Ingaldsby Farm! The Great Pumpkin Hunt!

Dear Families,

It sure was beautiful (and fun!!!) at Ingaldsby Farm in West Boxford today! We met Tucker and Sheila the farmers and played guess the vegetable. The tractor ride was our favorite! We even sat on real hay bales. The tractor took us to see the Belted Galloway cows, also known as Oreo cows because they are black and white just like an Oreo! Farmer Tucker smashed a giant pumpkin and the cows ran over to eat every last piece. After watching the cows, we stopped at the pumpkin patch to pick out the perfect sugar pumpkin. There were big ones, small ones, round ones, and oval ones. Each pumpkin was unique. At the end of the field trip, we observed the chickens, sheep, and other farm animals. The best part....once we got back to school we feasted on apple cider donuts and drank apple cider. YUM! After that, we wrote and illustrated our own books about what we saw and learned on the farm. A good day was had by all. Thank you to the adults that came to help us today!

Love, Mrs. Dupuis' K Team

Learning to Read and Spell!

Hi Families!

Guess what?! We are learning how to read and spell! So far, we have learned the letter names and sounds for the letters t, b, f, n, m, i, u, c, o, a, and g. Because we know the sounds that these letters make, we can use what we know to read small phonetic words like "tag" and also spell words like "bit." We are also learning how to track text from left to right and top to bottom on a page. We know that when the words on one page end, we need to go to the next page. We are also using picture clues and beginning sounds to help us figure out what words say.
When we write, we have been labeling our stories with words. To write the words, we tap out the sounds we hear with our fingers. When we write "apple" we may spell it like "apl" because those are the sounds we hear. That is perfectly excellent for a kindergartener! We are really proud that we can label things in our stories with beginning sounds and the other sounds we hear in a word. Please cheer us on when we practice reading and writing small phonetic words!

Love,
Mrs. Dupuis's K Team

Colorful Fall Trees!

Hi Families!

We created the coolest fall trees! How did we do it? We had to trace our own arms and hands to create the trunks and branches. Then, we got to paint the trunks and branches brown. Our tree bark even had texture! Next, we used Q tips, red, orange, yellow, and green paint to create the leaves. Most of our leaves are found up by the branches, but some of us decided to have leaves falling or on the ground around the tree. Why did we do this art project? The painting and tracing help to support our fine motor development. Also, we talked a lot about our trees with buddies and how each looked unique based on different artists' ideas. In Science, we will learn more about the weather and  seasons. And finally, because creativity should always be practiced and celebrated. Check out our colorful creations below!

Oh yeah...and Kindergarten totally rocked the Raise Craze fundraiser! We got to help decorate the trophy and take our picture with it. Thank you all for your help! The money raised will help the teachers to plan very cool learning experiences for us.

Love,

Mrs. Dupuis' K Team

We are Authors and Illustrators!

Dear Families,

Did you know that we are authors and illustrators? We have been practicing telling our cool stories to classmates. Now, we are telling our stories by drawing detailed pictures with labels. Our stories should show who is in them, where they are, what they are doing, and how the people are feeling. We are practicing using the real colors for everything we draw because that makes our stories clear. Mrs. Dupuis taught us how to add word labels to our illustrations to give even more information about our stories. Just like the authors and illustrators of the books we are reading, we are sharing our adventures through pictures and words!

Pajama day was a total hit! Everyone in the school commented on how cute and cozy we looked. Fun was had by all...even our stuffed animals!

Love,

Mrs. Dupuis' K Team

The 1st Few Days of K!

Here are a few pictures from the 1st few days of school! We are totally rocking it!! We took a tour of the whole school, got to know one another and worked as a team, created ripped paper portraits, and sharpened fine motor skills with our colorful tissue paper names! Aren't we just the cutest?!

The Magical Maple!

What did we do today?

We were SCIENTISTS of course! The class went outside to draw a magical maple tree! We practiced closely observing the tree for details (color, texture, size) so we could draw exactly what we noticed as scientists. After reading the book, Tap the Magic Tree, we decided that the maple tree as we sketched it today was a summer tree. We plan to sketch it again during each passing season to create a cool book. Yipppeee! The class also learned to compliment each other's work and creativity. We noticed that every tree drawn was unique based on the kindergarten artist and what they saw. It was so fun because we learned about the seasons, observation (looking closely to notice details), and using the real crayon color of things to draw exactly what we saw. Mrs. Dupuis was super proud of us because we were creative, tried our best, and were very focused despite being in recess territory. : )

Love,
Mrs. Dupuis' Kindergarten Team