Mrs. Baltos' Kindergarten

Hello! As part of a whole school community initiative and collaboration challenge, we were tasked with creating a structure that will last 5 days outside.  This past week, with inspiration from the story of The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, we created our whole class structure.  We read many different versions of the story, including one of my favorites: The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig .  The story ends with the little wolves building a house from flowers, that help to change the Pig's heart and turn towards being a kind, good friend. Students started by making a list of materials and house structure ideas.  I love the idea of popcorn! And ice cream to make an ice cream house! Yum! Then students were set with the task of drawing and writing about their ideas (just like an engineer!) Finally, working as small groups, we completed our Pig House.  Materials include: paper towel and toilet paper rolls, straws, pipe cleaners, duct tape, ...

With winter here I wanted to send some reminders on how to keep us healthy at school.  Of course, I love seeing your child everyday, however, if your child is sick: Please keep him or her home. This is so important to keeping both students and staff healthy and prevents illness from spreading. Here are some friendly reminders, please keep your child home if: They have fever of 101 F or more.  They seem run down or more tired than usual.  This may be a sign that they are coming down with something.   They have diarrhea or are vomiting.   They have a contagious disease such as pinkeye, flu, strep throat, or something similar.  Please check with your doctor about treatment and to know when it is ok for your child to return to school. Thank you SO much for your help in keeping us all heathy!

We have been learning SO many things this past month.  First, THANK you for sending in items for your child's letter.  They turned out great! We also has a visitor from Chewonki come to talk with us about owls!  We got to see several different kinds of owls.   In math, we recently finished the 2D shape unit.  We made 2D shapes out of marshmallows and toothpicks.  We have been reading stories about the Gingerbread man!  We made puppets to help retell the story. (They went home on Wednesday- so I hope your child was able to share it with you!) Also, Mrs. Miller made the whole Kindergarten a giant gingerbread cookie!  We had it cooked in the school oven, but then it ran away!  We hope that our gingerbread returns, so that we can eat it up! In other news, as a K team, we have started flexible literacy groups.  This allows for us to target the reading needs ...

We have learned all of the letters in the alphabet!  On Friday, Nov. 30th, we will be celebrating our learning by making the letters out of objects.  Your child has already selected a letter and information was sent home in red folders.  If you are unsure which letter your child has, please let me know!  baltosst@spsd.org. Below are some completed alphabets from previous years.  Please send in items for your child's letter.  For example, jelly beans for the letter J.  I can't wait to see what what child brings to school for our celebration!

We have been learning SO much this month!  Make sure to scroll for all of the pictures since there are a lot! We learned about the pumpkin lifecycle and finished the pumpkin unit with some pumpkin math.  Students guessed how many cubes it would take to measure to the top of the pumpkin and how many seeds were inside.  Then we got to count the seeds inside!  There were about 457! We have also been working on reading books, practicing the "popcorn" words, and handwriting.  We learned a new math game: Top it!  Students compare numbers on a card. After attending an amazing conference last week, I learned about the importance of a simple activity: Eye tracking.  I will be sharing more at parent teacher conferences, but basically this helps students improve their eyes not only to be better readers, better writers, and mathematicians.  And it can help them one day be better drivers! :) It was so c...