Taking Time to Smell the Flowers!

This week we learned all about flowers and plants! On Monday we planted our own seeds and discussed what all plants need to survive. The students had fun watering and caring for their seeds all throughout the week. We also learned to read some new words like sprout, sunshine, and shovel.

On Tuesday we learned more about the life cycle of a plant. We also tried an experiment where we placed white flowers into colorful water, and the petals are supposed to turn colors. TRIED and SUPPOSED are keys word here as the experiment kind of, erm...flopped. But hey a good lesson in the fact the experiment don't always work! So yeah, no picture needed here!

On Thursday we did some dissecting! Don't worry, no frogs in here! We dissected a flower and split it into different categories (seeds, petals, leaves, and stems). There are some early botanist in the making in KA Kindergarten! We also completed a plant book we had been working on throughout the week.

In phonics we were introduced to "bossy r" and learned a little rhyme...

Bossy r comes with a vowel,
But he takes control and starts to howl
When he is in a word,
He is the only one heard,
So be careful of the sound,
And decide which vowel is around.

This is a handy little poem to help us remember tricky letter blends  like "ar", "or", "er", "ir", and "ur". The students have been practicing these blends with lots of silent and guiding reading. I'm constantly amazed with their progress and joy for reading! I'm sure they will enjoy many library trips for early reader books this summer!

In math we are working on some pretty tricky subtraction, with lots of review of past concepts. We are also counting by 2's, 5's and 10's. And we're going all up to 140!

 Next week we will be starting the IOWA test. This is a standardized test that is NOT state issued. We complete this test to assure that our curriculum is “up to par”. There are 6 sections to the IOWA test (Vocabulary, Word Analysis (reading words), Listening, Language, Math, and Reading (sentences), and we will be doing one section a day for two weeks. This should assure that the test is not stressful for any of your children! I will send home the scores once the tests are complete! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns!