Kastner's Kittens

Welcome to First Grade......

Welcome back!

It's going to be a great year! I look forward to being your child's new teacher. For now, look below to see what supplies will be needed for our new year together. You will be notified of other supplies that might be needed, but for now, these are the important supplies you will need for the first day.

You do have a choice to purchase pre-packaged supplies this year. You may go to the following link to find out about that option or click on the 1st grade link and it will list all supplies needed.

         http://www.schoolsuppliesnetwork.com/c-1859-murdock-elementary.aspx

 

Looking forward to meeting you!

Mrs. Kastner

Tis' the season.....

Hello everyone!

Well, December is here and we continue to work as hard as we possibly can. We are learning new and exciting things every day and I am very, very proud of your children. This time of year is so hard while the kids are here because they are so excited about the December holidays. Some days I have their attention all day long, while others seem to be filled with too much talking and excitement. I do know it is hard! :)

Speaking of the season.....if you visit our front lobby you will see a Giving Tree! This Giving Tree is filled with very needed items that will help our sister school. If you can donate any supplies at all....school supplies, clothing, hats, coats and more, PLEASE send them in. Even better, if you let your child know in advance, they can visit The Giving Tree and pick an item off of the tree to bring home to show what another child at this school needs. This is not about wanting....tis' the season for giving. Please help if you can! It reminds all of us that there is always someone less fortunate than we are.

Here is what we are learing over the next few weeks that lead us into winter break....

Long vowels, vowel digraphs, consonant digraphs, inflectional endings, characters, setting, main idea and details, beginning, middle, end of stories and well as comprehension and fluency. We will continue to work with making connections as a reader, inference, cause and effect and graphic/text features as we read. In writing, our main focus continues to be narrative writing and narrative writing features that connect our world of reading to writing. Social Studies continues with maps, globes and landforms, Lewis and Clark, Sacagawea and Thomas Jefferson. Science will be learning all about Sound and Health will be a unit on Dental Health. Math continues to be a review of adding and subtracting to 20, money, solid figures (shapes, geometry) and stronger number sense.

DATES TO REMEMBER....

Fri. 12/9 Spirit Day...WEAR your Murdock spirit wear!

Fri. 12/16 Cycle 2 packets are Due for Sunshine Math.

Wed. 12/21 1st grade Holiday parties....FUN!!! :)

Thurs. 12/22 Last day of school before Winter break! Happy Holidays to all!

Wishing everyone a beautiful 2 weeks off, that bring smiles, love and laughter to all of my families!

Mrs. Kastner

The holidays are upon us!!!

Hello everyone!

November is here and December is coming quickly. It's hard to believe that our Thanksgiving Play and Brunch is right around the corner! Please join us....Thursday, Nov. 17th from 9:00-10:00a.m. Right after the play, we will go to the class next door for our Brunch. PLEASE REMEMBER TO BRING THE RECIPE IF YOU ARE MAKING A HOMEMADE FOOD ITEM!!! All students need to be wearing their "Sunday best", when it comes to their clothes for the day of our play. PLEASE....NO JEANS!! (All students will be given the opportunity to change clothes after the play, so please send in a change of clothes.)

Instruction in class continues to amaze me! All students are very happy and positive about learning all I'm "throwing out" at them. Our latest units of study include: Thanksgiving, Pilgrims, Native Americans, maps, globes, Lewis and Clark, Sacagawea and Thomas Jefferson. Math continues to be money, addition and subtraction facts as well as geometric shapes and figures. Reading continues to be fluency, tricky vowel combinations (long and short vowels) blends and digraphs and comprehension. Science includes continued study of magnets with a great lesson planned in the science lab. Now THAT will be fun for the kids!

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER....

11/5 TURKEY TROT....Fun Run at Murdock!!!   8:00a.m

11/8 NO SCHOOL FOR STUDENTS....it is a Teacher Work Day!

11/11 Veteran's Day, Spirit Day and BOOK FAIR OPENS....5:30-7:30

11/15 BOOK FAIR FAMILY FUN NIGHT 5:30-7:30 Come join us!

11/17 "Hooray for Thanksgiving" class Play and Brunch!!!! 9:00-10:00 a.m (REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR RECIPE AND IF FOOD IS BEING BOUGHT, PLEASE KEEP IT IN THE CONTAINER IT CAME IN...)

11/18 FIELD TRIP: Tanglewood Farms!!! All children MUST wear sneakers! Please provide appropriate clothing for the weather. If you are providing lunch from home, the lunch MUST be in a brown bag or plastic bag. NO FOOD is allowed to come back home.

THANKSGIVING BREAK 11/21-11/25 See everyone back on 11/28!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone! Be safe in your travels!

Mrs. Kastner

 

Fall is coming!

Hello everyone!

I want to say a HUGE thank you to all of those who sent in extra supplies for the classroom! What a great help it was to have these supplies sent it! Thank you so much! I also want to say thank you to our Room Moms for meeting with me and preparing for the year ahead! It really is going to be a great year!

As we've worked through this first 4 weeks of school, it's hard to believe September is here and that Fall is slowing working it's way toward us! :) We have been so busy not only learning the rules and routines of the classroom, hallways and pretty much everywhere in Murdock, but we have also been learning about each other. Together the kids have worked hard to get to know each other and they really get along well. I'm very proud of all of them. These four weeks have been a period of learning about each other as well as assessing all students. With 6 new students to Murdock, it has taken longer than I expected to assess all students. I'm glad I'm now able to push forward with the knowledge I gained through assessments. All I can say is I have a GREAT group of students who are eager to learn and grow with me! I'm so excited.

Reading groups have been well established and part of our weekly routine. These reading groups are to be completely flexible as the reading levels of the students grow and change as well. I look forward to watch them become stronger and more fluent readers.

During math, we have been learning the many strategies available for adding numbers. We do this through a variety of manipulatives and various resources. The students are gaining a foundation necessary for me to build upon. As much as it may seem easy, please be assured that in order to run, we all had to crawl and walk first, so I need to make sure all students have gained the knowledge of number sense and the strategies taught before I can make them all "run" with addition. Subtraction is around the corner! (OH, if you have not sent in the chapters to the math book, please send them in now.) We will continue with addition, subtraction, numbers and patterns, graphing concepts, fact families, place value and well as greater than, less than and equal to. PHEW!!!! I think I covered it all! These concepts will be taught throughout the next few months.

During Language Arts and Writing we continue to focus on short and long vowels, making sense of tricky vowel pairs and combinations as well as focusing on capital letters, proper punctuation and ways to stretch our BORING sentences into BIGGER and BOLDER ones! We also continue to work on topic sentences, details and our conclusion.

Science continues to focus on weather, seasons and The Water Cycle and Social Studies will begin with our first historical figure: Benjamin Franklin!

Dates to remember:

Sat. 9/10 EAST COBBER PARADE!!!

Fri. 9/16 Progress Reports go home. Spirit Day: Dress with Murdock pride!!!

Tues. 9/20 MESF Pizza Night

Fri. 9/23 1st day of Autumn!!!! YES!!! Spirit Day: Dress with Murdock pride!!!

Fri. 9/23 Collection of apples from the entire class. I'm asking for ONE apple per student. I plan on making applesauce on Tuesday with the children, so if I can have ONE RED APPLE by 9/23, we'll be good to go on Tuesday! (PLEASE....NO GREEN apples.)

Wed. 9/28 Fall Picture Day! Wear your biggest SMILE!!!

 

That's it for now! Enjoy the rest of September as October creeps upon us!

Mrs. Kastner

What a great start to our new school year!!!

Welcome to a great year for the Kastner Kittens class! I am so excited to start a new year with an amazing group of first grade students! It was wonderful to see you during Meet & Greet and now we will meet again during Open House, this Thursday, 8/18 from 6:30-7:30. If you are able to come to this informative meeting, we will start out in the cafeteria and will be later asked to meet in the classroom. I look forward to seeing all of you again! :) Open House if for parents only.

Here are some important dates for the remainder of the month:

Aug. 18 6:30-7:30 1st and 2nd grade Open House

Aug. 19 Spirit Day: wear your Murdock spirit by wearing a school T-shirt

Aug. 26 Spirit Day again! :) Also....1st-5th grade Newcomers meeting for all new parents to Murdock. It will be 8:30 in the cafeteria.

Aug. 29 1st day of Kids Chess 2:30 (for those who signed up....)

Thank you for sending in supplies for the children. I appreciate all of your effort to get exactly what was on the list and what will be needed. The extra glue sticks are terrific! We use them almost every day. Thank you for not coming to lunch during the month of August. We need to get the students on a routine and then we will look forward to visitors coming for lunch.

IMPORTANT: I printed the wrong time for lunch on the schedule that was sent home. Our lunch is from 11:20-11:50 each day at table 4! Please make a note of the new time. Sorry! :)

 

 

 

April showers.....bring May flowers!

Hello!

Sorry for the late April blog posting....I think my mind has been stuck on the beach in Jupiter, Florida still! :)

WOW! The dioramas coming in have been FABULOUS!  Mrs. Hanauer stopped by yesterday morning because she saw all of the wonderful work and wanted to comment on how awesome the dioramas looked. Thanks for the effort and extra time spent and now we will start to present over the next week.

Our "green" movement in honor of Earth Day, is using "junk" from home and using our creativity and imagination to create something together as teams. We have already received several items that came in today. Keep sending us your "junk"....it will be a great project!

CRCT means no one is allowed in the building until after 11:00 each day for the remainder of this week AND next. No visitors OR volunteers are allowed to be in the building.

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER.....

4/18-4/22 Our class goes on announcements for the Word of the Week. Please make sure that if your child is a car rider, they need to be in class NO LATER than 7:45 so they can be in the office on time for Word of the Week.

4/22 Spirit Day...GO GREEN! Wear GREEN today in honor of Earth Day!!!

4/29 SPRING FLING! Come on, come all! What a great time for everyone! Hope to see you there. It is also Spirit Day, so wear your pride by wearing Murdock spiritwear!

5/2 Award ceremony for Sunshine Math...for those who participated.

5/3 Rising Kindergarten Sneak-a-Peek

5/4 School Store K-5, Rising Kindergarten Sneak-a-Peek, Teacher Appreciation End of Year Luncheon

5/5 Cinco de Mayo

5/6 Spirit Day....wear your Murdock pride by wearing Murdock spiritwear.

5/11 School Store K-5

5/12 FIELD DAY OPENING CEREMONIES AND K-2 FIELD DAY!!!!! (We do need parent volunteers...please help.)

5/13  Spirit Day....wear your Murdock pride by wearing Murdock spiritwear.

5/18  School Store K-5, Career Day rotation for students only....

5/19  Chick-Fil-A night at East Lake! Come join us and have some fun!

5/20  PORTFOLIO PICNIC....Our last class celebration of the year. Come and bring a picnic lunch and dine with your child. Share a years' worth of work and growth as you look through their portfolio. You'll see work that has been saved throughout the year and will be able to see how much your child has grown. More information to come, but 12:00-1:00 is the time and if the weather allows, we will meet under the covered picnic tables near our K-2 playground! Bring a picnic lunch, a blanket or towels to rest on and bring a dessert or fruit to share with the class! Again, more information to come.

5/24  EARLY DISMISSAL at 1:30, LAST DAY for BACKPACKS and everything must be brought home today. PLEASE send in brown bags with handles, or several strong plastic bags so all items from cubby and desk can be sent home.

5/25  LAST DAY....EARLY DISMISSAL at 1:30

It's hard to believe the year is almost done. It has been a pleasure working with your child each and every day.

Mrs. Kastner

 

 

March news....

Is it really March already? Where has the year gone?! Only 3 months left of school....I can't believe it!

Here's the March "Important Dates to Remember!"

Weds. 3/2 Dr. Seuss Day! Bring in Dr. Seuss books from home to share all day! Wear CRAZY SOCKS to school!

Fri. 3/4 BOOK FAIR GRAND OPENING!!!

3/7-3/11 BOOK FAIR all week during school hours.

Tues. 3/8 BOOK FAIR FAMILY FUN NIGHT!!! See you there!

Wed. 3/9 School Store K-5

Fri. 3/11 Spirit Day.....dress in your Murdock spirit!

Wed. 3/16 School Store K-5

Thurs. 3/17 St. Patrick's Day!

Fri. 3/18 FULL DAY OF SCHOOL! See you here! :)

Mon. 3/21-Fri. 3/25 Teacher Appreciation Week

Wed. 3/23 School Store K-5

Thurs. 3/24 Report Cards go home AND FIELD TRIP....Georgia Aquarium!!! If you are sending lunch TO SCHOOL w/ your child, PLEASE make sure everything is in a throwaway bag! NOTHING can be brought home on the bus. Everything will be thrown out.

Wed. 3/30 School Store K-5 and KINDERGARTEN REGISTRATION for those who have children starting Kindergarten for the upcoming school year.

 

What are we learning???? Here's what we are learning.......

We continue with Informational Writing, but will begin with Response to Literature mid-March. Our AMAZING focus during science will be PLANTS! We will learn about plant parts and how plants grow. We will "dig deep" when learning during this unit! :) Our next science unit is on Animals! Stay tuned for that one! :) For math, we continue to use money and time, but measurement will become our focus as well. We still work on addition facts through use of math centers and math games done as independent work or whole class work. Feel free to do some practice of math facts as well!

For Health, we talk about Personal Safety. For this unit, we focus on all areas of being safe and careful so we do not get hurt. In Reading, we continue with reading group work and activities as well as whole group reading, small group reading, buddy reading and partner games. We continue to work on language arts/phonics units that help us to become better readers AND writers!

Thank you for all of your support!

Mrs. Kastner

February Happenings....

Hello everyone,

It's so amazing to think that February is already here! We have only 4 more months of school and I still walk out the doors of Murdock amazed each and every day at what continues to happen in this class and all around the school. These children continue to amaze me with how much they are learning, sharing and growing.

Learning grows in our class on a daily basis. We have been spending so much time learning about what makes a good book and what makes a good story and I'm hoping you've seen some good samples of work coming home. Here is what February will teach us!

Writing: Informational writing

Reading: fluency, main idea vs. details, fact vs. opinion and continued work on comprehension skills as well as retelling.

Lang. Arts: compound words, contractions, tricky vowel combinations, past vs. present and other phonics skills.

Math: revisiting addition and subtraction, money (learning about value of money, counting money and making change), time (to the 1/2 hour and hour)

Science: Light and Shadows

Health: Muscles in our body

Social Studies: Black History Month, Harriet Tubman, Theodore Roosevelt, George Washington Carver as well as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln

Phew....I think I got it all! :) Now time for the important dates!!!

Tues. 2/1 100th DAY!!! (Please send in crowns on 1/31)

Wed. 2/2 FULL DAY OF SCHOOL DUE TO SNOW!!!! Groundhog Day!

Fri. 2/4 Super Bowl Spirit Day....dress for your favorite team!

Wed. 2/9 School Store K-5

Fri. 2/11 SPRING PICTURE DAY FOR EVERYONE....DRESS YOUR BEST!!!!

Mon. 2/14 VALENTINE'S DAY...treat everyone extra special today!

Wed. 2/16 School store K-5

Fri. 2/18 Spirit Day....wear your Murdock best spririt wear to show how proud you are of Murdock!

NO SCHOOL....NO SCHOOL... (2/21-2/25)    WINTER BREAK  

Enjoy the month of February with your family and REALLY enjoy the week off!

Mrs. Kastner

December is here....

We've shared a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with family and friends and now December is upon us! WOW! Where has the year gone? Here's what is happening for December in school and in our classroom:

Fri. 12/3  Spirit Day

Mon. 12/6 Checkpoint Testing done today for grades 1-5. English/Language Arts assessed today. The Checkpoint Test is a test that is assessing the Cobb County Standards that are being taught by all teachers. The test will include standards taught so far, and standards that are to be taught through the rest of the year. For me, this information will be used to guage strengths and weaknesses and how to challenge my students througout the remainder of the year.

Wed. 12/8  Checkpoint Test for grades 1-5. Math will be assessed today.

Wed. 12/15 Our class Holiday Party (for the students only)

Thurs. 12/16   MESF Pizza Night

Fri. 12/17   End of 2nd week grading period, Spirit Day

WINTER HOLIDAYS 12/20-1/3 (January 3rd is a Teacher Work Day...NO SCHOOL for students.)

1/4/11 Students return to school.

These next three weeks in class will be filled with learning! Not only do we continue to learn about Lewis and Clark, Sacagawea and Thomas Jefferson, but in math, we will continue with math facts, more number sense and geometry. In reading, we'll continue with reading groups and whole group reading, as well as phonics and language arts strategies that will help us strengthen our reading skills. For health, we'll be learning about teeth and dental care. We will also discuss the December holidays that we celebrate.

I'm wishing all of you a wonderful Holiday time with you and your family between December and January. Enjoy the time off and relax with your family. Best of everything to you and yours....

Mrs. Kastner

 

 

Thanksgiving and more!!

Hello everyone!

Well, November is here, the chill is kind of in the air, but we are doing very well and having a great time in class as we continue deeper into our curriculum! I am so very proud of all of the children. I hope you are too!

Here are the dates that are important!

Tues. 11/2 NO SCHOOL for children! We have a teacher work day!

Wed. 11/3 School store K-5

Fri. 11/5 Spirit Day....dress in your Murdock spirit wear....

SATURDAY, 11/6 JOIN IN FOR THE ANNUAL TURKEY TROT!!!! More reminders to come.

SUNDAY....11/7 REMEMBER TO TURN BACK YOUR CLOCKS ONE HOUR BACK BEFORE YOU GO TO BED ON SATURDAY....

Wed. 11/10 School Store K-5

Thurs. 11/11 PTA Meeting 6:30 p.m

Friday 11/12 Spirit Day....dress in your Murdock spirit wear....

Friday 11/19 9:00-10:00 Our "Hooray for Thanksgiving" play and brunch! More information to follow.

11/22-11/26 NO SCHOOL for Thanksgiving Holiday Break.  NO SCHOOL

 

During November, our continued focus for reading is still fluency and comprehension. For language arts, our focus carries a variety of subjects such as; verbs, word ending, plurals, word parts or syllables, compound words and the learning of many more "secret stories." Ask your children about some of the secret stories they've learned. They can tell you all about them.

During math, we will continue working on number sense. Tens and Ones is the focus, as well as the following: patterning, skip counting, before and after and more on adding and subtracting. PLEASE work with your children at home on addition facts. I would like to start taking "timed" tests once we return from vacation in January.

Social Studies will be more on maps and globes, more in depth knowledge on landforms, as well as Thomas Jefferson, Sacagawea and Lewis and Clark.

As you can see, we do have a full plate for a short month. I'm excited to work with them this month and expect to see many happy, happy faces showing me all that they know!

Enjoy your Thanksgiving with your family!

Mrs. Kastner

October is here...and so is the cool weather!! :)

Hello everyone!

WOW! Fall is surely here and I know I am very, very happy to have to cool weather to show for it. Three months of 90's + was more than I could handle! :)

We've got a full month for October, so let me show you what's coming up....

Fri. Oct. 1st Last day for CoGat testing! It is also Opening Night for the book fair! Come join us between 5:30and 7:30 tonight. I cannot make it to this event, but will be here for the Family Fun Night on Tuesday of the upcoming week.

Mon. Oct. 4th-Fri Oct. 8th BOOK FAIR....AND it is also testing for the 3rd and 5th grade.

Tues. 10/5 Family Fun Night at the Book Fair.

Thurs. 10/7 1st GRADE LUMMI SHOW AND ART FAIR!!!! Our class needs to be in the P.E. building at 6:20. Come and see! I'll be there!

Fri. 10/8 Spirit Day....wear your Murdock pride!

Mon. 10/11 COLUMBUS DAY and Boosterthon Kick-Off! K-2 Pep Rally at 12:30...for students only, please.

THE BOOSTERTHON RUNS FROM 10/12-10/20.     

Wed. 10/13 School Store K-5

Fri. 10/15 Baseball T-shirt Spirit Day.

CONFERENCE WEEK.....10/18-10/22........I AM SENDING HOME CONFERENCE FORMS WHICH WILL HAVE YOUR CONFERENCE TIME AND DAY ON IT. PLEASE SEND BACK AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

REMEMBER THAT CONFERENCE WEEK IS EARLY RELEASE EACH DAY OF THAT WEEK AND STUDENTS WILL BE DISMISSED AT 12:25 every day.....    REPORT CARDS WILL BE PASSED OUT DURING CONFERENCE WEEK FOR US TO DISCUSS WHILE WE ARE CONFERENCING.

Wed. 10/20 BOOSTERTHON FUN RUN TODAY....ALL ARE WELCOME!

Fri. 10/21 Make-Up Picture Day

Wed. 10/27 School Store K-5

Thurs. 10/28 COWLOWEEN at East lake Chick-Fil-A!!!! (Costumes MAY be worn only at night....5:00-8:00pm)

Fri. 10/29 Spirit Day....Happy Halloween to all!

 

During this month of October, we will continue to work very hard in all subject areas....reading will continue with reading groups throughout the week, word work and sometimes special group assignnments or book reports. During math, we will continue with number sense, place value to 100, comparing and ordering numbers, number sense, trading money and more. We do this through hands-on activities, our math workbook, math games and file folder games as well as through partner work and our math journal. For science, we will focus more on the water cycle and a review of seasons and weather. We will work on the unit of germs for health and also will learn more about our character trait of respect. Phonics and language arts will be the continuation of word work with our phonics books. We will also continue learning how to write the "Six Traits" way and how to give detailed and complete sentences. Our stories will become more focused and my expectations of the students will become greater as we continue writing on a daily basis.

Have a great month of October!

Mrs. Kastner