Parent Teacher Conferences

The kindergarten team would like to schedule parent/teacher conferences early in October for kindergarten families this year.  Grades 1-5 are having conferences in November and we feel that it is important to meet with you a bit earlier.  We’d like to take this opportunity to talk about the individual needs of your child, their response to the first six weeks of social learning, as well as address any questions or concerns that you may have.

We look forward to spending some time with you in the coming weeks.  These conferences will start the week of October 11^th and continue until the end of the month, thus allowing plenty of time for scheduling needs.

Field Trip

Everybody had a great time this morning at Liberty Apple Orchard.  Thanks to Melissa, Kelley-D's Grandpa, Lara, Shawn, and Jamie for your help!  We have lots of apples so if you'd like me to send any home with your child, please let me know.  We will be using the apples later in the week to cook or bake something, not sure what yet.  If you have any suggestions or recipes let me know. Or, if you would like to lend a helping hand, we could use it! 

Another free slideshow by Smilebox

Nature Adventure Program

I was so sad to miss our first Nature Adventure Program!  Thanks to Tom, Bo, Shannon, and Polly for helping Amy and the kids out.  I heard the mosquitoes were out in full force so the morning was shortened a bit, but everyone had a great time.  And thanks to Polly for writing this post describing the morning activities:


"Amy taught us to walk quietly like foxes, to smell with our bear noses, listen with our deer ears, and look with our eagle eyes.  We played a game where flying squirrel kids went from tree to tree (trees being the "big kids") to escape Amy the mama owl, who was trying to feed her baby owls.
We tried to use our ears, noses, and eyes to find things in the woods on a scavenger hunt, and came back with lots of interesting things.  And lots of mosquito bites."


Our next Nature Adventure Day is October 8th.  Let me know if you'd like to join us for the morning! 

Click on the slideshow to make full screen!

Press PLAY > to hear a song Amy taught us! 

Apple Peeler

Does anybody have an apple peeler that our class could borrow one day this week?  I'm thinking about Tuesday or Wednesday, but any day would do. We will be doing some baking with the apples we pick from our field trip tomorrow!  Let me know if you have one to lend.

How full is your bucket?

On Thursday, we read the book, Have You Filled a Bucket Today?  The book encourages positive behavior by modeling the daily importance of kindness, appreciation, and love.  The metaphors of bucket filling and bucket dipping are used to help us understand the effects of our behavior on ourselves and others.  The book explains that we all have an invisible bucket that is constantly being emptied or filled.  When friends do kind things for us, it fills our bucket, and we feel great.  When friends do hurtful things to us, our bucket is dipped into and we feel awful.  The book also talks about the idea that we all have an invisible dipper because when we use that dipper to fill other people's buckets, we also fill our own bucket.  We want each of our buckets to be filled during the day in Room 12.  Every time the contents of our buckets grow, we become happier, more optimistic, and and feel good about ourselves.  Throughout the day, we looked for instances of times our buckets were either filled or dipped into.

Stretching Elastic Bands

Well, not exactly. But the students have been practicing stretching words just like you would a rubber band.  After having a discussion about how famous authors use both pictures and words to tell a story, the students were taught how to say each word, stretch it out, write what they hear, reread the words, and then say more.  I was amazed at how many of the children carried these strategies over to their independent writing.  

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

We read Chica Chica Boom Boom on Monday morning and have been doing many letter activities to accompany the book.  We made a class book after practicing writing our names with lower case letters.  We learned that in most people's names, upper case letters only appear at the beginning of their name.  In our class, however, we do have a few exceptions to this rule.  The children worked hard in making this transition to how "Kindergarteners" write their name.  In this class book, each child practiced writing their name four times prior to publishing it.

Dave Keller Sing-Along

On Tuesday morning, Mrs. F's class invited us over for a sing-along.  Dave Keller, Idalee's father, taught us an ABC song that he composed himself!  The song incorporated movements and letter sounds into each letter of the alphabet.  We had so much fun learning it and hope that he comes back again!  Thanks Dave!

Independent Reading

Every day students are working on building their stamina during independent reading time.  During this time that we call, "Read to Self," students are situated around the room with their own book bags.  In these bags are a variety of texts.  Students have practiced reading these texts three different ways.  They can choose to read the pictures, read the words, or retell a familiar story.  Ask your child if they can tell you the three ways that we can all read books.  We have made such progress already in building our stamina.  The students have gone from reading 20 seconds to 6.5 minutes!  During this time, students stay in one spot, reading independently to themselves with no distractions.  Eventually, I will begin working with small groups of students for reading instruction during this time.

Field Trip

On Monday, September 27th, the entire Kindergarten team will be traveling to Liberty Apple Orchard.  We plan to leave school at 9am and return in time for lunch.  Our team will be traveling on busses.  We will visit the orchard, pick apples, and learn about the life cycle of an apple tree.  If you would like to chaperone, please return the form (will go home tomorrow) to school on Wednesday.  If you'd like to purchase apples for yourself, please plan on bringing your own $. The team apologizes for the short notice, but this was the only time the Orchard had available for us.  Thanks for understanding.

SUNFLOWERS

Our class is in need of sunflower heads.  If you have access to any, please send them in with your child!

Friday Fun

Mrs. Koch invited us down to her room this afternoon to watch a movie.  The movie showed a few of Eric Carle's stories, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," "Papa, Please get the Moon for me," and "The Very Quiet Cricket."  This month we are focusing on the author, Eric Carle, and reading many of his books and learning a little about his life.  The children were ecstatic to visit another classroom.  We hope to do more community gatherings this year with other Kindergarten classrooms.

That afternoon, we had an extended Choice Time.  This time is a valued part of the day for Kindergarteners.  The children can work on self-control and engage socially with peers in caring ways with adult assistance.  The students choose from a variety of centers.  Currently, their chooses are blocks, matchbox cars, playdough, math manipulatives, dramatic play, sand table, and puzzles/games.

When You're Done, You've Just Begun..

Every afternoon after rest time, we have Writer's Workshop.  UES uses Lucy Calkins' Units of Study as a model for how we teach writing.  Each workshop begins with a mini-lesson that lasts 10 minutes.  In this lesson, the children are taught a strategy to use in their own writing.  The student's then work individually writing a story about themselves using the strategy or skill I have taught for about 20 minutes.  During this time, I conference with a few children each day, teaching them a skill that is individual to their own writing.  I meet with each child twice a week, sometimes more depending on their needs.  At the end of their writing time, we meet back as a group to share and review what was taught.  I choose a few children to share their work that exhibits the strategy that I taught in the mini-lesson that day.  

On Thursday, the children were taught what to do when they are done.  During the last week or so, as the students were writing stories about themselves, you could hear about the room, "I'm done."  Today, they were taught what to do when they think they're done.  We use the phrase, "when you're done, you've just begun."  I taught them three things that they can choose to do when they think they're done.  I modeled and explained that you can add more to the picture, add more to the words, or begin a new piece.  They love watching me model the strategy as I write and draw my own stories.  Today, I was continuing a piece about a time a seagull stole my sandwich at the beach.  In our share, Kelley-D showed us how she added to the words about a trip she went on to Cape Cod, and Mathias showed us how he added more to his picture about a time that he was listening in the classroom.  Both these students chose to work on pieces they began in previous sessions.

Each student has a writer's workshop folder that is kept in school.  In a few months, some of these pieces will be sent home.  If you'd like to see what your child is working on at any point in time, please stop by the classroom.

We learned a lot about Bryn, Andrew, Sarah, and Eoin this week as they took the "stage" for totally terrific child.  We got to know them better and learn about each of their favorite colors, food, thing to do, friends, books, and all about their family.  We even got to meet Pinkalicious, see a picture of Bryn's dog Duncan, and meet some special animal blankets.  We were amazed that one of our friends sold many of his toys to purchase a pair of nightvision goggles!

Besides learning all about each of these friends, we also counted the letters and syllables in each of their names, participated in name chants, made name puzzles, discussed upper case letters at the beginning of our names, added names to the word wall, and practiced handwriting while making a page for each of the totally terrific child's all about me book.

Congrats!

Together as a class, we worked together and have filled the marble jar.  Students can earn marbles as a group or individual when they go above and beyond.  Each time this jar is filled, the class chooses a special reward.  Today, a popcorn "party" was had during choice time.

Our Class Rules

We finalized our class rules today.  We've had many discussions about what should be included as a rule so we could be sure to have a great school year.  We began brainstorming a huge list of ideas but realized that if we listed each rule, it would be too many to keep track of.  As a class, we narrowed it down to: be kind, be safe, listen to each other, and have fun.  In writer's workshop, we wrote and illustrated an example of what this rule meant to us and or a time that we followed this rule.  We are working on labeling ourselves and some of our friends in these stories.

Book Orders

Please have your Scholastic Book Orders returned by Friday.  This is a great opportunity to purchase inexpensive books for your household.  Ordering through this program gives our classroom points to use to build our classroom library.

Totally Terrific Child

Today we launched Totally Terrific Child, however, called it Totally Terrific Teacher and I was on stage for the day.  During this time, we will get to know more about each child and practice some basic literacy skills as we study each person's name in depth.  We look at a variety of phonological awareness skills and practice handwriting by creating each child their own book.  Please check the schedule for your child's day on stage and send in with them their favorite book, a photo of their family, and something that is special to them.  The students learned a little about me today and were able to view pictures of my family and also of me skiing.

Hopes and Dreams

This afternoon we read Mathew's Dream by Leo Lionni.  Mathew, a mouse who lives in a dreary corner of a dusty attic, visits a museum and dreams of becoming an artist.  After reading this story, we brainstormed a list of hopes and dreams we had for the school year.  Each child then drew a picture of what they hoped to be able to learn or do during Kindergarten.  These pictures and ideas will be used to begin our discussion of classroom rules, that the kids will create themselves.

Butterfly Release Day!

What an exciting day we had! Our chrysalis became transparent last night and while we were at Library and Music, our butterfly emerged from its chrysalis.  We spent the afternoon reading "Gotta Go, Gotta Go" and making butterfly crowns to wear during the send-off.  Mrs. F's class joined us in saying goodbye to our friend.  He was reluctant to leave us so we left him in the butterfly garden outside the school.  We know that when his wings become stronger, he will be ready to take off on his journey to Mexico.  We had a great time while chanting, 

"I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go to Mexico."

Unfortunately, Eoin, who originally brought the caterpillar to our class was not at school today.  We hope he enjoys these pictures.  We missed you Eoin and thanks for helping us enjoy and learn all about butterflies!

around the classroom...

Our Classroom

Seeing the butterfly in the chrysalis..

Morning Meeting

Welcome

Thanks for visiting our class blog.  I plan on using this blog to update families of what is going on in our classroom.  It will take the place of a weekly newsletter that is generally created in other classrooms.  I would love to hear feedback about how this blog works for you.  Please feel free to send me your thoughts.  I hope to post at least twice a week, if not more.

We have had a fantastic second week of school.  We are continuing to develop community within our classroom and have been focusing on each component of the C.A.R.E.S. curriculum.  We have been establishing a respectful, caring learning environment and have been working on being our best selves!  The students have been writing stories that focus on being kind.  We discussed what being kind looks like, feels like, and sounds like.  In these stories, we worked on labeling our own self.

This past week we have been looking closely at butterflies and learning about their life cycle.  We began our week talking about what we already know about butterflies.  From there, we brainstormed ideas about what we want to find out about butterflies.  These questions have prompted many discussions throughout the week.  In math we learned about symmetry and created beautiful butterflies for a class book, "Five Butterflies."  We also made caterpillars that have patterns across their bodies.  These are crawling all over our walls so be sure to stop by and check them out!  The students practiced making patterns during a guided discovery of unifix cubes prior to creating their caterpillars.  The most exciting part of our week happened today.  While observing the chrysalis, we started noticing that we can now see the butterfly inside.  Hopefully we will be able to observe the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis tomorrow!

During literacy this week, we have learned three different ways to read a book.  During our read to self time, the students practiced reading the words, reading the pictures, or retelling the story.  This time is used to practice building a readers independence.  We also learned how good readers track the words as we read a book about the life cycle of butterflies.

Throughout the week we have been singing many songs.  Our favorite was definitely, Chi Chi Cha, but we also enjoyed many songs about butterflies.  The students were able to dramatize the different stages while singing.  Ask your child to share these with you.  They are sung to the tune of The Eensy Weensy Spider and Frere Jacque.