Happy New Year

Happy new year everyone!  The last few months of 2014 were jam packed with learning!  To give you a little glimpse at our activities I will be adding pictures after this post. WARNING:  THERE ARE LOTS OF PICTURES!

Phonics:  We learned about compound words (two little words put together to make one big word, ex: rain + bow=rainbow). We also learned about onset and rime (the first sound of a word and the last part of the word, ex: bat /b/ /at/)  The children have been working hard on listening to the sounds that make up a word and are becoming quite good at naming the vowel sounds they hear. When we return to school we will be focusing on the digraph /ch/ as in chocolate and Charlie, alliteration (words that start with the same sound) and of course letters and sight words.  Please practice reading and writing sight words at home and ask your child to look for them when reading books.

Reading:  Our narrative unit included a close read (reading closely and using evidence to answer questions) of the book The Gingerbread Boy.  I must say, I have never seen the class more excited about learning about reading than during this unit!  We learned new vocabulary words such as strut, dare, and thresh.  The children enjoyed acting out the words and they were able to better understand how the author used those words to tell the story.  We also compared and contrasted various gingerbread themed books and learned how to use a venn diagram graphic organizer, practiced retelling, sequencing and learned to use a story map.  The highlight of the unit was when Beldotti Bakery donated gingerbread cookies for the entire kindergarten grade level and the children had the opportunity to decorate them! They had a blast!! This week we will be doing another close reading of Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats….now if we could just get some snow so that we can REALLY make some text-to-self connections.

Writing:  During this time we learned about time cue words (first, next, then and last) and how these words can help us tell and write a story.  We also learned about adding details to our illustrations and our writing to make our stories more interesting.  We will continue to work on these skills as well as beginning sentences with a capital letter, spacing, proper letter formation, and punctuation.  Please practice these skills at home.

Math:  Our math block has included work with graphing, counting from a given number other than 1, counting by 10s, recognizing and writing teen numbers, subtraction and addition.  In the next few weeks we will be focusing on subtraction number sentences and activities, analyzing data found on graphs, comparing numbers, composing and decomposing numbers as well as measurement.

Science/Social Studies:  It was all about worms after our study about pumpkins!  We had some class pets for a few weeks that we were able to observe and learn about.  Many of the children were very excited about taking them out of the dirt containers and holding them or (like me) watching them wiggle around on the tables.  The excitement and buzz in the classroom was really a joy! We finished 2014 with a unit of studies on holidays.  We learned about Chanukah, Christmas and Las Posadas.  We were lucky enough to have Mrs. Biehl (former Toquam Social Worker) and Ms. Poris (Alex's mom) come to our classroom and teach us about Chanukah.  We listened to stories, made Chanukah crafts and enjoyed the delicious traditional treats of Latkes and applesauce.  For Christmas we learned about some of the celebrated traditions such as decorating Christmas trees, Santa Claus and his elves, and of course making gifts and cards for our family. Las Posadas helped us learn about Poinsettias and how Christmas is celebrated in MExico and many latin cultures.  I think they especially liked the music ;)

Our parent conferences went very smoothly and I am glad that many of you took the time out of your hectic schedules to meet with me and discuss your beautiful children!  I look forward to reaching out to you for class volunteers very soon :)

2015 started off with great news!  Our Donors Choose project for a listening center went live for funding and in less than 24 hours it was completely funded!! Our new materials will be arriving within a few weeks and I will be posting pictures of the children using them soon.  Please be on the lookout for future classroom projects :)

 I hope you all enjoyed your holidays and I'm looking forward to working with you and your children in the new year.  NOW….are you ready for pictures?????

We're Finally Live!

Hello and welcome room 48 families!  I am so very sorry that it has taken me this long to post all of the wonderful learning your children have been doing.  It has been quite a start to the school year.  Many of you may not know, but I am new to our classroom and before the kiddos arrived I had the joy of unpacking (NOT) and organizing 14 years of kindergarten materials!!  I was previously located down the other end of the kindergarten hallway in a much smaller room, and have to say that I enjoy having the extra space.

I would like to thank you all for your patience as I get this blog up and running.  My plan is to update it as much as I possibly can so check back often.  I have been a happy little shutterbug taking lots of pictures of the kiddos, I will post some here, but am also going to start a Shutterfly account within the next few days where you can access and order prints.  I will inform everyone when this is all set.

Now, without further ado, let's take a peek at our first month in Kindergaten!!

The year began with great excitement and all of the kiddos transitioned beautifully.  They quickly learned their morning rituals and routines which include hanging up their belongings, making a lunch selection, handing in their homework folders, and completing their morning work.  After the pledge and morning announcements we are off to our morning meeting.  We begin our day by singing "Zippity-Do-Da" and greeting each other.  During our meeting the kiddos participate in calendar and weather activities.  We also count the number of days we have been in school and discuss what numbers mean (ex:  the number 22 means 2 tens and 2 ones).  The first two weeks of school were spent learning about our classroom rules and the "kindergarten way."  One of the skills we learned, and continue to practice, is coloring like kindergartners.  Simply put: no scribbling and the colors make sense.  Reminding the kiddos of this often will help them understand that neatness counts.

We spent a lot of time practicing pre-writing skills using markers,pencils, and dry erase markers.

While learning how to use our classroom materials we were also straightening our fine motor skills by tearing small pieces of paper to decorate an apple.

One of our most poplar math games is "Roll and Color."  The kiddos loved rolling a die and coloring the matching number on their recording sheet.

Learning math while using our promethean board…EVERYONE loves when it's their turn!!

Learning to listen and not just hear with our very fashionable learning ears headbands.  

Happy birthday to me!  We celebrated with some yummy Mickey themed cupcakes (Thank you Wells family).

We learned that writing is just telling a story with pictures and words.  We have been practicing how to make "WOW" pictures and adding words as well.  I will post some of the wonderful writing very soon.

Reading is our favorite time of the day!  We have been working on our reading stamina and I am happy to report that we have reached our goal of 11 minutes!  Our overall classroom goal is 20 minutes and we are working our way their.

Math center is also a favorite time!  They think they're just playing math games when the truth is they're actually doing math!  Shhhh…don't tell them my secret.

I hope you've enjoyed a peek into the first few weeks of school!!