Mammals & Habitats

 Q: Why don't leopards play hide and seek?

A: Because they're always spotted!

Q: How do you stop an elephant from charging?

A: Take away their credit card!

Q: What time is it when a lion walks into a room?

A: Time to leave!

These jokes sum up the excitement we had this week! Our days were filled with learning about mammals, herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores. Ask your student: What makes a mammal? (They have fur or hair, give birth to live young—not eggs, unless you're a platypus—nurse their babies, and are warm-blooded!)

Kindergartners also had fun playing a predator-prey game where, if they were the moth, they had to avoid being caught by a bat. (And can you guess which one is not a mammal?)

Kindergarteners also finished their research project on their VT animal, complete with a clay model and a handmade habitat. They were all so engaged in this creative build. My apologies in advance for any sticky glue that may not have fully dried—and for the moss that might crumble!

    Dates to remember!

• December 1 - December 17: UCS Food & Gift Card Drive

• December 10: Student 2hr Early Release/Staff PD Day

• December 12: UCS PTO Kids Day Out (4:00 - 7:30p)

• December 24 - January 2 Vacation

VT Animals & Festive Fun!

 

I’d like to take a moment to share how grateful I am to spend my days with your children. They bring such joy, enthusiasm, and a genuine love of learning to our classroom each day. There are not many jobs where you get to receive 25 hugs or be showered with handmade pictures daily!! I feel truly lucky.

This week, students continued their exploration of shapes through hands-on games, creating shape pictures, and contributing to a collaborative shape mural. In science and literacy, students created clay figurines of the Vermont animal they chose to study and researched its food and habitat using PebbleGo and nonfiction books. After the break, we’re excited to begin building the habitats for these animals!

Each week, we continue to add more high-frequency words—also known as power words and heart words—to our growing word bank! So far, we have: A, I, is, the, do, to, love, this, and, an, am, look. It’s exciting to see students noticing these words in their reading and beginning to use them in their writing.

Wishing you all a peaceful break filled with rest, connection, and gratitude!  See you in December! ❄

Snow, Shapes, & Organisms, Oh My!

 

What a crew!!

Another great week of learning is in the books! Students dove into new science concepts, exploring wild vs. domestic animals and living vs. nonliving organisms through reading, writing, and hands-on games.

In math, students explored shapes, shapes, and more shapes! They practiced creating different shapes and noticing how the world around us is made up of them. We also talked about special attributes—for example, a triangle has three sides and three vertices (corners).

 

Snowy Peaks and New Beginnings!

The snow on the mountains is reminding us that colder days are ahead and it’s time to pull out those cozy, warm clothes!

This week, we kicked off a few new learning adventures! In Science, we began our study of Organisms, using our observation skills to explore patterns in what plants and animals need to survive. This connects beautifully with our new literacy unit, Zoology. Each lesson is built around a key life science concept and weaves together language arts and science standards. Kindergartners love learning about animals and can’t get enough of the fascinating facts they’re discovering!

In Math, we began Unit 3: 2-D Geometry. We’re developing ideas about the attributes of two-dimensional shapes—naming them, noticing their features, and exploring how we can compose and decompose them into new shapes.

We had several special guests visit this week! It began with people from the Community Bank who came to help us take part in the Blankets for Hope project. Students wrote notes and wrapped a blanket with ribbon to be given to people in need.  It was a beautiful project to be involved with.

The MMU Choir stopped by to share their beautiful voices in a joyful array of songs at our all school meeting.  Many students after said that they can't wait to become singers in high school! Later that day, Ms. Neeson led an extraordinary lesson inspired by Eric Carle, showing us how he creates his colorful illustrations. Each student created their own animal using his process and learned how to create community art for all to enjoy and repurpose. Thank you, Ms. Neeson!

Greetings!

What a fun and busy week we had in Kindergarten! We kicked it off with a visit from the famous Recycle Rhonda! She’s from the Chittenden Solid Waste District and travels around teaching students about the 4 R’s — Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Rot (compost). Her enthusiasm and passion for caring for our earth are truly contagious!

Students also enjoyed retelling stories this week. Creating masks for Where the Wild Things Are was a blast, and acting it out in the forest was a wildly fun time! We spent time reading Pete the Cat stories and compared and contrasted the similarities and differences we found in them. We carried this comparison theme into math, where we compared the heights of our block towers with objects around the room and, later in the week, compared the lengths of our names.

On Friday, we had our very first Buddy Classroom time with Mrs. Jones’s class! Together, we went a little batty learning all about bats. 🦇 We wrote fun bat facts, colored, and even painted bats using leaves! It was such a fun way to work together and make new friends. We can’t wait to meet up with our buddies again next month!

This week was a rainy one, but we did our best to get outside between the raindrops! During ECO, we enjoyed a puppet show all about spiders. Those creepy, crawly arachnids are fascinating to learn about! A fun fact we discovered is that many spiders have spinnerets—tiny parts that produce silk for creating webs and helping them move safely through the air. Ask your child to share a fun spider fact with you!

In Math, we played several comparison games that had us determining which amount is greater than or less than. We also talked about the symbols > and < and how we can remember them as an alligator trying to eat the larger number!

Your child also enjoyed this week’s author study on Juanita Havill. She writes stories about a little girl named Jamaica. We discussed the choices Jamaica made and some of the moral dilemmas she faced. Students noticed the setting and characters in the stories and shared thoughtful ideas during our discussions.

It was lovely to meet with you all this week for conferences. What lucky kids to have such wonderful, supportive parents like you all!! ❤

Important Dates:

• October 27th: Recycle Rhonda Visit

• October 27th - October 31st: UCS Book Fair 

• October 27th - October 31st: Bike Week @ UCS 

• November 1st: PTO Fun Run @ Mills Riverside Park

• November 5th: Student 2hr Early Release Day AND Picture Retake Day

Seeds, Measurement, & A Cow!

Greetings!

This week, we kicked things off with a fun visit from Buddy Dubay, a local preschool teacher and musician! Buddy will be visiting us throughout the year to share seasonal songs, and the children loved singing along with him.

We also took some time to recognize Indigenous Peoples’ Day and read a beautiful story by Ria Thundercloud titled Finding My Dance. For our W.O.W. (Word of the Week), we explored the word ancestor. We discussed how someday we will be someone’s ancestor and how it’s our responsibility to care for our Earth and be kind to others.

In Literacy, our author study focused on Ezra Jack Keats. We examined the characters and settings in his stories closely and noticed the special ways he brings everyday moments to life.

In Math, we entered the part of our unit where we compare lengths and quantities. Students played fun counting games and began exploring measurement. They especially enjoyed using rulers to compare different objects around our schoolyard!

We began ABL this week! Action-based Learning incorporates math, reading, and writing skills with movement.  This will happen every other week, just like our guidance class. 

Lastly, have you heard we are adopting a cow?? Yes! We will be participating in a program called Adopt A Cow. This is a year-long virtual educational experience that provides students with an inside look at dairy farming.  We will be paired with a calf from Laggis Farm in Hardwick, VT. Throughout the school year, we will receive progress reports about growth and other fun activities, including photos, video updates, activity sheets, and an interactive virtual farm tour and live chat. 

Reminder:

We are entering conference week!  If you signed up for a virtual link, this should have arrived in your inbox today.  If you wanted one and did not get one, please let me know.  Thank you!

 

What a beautiful weekend, gazing upon colorful leaves and listening to the honking of geese flying overhead!

Thank you all for attending Open House this week. It was wonderful to see so many happy families gathering to celebrate and support their children at UCS! Just hours before, our class worked hard to complete our Citizenship service project — gathering the remaining pumpkins, laying out our freshly painted kindness rocks, and creating a cheerful scarecrow to sit among it all. Watching the children carry the scarecrow while giggling together was absolutely heartwarming!

We started our week with an incredible field trip to Chapin’s Orchard. The staff welcomed us warmly and shared fun facts about apples and farming. Thank you to our chaperones for joining us! Back at school, students enjoyed making apple prints and homemade applesauce to continue our apple theme.

Kindergartners also had their first Tea Time Tuesday and sipped on some lemon balm tea. Tea Time is a lovely opportunity to practice manners like saying “please” and “thank you,” and to learn what to do if we don’t care for something. It’s also a wonderful way to build plant literacy. Later in the week, students had fun baking lemon balm cookies!

In literacy, students explored an author study on Grace Lin. We read several of her beautiful books, discussed their themes, compared them, and wrote about our favorite parts.

We ended our week with an exciting visit from the Underhill Fire Department! It’s always such a treat to learn from our courageous firefighters and see the fire truck up close. A special shout-out to Clara’s dad, Luke, who is one of these skilled and brave firefighters!

A note from our school nurse:

Over the next three weeks, the health office will be conducting hearing and vision screenings for students in Kindergarten, 1st, and 3rd grades, as well as for students receiving special services. Families will be notified if their child does not pass a screening or if additional follow-up is recommended.

Important dates

Oct 13 - Mon Music with Buddy

Oct 20-23 Caregiver Conferences

Oct 27 - Mon Recycle Rhonda visit

Oct 27 - Oct 31 Book Fair in our school library and Bike Week @ UCS

Sorry this is a little on the longer side this week!

Autumn Greetings 🍂🍂🍂

 I have a few announcements below. Have a wonderful long weekend! 

*The field trip to Chapin's apple orchard will take place on Monday, when we return from the long weekend!  Families who have volunteered, please arrive at 8:25. We plan to leave on the bus at 8:30.  We suggest having your student wear boots and dress in layers.

*Please join us for Open House on Thursday from 6-7pm. 

*Conference week will take place from Monday, October 20th, to Thursday, October 23rd.  Here is the sign-up link  Fall conferences are a great opportunity to check in and see how your child is adjusting to kindergarten, as well as discuss any questions or concerns you may have.

What a fun week we have had!  I do believe we can probably say that every week! 😉 

We continued exploring SEL concepts this week by learning about the Zones of Regulation. We talked about how we all experience many different feelings, and this fun image helps us see how they can be grouped into different zones. All feelings are normal—it’s what we do with them that matters—and we are practicing strategies to help us return to the green zone.

We continued our social studies Civics lessons this week, focusing on treating others fairly, treating others equally, and being a good listener. These lessons help us learn what it means to be a responsible and caring member of our community.  

Our class began a new math unit called Counting Quantities, comparing lengths.  The focus is on counting and comparing quantities and beginning to explore measurement by directly comparing objects to see which is longer. 

Reminders:

**Please send in extra clothes for your child regularly, especially if they are having accidents at school.  Also, it would be really great to have some plastic bags donated for this reason. Thank you so much!**

• October 1st ~ Recycle Rhonda visit

• October 2nd & 3rd ~ NO SCHOOL 

• October 6th ~ Kindergarten Field Trip to Chapin: Please send in apple-picking permission slips, as our trip is coming up!

• October 8th ~ Student 2hr Early Release Day

• October 9th ~ UCS Open House (6:00 -7:00p) 

• October 10th ~ Visit from UJFD during All-School Morning Meeting