Our First Full Week of School

The children have made it through the first full week of kindergarten!  Below is a recap of our week (it's a long post, but there was so much that happened this week)

Classroom Rules

This week during morning meeting, we shared and discussed what our classroom rules were going to be and this is what we, as a class, decided on:

We Promise:

to be safe
to be kind
to be responsible
to be a good listener
to try our best
to always have fun

The children signed their pictures and their pictures were placed around the classroom rules, which are posted near our meeting area.  We also have started discussing what it looks and sounds like to be safe, kind, and responsible.  Ask your child to share with you how they can be safe, kind and responsible in school.

Writer's Workshop

We have also begun Writer's Workshop, which is where children are creating books and learning about the writing process. The children have enjoyed writing books as they are learning about the logistics of writer's workshop (taking care of materials and what to do when we are done). They are also learning about how writer's get their ideas to write books. For example, we read the book The Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee and after we read what inspires her to write her books (family experiences). Then, I shared a book I made to the class and what inspired me to write my book.

The children have lots of stories to share and I can't wait to hear them during Writer's Workshop this year in Kindergarten! Make sure to ask your child what he/she has been writing about.

Fundations


We have begun our Fundations program, which is a program that provides the children with a foundation for reading, writing, and spelling. The next 12 weeks, the children will be introduced to 2-3 letters each week. Throughout the week the children are engaged in various activities that will have the children learning the name of the letters, the sounds they produce (phonics), word awareness, syllable awareness, and phoneme awareness (identifying sounds, blending sounds, segmenting sounds).

Each week, I will be posting the new letters being introduced on our blog (on the right hand side). When a new letter is introduced, the children learn the name of the letter, the keyword, and the sound. For example: for the letter t, the children would say t, top, /t/.

Echo and Baby Echo (snow owls) will be helping your child learn his or her letters. They will also be using a whiteboard with the skyline, plane line, grass line, and worm line, which is the language we use when forming the letters.

Math 

This week we began our math program,Bridges We were introduced to Work Places. Work Places provide activities and/or games that are engaging and relevant to what we are learning in the classroom. They are also designed to be used independently. Pattern blocks, unifix cubes and polydrons were introduced.  Next week, the children will be introduced to geoboards and bugs. Although the children will be exploring with these materials for the next couple of weeks, they will also be working on facilitating inventing, creating, communicating, sorting, counting, and community building skills.

Other Fun Projects

We've read the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar several times over the last two weeks as the children will be using this book for partner reading.  During one of the readings, the children acted out the life cycle of a butterfly.  The children also created the life cycle using pasta pieces to represent the different stages.

We also read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, which the children really enjoyed reading along.  After the read aloud, the children created their own coconut tree and stuck on letters from their names to their trees. 

Visitors


Mrs. Tatlock came into the classroom today.  She talked about feelings and introduced her friend, Pumsy, to the class (he is a puppet).  She also shared with the children about clear mind, sparkle mind, and mud mind.  Ask your child about these feelings.  At the end, she read a story titled Sometimes I'm Bambaloo, which is about a little girl named Katie who sometimes gets so mad, she's Bambaloo, not herself.  With her moms help, she learns how to calm down. 

Mrs. Tatlock will be coming into the classroom for the next several weeks talking with the children about feelings, what is a small problem and how to handle small problems with friends, and when to ask for help when it's a big problem. 

We also had another visitor today.  Vanessa's mom came into the classroom, as it was her daughter's birthday, to read us a book called Happy Birthday to You.  Vanessa also gave each of her friends a Dr. Seuss pencil.