Wow, what a busy week in kindergarten. Enjoy the slideshows of some of our fun activities!
Your WONDERFUL 12 Days of Christmas books!

Santa Comes to Samsula Academy!

Our Christmas tree creations

Aiden hard at work on his holiday book

Wow. It is hard to believe it is almost 2010! We have been busy gearing up for the holiday season at school.

Reminders for next week:
- Tonight (December 11) is the Samsula Academy Christmas play. It will be in the auditorium at 6:00 p.m. Come out and support our older students. We saw the play this morning and it is fantastic. Lots of the students have asked about seeing it again. (Santa will be there too!)
-Saturday (December 12) is the Samsula tractor parade!
-Next Friday afternoon will be our k-2 Polar Express celebration. Your child may wear pjs to school on Friday, and bring 1 ‘soft’ item, (such as a pillow, stuffed animal, etc. ) We will all enjoy time together watching the movie before winter break.

This week we reviewed the letter sounds g-t. In math we are continuing to work on number writing and recognition to 30. We are also practicing our counting by 5s and 10s. These are good things to practice in the car! In social studies we are learning about winter holidays. So far we have talked about Christmas and Hanukah. Next week we will also talk about the new year.

Aiden was our terrific kid this week.

Here is what he had to say about our week:
We went on the big playground. Our reading buddies were on the playground too. It is almost Christmas. We went to see the Christmas play. There were country people. There was a cow. They talked and sang. It was good. We made Christmas cards for meals on wheels. We made cards for Ms. M, because it is almost her birthday. We made Christmas trees in art. In P.E. we ran a lap. WE did a Christmas song in music. This week was awesome!

It is hard to believe that Christmas is almost here. We had a fun week, and did not let the rain today slow us down.


It seems like this time of year is full of fun and exciting activities, and that is no exception here at school.
Reminders for next week:
-This Saturday is the NSB parade. Look for our Samsula Academy float!
-Wednesday is our class photo. If you would like a photo, please make sure to send back your pre-order envelope.
- Next Friday (December 11) is the Samsula Academy Christmas play. It will be in the auditorium at 6:00 p.m.
-Next Saturday (December 12) is the Samsula tractor parade!



This week we reviewed the letter sounds a –f. In math we are working on number writing and recognition to 30. We are also practicing our counting by 5s and 10s. These are good things to practice in the car! In science we practiced using our observation and prediction skills to find out what happens to glitter when it is added to water and to hand sanitizer. Read what Cheyanna has to say about our experiment to find out what happened.

Cheyanna was our terrific kid this week. Here is what she had to say about out week: We stayed on green three days in the cafeteria. We did our science experiment. We put glitter in soap and it stayed on top. We put glitter in water and it started to go to the bottom. We made bears in are. We saw a cow on Monday. The cow won at the fair. It rained on Friday. We ate fruitcake. We are making a chain for the days until Christmas. We made elves in our holiday book. This week was awesome!

Cheyanna and Jordan hard at work

Our First Thanksgiving Feast

Clockwise from top:

turkey, nuts, Indian pudding, grapes, succotash, stewed pumpkin

(We also sampled grits and dried cranberries.)

Wow! What a wonderful Thanksgiving feast! All of the children got to sample the types of food that were at the first Thanksgiving. Most of them found at least one thing that they liked. We sampled grapes, nuts, turkey, grits, succotash, stewed pumpkin and Indian pudding. Most of the family members were surprised that the Indian pudding did not have any pumpkin in it! Ask your child about their favorite food from our meal.

On Monday we will get back into the routine and start a review of all the letter sounds before the Christmas holiday. We will also be talking all about the winter holidays, in addition to learning how to observe and predict in science and social studies. Look for our special holiday homework coming home with your child on Thursday and report cards on Wednesday.

Thank you for making our first Thanksgiving a success! Hopefully you and your child enjoyed our afternoon.

It is hard to believe that Thanksgiving is almost here! The children have grown so much in our first trimester. We will be learning our last two letter sounds /y/ and /z/ next week and will be reviewing all of our sounds in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

Next week we will be preparing for our Thanksgiving feast. We hope you can join us on Tuesday at 1:15 p.m. to sample food that was at the first Thanksgiving!

There was no homework sent home yesterday. Look for a special holiday project coming home on December 3rd !

Kaley was our terrific kid this week. Here is what we were up to in kindergarten:

We went on the baseball field in P.E. We ran the bases. We went on the big playground because we did good work. We used hula hoops with Coach and had a free day. Our families came to eat lunch with us yesterday for Thanksgiving dinner. We went to the library. We sorted the food for the Thanksgiving basket. The food is for people who need it. We know all of our letters. We worked together to put the letters together. (Ms. Titus’s note: The class worked to put the alphabet blocks in ABC order) This week was fantastic!

What a busy week. We were hard at work this week, with a field trip on Thursday, and Veteran’s Day holiday in the middle of the week. We managed to get all of our activities in though. Next week we will start our Thanksgiving unit. If you joined us on the field trip, thank you for coming, and we hope you had a great time with us!

Sage was our terrific kid this week. Here is what she had to say about our busy week:

We went on a field trip. We got to see Bodyology. We learned about our bones. We saw what our brain does. We learned about our heart. We went on a nature walk. We saw an alligator. We saw signs that took us to the tower. We went on a bridge. We went on a playground. We had a picnic.

Sage enjoying her soup.
We got to eat stone soup. It has stones, carrots, water, and other vegetables. I liked it. We had 8 paws. We have 10 now. We will get to go on the big playground (Ms. Titus’s note: when other classes catch the students being good, or they have good lunchroom behavior, we receive a paw, each time we get to 10, we get extra recess). Our reading buddies will come. This week was fantastic!

What another great week in kindergarten. Most of the children are really starting to blossom into great readers and writers!

Reminders for next week:
-No school on Wednesday in honor of Veteran’s Day.
-Thursday is our field trip to Bodyology. Parents will be driving; we will not be taking the bus. If you are driving, look for more details early next week!
-We are continuing our food drive through November 20. If you have any items to donate, please bring them in!

This week we talked about the sounds /g/ and /w/ as well as the words jump and and. Next week we will be introducing the /x/ and /v/ sounds and the words to and come. Please practice these words and sounds at home with your child! In social studies and science we finished our community unit. Our community mural is finished and will be up until Thanksgiving. Our next unit will be on food, and the past vs. present. We will complete this unit with a First Thanksgiving feast, and get a chance to try foods that were likely at the first Thanksgiving!

Our terrific kid this week was Ben.

Ben working hard

He got help writing the blog from our terrific kids from the last two weeks Caroline and Shane, since we were not in school on their Fridays. Here is what they had to say about our week.

We stayed on green at lunch. We got a panther paw because we stayed on green. We saw a snake on the way back from the playground. We did fun stuff. We made cars for our mural. We went to the library. We used baseball bats and hula hoops at P.E. Kayla’s mom came to visit. She told us about being a nurse. She gave us masks and casts. It was Shane’s birthday. He is first to turn 6. This week was fantastic!


Caroline and Shane with friends in the library

Wow! What a fun and productive week we had in kindergarten! On Tuesday we all brought our teddy bears to school to celebrate Teddy Roosevelt’s birthday with our new 3rd grade friends. We worked hard all week on carving a pumpkin, and even made a very detailed how-to digital storybook about the process. If you want to learn how to carve a pumpkin, this video is for you! Today was our storybook parade and family lunch. What a fun day! It is hard to believe that we got so much fun in one week. Most of the children are at home or out with their families, so instead of letting them tell you all about our terrific week, I have uploaded some videos for you to enjoy of what we have been up to in kindergarten.

Here is a video of Teddy Bear Day. We had quite a variety of bears in the room!

Here is our How-To digital storybook on carving a pumpkin.

Max and the Wild Things!Have a Happy Halloween!

Bonus Blog!

Here are some pictures of career day that Caroline's mom took. They are wonderful! Hope you enjoy them.

Wow, What a busy week in kindergarten. What a great career day! Since there is no school tomorrow, there will be no class blog post. However, we worked hard today to get a video about our careers ready for you to enjoy. Everyone in the class got a chance to share about their career, and why they picked the career that they did. Next week we will be celebrating fall and Halloween all week. We have lots of fun activities planned!

Enjoy our career day and have a great weekend!

Our eighth week of kindergarten is complete. We have been working hard on learning our addresses and phone numbers. If your child does not know his/hers please keep working at home!

Reminders for next week:
There is NO school next Friday (October 23). Enjoy the day with your child

White T-shirts for our Wild Thing costumes need to be turned in by Tuesday.

This week we talked about the sounds /r/ and /e/ as well as the words do and up. Next week we will be introducing the /b/ and /l/ sounds and the words see and in. In social studies we have started our community unit, and we have been talking all about homes. We have even made homes and put them on our community mural. Stop by and check it out! In math we have been working hard on our # writing. This is a challenging skill for most students. Please help your child by encouraging them to practice writing their numbers at home. It is ok if they are backwards or not perfect at first, practice makes perfect!

Frank working hard at morning center time.

Frank was our terrific kid this week. Here is what he has to say about kindergarten:
We went to the big playground today. We earned it because we stayed on green at lunch and got 10 panther paws. We made trees in art. We made houses and put them in our city. We water color painted our houses for our class book. I like when we walked to the church for code blue (Ms. Titus’s note: We have been practicing our safety drills. Code Blue is the code for a suspicious package on campus. We evacuate down the road to be safe. It was just a practice!) We wrote on the white boards and listen for sounds. We wrote to our pen pals. We practiced writing our numbers. This week was a nice week!

Our seventh week of kindergarten is over. It was a fun filled Friday for sure!

Reminders for next week:
Progress reports go home on Wednesday. Please sign and return the bottom portion.
There is NO early release on Wednesday. The students will be released at 2:15

This week we talked about the sounds /h/ and /d/ as well as the words a and at. Next week we will be introducing the /r/ and /e/ sounds and the words do and up. Please practice these words and sounds at home with your child!

In social studies we finished our unit on school. The Gingerbread Boy led us on a hunt all aound the school today.

We will start practicing our address and phone number at school next week, as we begin our unit on homes and the community.

Kayla eating her piece of the Gingerbread Boy

Here is what our terrific kid Kayla had to say about the week:

We went to the book fair. We did the animal yoga video in movement. We made gingerbread men. Today we looked for him (the Gingerbread Boy) and ate him. He was hard to find. We made a gingerbread book. We went to the library and the cafeteria kitchen. Tonight is the movie. The week was terrific!

Here is the story of the Gingerbread Boy in kindergarten, and two videos to help your child share the story with you.

When Mrs. T. arrived at school, the Gingerbread Boy got away from her, but he left us clues to where he could be. We didn't find him after looking at the clues, but later he must have gotten tired because he showed up in our classroom for us to eat!

The first is the class discussing where they think he could have run away too, and the second is everyone on the hunt, and then later discovering him back in the classroom

Wow! What a fun and busy week in kindergarten! The kids had a lot to say this week, especially our blog authors and terrific kids, Melanie and Thomas (Melanie was terrific kid last week, but with no school on Friday, she did not get a chance to share then).

Here are some reminders for the next few weeks:

Saturday is the fundraiser at the lodge, just down the street from school
Tuesday Oct. 6 is the 2nd PTA meeting at 6:00 p.m.
Wednesday Oct. 7 is an early release day.
Friday Oct. 9 is movie night at the school

This week we talked about the sounds /f/ and /o/ as well as the words like and not. Next week we will be introducing the /h/ and /d/ sounds and the words a and at. Please practice these words and sounds at home with your child!
In social studies we have been talking about school, and how friends act at school. Next week we will continue to talk about school, with the help of The Gingerbread Boy. Ms. T. will even be bringing in gingerbread for us to try.

Hopefully, you have gotten the note asking for parents to come in and share about their career in the upcoming weeks. We would love to have you come in when we learn about our community and community helpers!

Here is what Thomas and Melanie (with help from the class) had to say about our busy week in kindergarten.

We saw firefighters. We saw their ax and squirt the hose. We got new letters and new words. We made a school snack. We only put in good things and not the rotten banana *Ms. Titus’s note: We made a snack to symbolize all the good things at school; hard workers, good friends, adult helpers, etc. We decided that rotten attitudes and children who can’t make good choices don’t help a school, just like a rotten banana doesn’t help a snack taste good* We went to the learning center. We got to look at books and take one home for one night. This week was fantastic and great!

P.S. Here is a link to Mrs. Riddle's blog. She has posted a video of our class enjoying their time in our learning center/library. http://21stcenturycrop.blogspot.com/

Since the kids won't be here tomorrow, here is a little glimpse at what they are up to all day at school. See if your child can tell you what is happening in each picture.

Reminders for next week:

Wednesday is an early release day.

Volunteers start Thursday October 1st!

This week we talked about the sounds /n/ and /c/ as well as the words the and big. Next week we will be introducing the /f/ and /o/ sounds and the words like and not. In social studies we have been talking about how to be a good friend. We even made a class book about being a good friend. Look for it to be coming home with your child soon! Next week we will continue to talk about being friends and getting along, and start learning about the people who work at our school

Please help your child learn his/her address and phone number if you have not already. Keep practicing shoe tying. Some of the students are doing a great job learning how to tie!

Thanks for all that you do. Enjoy your Friday with your child!

We had a super fourth week!
It is hard to believe how much everyone has grown in just four weeks. We are starting to really get into kindergarten! Here is a picture of the first week of school. Can you tell that we are getting more mature?




Reminders for next week:
Wednesday is an early release day
Friday is a PDD (teacher workday) so the students have a day off! (use this time to do some fun educational activites. Look for letters when driving in the car, see who can find the most shapes while out on a walk, read books together, visit the starfall.com website, etc.)

This week we talked about the sounds /t/ and /i/ as well as the words the and big. Next week we will be introducing the /n/ and /c/ sounds and the words you and help. Please practice these words and sounds at home with your child!

In science and social studies we talked about our 5 senses (look for our 5 senses craft coming home today!), and continued talked about how to solve small problems. Next week we start talking about how to be a good friend. This week we also finished up out SAT 10 testing. All of the students did a great job listening and working hard.

We had our first Terrific Kid this week! Ty is our Terrific Kid, so he got to help decide what to say in the news. (We have Terrific Kid every other week, each child will get to be the author when they are chosen as Terrific Kid) Ty shared what we should write, and asked his friends for help when he needed more ideas.

Here is what Ty has to say about our week:

We went outside. We go to music class. We went to P.E. We did our craft. Our smelling, touching, hearing, tasting, seeing craft. We did centers. I like the kitchen. We tasted chocolate, skittles, pretzels, and pickles. My favorite was tasting the chocolate. We had a terrific week!


Ty working hard

Our third week in kindergarten is complete, and we are getting into the swing of things and working hard!

We had a great special person's day. Be looking for our class book to come home with your child in the next weeks.







Next week is another big week here at Samsula Academy:
· SAT 10 will be taking place all week. Please make sure your child is here every day!
· Wednesday is picture day. Your child needs to wear his/her uniform for this photo
· Friday is popcorn Friday.. Popcorn is $0.25
This week we talked about the sounds /s/ and /p/ as well as the words we and run. Next week we will be introducing the /t/ and /i/ sounds and the words the and big. Please practice these words and sounds at home with your child!
In science and social studies we finished talking about families, and also talked about how to solve small problems. Next week we will start an exciting unit on the 5 senses. In math we finished talking about colors and shapes. If you child does not know all of his/her colors and shapes (square, circle, rectangle, triangle) please work with them at home to master these skills! We also began working with number sense and counting. Please count with your child at home, or when driving in the car. It is our goal to all know how to count to 100 by the 100th day of school!

Here is what the class thought about week 3:
We read poems: "5 Red Balloons" (and then we changed to green balloons), "All About My Family", and "Growing". We did a number graph with bear counters. We made a book with our special person. We have new word wall words and new letters. We read our first books! We made stars at art. We played a new game at P.E. We ran laps with Coach. We got new centers. We are wearing red, white, and blue. We are happy to be Americans!

Our second week in kindergarten is over, and we are now almost all into the routine. This week we talked about the sounds /a/ and /m/ as well as the words I and can. Next week we will be introducing the /s/ and /p/ sounds and the words we and run. In science and social studies we have been talking about families, and ourselves. We have also talked about how people grow and change. We will continue to talk about families in anticipation of special person’s day!


(Morning work time)

Next week is a big week here at Samsula Academy:
· Monday is the Labor Day holiday
· Wednesday night is open house, where we invite you to see our classroom and attend the year’s first PTA meeting
· Friday morning is Special Person’s day. Encourage your child to talk to their special person about something they like to do together for our Special Person’s day activity.


Here is what the class has to say about our second week of school:


(P.E. with Coach)

This week we ran and skipped with coach. We went to art. We learned how to pack our backpacks and find a center. We went outside. We went on the playground. We started morning centers. They are fun. We learned about A and M. We had an awesome week!

We have completed our first week of kindergarten!

The class has been working hard at getting into the routine and learning the rules. This week we talked about colors, school, and bears. Next week we will be learning about shapes, ‘all about me’, and learning the routines for our reading centers. We will also be working on learning the sounds that the letters Aa and Mm make, and learning our first sight words I and CAN. We all worked together to come up with our first blog post. The ideas and comments are all from the children. We hope you enjoy our blog. Feel free to leave encouraging comments for the children to read!


We like kindergarten!
We like learning and playing in the kitchen. We like being creative. We like center time. We like going outside and playing on the playground. We like lunch in the cafeteria. We want to learn how to read, do homework, tie shoes and how to help other people. Kindergarten will be fantastic!
~Ms. Titus's Tots