New Student and writing books!

Today we welcomed a new student to our classroom.  We were very excited to add our new friend, Emersynn to our Kindergarten family.  She brings our class up to 24 students with 10 girls and 14 boys!  Please keep this in mind when sending snack from here on.  Ask your child if he/she did anything to make our new friend feel welcomed today!

In reader's workshop, we have been working on reading books with patterns.  This week we are working in partners to WRITE and ILLUSTRATE a pattern book!  The kids have gotten to choose their pattern and are working hard to create amazing books.  I will have a set out at conferences and your child will be bringing his/her book home on Wednesday.  Keep your eyes out for this awesome project!

We have been learning so much about woodland animals this week.  The turtles and frogs have been especially fun.  We have started our letters over and each day read a book all about that letter, use something messy to make our letters (applesauce, butter, colored chalk) and we do an action on a large letter taped to the floor (ant walk, bounce, crawl).  The kids are loving the new letter review and they have learned so much since the beginning of the year.  In math, we are working on our 0-10 numbers - writing them, counting them, drawing sets with that many, breaking them apart (9 can be made from 5 blue smiley faces and 4 red smiley faces...etc.) Continue working on letter and number recognition.

Conferences are Thursday and Friday of NEXT week.  Everyone has signed up for a time (YAY YOU!).  If you need another reminder of what time your conference is, you can contact the office or email me and we will let you know.  I am looking forward to discussing our Kindergarten goals and your child's progress so far.

Tomorrow is Fire Safety Day!  The fire trucks will be here and we will practice a fire drill in the morning. It is sure to be a fabulous Friday!

Hexagons

Did you know....
A hexagon is ANY closed, 2D shape that has six straight sides.  We have discussed it in class and the Kindergartners LOVE it!  See if you can find the 3 hexagons below...

Kindness

We earned lunch in the classroom on Monday and it was a HUGE success.  The kids did a great job earning all of the letters in "listening" and we had fun having lunch together.  Our next behavior goal is KINDNESS.  We read a book about kindness and have discussed ways to show others kindness at home and at school.  One important philosophy to remember: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.  We have reviewed this more than once and will continue to do so.  When we earn all of the letters in KINDNESS, we earn a movie party!  Be Kind, Kindergarten!  Ask your child if they did anything kind for someone today.

Happy Homecoming!

I saw many smiling faces at the Homecoming Parade Thursday night!  Those smiling faces came to school today and earned the last two letters of our LISTENING behavior goal!  The first day we have everyone here next week, we will have lunch in the classroom!  Great job, Kindergarten!

Next week we will introduce the last 4 letters of the alphabet.  Please continue to review these letters at home and the sounds they make.

Also today, we used crackers and described the attributes of our five 2 Dimensional shapes.  Your child is bringing those crackers home to explain them to you, as well.  Example: The saltine cracker is a square because it has 4 straight sides, 4 corners and all of the sides are exactly the same.  It is also a 2D FLAT shape.  See if your child can explain the attributes of each cracker to you before you snack on them :).

Have a great weekend!

Woodland Animals and Reading

Today we learned about our first woodland animal, squirrels.  For each animal that we learn about, we create a sentence, cut out the animal and illustrate a page for our own woodland animal books.  You will get to learn all about these animals, too, once students bring their books home at the end of this unit!

In reader's workshop, we have been working on our independent and with partner reading stamina.  We are up to 6 minutes of independent reading followed by 5 minutes of partner reading for a total of 11 minutes of reading stamina!  For the 29th day of school, that is AMAZING.  Remember- there are 3 ways that we can read a book in class (and at home):

1. retell a familiar story you know (Corduroy, Brown Bear, The Three Little Pigs, The Little Red Hen, Mary Had a Little Lamb, etc)

2. look at the pictures and make up your own story

3. find words you know and READ the words

This is a hard-working class and I am truly impressed with their stamina so early on.

Great Job, Kindergarten.  Check out our pictures of partner reading!


***Also, check out our new behavior goal for LISTENING- It is going really well!

Farm Night Fun

Thank you to everyone who attended our Kindergarten Farm Night.  The kids were talking about it throughout the day and seemed to really enjoy the evening spent here WITH YOU!  It was a lot of fun.  We are working on getting animals back for Farm Night next year....(Oh the stories I could tell you about how that all fell through this year!), but if you have any suggestions for how we can make this night even more successful, please feel free to email and let me know :).

With the wonderful rain, we had 2 inside recesses today.  We reviewed some letters and shapes and got to choose reading spots around the classroom with our elbow partners for quiet reading time.  We are up to about 8 minutes of stamina for quiet back-to-back reading with our partners.  Super Work, Kindergarten!

Have a great weekend!