word "the" is inside)
Bonus words:
brown (ow inside)
five  (silent e makes the i long)
six

Math this week!  We took a test on decomposing today. Our next topic is on Measurement.
We sure don't have very many math topics left!

Coming up!
Apr. 26    KDG Open House at 2:30  --Please plan on being here if possible!  We will sing songs, view our projects, and meet our chicks that are hopefully hatching this week!

May 3  Farm Day in the AM

May 17  Field Day

May 23  Last day of school will be a half day.

The week of April 15-19.

I hope you all had a great weekend!  This week we are continuing with our Farm/animal unit.  The kids are learning a lot about farm animals!  I grew up on a farm, so I love this unit too!  My dad farmed crops along with raising cows and pigs.  Yes, the pigs were stinky!  My mom would always say when we complained about the smell, "It smells like money!"  Ha!

I saw a few of you at the Fish Bowl Auction!  My breakfast winners are Allison and Bentley!  Congratulations to them!  I hope you had a great time if you went!  Our basket looked awesome!  I want to thank Amy Mayhugh and Jessica Robinson once again for their time collecting all of the items!  Also, thank you all for your generous donations!

Our KDG Open House is coming up next Friday, April 26!  We are hard at work to prepare a great program for you!  Our chicks should hatch by the time you come, so we will love telling you about them too!  Please keep in mind, we will have a packed house, so please find a sitter for any younger siblings, so you can focus your attention on your kindergartner.  Also, if for some reason at least one parent cannot be here, you are welcome to invite another family member to come!  Every child would like to show their projects, so please have someone here for your child.  If by chance no one can make it, please let me know, so I can ask another parent to also check out your child's projects.  Let me know if you aren't able to be here at 2:30.  We will begin singing as soon as all are here, but would like to begin as close to 2:30 as possible.  You will need to check in at the office.

Reading/Science-- This week we are learning about chickens.  We have been drawing chick diagrams of their growth in our chick flipbook every few days.  The kids love doing this!  
Last Thursday we "candled" our chick eggs to see if we could see the chick growing.  Our candler is a special box with a bright light in it that can see inside the eggs pretty well!  We have one white egg and the rest are tan/brown as you can see below.  The white egg was the easiest to see through.  It was so fun to see the movement of the chick, the eyeball, veins, and air space!  However, not all of the eggs seem to have growth in them, so we will anxiously wait to see which ones hatch!  

This week we are learning more about the dipthongs-oi/oy.  Usually the "oi" is found in the middle of the word and the "oy" is found at the end.  Of course that rule doesn't always follow our English language but it's helpful to remember most of the time.

sight words--this week we are adding some extra sight words, not part of the 50, but are used a lot.  The words are:  here, want

Spelling list--I hope you all were able to print off or copy down the spelling list for this week.  

The words are:  have, how, said, all, it   Bonus words:  orange, three, four

For the word orange I like to tell them the words "or" and "an" are first then "ge".

Math this week!  Topic 11--Decomposing numbers 11 to 19.  

Goals!  Please keep practicing addition facts to 5 and subtraction facts from 5.  We keep testing on the addition facts to 5 and will test on subtraction facts to 5 when your child brings home a certificate for the addition facts.  

I will be sending home their sight word tests so you can see what words your child needs to keep working on.

Tying shoes.  Only a few have passed this skill.  I know it's difficult but it will sure help them in first grade if we work on it now.  Thank you for attempting it!  It is challenging!

Coming up!

Apr. 22    Inservice--No School

Apr. 26    KDG Open House at 2:30  --Please plan on being here if possible!  We will sing songs, view our projects, and meet our chicks that we are incubating in April.

May 3  Farm Day in the AM

May 17  Field Day

May 23  Last day of school will be a half day.

The week of April 8-12.

I'm back!  It's working again!  I was a little worried it wasn't going to work anymore.

Book Fair--Today is our library day. The class will get to look at books in the book fair, but we do not let KDG bring money to spend by themselves, as they don't quite understand how it works.  But there are after school hours for you to bring your child up to buy books if you couldn't make it to the Fish Bowl Auction.

We are on day 6 for our eggs in our incubator.  We are taking good care of them, making sure the temperature and humidity are just right!  We have 7 eggs--6 brown and 1 white.  The brown ones are from a Rhode Island Red Hen and the white ones are from a Leg horn hen. We are anxious to see how many hatch after 21 days and what color they are!  Every few days we are drawing what the chicks should look like at that time in a chick flip book that you'll see at Open House!

Reading this week!  We are reading a fiction book called "No-Tech day Day of Play" about kids that lose electricity at their Grandparents and learn other games to play that do not need electricity!

We will also be learning about sheep this week and making a sheep with our handprint!  Then, we will write details in our "barn" book and illustrate a picture!  The "barn" books are so cute!

sight words this week:  what, or
letter of the week:  long o

spelling words this week:
one, from, that, are, an  
Bonus words:  black, two
Your child should always bring home a spelling list on Fridays.  If they don't, please look at the list I gave you at conferences and work on them.  I think it really helps them to get a headstart over the weekend.  Don't forget about Spelling City too!

Math this week!  We are taking our math test Wednesday over Composing numbers 11 to 19 by adding numbers up to 9 to the number 10.  Please review the worksheets and make sure your child is understanding it.

Topic 11 will be Decomposing Numbers 11 to 19.  The answer will be first and the addition problem after it.

Coming up!

Apr. 22    Inservice--No School

Apr. 26    KDG Open House at 2:30  --Please plan on being here if possible!  We will sing songs, view our projects, and meet our chicks that we are incubating in April.

May 3  Farm Day in the AM

May 17  Field Day

May 23  Last day of school will be a half day.