New Opportunities!

Summer has come to an end and I hope all your children are excited about going back to school tomorrow! I had a few ask so just wanted to publish an update on where I will be this fall!
I have accepted a second grade position in Michigan City at Knapp Elementary! I am very excited for the opportunity to have my own classroom! The staff is great and I look forward to meeting all the kids tomorrow! I would have liked to have stayed in the area, but did not receive any offers from local schools so had to look elsewhere! I will most likely be moving closer to the school in the Fall.
I hope you all had a great summer and I am confident all your children are prepared for first grade! Continue the hard work with them at home and they will all continue to soar!
Joshua Schultz

Summer Learning Materials!!!

Kindergarten Families,
The last few days have been very depressing here at the school! It is very weird being here without the kids! We got everything cleaned up in the classroom and moved at the kids will come back to a new and improved Prairie Vista this Fall! All new carpet and walls with doors!
I have uploaded all of these documents for you to use with your children this summer. It is so important to spend a few minutes throughout the day refreshing skills we have covered and pushing them to better prepare for First Grade! 20 mins reading/comprehension, 10 minutes math, and 10 minutes writing! If you want to do the workbook thing I suggest a first grade workbook for the kids. Also if you need ANYTHING please comment on this blog or email me at JOASCHUL@GMAIL.COM as I am not positive how long my PHM account will be open!
Please have a fun and Safe Summer!!!
Joshua Schultz

Everything is hopefully organized into subjects!
Sentence Structure
Writing
Language Arts
Language Arts 2
General Skills and Ideas
Science
Language Arts 3
Sight Words!
Addition
Addition 2
Subtraction
Subtraction 2
Math Skills
Math Skills 2
Math Skills 3
Comprehension Skills
Comprehension Skills 2
Comprehension Skills 3
Comprehension Skills 4

June 5th 2013 LAST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN!!!

Kindergarten Families,

I wanted to thank you all for an awesome experience here at Prairie Vista! I have loved working with your children and getting to know them each day! I very pleased with their growth and development over the course of my time as their teacher! I encourage you to continue their growth throughout the summer and I am confident they are each ready for first grade! Some Pictures and other activity sheets were sent home with them today! The worksheets are extra's I had in the room that we did not get to. I hope to upload a larger file of documents tomorrow or Friday that I encourage you to use throughout the summer to keep your children growing. Please check the blog periodically as I will put things on there as I find them. I also encourage you to purchase additional workbooks for your children to work on for 20-30 minutes each day. They should be ready for First grade workbooks and those might challenge them a little more. 

I am still in the process of job hunting for the upcoming school year so not sure where I will end up just yet. 

My personal email is JOASCHUL@GMAIL.COM and I encourage you to get into contact with me if you ever need anything. If you need tutoring or ideas please feel free to contact me. Also check in with the blog and feel free to comment on anything or ask any questions! http://schultzpvkindergarten.blogspot.com/

I will miss seeing your children everyday, but I am so glad I had this opportunity to be their teacher. I hope you are happy with the progress your children have made, if you have any comments or suggestions for me please feel free to email!

I highly recommend 20 minutes of reading, 15 minutes math facts, and 10 minutes of writing each day. Split these things up so they are not all at once, but I do encourage you to try and cover these subjects each day. Remember learning is everywhere so try and make things as simple as a trip to the grocery store educational!!

Hope you all have a GREAT SUMMER!

Joshua Schultz

On to First Grade they go!

Field Day!

We had a great final Monday at School!
This morning we finished our bird houses and made hats for field day!
We had four center rotations as well! We have fun centers today and tomorrow!
The kids ate lunch outside as a special treat!
We had Kona Ice following lunch.
Then we had our recess time before starting field day activities!!!
It was a GREAT Day and the kids had a blast!
Looking forward to another great day tomorrow!!
Joshua Schultz

Friday May 31, 2013

We had a GREAT FRIDAY!!! 
The kids were excellent today and we just had a fun day!
This morning we worked on our May writing and then had our final sing a long with the entire Kindergarten! Next we had two center rotations and then a read aloud before heading to lunch!
Following lunch we worked with Mrs. Lord's class on a birdhouse craft! We will finish them and send home Monday or Tuesday!
We also worked on a special gift for the end of the year!
We finished the day with art where we watched a video!
Kindergarten scrapbooks are going home today!
I want to thank Mrs. Oneal and the parent volunteers for all their hard work on these. It takes A LOT of work to put these together and they turned out amazing!
If you have time this weekend I encourage you to have your child write a Thank you card to Mrs. Oneal. Encourage your children to thank Mrs. Oneal for all her hard work throughout the year and for the memory book! 
I am heading North for some camping this week so am hoping the rain holds out! I hope you all enjoy the weekend with your children!
Only 3 days left!
Remember to send a labeled water bottle with your child on Monday for field day!!!
Have a GREAT weekend!!!
Joshua Schultz

Wednesday In class
Thursday In class
Math Centers

DIBELS Breakdown!

PSF - Phoneme segmentation fluency is sound segments for example FAN the child says F/A/N - say all the sounds. Students need 40 correct in a minute to be on target.

FSF - First sound fluency is beginning sounds for words. For example MAN the child says /mmm/ or /ma/ This was not tested for End of Year, however in Middle of Year students needed 30 correct in a minute to be on target.

TRC - Text and reading comprehension. The students read a short book to me and then I ask them questions about reading. B is proficient which means they are on target and C is above target.

NWF - Nonsense word fluency is asking for students to say all the sounds in nonsense words. For example SOG S/O/G Student need 28 correct in a minute to be on target.

LNF - Letter naming fluency. Students read a list of mixed upper case and lower case letters. There is no benchmark for this but all students did very well on this. 

WR - Sight word list. Students read a list of words. There is no benchmark for this, but all students did very well on this. They should have been able to identify all in first list which was 23 words. Anything after that is exceeding expectations

Everyone in my class did an Excellent job testing! I believe their scores reflect the hard work they have put into their first full year of Elementary school! 

These scores reflect students ability to tap out new words and quickly identify ones they already know. The score also gives us a good idea of where they are at with their reading level. The letter score for TRC reflects the reading scale A-Z. When looking at leveled readers the back has a letter that tells you how difficult the book is. Students should be able to read any leveled book up to the letter they scored on their own. I encourage you to maybe look online and purchase some books at their level, but also books up to two levels above their score. If your child had a C I would be sure to have C books available, but also D and E for reading with you. These books will challenge them to tap out new words and use strategies to expand their vocabulary. Please remember to ask questions following reading to see how your child is comprehending. Comprehension skills are so important. It may also be helpful to pause and discuss the story at several different times while reading! It is so important to challenge the kids at this age as it is incredible how they pick up new things so quickly. Please try and read 20 minutes everyday this summer as it will put them ahead of the pack for First Grade!!! The extra work will pay off in the long run!!!

Please email me at anytime throughout the summer if you have any questions or concerns. I am going to put together a packet or worksheets that will be available on this blog for summer work. 1st grade workbooks would also be a great tool to work on throughout the summer! I would encourage pausing for a bit of school at different times throughout the summer day! A little time in the morning, afternoon, and evening is a great way to get the 40 minute time in but just split it up so it is not overwhelming. Just 30-40 minutes a day will be a HUGE benefit!

20 reading

10 Math

10 Writing

Joshua Schultz

Wednesday May 29, 2013

We had a GREAT day today! The kids were the best they have been in about a week so that was nice!!!
This morning we worked on a adding doubles worksheet! They all did a great job with this! I asked them to write a sentence and draw an illustration on the back when finished!
We had two center rotations this morning before heading to the computer lab where we worked on Odyssey ABC and 123.
Following computer lab we had language arts. Today we worked on a reading comprehension worksheet. We spent a lot of time discussing the importance of underlining and reading the questions before reading. We also read and re-read the story. We then went to lunch and came back to answer the questions after lunch. This was important because it highlighted the importance of underlining. We went 30 minutes between reading the story and answering the questions, but the underlined parts helped us answer the questions quickly without re reading the entire story! The kids did a GREAT JOB with this!!!
Following this we had ten minutes of silent reading. The kids picked a book and spent the entire ten minutes looking at it and reading it silently!
Following silent reading we had a hot pencils math assessment!
During math today we had Centers! We have five centers and the kids went to two centers today! We will finish up the centers tomorrow and Friday! We are focusing on addition and subtraction, and story problem creation and solving!!
Following math we had recess outside and snack time!
We got new seats today!!! I switched the tables around and the kids each got a new seat for the end of the school year!!!
For science today we started our focus on Birds! We discussed what birds do and how they look. We completed a sequencing activity and then took a nature walk to look and listen for birds!
We finished the day with a reward recess! I am proud of their behavior today!!! I know it is tough at the end of the year, but they did a GREAT JOB!!!!
Hard to believe we only have five days left of Kindergarten!!!!
Have a great evening!!
Joshua Schultz