Kindergarten after the nutcracker!!!

Wish list items:

We are in need of a few things for our classroom projects!

We would love some:

-Big and small paper plates.
-Large brown paper bags with and without handles
-Plastic shopping bags (big and small)



Thank you so much! Happy holidays!

Nutcracker characters

Students worked hard together to complete their Nutcracker characters which have been displayed in our classroom and in the hallway.  They came out awesome!!!

Friday December 18

It's hard to believe our holiday break begins on Wednesday next week!  We have had a very exciting month of school and have learned so much.  The children have done amazingly well with all the excitement and changes in our schedule.  

One of the highlights for this week was our Nutcracker Field Trip!  It is always fun watching the children get excited when they hear the familiar songs and see their Nutcracker characters on stage!  We want to thank Mrs. Corbet for chaperoning our field trip.  We had a wonderful time!  

We are very excited for our own Nutcracker performance that will be on Tuesday and hope that you will all be able to make it at 8:45am to watch us!  The students have been working very hard and are excited to be able to perform the Russian Peppermint dance for you!  If possible, please have your child wear red tops and black bottoms on Monday for the performance.  Thanks!

We have almost finished our first unit in Fundations and are looking forward to working with uppercase letters in January.  We have been busy with work in Kindergarten that will head home soon!

We will be sending a bag full of art projects home on Wednesday with your child.  We apologize in advance for all the glitter that you will be finding all over your house now!  We hope the students will take great pride showing you all their special Nutcracker, Gingerbread, and Christmas projects.  We are very proud of all they have accomplished so far this year!

A Reminder:  School will be back in session on Monday, January 4th.

We could also use some large brown paper bags with handles.  Thanks!

Friday, December 11

We have been busy getting ready for our Nutcracker Performance on Tuesday, December 22nd!   The students did a great job and are very excited for the actual performance.  We hope you can make it at 8:45am on the 22nd to enjoy all the hard work that has gone into it!  If possible, please have your child wear black bottoms and red tops on the day of the performance.  

We are also really looking forward to going to the Nutcracker Ballet on Friday.  Please be sure to have your child eat a nice, big breakfast that morning because we will not be eating snack or lunch during normal school hours.  If your child attends the After School Program, please send a lunch for him/her to eat there.  More information about the trip will be going home this week.  

The students have been busy writing in their journals, completing their “Good Night” books, making Nutcracker projects, and practicing the letters and sounds we’ve been learning in Fundations.  

This certainly is a busy and exciting time of the year.  The children have been doing a wonderful job concentrating on their work and learning new things.  

December 4, 2015

We have been making our life-size Nutcracker characters that will soon be beautifully displayed on our classroom walls and in the hallway.  I trace each student as a Nutcracker character and then students work together with other students in their group to decorate them.  We have been very impressed with the students’ cooperation and hard work.  We also kept busy this week working on our innovations, writing in our journals, learning poetry, decorating our gingerbread boys and girls, and reading stories.  The students have been doing a great job working hard and focusing, even during this busy and exciting time of the year!

Our very own version of the Nutcracker Ballet will be on Monday, December 22nd at 8:45am.  You won’t want to miss it!  We will be practicing the dances for the Nutcracker and will be focusing on our Russian Peppermint dance for the performance a lot next week.  If possible, we would like the children to wear red tops and black bottoms on the day of the performance but any combination of red and black would be fine.

There are quite a few class books that the children have created together that have not returned back from homes yet. Please send them back in with your child as soon as you read them so someone else can take them home.

Our thankful turkey 

November 20, 2015

It’s hard to believe Thanksgiving is just next week!  We’ve completed almost all of our Native American and Pilgrim projects and are looking forward to our “Feast” on Wednesday.  Students will be dressing up in the costumes they have made and will eat their snacks in the cafeteria with the other Kindergarten classes.  Please be sure to send a snack with your child on Wednesday.  Lunch will not be served that day.  Dismissal will be around 11:15am.  Children will be riding home on their morning buses unless you have specified that you will be picking them up.  If you are planning to pick up your child, please walk across the paved hard top area to the cafeteria door to meet your child instead of the area in front of the main office.  I’m sure it’ll be an exciting day for the students.

We will start practicing Nutcracker dances next week in preparation for our Nutcracker performance and field trip to the Nutcracker Ballet.  We are going to see the Nutcracker Ballet on December 18th.  We are planning to have our own Kindergarten Nutcracker Performance as well. An official invitation will go home soon!

We have been practicing teen numbers this week. Please keep on practicing at home too! Counting in the car, or at home can be helpful with those tricky teen numbers!

The school wide book fair is scheduled for next week. A flyer has already gone home about it. We will be visiting the book fair on Wednesday. Students can create a wishlist of items they may like. The wishlist will be sent home for you to review. The book fair will also be open on Thursday during parent/teacher conferences. Please remember that conferences is for adult only.  

Have a great weekend!

November 13, 2015

We've had another busy week in Room 115!  The students have been completing an impressive amount of work as we continue preparing for our “Thanksgiving Feast”.  We have completed most of our Native American costumes and have started learning about Pilgrims.  We read a story called “Samuel Eaton’s Day” which is about a day in the life of a Pilgrim boy and we will be reading a similar one called “Sarah Morton’s Day” which is about a day in the life of a Pilgrim girl.  We talked a lot about the chores Pilgrim boys and girls had to do and I tried to encourage them to be helpful at home too!  

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving will be a half day of school.  Dismissal will be around 11:15am.  I sent a form home about how your student will be getting home, please return the form as soon as possible.  We will be having a “Thanksgiving Feast” on that day, which will consist of the students wearing their costumes and eating their snacks in the cafeteria with the other Kindergarten classrooms.  All costumes will be made ahead of time at school.  Lunch will not be served on that day.  We will also sing a few songs all together with the other Kindergarten classes.

It's hard to believe that it's already time to start thinking about all our December activities!  We will start practicing Nutcracker dances in preparation for our Nutcracker performance and to help our trip to the ballet be more meaningful.  I will let you know as soon as the day of our performance is confirmed!

We have been doing a lot with rhyming but I would encourage you to practice it at home with your child too.  It would also be wonderful if you could help your child practice with counting, ordering, and writing numbers to 10 and even into the teen numbers.  We finished our unit on numbers 1-10 and started with the teen numbers.  Even simple things like counting stairs as they walk up them or counting how many bites of food they eat would be helpful!

Thank you for all the paper bags you have been sending in.  We have all we need for right now. We are now looking for paper towel tubes, as we are looking forward to start our Nutcracker unit. Thanks so much!

Also… Please make sure your child brings warm clothes to wear outside for recess now that the weather is getting colder and please help them practice putting all their stuff on too!  

Have a great weekend!!

Letters to Veterans

We met with our 4th grade buddies on Friday and in honor of Veteran's Day, we wrote letters to veterans.  The letters will be sent to troops currently in Afganistan along with Halloween candy the office has been collecting. 

November 6, 2015

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is only a few weeks away!  The children will start their Native American costumes and will be working on their Pilgrim attire in a couple of more weeks.  They will paint their vests and ponchos/mantels, and will make and paint clay pinch pots.  They will be coming up with their own Native American names and will weave placemats. They have been enjoying listening to the story “Tapenum’s Day.” They can’t believe how different the lives of the Wampanoags were! Next week we will read about Sarah Morton and Samuel Eaton, two pilgrim children.

We will join together for a “Thanksgiving Feast” with the other Kindergarten classes on the half day of school before Thanksgiving.  Students will dress up as either Native Americans or Pilgrims and will eat their snacks for the day on their placemats in the cafeteria.  We will also sing a few songs.

We have begun a unit on families and have been talking about how families are different. Students have been making large family collages and have been writing about what they like to do with their families.  We have also been discussing how thankful we are to have our families!

We will head to the library on Monday to return and get new books!

I sent home a notice about the half day dismissal for the day before Thanksgiving. Please send it in as soon as possible so we know where your child is going!

I will be sending home a conference schedule early next week. Please check it and I hope the time can work for you!

Don’t forget… no school on Tuesday or Wednesday!  Happy Veteran’s Day!

Have a great weekend!

Our big animals are finished and hanging on display in the hallway! Thanks to our big buddies for their help drawing our zoo animals!

Handprint giraffes!!

A few highlights...!

October 30, 2015

October 30, 2015

This has been a very fun week here in room 115!  We had a wonderful day at the Zoo on Wednesday and want to thank Mrs. Corbett, Mrs. Shaikh, and Mrs. Tsipourakis for coming with us!  We also enjoyed our Halloween Parade today.  It was fun to watch everyone get dressed up. The kids sure are excited for tomorrow! We went to the computer lab for the first time this week! We were able to learn how to use the mouse and hope to go back soon!

We will start learning about the Wampanoags and Pilgrims next week.  I hope the students will be able to comprehend a little about how different it was to live 400 years ago.  The students will be making their Wampanoag costumes and will start to weave placemats soon.  We will be focusing on families and homes during the next couple of weeks.  They will make family collages, which will include everyone who lives in their homes and they will create a class book with their houses and addresses.  It would be great if you could work with your child on memorizing his/her street address.

The students have been working hard in math. We are still working on writing our numbers, one to one correspondence and different math language (i.e. which is more or fewer, etc.).

We still need brown grocery bags for our Thanksgiving projects.  If you could ask for some at the grocery store the next time you go, that would be helpful.  Thank you!

Please keep practicing putting on jackets and other winter items at home as the days get cooler! It saves us a lot of time getting ready for recess and dismissal!

We are missing a few class books that have not returned back. Please check your houses and send them back if you have one!

Don’t forget to set your clocks back an hour for Daylight Savings this weekend!

Have a great weekend and Happy Halloween!!

We had a great time at the zoo!

Here are a few highlights! It was a little chilly but we had a great day! 

Our classroom door for the school wide door decorating contest! 

 

A few more things...

Scholastic book orders will be due Monday! 

If you have any toilet paper tubes you can send in for an art project we'd greatly appreciate it!

October 23, 2015

Dear Parents,

I hope you are enjoying all the beautiful autumn changes that are happening outside and the cooler weather too!  It is an exciting time of the year for the children and it is a busy time in the classroom. We have been busy this week working together to decorate our door for a school wide door decorating contest. It was great to see everyone working together to create our door.

We are looking forward to our trip to the Franklin Park Zoo on Wednesday.  A reminder went home on today but students will need a disposable bagged lunch and snack as well as a drink…and warm clothes too!  Chaperones should be here by 8:30am so we can leave by 8:45am.  We are hoping for a beautiful day.

As you can see from the work coming home, the children are continuing to make books.  We have finished the Mom and I Went to the Zoo innovation and will start reading them to each other.  I would encourage the children to reread them as much as possible.  It’s also good to have them point to the words while they read them.  We also made a class book based on Mrs. Wishy-Washy. The children continue to write in their journals, illustrate poetry, and work with beginning sounds and rhyming.

Next week we will begin learning about Thanksgiving, the Native Americans, and Pilgrims.  We will start the unit by reading a book by Kate Waters entitled, "Tapenaum, the Story of an Indian Boy".  This book has accurate information and photos taken from the Wampanoag village at Plimouth Plantation.  It is a book that depicts the lives of the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags in the 1620's.  We try to emphasize how different their lives were from ours, but that family was then, and is now, very important.  Hopefully they will come away from this unit with a tiny bit of understanding and thankfulness for all we have today.

We will also be making costumes and artifacts that would be used by the people of the day.  This is in preparation to wear to our feast the week of Thanksgiving. Students will dress up as either Native Americans or Pilgrims and we will eat our snacks from home together with the other Kindergarten students in the cafeteria.

We will need large brown paper bags to make our Wampanoag costumes.  If you have any extras or can ask for some at a grocery store, we would really appreciate it.  Thanks!

Have a great weekend!

Kerry Marsh

Also… don’t forget that the Halloween Parade is on Friday.  You are welcome to stand outside the office in the lobby area at 9:00am to watch us parade by!  Children are invited to bring their costumes in a labeled bag to change into.  They will be changing out of them after the parade.  If you do not want your child to participate, please let me know as soon as possible.

Francis Wyman Halloween Party

Ticket Reminder: Francis Wyman Halloween Party
Friday, October 30th from 6-8PM

The deadline to purchase tickets for the Francis Wyman Halloween Party is tomorrow,October 23rd. Don't miss out on this fun event! Payment can be made by cash or check made out to Francis Wyman PTO and sent in to school in an envelope labeled "Halloween Party."

Halloween Party tickets are being sent home on a weekly basis. They will be in a white envelope with the student's last name and homeroom number on it. If you send in your order form by the deadline and do not receive your tickets by Tuesday, October 27th, please send an email to info@franciswymanpto.org.

 

 

Science Night at Francis Wyman- TOMORROW NIGHT

Wednesday, October 21st from 6-8PM

 

Francis Wyman families are welcome to join the Francis Wyman PTO and Burlington Science Center for an out of this world school community event! Activities include a nocturnal animal show, StarLab tours, straw rocket making, mysterious Oobleck, and much more! Don't miss this fun family event! Event is FREE for kids and adults. Children must be accompanied by an adult. 

 

Check out this video for more info:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs9WKvAUUUU

Fall artwork

We have been very busy here in room 115! Here is some of our fall artwork!