A Peek At Our Week!

  I hope everyone had a wonderful long weekend! A friendly reminder that class is back in session tomorrow, Tuesday, January 16th. I'm looking forward to seeing all my Kindergarten friends! 😊

Announcements:

Snow Fun! ❆

The children had so much fun playing in the snow during recess last week! 

Star Student ⭐

Congratulations to Annie who was our very first Star Student last week! We look forward to learning about, and celebrating another friend from our class in the week ahead!

Curriculum Update:

Fundations

Last week in Fundations we practiced reading the sight word can. We also continued to practice our "tapping" skills and became more comfortable with applying them to various CVC words. Additionally, we began to review how we write our uppercase letters. While we spent an entire week learning how to write each lowercase letter at the beginning of the year, our uppercase review is moving MUCH quicker, and we are practicing how to write two letters each day!

Last week our class reviewed the sight word an, and learned that this little word can be found inside many bigger words! We took the time to brainstorm bigger words with the word "an" such as fan, man, ban, and tan, and learned that all of these words (and many more!) belong to what we call a word family!  The class then practiced reading words in the "an" word family as they created their own an vans!

Reader's Workshop

We continued to practice applying our reading superpowers to new stories last week in Reader's Workshop! We also added two new superpowers, thinking power and fix it power. Thinking power encourages students to not just read the words on each page of a book, but to make predictions, comments on what they notice, and make connections. Fix it power requires students to monitor their reading and go back to "fix it" when their reading doesn't sound right, look right, or make sense. 

Writer's Workshop

Last week in Writer's Workshop the student's continued to work on their personal narrative/true stories. They learned that writers make their books "readable" by remembering to include finger spaces and as many letters as possible in the words that they write. We have also been exploring other conventions of sentence writing such as beginning each sentence with a capital letter and ending with a punctuation mark.

Math

Last week in math we continued to practice counting, adding and subtracting. We learned to play a fun new game called Foxes and Dens where the children added two numbers using a "counting up" strategy. This means if they rolled the numbers 5 and 2, they would say "5, 6, 7" instead of starting at one, counting to 5, then counting up two more. We also played a game called Beat You to Twenty where the students rolled a number cube and added that number of unifix cubes to their tower. The first played to 20 wins! 

Social Studies

In Social Studies we discussed the important contributions of Martin Luther King Jr. The students watched a portion of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream Speech" and learned about his life through our Let's Find Out magazine. 

Thanks so much for taking a peek at our week! Please check back soon to watch us learn, grow, and play in the wonderful world that is K! 🍎📖🚌

A Peek At Our Week!

 I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and enjoyed the first snowfall of the season! ❄ Last week was a busy one as we settled back into our daily schedule and routines. Please enjoy a few pictures and curriculum updates below.

Important Dates:

January 12th:

No School

Professional Development Day

January 15th:

No School

MLK Day

Announcements:

Snow Gear

The snowy weather is finally here and we will continue to go outdoors for recess as often as the weather permits. The children will be allowed to play in the snow as long as they bring snow pants and snow boots to school. A blacktop area is available for children who do not have these items or do not wish to play in the snow. PLEASE have your child practice putting on their snow gear at home. With only two adults in the classroom we are not able to individually dress each child. Your child's snow gear will be sent home each Friday. If you would like it to come home more or less frequently please let me know!

Star Student ⭐

Next week we will begin Star Student! When your child is the Star Student they will get to enjoy many special jobs and activities in the classroom such as helping with the calendar and picking each day's movement breaks. We will also get to know more about them by creating an All About Me poster together in class. On Wednesday of your child's Star Student week they will be invited to bring in a few small items from home for Show and Tell. A new Star Student will be selected at random every Friday afternoon. I am SO excited to start this very special celebration in Room 115!

Curriculum:

Fundations

Last week in Fundations we practiced reading the sight word an. The children were also introduced to the concept of "tapping out" the sounds they hear in words. Click here to watch a quick video that models this skill.

Reader's Workshop

It was an exciting time in Reader's Workshop last week as we began Unit 2 in our units of study! This unit focuses on developing our reading superpowers, or the different strategies we can use when encountering unknown words. Last week's superpowers were snap/sight word power, pointer power, and slide/tapping power.  I am looking forward to supporting the children as they develop and apply their reading super powers during Reader's Workshop for the remainder of the school year!

The students above practice reading, and then matching, vowel, consonant, vowel words (also known as CVC words) such as mat, pig, and hot. At this point in the year the majority of students are using their slide/tapping power to read these words. With frequent exposure and practice, quicker and more automatic reading of these words will develop.

Costumes always make learning new things more fun! We had a great time practicing our first three reading super powers this week with Super Reader (aka Mrs. Buchanio 😂)

Writer's Workshop

In Writer's Workshop last week we also began Unit 2 which focuses on personal narrative, or true stories. The class learned that all stories must have a beginning, middle, and end, and enjoyed writing pieces about real life experiences they've had. We will continue to work on our true stories this week in class!

Math

In math we began Unit 4 in our Bridges curriculum and took a closer look at number lines! We enjoyed having our own giant number line, and learned about the different parts (arrows, tick marks, etc) as well as practiced sequencing numbers. 

We also continue to practice writing our numbers with extra focus being placed on directionality in order to reduce reversals.

The students above enjoy playing a game called Scrambled Numbers. This game was an engaging way to the children to practice their number sequencing skills.

Holiday Raffle Winners!

Congratulations to Addie and Gio who were the two raffle winners from last month's holiday breakfast! They were excited to invite two friends to join them for lunch in the classroom with me!!

Thanks so much for taking a peek at our week! Please check back soon to watch us learn, grow, and play in the wonderful world that is K! 🍎🚌📖

A Peek At Our Week!

 Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. A friendly reminder that school is back in session tomorrow, January 2nd (Tuesday). I am looking forward to seeing all of my sweet Kindergarten friends back in Room 115!

Important Dates:

January 2nd:

School Reopens!

January 12th:

No School

Professional Development Day

January 15th:

No School

MLK Day

Announcements:

Gym Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is Day 2 in our specials rotation which means our class has P.E./Gym. Please be sure that your child wears sneakers to school so that they are able to participate. A full specials schedule for the month of January will be coming home tomorrow afternoon.

Quiet Time Towels

Quiet time towels were sent home for washing before the holiday break. Please return your child's clean towel to school tomorrow (Tuesday). Thanks so much!

Curriculum Update:

The week before the holiday break was certainly an exciting one in Room 115! We spend time reviewing all of the important skills and concepts that had been introduced thus far in the school year, including all of our letter sounds and sight words. We also were busy preparing for a highlight of Kindergarten, the Q and U wedding! Please enjoy some pictures from this very special day below.

The students above can be seen opening their wedding shower gifts for Q and U! Then it was time for the big ceremony. We were so excited that the students from Mrs. Fields' class were able to join us! Click here to watch a video of the ceremony! 💕

Holiday Crafts

A big thank you to Mrs. Fader, Mrs. Fellini, Mrs. Rovner, and Mrs. Turner who all supplied and/or came in to do holiday crafts before break! It was wonderful to bring back this pre-covid tradition and enjoy some winter-themed fun! ❄

Thanks so much for taking a peek at our week! Please check back soon to watch us learn, grow, and play in the wonderful world that is K! 🍎📖🚌