A Peek At Our Week!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend and enjoying the beautiful weather! It is SO nice to finally see the sun again! Please take a moment to enjoy some of the highlights from our classroom last week!

Curriculum Update:

Literacy

Last week in Literacy we read the story Plaidypus Lost by Janet Stevens. This story took us on an exciting adventure with a plaid platypus who kept getting misplaced! As we read this story we discussed the question, "How do families cooperate?". We also began practicing  the sight words "the" and 'little" and learned about the letters "m" and "n" in Fundations!

Literacy Centers are a great way for the children to practice new concepts as well as ones that have already been taught. For the past few weeks your child has been participating in rotating centers where they have about 15 minutes to complete each table. The skills practiced during last week's centers included letter review with pegs, sight word practice with "the" and "little", syllable review with a hands on sort, and rhyming review on iPads!

Math

Last week in math we completed our unit on shapes! As a fun "grand finale" the students worked in groups to create their own 2D and 3D shapes using wooden pieces and Model Magic! The results were absolutely fantastic!

Welcome Mrs. Tilton!

Last week we were excited to welcome Boyden's new guidance counselor, Mrs. Tilton, to Room 202 for her first formal lesson! Mrs. Tilton read us a great story about feelings and discussed the many different feelings people can have. We are looking forward to her next visit during the second week of October!

Social Studies
In social studies we celebrated the birthday of Johnny Appleseed! The class enjoyed learning many new facts about Johnny Appleseed including that his real name was John Chapman, he was born in Massachusetts, and he lived more than 200 years ago!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Please check back soon to see all that is new in Room 202! :)

A Peek At Our Week!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend as we said goodbye to summer and officially welcomed fall! Please enjoy a few highlights from our very busy classroom!

Announcements

Open House

A friendly reminder that this Tuesday, September 25th is Open House Night at Boyden School! All friends, family, and neighbors are invited to come take a peek at Room 202 and see what we have been learning about in our first few weeks together! Open House will be from 6:00-7:30pm. Families whose last names begin with A-L should plan to attend from 6:00 p.m. -6:45 p.m. and families whose last names begin with M-Z should plan to attend from 6:45 p.m - 7:30 p.m. I hope to see you there!

Curriculum Update

Literacy
Last week in Literacy we read the story Fit-It Duck by Jez Alborough and discussed the guiding question "How do people help each other?". We also learned about the letter T, B, and F in Fundations and continued to practice reading the words "I" and "am".

We also learned that syllables are the number of "beats" in a word. The class had a great time counting the number of syllables in their names!

Math

In math the students learned about 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional shapes as we continued our unit on geometry! As a result of this week's lessons, we can now identify 2 dimensional shapes such as circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, and hexagons. We also learned about 3D shapes (or solids) like cubes, cones, cylinders, and spheres.

The students above are working hard on their hexagons!

We also enjoyed a visit from Mrs. Kelly who is one of the new Elementary Math Consultants! Mrs. Kelly taught us how to represent numbers in different ways using counters. The class had a great time learning new ways to think about math as a result of Mrs. Kelly's visit. We can't wait for her to come back soon!

Reading Buddies!

Our week ended on a great note as we met our new Reading Buddies! Each Friday afternoon our class will be getting together with second graders from Mrs. Davis' room to enjoy some wonderful stories.

Thanks so much for stopping by to take a peek at our week! Please check back soon to see all that is new in Room 202!

Mrs. B :)

A Peek at Our Week!

The children settled into Room 202 nicely as we spent our first full week of school together! Last week we continued to practice classroom routines and also review expected behaviors.  I couldn't be more pleased with how quickly everyone is acclimating to Kindergarten life!

Reminders

Boyden Folders

Please be sure to check your child's Boyden Folder (nightly if possible) for important notices and information. Any class work or announcements should be removed and kept at home unless otherwise noted. Thanks so much for your help!

P.E. Days

A friendly reminder that our class attends P.E. (gym) on Thursday afternoons and Friday mornings. Please be sure your child wears sneakers on those days. Due to safety concerns, children who do not have appropriate footwear will unfortunately not be allowed to participate.

Literacy Curriculum

This year the Kindergarten teachers are excited to pilot a brand new literacy program called Fundations! The Fundations curriculum is a multi-sensory and systemic phonics, spelling, and handwriting program which is geared for students in grade K-3. It is important to note that while we will be implementing the phonics, spelling, and handwriting components of Fundations, we will still be using the Scott Foresman Reading Street program for our story of the week, sight words, and comprehension instruction. As a result, you may notice that the phonics skills outlined on the Family Times pamphlets that are sent home each week do not always directly align with what we are doing in class. Be on the lookout for separate updates about the phonics skills we are practicing in Fundations!

Curriculum

Quality Kindergarten Work!

This week in class we discussed one element of quality Kindergarten work, coloring! We created a class poster which demonstrated what great Kindergarten coloring looks like, and these elements were reinforced as we completed our work throughout the week. This rubric shows that great coloring receives three stars when a child is able to stay inside the lines, make all the white space go away, and use the appropriate colors. While receiving three stars on your paper is the ultimate goal, it is important to note that not all children develop their fine motor skills at the same rate, and that this three star goal might not be reachable until later in the year.

Math

Last week in math we began a unit on Geometry! The children practiced identifying circles, squares, and rectangles and discussed the similarities and differences among the three.

Math centers were a great way to practice sorting, classifying, and identifying shapes while we completed various hands on activities!

Literacy

Lots of Literacy learning was happening in our classroom last week! We read the story The Little School Bus by Carol Roth which helped us answer the question, "How do children get to school?" We also reviewed the letters A, B, C, D, and E, and practiced reading the sight words "I'" and "am".

The children worked hard to identify the characters in The Little School Bus as well as recall the order in which they appeared in the story. We practiced using ordinal numbers 'first' to 'sixth' to show the sequence in which each character appeared!

Rhyming was another focus of my instruction last week, and the students enjoyed participating in both whole group and partner activities to help practice this skill!

Social Studies

In Social Studies we examined the American flag and learned the Pledge of Allegiance! 

Media

Another highlight of our week was visiting the Media Center (library) for the first time! We met the Media Specialist, Mrs. Moses, and got a tour of Boyden's library. Please note that library day will be on Tuesdays. We are looking forward to checking out books for the first time next week!

I hope everyone enjoyed taking a peek at our week! I hope you check back soon to see all that is new in the wonderful world that is Room 202! :)