Gingerbread houses and more

On Monday we will be decorating gingerbread house. It is tons of fun and the kids do a great job decorating them.  All week we read many different versions of the stories about the gingerbread boy.I have a few more to finish up this week.  We have had so many discussions about the characters in the stories and how they are similar and different from each other.  It has been a lot of fun. 

On Wednesday the morning kindergarten class and the morning k-club students will be going to Mass.               

Please make sure you empty your child's folder nightly , initial their calendars and look at all their papers.  A special schedule will be coming home for next week.  Please make sure to look at it daily, there are two days the a.m. students will be staying all day.  They will need a lunch and a drink.

Also a note about their homework.  Please sit with your child and explain the directions to them.  Please guide them through it.  Making sure they are using the writing lines appropriately. The more guidance we can give them at home and at school the better  off they will be.

We started addition this past week and will continue to review in class. Continue to work on popcorn words and numbers at home.  

Thanks,  Have a great week!

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I know I did, we celebrated this year with our new grandson Parker!  He was born last Sunday November 18th. 7lbs 1 oz. 19 inches long. He is such a joy! We have so much to be thankful for!

This week we will start Literacy centers and reading groups, we have picture retakes and we will be going to the play "The Ugly Duckling" .  Please refer to the information sheet  about the play that came home with the permission slip.  It's going to be a lot of fun! Also on Tuesday we will be going to Mass.

Last week we had a great time on Science day! We learned so many things about eggs! It was an
Egg-cell end  time. Thank you parents for volunteering your time to help us out! I will post pictures soon.

Continue to work on popcorn words and identifying numbers.

See you on Monday!

So much to be thankful for!

I would like to congratulate Mrs. Lessentien on becoming a new Grandma.  Owen John Lessentien   10 lbs 2 oz was born on November 7th. He is so beautiful. Mom and dad are doing great and Mrs. Lessentien is enjoying her new role!

I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend!  I did not send home any homework this weekend, but we will have some on Friday.

This week we will start our thanksgiving book and continue to talk about all the things we are thankful for.  

Please continue to work on popcorn words at home and  numbers 1-50.

kindergarten news

I forgot to mention this in the buzz! This week there will be no written homework.  Please continue to read and work on popcorn words.  If you would like to have your child work on something please have them practice writing their numbers 1-50. 

Monday we are having a bus evacuation practice for both morning and afternoon classes.

Our Halloween parties were a success! Pictures will follow shortly.  Everyone looked so cute in their costumes.  I hope they have all recovered from their sugar rushes.   Any extra Halloween candy can be donated to the third grade service project.  Boxes are in the front entry way.  Please feel free to drop off any candy their.  If you send it with your child please make sure they know to take it out of their back-packs.  I do not check their back packs.

Conferences will be Friday November 9, 2012.  A notice went home  in your child's report card.  I only have 10 minutes per conference.  If you feel you have more to discuss we can set up an additional time during one of my plan periods.  

Remember to sign your report card envelopes and return them to school.  You can keep the report card for your records.

Thanks, have a blessed weekend.

Happy Halloween

Halloween is this Wednesday. Kindergarten should come to school in their costumes.  We will parade with the morning and afternoon class and we will celebrate with a party.  Please remember no weapons or any other inappropriate pieces for their costumes.  Masks are ok, however they usually don't wear them after the parade.  

Thank you parents  for all your work planning the parties.  The kids just love their parties.

Report cards will come home on Friday, please remember to sign the envelope and return it to school. 

Also please look closely at the Buzz this week, Kindergarten A.M. will not go to gym on Thursday they will participate in gym class at 8:10 on Tuesday along with Art class.  We will be attending Mass on Thursday for All Saints Day.  K-club will be joining us as well. 

I hope everyone has a safe a happy Halloween!

Science day in kindergarten

The year is off to a great start.  We have had two science days and were able to explore many different things.  First we explored chemical and physical change, and we made some gak. After visiting the pumpkin farm we studied pumpkins.  We weighed them, observed them, cut them open and looked inside.  Those children who were brave enough even touched the gunky insides of the pumpkins.  Oh what fun.  Thanks to our parents who took home the seeds and baked them for us we even got to taste part of the pumpkin.  Surprising enough several of the children who didn't think they would like the pumpkin seeds were asking for seconds and thirds.  So exciting.  I really like when they try something new.  The unknown can be so exciting.  I look forward to our next science day!.

kindergarten Pumpkin farm

the kindergarteners with their pumpkins

fun in the corn pit

Monday we went to the pumpkin farm.  We lucked out the weather was beautiful.  The students really had a great time.  We  went on a hayride and saw pumpkins get launched into the pond.  There was also a corn pit the kids were able to play in.  I wish we had one in school.  Loads of fun.  We went on the big slides and saw the animals in the petting zoo! I think the pig races were the most fun of all. Daniel's pig one his race, YEAH!  but Mrs. Cherney's pig China Doll failed to make it to the finish line first.  Oh well there is always next year!  Thank you parents for joining us on our field trip!  Your children really enjoy when you are there.

Next week

Don't forget next week we have a short week.  We do not have school on Thursday 10/4 or Friday  10/5 or the following Monday 10/8th.  Enjoy your long weekend. We will not have a star of the week due to the short week, but we will have one for the week of 10/8.  Also please make sure you look over the permission slip for the pumpkin farm and return it to school as soon as possible.  Thanks, have a blessed week! 
We have been working on letter recognition and letter sound recognition as well as working on identifying our numbers 1- 25.  We have also been working on place value.  They are getting really good at identifying the ones place and the tens place in numbers. The beginning of the year is always such a busy time with so many things being introduced to them, but they really seem to be enjoying the activities and especially love the smartboard. (as do I)  They have been working hard and I am so proud of their progress that they have made.  Keep supporting them at home!

Apple graphing




Morning graphing according to size





Jessica's cute little apple



We have been busy in kindergarten learning about John Chapman aka Johnny Appleseed.  We have read so many great stories about him.  Last week we brought in apples and we graphed them on our floor graph. We learned there were many different ways to graph our apples.  First we graphed them by color, then we graphed them by size and finally we graphed them by whether they had a stem or not.  It was so much fun to see  how many red apples we had in comparison o how many green apples or mixed color apples.  Also we had so many different sizes of apples.  I think our favorite apple in the A.M. Class was Jessica's, it was so tiny.   Over all we had a great time using our floor graph and learning all the different ways to make and read a graph.



The afternoon class graphing whether their apples had a stem or not.



Kindergarten news

Well we are 16 days into kindergarten and they have been working so hard.  We have been busy working on our letters, numbers and popcorn words. They are doing such a great job with their writting! I have seen such great improvement already.  We have also been working on our smart-board, their favorite (mine too)!  We work on our letters and poems using the smart board and we also watched the letter factory by Leap Frog!  If your student struggles with identifying letter sounds it is a great DVD for support!  Also abcya.com is an awesome website for reading and math activities.    

This week we were not able to check out books from the LRC because our check out system was down.  The kids went to the computer lab instead! What a great treat!

Next week is our first science day, we will be exploring physical change and chemical reaction!  It's always fun!  I really appreciate the parent volunteers giving of their time to come and help us with our experiments.  

Next week we are going to be learning about Johnny Appleseed, don't forget to send in an apple, we will be graphing them.  It is so much fun! 

In religion we are talking about showing love to others  and the many ways we can show we care! I have asked the children to try to remember to pray daily to God not only to thank him for all the wonderful gifts he gives us daily, but also when they are feeling sad or angry!  God is always there and is always listening . 

Well I will try to update weekly, please check back for updates and eventually pictures. If you do not want your child's picture to appear on our blog please let me know ! 

Welcome to kindergarten!

Welcome everyone! The year is underway and we are already learning so many things. We have started with patterning and ordering numbers in math. Today we started writing! Those sheets that came home today are our beginning writing sheets. Next week will be our first full week and we have a busy week planned.We will be celebrating three birthdays, we will attend all our specials and we will start our reading program.  Homework will come home at the end of the week so look for it. Remember they get a week to complete it.  
The first days of kindergarten are always hard, there are so many procedures to learn.  Things we take for granted. They did a great job and I am sure they were tired at the end of the day! I look forward to next week. Have a wonderful weekend! See you on Monday!

Happy summer everyone, See you soon!

Our kindergarten service project and more!



A.M. Class helping with the sorting



This past Friday we delivered our donations to the Good Samaritan NICU. The nurses were very excited to receive our donations.  I can't thank you all enough for your generosity. We really collected a ton of baby t-shirts, blankets and beanie hats that will be put to good use.  We didn't get to see any of the babies because only parents are allowed in, but some of the nurses came out and spoke to us about how our donations are helping the babies.  I wish we could have had all the students there, but space didn't allow. I do thank those parents who took time out of their busy schedules to bring their children there.



P.M Class after we put our donations in the bucket














The nurses of the NICU

 

Looking forward, I sent home a note outlining what our May will look like.  Please check that schedule often. We are going to be busy.  Keep your fingers crossed for good weather for our field trip to the zoo and our field days.  Over the next few remaining weeks we will continue working on our independent writing, which is truly impressive and we will be using our smartboard for many end of the year activities as we wind down.  We will continue to take our timed math tests until May 18th.  The week following that  we will be busy with our field days and our VIP program so we will not take a timed test that week and the following week we only have 2 days of school.. Can you believe it.  A note about about Graduation will come home shorty.  Our ceremony is held in the evening and all are welcome, (grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts uncles etc.) I must admit this year has flown by so fast.



As usual thank you for checking our kindergarten blog!

St. Patricks Day, oviparous and our Service project.

I feel like such a slacker, I have not updated my blog in weeks. Between being sick and all the other things I let take over my life I have failed to keep up with the blog. I truly apologize. Over the past few weeks we have been exploring many new things. We learned what oviparous means. We created a cute riddle bulletin board about oviparous animals. Please stop by and read the riddles. The students have been writing in their journals. Their independent writing is coming along so nice. We also planted some marigold flowers and we are watching them grow. We had our first sprouts today! We have been studying plants and what they need to grow. We have also been talking about the parts of a plant and their importance to the plant. We also covered the different seasons and how a tree or plant looks during the different seasons.

Last week we started our Social and Emotional Service Project. We had a nurse come in from the Good Sam NICU. She talked to the students about what goes in unit and how their donations are used. I can't believe how responsive the students were. They really made some personal connections to the information that was presented to them.

Thank you to everyone who has donated to our service project, if you haven't had a chance yet remember I do need all donations by Monday. We will be sorting and getting our donation ready for delivery. I really appreciate all your help with this project. Our goal is to have them make a connection to the community and how the little things we can do make a huge difference to others who are less fortunate then ourselves.

Science day- physical and chemical change

I hope you all enjoyed your spring break! I am finally getting some of our pictures posted. For our last science day we made Ice cream, we watched milk, vanilla, sugar, salt and ice turn into a tasty treat! Each year we try to improve on the recipe and I must say this year was the best. We also blew up balloons, volcano's and watch M's float off our M & M's . It was very exciting to see what happens when you add baking soda to vinegar. So many ways to have fun with house hold items. I think the kids favorite was when the balloons blew up after the baking soda mixed with he vinegar. I really appreciate all the help you parents offered up for our science days. We couldn't do it without you . Plus the kids love to have you in the class.

Other information:

I am going to be sending home information on our field trip to the zoo, field days, VIP and Graduation. Also next week a note will come home about our social and emotional service project we are participating in. Thanks for stopping by. I will be posting pictures from St. Patrick's day soon.

St. Baldrick's

In preparation for this event, I charged my camera and when we got to DGS I took a few pictures. When the time came for Sam to have her head shaved, my camera card was full. (GO figure, just my luck) Luckily my daughter Cory had her camera and handed it to me so I could get the 10 thousand pictures I take at every event. SO all worked out and thanks to Cory saving the day here are the after pictures of both my girls. The St. Baldrick's event at Downers Grove South was very exciting. They raised over $65,000.00 dollars. Plus they had a special guest speaker Mikayla Sweeny, she is a SJS student who has battled cancer and won. When Mikayla came to kindergarten her hair had just started growing back. Friday she told a special story of a preschool friend who defended her when the other children made fun of her for being bald. She also spoke of how Nate shaves his head every year to support her and all the other children going through cancer. Although I had a schedule of events for that afternoon, I didn't make the connection when I read her name on the list. I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was her. I understand she spoke at last years event as well. Let me tell you what a great job she did speaking in front of that many students, family and faculty. (it was packed)

I am so proud of both my girls for their support with this foundation and Mikayla for her bravery to tell her story. This was a wonderful experience for everyone who attended.

Thanks for letting me share a little bit of Cherney news, I will be posting pictures of our Science day and St. Patrick's Day activities. (Probably tomorrow) So check back soon!

The Cherney Family

This past week I was exceptionally busy with my family, that is why I didn't get the blog updated and for that I apologize. I am dedicating this weeks blog to my two daughters. Last year they decided they were going to join St. Baldrick's and raise money to help fight childhood cancer. My oldest daughter Cory (who is a NICU nurse at Good Sam) joined the St. Baldrick's team sponsored by Midwest University here in Downers Grove. Their venue was held at Ballydoyles last Monday and as of that night they raised over $20,000 dollars. It was an exciting evening. Cory and so many others shaved their heads in support of those who lose their hair to cancer. Cory was the top fundraiser for the event and was the first up to shave her head. Sam, my youngest daughter (a Freshman at Downers Grove South )is shaving her head this Friday during a pep assembly. The DGS venue has raise over $33,000.00 dollars. My girls together raised over $2600.00 dollars for the foundation. Our family knows first hand how devastating Cancer is and I am so proud of them for taking part in this fundraising event.

We shared in Cory's head shaving last week and we anxiously await Sam's turn on Friday. I am posting a before picture of the two of them, but will post an after picture when Sam has her head shaved. Thank you for letting me share a little bit of Cherney news with you all. I have such a wonderful family and I know you will all agree how blessed we are to have such happy, healthy children.

Dr. Seuss

Last week we celebrated Dr. Seuss's birthday! We had so much fun reading his books and watching some movies based on his books. We also compared and contrasted the books to the movies. We watched "The Lorax" and "The Cat in the Hat" and "Green Eggs and Ham" , after we read the books we retold the story by answering questions and writing about the movies. We also made a Cat in the hat "at" word hat! So much fun. I must say they looked adorable in their "Cat in the hat" we made. This week we will be reading stories about Leprechauns and making a treasure box just in case a leprechaun visits our classroom and leaves us some of his gold.

Tuesday we will have hands on Science day. We will be exploring chemical and physical change, it is a yummy science day!

Thanks for stopping by!

Science Day- exploring our five senses

At our hands-on science day we explored our five senses- by tasting, feeling ,smelling, listening, and looking. The kids tasted many different items, lemons, sugar, pickles, pretzels, sweet tarts and chocolate. We talked about the different taste buds that we have and how each section of our tongue is used for different tastes. The look on their faces when they tasted the lemons was priceless. We also used our noses to determine what smells we were smelling. I think my room smelled like vinegar for a couple of hours afterwards. I am so grateful to all you parents who come in to help with these experiments, as you can tell they really enjoy science day! So thank you so much for your commitment to our class.

This week coming up in class we will talk about Dental health. February is dental health month and I have some activities planned that are centered around our teeth. We will also start our unit on Dr. Seuss. His birthday is March 2, We've got some Seuss activities planned for the end of the week and into the following week. We will be watching the movie "The Lorax" (the old version of course, but I can't wait to see the new version at the theater) which has a wonderful lesson on appreciating and respecting the world God created for us , as well as how important trees are to our lives.

Well thanks for checking in.... Send me a note and mention the next movie I will be seeing at the theater and your child will receive a sweet treat!