Scarecrow, Scarecrow Book by the Kindergartners

To get ready for our trip to Ganyard Hill Farm next week, kindergartners learned to read a poem called Scarecrow, Scarecrow.  Students illustrated the poem carefully, and then read it aloud for our first digital class book!  Enjoy!

http://voicethread.com/share/5005508/

Verbal Pathways

Kindergartners use verbal pathways to learn how to form lowercase letters.  They say the Verbal Pathway while writing the letter, then say the letter name after they finish to reinforce their letter naming fluency.  After practicing a letter, students write sight words using that letter.  Today we practiced the words "he" and "that" after writing h.

Sight Word Fun

Kindergartners celebrate moon festival!

Thursday, September 19th was the moon festival, or Mid-Autumn Festival.  Kindergartners read books like "Thanking the Moon" and "Round as a Mooncake" by Grace Lin in English class with Mrs. Jiang to learn more about the moon festival.  Students also drew and wrote about what their own Moon Festival picnic would look like!

In Chinese class with Ms. Wang, students practiced writing the character 月 （yue） for moon and made their own play-doh mooncakes.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

(This post was originally posted to the first grade blog by mistake and has now been removed).

The First Day of Kindergarten!

The time has finally come:  Kindergartners had their first day of school today!

I am so impressed by how "school ready" our kindergartners are!  They came in ready to learn and meet new people.  On our first day students learned about many important classroom and school routines.  Ask your child to tell you how they do the following things at school:

1. Make your lunch choice and "check in" on the Smartboard
2. Walk in the hallways
3. Eat lunch in the cafeteria
4. Let the teacher know you need to use the bathroom
5. Sit on the carpet for a whole group lesson
6. Let the teacher know you have something to say
7. Use the slide and monkey bars
8. Give someone a "CHOMP" (and for bonus, ask them what getting a CHOMP means!)

For fun, try practicing some of these at home!  Act out the correct way to use the slide in your living room, or turn your child into the teacher and let them call on each family member at the dinner table while you're eating dinner.  We'll be talking more about CHOMP as school progresses, but for now, encourage your child to look for "CHOMP" behavior at home.  For example, if your child's younger or older brother is sitting patiently and waiting, encourage your kindergartner to give him a CHOMP!

Reflecting on how our writing has changed this year

What did kindergartners notice about how their writing has changed this year?

• In the beginning of the year, I spelled pumpkin like "a-kin" but now I spell it "p-u-m-p-k-i-n."  Now I know all the sounds in the word!
• At the beginning of the year, when I spelled some words, the a turned into the b. Now I know my letters better than before.
• At the beginning of the year, the lines were crooked when I wrote and I'm like "Uh, how do I read this?" Now my lines are straight and I can read all the words I wrote.
• When I was reading my writing from the first day of kindergarten, one word was "tuh" but it wasn't a real word.  Now I know what words I write.
• At the beginning of kindergarten, I didn't know how to spell so many words, but I know how to spell alot!!!!!!!!!!!
• At the beginning of kindergarten, I was sounding words out and I didn't write alot.  Now I write alot.
• In the beginning of the year, I thought b was d and d was b, and at the end of the year b was b and d was d. 
• At the beginning of the year, we sometimes forgot to use capital letters at the beginning of sentences and periods at the end of sentences.  Now, we know to put capital letters at the beginning of sentences and periods at the end of sentences.
• At the beginning of the year, some of us forgot to add spaces between words, but now we all use spaces.
• At the beginning of the year, sometimes we forgot illustrations, or our illustrations didn't have color or details, but now we have more details in our illustrations.

At the beginning of the year, I didn't know how to read.  But now I know how to read very well.   

How does being able to read help us become better writers?

• If you write something, you can read a book and that tells you more to put in your writing and you can write more sentences.  
• If you can read more, you can learn more words that you never knew how to spell and you never heard of, and books can help you.  Alot!
• If you have a word that you want to write and you don't know how to spell it, and its in the book, then you know its spelled that way or a different way.

Saturday morning in the chick house

The chicks seem to have grown a ton overnight! Hopper and Skinny, who both spent Friday in our chick hospital, are back in good health and socializing with their siblings. As the chicks grow older, they're getting mischievous! 3 more chicks have earned names:
Fearless, who frequently runs at the window of the chick house at full speed (perhaps hoping to escape)
Pecky, who bravely defends the food trough by pecking everything that comes close (fingers, cups, extra food, etc.)
and Trouble, who needs a little extra help learning CHOMP - I caught him dragging another chick around by the toe! Hopefully our kindergartners will be a good influence on Trouble!

Nighttime in the Chick House

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What's YOUR favorite Oviparous Animal?

Our kindergartners studied a variety of oviparous animals through read-alouds and hands-on experiences.  With our student teacher Miss Amina's help, they wrote about their favorite oviparous animals and included two reasons for their opinion.  Then students recorded their opinion writing using PixNTell, an iPad app.  This project integrated reading, writing, science, and technology standards -- and was lots of fun too!  Thanks to Miss Amina, Ms. Gondek, and our technology specialist Ms. Starkey for all your hard work!

Enjoy!

Welcome Battle, Chick number 10!

Ms. Gondek caught our tenth chick on video just as he hatched. We've named him after Mr. Battle, our fantastic custodian and superhero extraordinaire for all of his help with the chicks!

Rise and shine!

 Seven more chicks hatched overnight! These pictures are from 7 am on 5/9. One chick is clearly older - look for the chick who looks more fluffy and dry. Norbert and Laoda look so grown up compared to their siblings!

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Noisy eggs?!

Just listen to Laoda's and Norbert's siblings...I think they want to come out of those shells!


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All mail correspondence to and from the Chapel Hill- Carrboro City Schools
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Norbert joins Laoda in the chick house

Norbert's gotten big and dry enough to move to the chick house with Laoda!


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Laoda moves to the chick house

What will Laoda do when he's moved out of the incubator into the chick house? Let's find out!


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All mail correspondence to and from the Chapel Hill- Carrboro City Schools
is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law, which may result in
monitoring and disclosure to third parties, including law enforcement.

Hatching time at last!

Our chicks began hatching today, right on time (unlike most babies)! Students have been learning all about oviparous animals and what they need to hatch and survive - and now we get to put that knowledge to work! Students are also learning about growth and change, relating how the chicks grow to how other animals, including people, grow. Ask your child to share with you about our chicks a little each day, and stay tuned for more updates as our "new students" continue hatching and growing!

Laoda, our oldest chick, hatched around 9:30 am 5/8. This is what Laoda looked like at 3 hours old.

Here's our second chick, Norbert, when he was just 1 minute out of the shell.  He hatched around 3:30 pm on 5/8.

Here's Laoda at 9 hours out of the shell.  Look how fuzzy he looks now!

Laoda at 9.5 hours old on the left, and Norbert at 4.5 hours old on the right, just after they moved from the cramped incubator to the chick house.  We transfer the chicks to the chick house when they are fully dried, but before they get too big for the incubator.  Laoda was so ready to get out of the incubator that he was climbing on and kicking the other eggs!

Eight more chicks are trying to hatch!  Can you find all the eggs in these picture that show signs of hatching?

Read-a-Thon Basketball Game 2013

In true Chapel Hill fashion, Glenwood celebrated the closing of our Read-a-Thon with a unique basketball game: students versus superheroes!  You may have seen these superheroes around school or at Lincoln Center...can you figure out their real identities?

The top readers from each class played in the basketball game against the superheroes.  Our technology specialist, Ms. Starkey, put together the fun video below, and you can also check out the slideshow below for shots of our very own Isaac playing in the game, as well as some candid shots of our other kindergartners cheering for Isaac!

Read-a-Thon Basketball Game 2013, produced by Ms. Starkey

Read-a-Thon Basketball Game Slideshow

Field Trip to Morehead Planetarium

Has your family ever been to Morehead Planetarium?  All Kindergarten students from Glenwood went on a field trip in early April and learned about many fascinating science topics!

First, students saw a planetarium show called "One World, One Sky: Big Bird's Adventure."  Students learned about different parts of the night sky like the moon, stars, and constellation.  A special feature of the show was that Big Bird's friend from China, Hu Hu Zhu, taught about ways China and the night sky as seen from China are similar to and different from the United States.  Our students especially enjoyed singing along with "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" in Chinese!

After the planetarium show, we visited the Science Live stage to learn about Magnificent Matter.  Students learned about air pressure, chemicals with unusual properties, and energy.  Check out the slideshow below to see our students enjoying Science Live!

March Birthday Celebration

Mr. Mead and Mrs. Freeman came in to help us celebrate our March birthdays in true spring fashion.  Mrs. Freeman taught us how to make special spring eggs - with shaving cream and paint!  Students had a great time swirling the paint into the shaving cream and making designs on their special eggs.  This was an excellent tactile experience for our students!

Huge thanks to Mrs. Freeman and Mr. Mead for this wonderful celebration!

Famous Book Characters visit Glenwood!

Many famous book characters came to Glenwood today!  Fancy Nancy from "Fancy Nancy, Bonjour Butterfly" and The Number Devil substitute taught the class for Mrs. Jiang and Ms Gondek.  Even Ms. Tsai had a famous substitute - Totoro from "My Neighbor, Totoro"!  Among our students we had:

• Brother Bear from the Berenstain Bears
• Snow White
• Merida
• Rabbit from Winnie the Pooh
• Dora and Diego
• Tinkerbell
• Amelia Bedelia
• Annie from the Magic Tree House series
• Fancy Nancy
• Raggedy Ann
• Ramona

We also were lucky enough to have guests from a wide range of Dr. Seuss books like

• Max from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas
• The main character from Wacky Wednesday, and 
• Fox in Socks

We had a great day of reading and sharing our favorite books.  Kindergartners also LOVED seeing the other "substitutes" around the school, and the famous book characters in all grades!  Check out the Glenwood facebook page for some great candid shots of both Fancy Nancy, The Number Devil, Merida, and many more famous book characters!

100th Day Festivities

Kindergarten and First Grade students celebrated the 100th day of school in February.  Students worked in pairs as they rotated through reading, writing, and math centers focused on numbers to 100.  Students practiced reading, writing, and counting to 100 in both English and Chinese.  Watch the slideshow to see some of the activities students enjoyed on the 100th day! 

Dr. Seuss week begins!

Dr.Seuss' birthday was on March 2nd! We will be celebrating this famous author's contributions to children's literature all week. Today was Cat in the Hat day. We read The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, listened for rhymes, and discussed the surprising events in the book. What rhymes can you make?


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All mail correspondence to and from the Chapel Hill- Carrboro City Schools
is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law, which may result in
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Celebrating Chinese New Year

Kindergartners enjoyed our New Year festivities last Friday!  

Thanks to everyone who was able to come to our celebration yesterday!  I'd like to give a HUGE thanks (and 谢谢) to the parents who helped organize the celebration: Nasha, Meng, Ardra, Sharon, and many others worked hard to put together a presentation, a snake craft, and fun hongbao for all students to enjoy the New Year. 

Also, all of Glenwood was blown away by the amazing Chinese gate that Minfu Cheng (Alicia's mom) and TingTing Chu (2nd grader Bo Chi's mom) made by hand last week. 

Check out the photos below for great candid shots of our kindergartners celebrating Chinese New Year!

Are you ready to learn about Chinese New Year?

Our kindergartners sure have learned a lot about Chinese New Year...so this week we decided it was time for the students to become the teachers!  Students worked with Mrs. Jiang to plan a class book about Chinese New Year.  Students chose topics to write about, illustrated their topics, and then wrote about their topics in teams. We then decided to present their book using VoiceThread, a digital presentation tool.  This project helped our students study a wide range of Common Core and North Carolina Essential Standards.  Students practiced the following skills (and more!):

Research: learning new facts from text and other sources, synthesizing facts with background knowledge
Informative writing: Stating facts about a topic
Public speaking
Using technology as a communication tool
Cooperating in a team

Now that we've finished, its time to celebrate!  We will be sharing our kindergatrners' presentation with the other kindergarten and first grade classes so they can learn about Chinese New Year too.  And there was one group of people the kindergartners ESPECIALLY hoped could learn about Chinese New Year from them: their parents!

So, without further ado, here is All About Chinese New Year, by your kindergartners!

All About Chinese New Year

Fwd: A shape is just a shape until you add...

> It may be the first day back from winter break, but our kindergartners got straight back into the groove with super creative shapes! Students read the book Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert, which uses different shapes to make a new creation. Each student worked with their group to plan out their own creation. Then students used the shape word wall to learn how to spell the names of the shapes they used. Try having your kindergartner make and write about their own creations at home!
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All mail correspondence to and from the Chapel Hill- Carrboro City Schools
is subject to the North Carolina Public Records Law, which may result in
monitoring and disclosure to third parties, including law enforcement.