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Gala & Auction: April 28, 2012               Family Fun Night: February 24, 2012 www.barnesvilleschool.org joy. support. excellence. From the Teacher's Desk     Dear Parents, March is here and the end of the school year is rapidly approaching. It is said that everything you need to know, you learn in Kindergarten. We are working hard to develop and practice those skills needed to be ready for First Grade. We will continue to develop responsibility with homework, classroom jobs, respectful work times and friendly, sharing play times.  We are working to understand how to use our words to solve problems or to discuss problems with teachers and our friends.  We have been learning when tattling is appropriate and when it is not necessary.  Bullying others as well as treating others the way we want to be treated have both  been topics for discussion and learning in Kindergarten.  We are also working to develop and strengthen good listening skills and to become first time listeners.  This is all very hard work when you are only five or six years old. Each of these skills take much practice and repetition before students are comfortable with them on both an individual and/or group dynamic basis. In addition, we continue to work on our reading, writing and math skills and concepts.  Wow! Each of my wonderful students has made great personal strides in each of these areas and I look forward to continuing growth as June approaches!    Sincerely, Ellen Landriau Language Arts     This month's theme is  “Wheels Go Around.” The children will be building on letters and sounds that have been previously introduced, as well as learning new Alphafriends. Words with short -i- will be made and reviewed along with short -a- words. We will also learn to make and read words with the short -e- sound. The children will continue to write sentences using high frequency words. Comprehension is an essential part of reading, for decoding alone does not impart meaning to the reader. Therefore, comprehension skills such as predicting and inferring, summarizing, and evaluating are taught and reinforced daily. Children should practice predicting what will happen next, summarizing and retelling the story, and evaluating the actions and characters as they are read to by parents or siblings. Writing is an integral part of learning to read. The children write regularly in their journals and when creating a squiggle. Correct spelling is not important, but rather deconstructing words, identifying the sounds, and writing the letters. Writing will help all children become better readers. We have introduced the use of a dictionary to help write words they need when journaling.  We use My Word Book as an addition to our reading and writing curriculum. Mathematics     The children are learning basic concepts of addition.  Included in this concept are adding one to a number, two to a number, skip counting by twos, adding doubles, vertical and horizontal addition and addition facts through ten.  Following lessons on addition are lessons on subtraction.  The children will use pictures to model subtraction, subtract 1 from numbers 1 through 10, record subtraction problems using numerals and symbols, subtract 2 from numbers 2 through 10, relate addition to subtraction and subtract pennies. Kindergarten Prepares for Spring Gala     On February 8th and 9th, Kindergarten students became Monet as they carefully painted a set of dinnerware.  Armed with sea sponges and various colors of glazes and following directions from artist Mikie, the children applied glaze to plates to resemble the famous painting by Monet entitled, Water Lilies.   This amazingly beautiful set of dishes will be up for your bid at Barnesville School's Annual Spring Gala.  Each plate is signed by the Kindergarten artist and also has their fingerprint on it.  When asked what they liked best about working on these plates, the children had many comments: Gillian- I liked doing the dots with the sponge and I liked doing my fingerprint on the back of the plate. Miranda- I liked putting the colors on the sponges. Colin- I liked signing my name on the back and painting the plate with dots. William-I liked when the bridge went over the water. It was fun to use a sponge! Squirt ! Squirt! Emily- I liked to put the sponge on the plate. I liked the purple! Jenna- I liked using my finger to dab the yellow and I liked seeing it when it turned out, what it really looks like. Brooke- I liked doing the top of the plate with two colors of green, light and dark. Alexandra- I liked that we got to paint with purple and pink. I liked to write my name and the date on the back. Max- I liked everything but I liked that the bridge was cool and really looked like a bridge. Ms. Landriau- I liked painting my plate but I especially liked that someone else was in charge and I just got to paint! Charlie- I liked everything but especially deciding where to put the paint on the plate. Kiran- I liked painting and pretending that I was Monet. Julia- I liked painting the flowers in the pond. I used some green, and yellow, and pink, and some purple. Leo- I liked using a sponge to paint like pointilism. Lucy- I liked dipping my finger in the paint to put my fingerprint on the back. Carissa- I liked everything, especially when I did the flowers with the sponges, and the pink, and the purple, and the green. Soren- I liked doing the flowers by doing a bunch of little dabs with my finger. Lindsey- I liked painting around the bridge with dark green and light green. I liked using a sponge because it was soft. Mrs. Hamilton- I liked working with three of my favorite colors and I liked sponge painting.     Penguins, Penguins, Penguins!     Learning about penguins has been an exciting and fun experience for all of us.  Who could not love a cute penguin?  We have learned where they live, what they eat, what type of nest they have or how they care for their eggs as well as comparing sizes and coloration.  We have heard the various sounds that different penguins make.  The children did an amazing job learning about and presenting information and projects on their chosen penguin.  They each stood before their peers and gave a lesson about their penguin and shared in the methods and materials used to create their project.   We also had fun sliding down the icy hill on our tummies the way that penguins will do in the wild.            IMPORTANT!     Looking ahead to First Grade, the Kindergarten children have homework Monday through Thursday. Please help your child complete the work and return it to school the next day. Homework should take no more than 15 minutes per night. Letter-sharing bags continue as homework each week.  Please help your child find an object beginning with the weekly letter, think of some clues for the object and bring it to school for Friday morning sharing. Reminder     Children need SNEAKERS every day for safe play inside and outside. If there is snow on the ground, they need to bring boots to school for recess. Every child needs a HAT and GLOVES OR MITTENS every day—we go outside unless it is raining or extremely cold. If children change out of wet clothes, the clothing needs to be replaced the next day so that they have a change at school. March Birthdays     Julia- March 29 Tentatively Scheduled Events     Pencil these in….more info to follow… March 9- Field trip to George Mason University Center for the Arts April 14- Field Trip to National Gallery of Art April 21- 1:30 dismissal and Spring Break May- Kindergarten Art Gallery - date to be announced May 13- Mothers’ breakfast May 20- Fathers’ breakfast  Spanish     During March we will learn “All about me”. In this unit we will do different questions about students favorite things. We will answer in Spanish and review the vocabulary that we learned. Art     In art, we are having fun in Kindergarten learning about the myriad of artists who use line and shape in definite ways in their art. We have done work similar to that of Karl Appel, Frank Stella and Paul Klee. Next we will learn about the tree artwork of Charles Birchfield and Gustav Klimpt and the funny people painting of Dubuffet. Music     The students in Kindergarten are listening to string quartets--#1 by Charles Ives, and Opus 59 #2 by Ludwig van Beethoven.  They also continue to work on singing skills and repertoire.  In honor of St. Patrick's Day, we will be enjoying participating in Ireland's delightful, sometimes whimsical, musical legacy to the world--songs, poetry, and children's "street chants".  They are learning how to read "picture symbol charts" in which little images stand for music notes of a song, indicating relative pitches and basic rhythms.  This is a step towards learning to read music.  Physical Education     Kindergarten has been working on their handball skills this month. They have been working with ball movement, dribbling, and different passes to score goals. They will be hitting the mats this month, working on different gymnastic movements. We will be using the balance beam, vault, and floor mats to work on a variety of skills. Hugs for Heads     On February 14th, each of the children in Kindergarten got to select a new hat.  Ms. Landriau knit 23 unique hats for the students to choose from.  The children came in to the room one at a time and picked their first and second choice hats. When they finished, if their first choice was one that no one else selected, it became their hat.  Those students who selected a hat that others also selected, then chose a number, one through eleven and took a turn in order to select a hat.  All in all, the students seemed very pleased with their selection.  One very good- hearted boy gave up his selection to another student who wanted that hat and he happily made a new choice.  Each hat is a hug from the teacher and when they wear it they can remember their fun year in Kindergarten.     Return To:   Home Page  |  Newsletters Section