SAVE THESE DATES

We have two more field trips this year. Please mark these dates on your calendar. FIELD TRIP TO THE JACKSONVILLE ZOO ON FRIDAY, APRIL 29th The cost is $5 (cash) per student, due on April 18th. This cost includes lunch, so please do not send food or money with the children. We will NOT be shopping in the Gift Shop. FIELD TRIP TO HANNA PARK ON FRIDAY, MAY 13th The cost is $2 (cash) per student, due on April 28th. Students are asked to bring sack lunches. Students are NOT allowed to wear swimsuits, though they are allowed to wear flip-flops. Parents will be called to bring a change of clothing if students come to school in swimsuits. According to Duval County Public Schools policy, we will NOT be going in the water. IF YOU WANT TO SERVE AS A CHAPERONE FOR EITHER OR BOTH OF THESE FIELD TRIPS, PLEASE CONTACT MRS. DOIRON. Please don't show up on the day of the trip and expect to go along as a chaperone. BROTHERS AND SISTERS ARE NOT ALLOWED TO GO ON OUR FIELD TRIPS, per Duval County Public Schools policy.

Books and Potatoes

The week of St. Patrick's Day is a wonderful time to read Irish folktales. Students in our class heard Jamie O'Rourke and the Big Potato, retold and illustrated by Tomie dePaola, and Tim O'Toole and the Wee Folk, retold and illustrated by Gerald McDermott. There are many parts of these stories that are the same - both men are lazy and poor, both of them catch a leprechaun, both of them are given magical things by the leprechauns, and both tales have happy endings where the main characters have everything they need. There are also several differences in the stories - Jamie finds one leprechaun, whereas Tim finds a whole troop of the Wee Folk. Jamie is given just one thing by the leprechaun, and Tim is given three things. Jamie's neighbors help him out, whereas Tim's neighbors just come to his home for free food! At the end of the week, after listening to these tales several times, students identified these similarities and differences, while Mrs. Doiron recorded their ideas on a Venn Diagram. (You may remember Venn Diagrams from Math class.) The children demonstrated their comprehension of the stories by the answers they gave. These are wonderful tales which you may want to find at the book store or library. After reading the story about the big potato several times, students were given baked potatoes with their lunch on Friday, March 18th. Butter, sour cream, salt, and pepper were served with the potatoes (only if the children wanted them). It's been a fun week - our students got to eat special foods with their lunches twice. Pasta on Tuesday and potatoes on Friday. Books really do taste good, too !!

We met a real author!

On Thursday, March 17th, students in Mrs. Doiron's kindergarten class met a real author. Jennifer Swanson, author of the "Penny and Rio" books, came to our school. She read one of her books to the children, then students were able to ask her questions about being an author. Penny and Rio are two dogs who are detectives in their back yard. Why don't you look for Ms. Swanson's books at the library or book store?

BOOK CHARACTER DRESS-UP DAY

Tuesday, March 15th was Book Character Dress-Up Day at Merrill Road Elementary School. In our class, we had Alexander from Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, Cinderella from the Disney book, the boy from If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff. (He was thoughtful enough to bring cookies for the class!), Alice from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Snow White from the Disney book, and a couple of princesses from other books. Mrs. Doiron was Strega Nona, from the book by Tomie dePaola. Since Strega Nona had a magic pasta pot, Mrs. Doiron served ramen noodles to the children at lunch time. We all enjoyed the pasta, and some children ate two bowls full of pasta, after eating their regular lunch. It was okay, since the story said that "some people came back for two and three helpings". We sure have fun at school!

200 BOOKS !!

Did you know that Mrs. Doiron writes down the name and author of every book read to the students in room 77? (please see https://doironkindergarten.wikispaces.com) On Thursday, March 3rd, students listened to Miss Bindergarten Has a Wild Day in Kindergarten by Joseph Slate. This was the 200th book our class has listened to. Listening to books read aloud is a fun and easy way to introduce children to new vocabulary words. Sometimes students can figure out the new word from the context of the story, other times, we need to stop and explain that new word. If students learn just one new word from each book, they will have learned two hundred new words this year! Mrs. Doiron bought pizza for the children to celebrate, and we ate lunch in the classroom. We even had party music! Both Mrs. Gray (Principal) and Ms. Bartley (Assistant Principal) came to distribute certificates to our students. These photos show some of the students receiving their certificates and shaking hands with Mrs. Gray and Ms. Bartley. You may want to start making a list and counting how many books you read to your kindergartner at home.

Square + Square = Rectangle

Square + Square = Rectangle

Triangle + Triangle = Rhombus

Trapezoid + Trapezoid = Hexagon

Did you know that our students can put two or more plane (two-dimensional) shapes together to create a new plane shape? They have discovered that there are many ways to make a hexagon - two trapezoids, three rhombuses, and six triangles, all make a hexagon. In our classroom, students sit at tables which are shaped like trapezoids. Two of these tables are pushed together, so students feel that they are sitting at a hexagon table. Our students have also learned that they can put four squares together to create an even larger square. They can put four rhombuses together to create an even bigger rhombus. They can even put four triangles together to create an even larger triangle. We hope you enjoy these photos of our experiments with plane shapes.

Making pictures with plane shapes

In Math, our students have been learning about plane (two-dimensional) shapes. They have been working with blocks in these shapes: triangle, square, hexagon, trapezoid, and rhombus. Did you know that we used to call a rhombus "diamond", but now we use the correct Mathematical term. Our students had lots of fun creating pictures with these plane shapes.