A New School Year!

Wow!  We have had a great start to the year!  

The first five days have been busy but very, very fun!

Just look at those sweet faces!

We have been very busy building our classroom community, making new friends and learning the routines and procedures of our classroom.

Each morning, while we are practicing our classroom routines, the students have had the opportunity to explore some of our classroom materials.

The students have enjoyed working on puzzles using pattern blocks.

The students have practiced making upper and lowercase letters with our play dough mats.

 

The students have also practiced forming letters using unifix cubes, which we typically use during math workshop.

 A lot of our learning incorporates singing and movement.  We sing and dance all day long!  The students have enjoyed learning some fun songs too!

In these pictures they are singing and dancing to one of their favorite songs, 

A Tooty Ta Ta.  

Check it out here!

On Friday our class received a special package with "magical" play dough.

We received a letter from Pete the Cat and followed the instructions.

We repeated the chant that the letter instructed us to say several times.  

We waited and watched the magic take place!

As the students began to squeeze and roll the play dough it changed from white to a bright color, either blue, red, orange, green, or yellow.

The looks on their precious faces were priceless.  It was one of the best moments of our week!

Each day we have a classroom King or Queen.  We practice cheering the letters in the King or Queen's name and we draw an illustration of the special student.  

As a class we practice listening and speaking during a short interview in which we ask questions to learn more about our special friend.

To make our classroom royalty feel extra special they receive a special crown and chair pocket.  Each student in our class will have the opportunity to be King or Queen for the day.

I am so excited about this year.  It is an honor to have your child for their first year in school.  Please follow our classroom blog so you can be notified when I publish new posts!

It's been WAY too long!

Yikes!  It has been so very long since my last post.  Things have been crazy!  Let me catch you up on what we've been doing for the past two months.

October was Fire Safety month.  We were fortunate enough to have the PRP Fire Department visit.  They showed us what to do in case of an emergency in our home. 

The students used a sheet to represent smoke in a room.  We practiced crawling to safety.

The students practiced covering their faces when they stop, drop, and roll to protect their eyes.

We have also been learning how to measure.  During Halloween we used "candy corn" to measure the heights of our friends.  They did a wonderful job!

 The little sweeties have also been doing a wonderful job during Writer's Workshop. 

Each day they begin their writing time with an illustration.  They use a rubric as they write. 

Our goals in writing currently are:

1) Our writing matches our illustrations

2) Our sentences begin with a capital letter

3) There are finger spaces between each word

Here is a peek into a few notebooks:

 "I am thankful for my dad."

He finished the piece by saying, "He is kind."  What a sweetie! 

"I am thankful for watching football."

 

"Nolan is thankful for my teacher."  How nice!

The students have also been busy during litearcy center rotations.  They do a fabulous job of staying engaged and completing their assignments.

These two students are completing work from the pocket chart station.

These two students are finishing an assignment from the poetry station.



These two are busy reading at the library center.  Look how engaged they are!  I love it!

Two boys listening to The Bravest Fish at the listening center.

 And the ever popular retelling center.  The students LOVE to use the retelling pieces to retell some of their favorite stories.  These two students are retelling Go Away, Big, Green Monster!

Once November began we were busy learning about and preparing for Thanksgiving.  The day before Thanksgiving break all four kindergarten classes got together for a Thanksgiving feast.  So much fun!

Here are some of the kiddos preparing to be Native Americans for the feast:

All of our Pilgrims and Native Americans ready for the feast!



We enjoyed corn bread and homemade butter, friendship fruit salad, and popcorn.  I think they had a great time!

During the month of December we will be learning about Holidays around the world.  We will also have a Polar Express celebration on the last day before Christmas break. 

I'll work hard to create a new post during the next few weeks!!!