Fire Safety and Fundations!

Happy October and happy 20th day of school!  I am so looking forward to meeting with you all this month for our Parent Conferences so we can celebrate all your child's growth and learning during these first six weeks of school!  If you have not signed up yet for a parent conference, please check your email.  I sent two emails with the link on Thursday.  Thanks!

We were certainly a little disappointed that our field trip to Shelburne Farms was cancelled on Wednesday, but we are happy to share that it has been rescheduled for Wednesday, October 24th.  If you are interested in chaperoning, please let me know. You will need to be fingerprinted in order to chaperone.   Also, just a reminder that we have our Kindergarten Open House on Thursday, October 4th.  This is a chance for your Kindergartner to show you around the classroom and share some work from the start of the year.  We hope you can make it!

This week we had a visit from the Shelburne Fire Department as a part of our Fire Safety Day at SCS.  The Kindergarten Team met with two firefighters who explained what to do if there is ever a fire in the house.  They reviewed the importance of families having a meeting place outside the house and identifying the difference between toys at home and tools that could cause a fire to start.  The children then had the opportunity to crawl through the smoke house, practicing staying low to the ground, and then the chance to practice how to stop, drop, and roll.  Be sure to ask your child about these special visitors.  What did your child learn about fire safety?

Each week we seem to begin something new in Kindergarten.  This week it happened to be Fundations which is our spelling, phonics, and handwriting program.  For the next few weeks, your child will be introduce to lowercase letters in the alphabet.  We will review the sound the letter makes, read stories that highlight the letter and sound, and practice handwriting.  Each letter also has a keyword card to help us remember the sound.  We learned the letters T and B this week.  The T keyword is a top and the B keyword is a bat.  See if your child can tell you the sounds of those letters and write the lowercase letters!

Now that we know how our classroom library works and we have chosen books, we are working on identifying ourselves as readers!  We learned this week that we are readers who can look at words, think about the words, read the words, and learn from them.  We took a walk through our hallway looking for words.  We looked at the words and what they were labeling and used a best guess to read them. We saw that we could actually read more words than we thought we could!  Way to go Kindergarten readers! Can your child read you any labels and signs around your house or around town?  We also became acquainted with non-fiction books, or learn about the world books, and found we could learn so much from the books just by looking at the pictures!

We will be finishing with our last Totally Terrific Child on Monday.  It has been so fun learning about all of our classmates and finding similarities and differences in our interests!  We have a lot of friends who love to spend time at the beach and a lot of friends who loves dogs!  Next week, we will begin Writer's Workshop.  The focus of Writer's Workshop for awhile will be drawing detailed pictures to tell a story and oral storytelling.  Then we will move on to using letters and words to tell the story on paper.  I cannot wait to see these Kindergarten writers in action!

In math, we continued our work with numeral formation. This week we practiced four and five.  Can your child share the four and five rhymes with you.  We also continued with Work Places that are reinforcing our numeral identification, 1:1 correspondence with counting, and numeral formation. Next week, we will do some work with patterns before moving on to our second unit.

I want you all to know it is such a pleasure to teach your children this year.  After being away from Kindergarten for several years (teaching first, second, and third grade), I am reminded every day why I love teaching this grade level!  I love the joy they have for the little things in life and their eagerness for learning every day. The funny stories, hugs, and beautiful drawings I receive are just a bonus!

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend!

Mix it Up!

We had another wonderful week in Kindergarten! It is always so fun to see the social and academic growth that has been made in just a short amount of time...15 days!

We started our Friday off with a bit of a "zig zag" in our schedule!  We had Mix it Up with Mr. Badillo's middle school students.  Five different times this year, we will get together with Mr. Badillo's class and do an activity to get to know one another and create a community feel in our school building!  We read a book called All Are Welcome and then we welcomed the middle school students to join us for a bit of choice time.  Middle school students certainly enjoyed playing games, coloring, building with blocks, and using the marble run with your children!

We began our Social Skills curriculum this week with a lesson from Ms. O on whole body listening.  Ms. O is the special educator on our Kindergarten team and she will be visiting our classroom every Friday to implement a program called Second Step. Second Step is a program that our school is using throughout the grades to build social-emotional skills.  You might have heard your child talk about Impulsive Puppy and Slow Down Snail.  These are two puppets that Ms. O will be using to help teach her lessons.  The first few lessons are all about being strong listeners. 

We also read a book from the We Thinkers series.  This is a series of picture books that focus on teaching children the skills they need to be flexible social thinkers and social problem solvers.  As we read the books, listen to the We Thinkers songs, and have discussions, the children will learn about their own thinking (and others) to help them make better decisions when in the midst of social play and interaction.  This week our book focused on that we all think thoughts and we all have different feelings when we are interacting with each other.  Next week, we will read The Group Plan and discuss what it means to be a part of a group and that when everyone is doing and thinking about the same thing, it's called "the group plan" (rather than following one's own plan!).

In math, we have continued our work with the five frames and finding combinations that add up to five.  We also played a game called Spill Five Beans.  It not only helped us with 1:1 counting and combinations of five, but is also helped us to practice numeral formation.  Ask your child to explain this game to you!  This week we also practiced making the number 3.  Next week, we will move on to four and five!

During Reader's Workshop, we spent some time exploring our classroom library.  We looked at the types of books that are in our library and how the library is organized.  Then the children each picked out three book for their book boxes!  We use book boxes during our independent reading time.  Once the children chose their books, they found quiet places in the room and read and re-read their three books.  They read silently for five minutes....wow!  Some children said it felt like an hour!  We will keep building our stamina for reading the pictures and words in our books throughout the year!

We also celebrated the beginning of Autumn by reading a poem called "Fall is Here".  We choral read the poem (all together) and echo read (repeating after me).  Then the children learn their first sight word.  Sight words are high-frequency words found often in text that are not spelled phonetically.  This week's word was "is".  We found it twelve times in the poem!  See if your child can find the word "is" in any books at home!

Lastly, there is a fundraiser packet in your child's Friday Folder from the PTO.  You can read through it and decide if your family is going to participate.  Participation is optional; however, some of the money raised will come directly back to our Kindergarten Team for special activities.

Happy Fall...and enjoy the weekend!

Library Day!

Just a reminder that Library Day is every Monday!  If the children bring back their books, then they are able to get new ones.  If you get a chance, help your child get library books in the backpack on Sunday night.  Thanks!

All Sorts of Insects!

This week we had our very first Nearby Nature lesson.  Nearby Nature is a program supported by the Four Winds Institute (and led by family volunteers) which gets children out in and excited about nature!  This month's theme was insects.  We headed outside into our schoolyard looking for insects and we certainly found many!  The children were pretty good at catching these flying, jumping, and crawling insects!  After capturing them in jars, we looked at the design of their bodies and noticed they all have three body parts, six legs, wings, and antennae.  We also had the opportunity to watch a fun puppet show that helped us understand the characteristics of insects.  Be sure to ask your child about the insects we caught!  A special thanks to Jane, Jess, and Kendra for a great first session!  We continued our investigation of insects by reading several books that Kendra left and by playing a Bug Bingo game!

We have had a lot of fun learning about our Totally Terrific Children this week!  We have been investigating their names, looking at their pictures, and learning about their likes. Once each Totally Terrific Child shares his or her pictures, each child creates a page of the child's book.  This is also a great opportunity for us to work on beginning letter formation and handwriting as well as adding details to pictures.  Ask your child who the Totally Terrific Children were this week?

In math, we began numeral formation.  We began by learning the numeral formation rhymes for one and two and then we practiced writing them on whiteboards. We also drew them in the air with our skywriters!  I included the numeral formation rhymes in your child's Friday Folder this week.  There is no pressure to practice numeral formation at home, but if your child is interested, these rhymes might help him or her remember how they go.  Next week, we will move on to three and four!

During Reader's Workshop, we created another class book.  This one was based on A My Name is Alice by Jane Bayer.  The children had to brainstorm something they like...or could like, that started with the same letter/letter sound as their first names.  That was tricky!  They then practiced writing their names and drew a picture of the item that starts with their sames letters.  Some children even tried writing a word to match the picture too!  Way to go readers and writers!

We also welcomed a UVM sophomore to our classroom this week.  Ms. G will be visiting our classroom every Thursday morning for the next nine weeks.  She is an elementary education major and part of her coursework is observing and helping in the classroom for part of the semester.

Just a reminder that School Picture day is on Tuesday, September 18th for our class.  Please send in the picture form, if you plan to buy pictures.  Also, there is no school on Wednesday, September 19th.  Have a great weekend!

Be sure to ask your child about...

• Our whole school assembly and Cat Coins
• Dancing to Pop See Ko
• Singing the Pirate Song
• Catching insects at Nearby Nature
• Meeting our UVM intern, Ms. G
• Creating our Age graph and reading It's Hard to Be Five

Super Second Week!

We had another great week in Kindergarten!  Everyone is becoming more familiar with our routines and seems pretty comfortable in our room!

This week we read a story called This Year Will Be the Best and brainstormed what our hopes will be for this Kindergarten year.  Some children want to learn to read and make friends and others are just hoping to play in the snow this year!  Their beautiful illustrations are hanging out in hallway outside our room.  Be sure to check them out if you stop by!  We then took our hopes and dreams and talked about how we needed to act and behave in the classroom in order for everyone to achieve their hopes, to learn, and to grow.  We created a long list of ideas and then narrowed them down to being safe, responsible, and respectful.  You can see our classroom promises below that everyone signed!  Ask your child to tell you about our classroom promises!

We began our first unit in math this week as well.  This first unit focuses on the counting sequence to 20 and quantities of 10.  The children were also introduced to some Work Places. Work Places are mathematics centers that children visit each day that connect to our math unit.  This week the children investigated pattern blocks, unifix cubes, polydrons, and geoboards.  Ask your child which Work Place was a favorite!  After using the Work Places, we also focused on attributes and sorting.  We looked our shoes and sorted ourselves into groups based on attributes, such as color, laces, velcro, no shoelaces, etc.

Lastly, we started our "All About Us" unit with an introduction to Totally Terrific Child.  Each day for the next few weeks, children will be sharing their timelines and pictures of themselves to help us all learn about each other.  After a child shares, we will ask questions about his or her interests and make connections.  We will also use this as an opportunity to start working a bit on letter formation and pencil grip as each member of the class will make a page for the Totally Terrific Child's book!  I was today's Totally Terrific Child.  Ask your child what he or she learned about me!

I am so enjoying getting to know your children!  Next week is a five-day week...make sure your child rests up this weekend!

Ask your child about...

• Our tour of the cafeteria
• Making a birthday month graph
• The Hip Hop Hokey Pokey and Hambone songs
• Reading The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors and practicing using scissors
• Using oil pastels to decorate birthday crowns