Shapes!

In math, we have been exploring and learning about shapes. Each day we introduced a new shape. We talked about how that shape was unique. We compared it with other shapes to see the differences. We learned a song about each shape and made a shape puppet. We went on shape hunts, made patterns with shapes and did art projects with shapes. To finish up our mini shape unit, we made a book called "Shape Monster". We read each page and added the correct shape to that page. Then we read it together. It was a pattern book so each page was similar. It said, Shape Monster, Shape Monster, munch, munch, munch...how about a yellow square for your lunch. This book gave us good practice on reading color words and shape words. Today we are finishing making our own shape monsters on large construction paper. Each monster has to have all six shapes we have been working on including the square, circle, rectangle, triangle, oval and diamond. We are also going to make shape families.

Nursery Rhyme Party 10-30-09

Nursery Rhyme Party

We had a wonderful time sharing our favorite Nursery Rhymes with each other. We had a parade through the office, preschool and Galaxy kids. We sat in a circle and took turns reciting our nursery rhymes. We ate a cookie we made into a cat with pretzels and m & ms. We played a games of charades. We made a class book "Jack Be Nimble". We made Hickory Dickory Dock books with stamps. We made dot painting pictures. It was very fun! Thank you to all of the Volunteers who helped with this party.

Oct. 9, 2009

What a week! It was Gingerbread week and fire safety week.

On Monday, we read the story "The Gingerbread Man". On Tuesday, we made a giant gingerbread man and 25 little gingerbread men. On Wednesday, we went to eat him. When we got to the kitchen, we found the little gingerbread men, but our giant gingerbread man had run away! He left us a note saying he ran to the office. When we got there, we found a note that said he ran to the nurse's office. From there we went to Galaxy Kids room and the library We finally found him in Mrs. Faust's speech room on Friday morning. Along the way, we met many of the people who work in our school. We walked throughout the school looking for clues and signs of the gingerbread man. This gingerbread man hunt helped us get to know our school a little bit better.

We had a great field trip to the Fire Station. We learned some fire safety tips from Firefighter Kevin. Ask your child about changing a battery, finding a meeting place and practicing a home fire drill. Firefighter Wayne put on all of the fire fighter safety gear. He crawled around us to show what a fire fighter would look and sound like if he were coming to save someone in a fire. Then we got to try out the fire hose. We also got to see and go inside some fire trucks. As we were leaving, the fire fighters put on the lights and sirens. It was awesome!!! Thank You Rockford Volunteer Firefighters!

Sept. 25, 2009

This week we read different versions of the 3 Little Pigs. We did some comparing and contrasting. We made 3 pig and a wolf puppets. We also made our scenery. We used these tools to practice retelling the story. We also retold the story making a little book with pictures.

We have been learning different Nursery Rhymes. We have been acting them out. We have been finding sight words in the rhymes. We have been finding the rhyming words. We have been looking for letters in them. We have made a few mini books with Nursery Rhymes to take home to read.

We have had 4 days of writer's workshop this week. We have been talking about how to write a story. Some kids are drawing pictures to tell their stories, some are adding a few letters and some are writing a few words. It has been fun getting starting on this writing adventure.

We have started Read to Self (independent reading). We have learned that we can read books 3 ways- read the words, read the pictures or retell the story. We have all gotten a special "office" spot in the classroom to read quietly in. We have learned that when we are reading to self we are *reading quietly, *reading the whole time, *staring right away and*staying in our spot. We are practicing being good readers.

In math, we have spent a lot of time counting forwards and backwards. We have been practicing writing numbers and finding numbers. We have played a few dice games this week with counting and adding 2 numbers up to 12.

In Science, we are talking about the Season of Fall. We have discussed the changes that happen in fall and why they happen. We have read some books and done a few art projects.

It has been a fun week!

Sept. 17

It has been a busy week. The kindergartners are getting very good at most of the kindergarten procedures and routines. I am very impressed! They have also been super star listeners. They have earned 25 super stars since the first day of school. They earned extra outside time which we did this afternoon.

This week we started learning a few nursery rhymes. We talked about rhyming words. We have been learning about bus safety all this week. We practiced some of our bus safety rules on a real bus with Mrs. Myers from the transportation department. We read the "Wheels on the Bus" book. We also read a silly version called "The Animals on the Bus". We then made our own buses and drew in the animals we thought would ride on our bus.

We started writer's workshop on Thursday. We checked out our cool writer's workshop folders. We started our first "story" also. We will be continuing writer's workshop next week.

In Math, we have been doing lots of counting. We have counted forward and backward. We have practiced skip counting by 5's and 10's. We have practiced writing numbers up to 20. We have sorted objects. We have made patterns with shapes and links. We used pattern blocks to create pictures.

Ms. Petersmeyer and Ms. Fenske (school counselor) visited us on Tuesday. They talked about school rules including hallway, lunch room and playground. They also talked about 3 challenges they are having all of the students at REAMS participate in. They are 1. Rocket Pride (keeping our school neat and clean) 2. Kindness (being kind to other students) 3.Respectful behavior (listening to teachers and following directions). We will be talking a lot about this throughout the year. Ask your child about the heart Ms. Petersmeyer left in our room to remind us to be kind to others.

Friday, Sept. 11

We read "Kindergarten Countdown". It was about a little boy counting the days until kindergarten started. We practiced counting backwards from 25...we counted down the kindergarteners. We started our kindergarten scrapbooks today. We made our covers for our scrapbooks and our September page. We had music and library. We did 'fish' math. Each student got a small bag of fish. They counted them, sorted them, and made patterns with them. We rolled the dice to eat them or put them back into the bag. We had our first fire drill today. It was very noisy and a little upsetting for a few students. We talked about the importance of practicing getting out of our room safely if there ever was a fire. We will be having 4 more fire drills sometime this school year. Have a great weekend.

Sept. 10, 2009

Today we read the story "I Love School". We made our own "I Love School" posters to hang in our classroom. We practiced writing the alphabet. We talked about measuring in math. We used our crayons to measure our tool box, pencil, chair, a friend and ourselves. We read the story "How Do Dinosaurs Go To School". We made a graph of how we get to school. We learned the "Silly Pirate Song". We also had art today. In art, they learned about the color wheel. They painted their own color wheel. They listened to the story "Mouse Paint".

Sept. 9, 2009

We had another wonderful day. I am amazed at how quickly they are learning the routines in kindergarten. We read "My First Day of Kindergarten". During our story we compared our first day of kindergarten with the boy's 1st day in the story. We shared our favorite parts of kindergarten. You will be surprised to learn that play time, gym and outside were the top 3 favorites. We practiced writing our first and last names today. We had phy. ed. (gym) today. We played a partner game in math called Race to Trace. Everyone loved it! Everyone brought a copy home to play there. We ended the day outside! We are having lots of fun learning songs and games throughout the day.

Sept. 8, 2009

Happy First Day of School. We had a great first day. We spent a lot of our time learning and practicing routines and procedures. This will continue for the next couple of weeks. We also had time to play in the room-every center was being used blocks, kitchen, book corner, art center and building toys. We also read Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten. We had snack. We played outside. We had gym. We did calendar with Laney and Hannah helping. We had Phy. Ed. We did lots of moving and singing along the way. Some of the songs we did were The Freeze, The Pop-Up song, the Happy Dance...and many more. Ask your child, what is the Surprise Sack? I was very impressed with all of my super star listeners today.

Star Lunch May 29, 2009

Today was Star Lunch! We had 13 students at Star Lunch today! They were Rayna, Ryan B., Sara, Sophia, Tyler, Torrey, Nicolle, Cooper, Logan, Evan, Gavin, Kyle and Grace. Good Job Star Students!!!

Field Trip- May 27, 2009

We went to the zoo, zoo, zoo...How about you, you, you?
We had a great field trip yesterday. We saw many different kinds of animals at the Como Zoo. It was a little chilly, but lots of fun.

We wrote about the field trip during writer's workshop... ( I did a little editing)
I went to the zoo. I went to the Como Zoo. I saw penguins and the seals and the flamingos. They were cute too. I saw zebras. I saw the amazing Sparky. I like all the awesome animals.
by Sophie

I liked the seal and he went over the thing that we stand on and he was swimming. He was cute.
By Cat

I like the gorilla's skull. And I liked the baby orangutan too. But the most favorite was the wolves.
By Evan

I loved the baby orangutan at the zoo on May 27th on Wednesday. And I loved the Children's museum and the seal. I loved the seal. My favorite seal was Sparky because he does lots of cool tricks. My friend was Sophia. Our favorite animal was penguins and seals. We both loved Sparky. The End
By Kyle

We had lunch at the Children's Museum and then we explored all of the different areas there. The ant hill was a big hit. The kids also liked the Clifford exhibit. They had fun in the water and block areas too. Some of them got creative doing their own face painting. We had a few children become a turtle. Some kids were busy working in a restaurant, a grocery store, post office and a doctor's office.

Star Students April 24

We had more students for star student this month. I am hoping that we have even more in May! April star students are: Nicolle, Sara, Tyler, Kyle, Gavin, Logan, Grace and Sophia.

April 16

We are busy working on farm animal reports at school. We will be sharing them on Friday, April 24th. Look for an invitation coming home tomorrow. We are also having our farm day on the same day. Your child can wear a "farm"costume that day.

Rayna finished her pig and brought it in to show us. As your child finishes his/her project, please send it in and we will keep it in a safe place. We will be keeping the farm animal projects until the
Art & Academics night on May 5th.

April 9, 2009

This week we were busy with reader's and writer's workshop. We also started our farm reports.

Reader's Workshop-We had independent reading or read to self every day this week. We did reader's workshop three times this week. The students are split up into four groups. Each group visits 4 different stations throughout the week, one station a day. The stations include 1. listen to a story 2. partner read 3. word work 4. read with the teacher. Word work this week was find all of the Ee's in the Edna Elephant song and to write as many words as you can in the time given.

Farm Reports-All of the students picked a farm animal to do a simple report about. We talked about the project. Each student is expected to create a farm animal sculpture at home along with some facts they might find. At school, we are going to meet in small groups to find facts about the farm animals. We are going to make our own fact book. We are going to make a poster as a small group. We are going to share our farm animal reports on Farm Day, April 24. *If you child did not bring home a farm animal project sheet, please let me know and I will send another one.

Writer's Workshop-This week we have been working on sound spelling, spaces between words, periods at the end of sentences, writing more and drawing less, using capital letters at the beginning of the sentence and for names only. I am very impressed with how much their writing has improved since we started writer's workshop.

Math-This week we spent most of our time working on addition and subtraction. We also did a little bit with estimation.

Social/Science-We have been working on being a good friend this week. We read a friend story and made good friend posters. We shared ways to be a good friend.

March 27, 2009

We had star student lunch today. Eight students made it this month-double from last month. Hopefully we will have even more for the April 24 star student lunch. The star students are...Gavin, Logan, Evan, Grace, Sophia, Torrey and Kyle. Nicolle earned a spot too, but she was in Arizona so she will eat with me after spring break. Great job Star Students!!!! Work hard for next month too!

We also earned our last 2 stars and we are having toy and ice cream day after lunch/recess. I am proud of how hard all of my students are working!!

Clown Day-March 20

We had lots of fun clowning around on clown day. We painted our faces. We sang clown songs, read clown books and poems. We drew clowns and wrote about clowns. We are making clowns out of construction paper, paper plates, coffee filters, dot paints, foam shapes and more. We will be displaying our homemade clowns when we finish them. We finished off clown day with a parade at Day Five Alive!

March 13

Sarah Visits from Ace Dance
Sarah came to visit on Friday, March 13. She came before lunch and we had fun "traveling" to other countries. We made a passport and got a stamp in it for every country we visited. We traveled by boat, plane and train. Some of the places we went to were Canada, China and Ireland. After lunch, Sarah came back dressed up as a super hero. We wore our "capes" (pillowcases) and pretended to be super star super heros too. We braintstormed and acted out ways to use positive behavior to defeat the Unthinkable behaviors lurking in our room. It was lots of fun.

Week of March 9th to March 13th

3-12-09 Today 4 students had a "STAR" lunch with Mrs. Milow. These students have been using star behavior in the classroom. They have been good listeners. They have been following directions. They also are kind and helpful to others. They are Logan, Tyler, Ellie and Grace.
We are going to have another "STAR" lunch on Friday, March 27. Mrs. Anderson and I are on the look out for star students to have a special lunch that day!

Other things going on in the classroom:

Reading: This week we have started Reader's Workshop. The different components of Reader's workshop are: 1. Read to Self 2. Read to Teacher 3. Read to Partner 4. Listen to Story 5. Word Work . We have practiced all of these parts as a whole group. Now we are doing them in small, independent groups. Everyday we do read to self as a whole group. I want them to practice reading uninterrupted in school everyday. Then we rotate the other parts. So far we have made two rotations. I have split up the class into 4 groups with 5 or 6 in each group. Each group has done two areas so far.
Read Alouds: This week we have been focusing on making connections as our reading skill. As I read a story, we stop and talk to our "elbow" partner about the connection we are making with the story. We also share our connections as a whole group. During read to self, I am encouraging the students to try and make connections with the books they are reading. We are making connections during our chapter book "Elliot's Park Saving Mr. Nibbles".

Math: This week we did workjobs. We worked on counting pennies and nickels together. We played together as a whole group and then we played individually. I was amazed at how well the students were able to switch from counting by 5's (nickels) to counting by 1's (pennies). We also spent some time practicing telling time. We told time to the hour and to the half hour. We also practiced writing the time( 8:00 or 9:30) .

Writers Workshop-We have been talking about choosing different topics. Some of the students have been writing about favorite topics over and over. I am encouraging them to write about something new. We also talked about writing more than one word or sentence. Their writing continues to impress me! We are going to clean out writing folders soon so you will be able to see their work.

Week of Feb. 23 to Feb. 27

We have been busy and having fun in kindergarten! It was our last week of "I Love To Read" month! Our class read 1,974 books this month in school and at home!!!! WoW!!!!! We counted backpack books and independent reading books. We also included read alouds and we counted the calendars that a few students have returned. Thanks for reading at home! What a fun month.


Reading/Reading Activities-We have been reading a lot in kindergarten! Our AlphaFriend this week was the letter Qq. We talked about how "q" and "u" are always together. We read the mini book "Fan". We reviewed the "an" family. We did independent reading 4 times this week. We did shared reading one time this week. We also talked about visual images. We read a poem about weather and the students drew the mental image on paper after each verse. We also wrote and read about weather and seasons.

Writing/Writer's Workshop-We talked about using periods at the end of sentences. We had a mini-lesson on writing more and drawing less. We had a few students from Mrs. Jurek's class come over and read their writing. We reveiwed the vowel sounds and practiced listening for them in words.

Math-We played a card game called Top-It. It was card game about greater than or less than. We had workjobs on Tuesday. We reviewed telling time to the hour. We also talked about the minute hand and practiced counting by 5's to figure out the time. We did simple addition also.

Social-We are continuing our work with the Unthinkables. We are making posters and brainstorming ways to defeat the unthinkable behaviors.

All Day Read/PJ Day
We read all day. We read with partners, individually and with small groups. We had special guest readers including Emily (High School Helper) ,MRs. Wharram, Mrs. Petersmeyer, John (Grace's Dad) and Mrs. Jurek. We had a total of 28 read alouds that day! Mrs. Biorn's 4th grade students came to read with us. They read a couple of books and we read a couple of books. It was a fun day of reading!

Week of Feb. 16 to Feb. 20

We had many special events this week including 100th day of School, Game and Pizza Day, performing "The Hat" at Day 5 Alive and Red, White and Blue day.

100th Day of School:
We read "Miss Bindergarten Celebrates the 100th Day of Kindergarten". We shared our 100 day collections. We read a 100 day of school poem and sang a 100 day of school song. We made 100 day of school hats. We completed our 100 day of school collection page in our kindergarten memory book. We wrote about what we would buy if we had $100.00 in writer's workshop. We read 2 more books about the 100th day of school during rest time. In math, we sorted and counted our 100 day of school gorp. We ate our gorp after doing our math with it.

Game and Pizza Day
We had game and pizza day on Wednesday afternoon to celebrate earning 100 stars for star behavior. We played games in small groups and made individual mini pizzas. The mini pizzas were delicious! We had fun playing games together.

Day 5 Alive-"The Hat"
We really enjoyed performing our play "The Hat" at Day 5 Alive. It was fun creating our headbands and acting out the story. We have gotten many postive comments from other grade levels. It was a fun experience. We hope to perform one more time this year. It is a fun way to celebrate our learning.

Red, White & Blue Day-
We started the day with red, white and blue stations including red, white and blue play dough, red, white and blue dot painting, red, white and blue bracelets, red, white and blue headbands. We read "Duck for President". Our shared reading for the day was a mini book called "The Flag". In math, we talked about the quarter. We looked at the quarter and we practiced counting the quarter up to $1.00. We also practiced skip counting. We used a 100 chart and colored all of the numbers we count when we count by 5's in red. On the back, we colored all of the numbers we count when we count by 2's in blue. Then we practiced counting using out 100's chart. Social Studies-We read about George Washington. We also read a story about our flag. Then we created our own flags. We tried to remember that the American flag has 13 stripes with 7 red and 6 white. Some kids made our first flag that had 13 stars to represent the 13 colonies and some kids made our current flag with 50 stars.

We had a fun week!

Week of Feb. 9 to Feb. 13

Our themes this week were Valentine's day, winter, 100th day of school, and President's day.
Some of the books we read this week were "I Need a Valentine", "Dinosaur Valentine", "Kangaroo Kazoo", "Clifford's First Valentine" and "The Night Before Valentine's Day".
Shared Reading-We read a rhyming poem called "I Love You". We read our little book called "Kit". We read the Keely Kangaroo song together.
Reading Activities-We had independent reading time 3 times this week. We had read with a partner one time this week. We did letter Kk activities including writing the letter Kk, finding the letter Kk, and writing Kk words.
*We have been working on our play "The Hat" a little bit each day. We made our headbands this week. We are performing on Thursday, Feb. 19 at 2:15 in the gym at Day 5 Alive.
Writing-We wrote 4 times this week. Our mini lessons included practicing our star (sight) words, using a beginning, middle and end, sound spelling, letter and card making.
Rest Time-We are still reading our puppy story called "Noodle".
Math-We made heart graphs with candy hearts. We tally marked our colors and then made them into graphs. We had workjobs on Tuesday. We had math stations on Wednesday with geoboards, pegboards, pattern blocks, and counting/sorting bears. We did penny math on Thursday in honor of Abe Lincoln's birthday. On Friday, we will have our Valentine party during math.
Social Studies-This week we have been focusing on America and presidents since Monday is president's Day. We read and talked about our new president. Then we wrote what we would do if we were president. We read a story about the American Flag and then drew our own flag. We reviewed and talked about the flag. We talked about Abe Lincoln.

Week of Feb. 2 to Feb. 6

This week we have been doing winter activities, Groundhog Activities and I Love to Read Activities!
Groundhog's Day-We had lots of fun on Groundhog's day. We read and acted out a poem. We read the book "Geoffrey Groundhog Predicts the Weather". We wrote our own Newspaper columns about our weather predictions. We made a mini-book about Groundhog's day and we made a stick puppet. We also went online to find out about the famous groundhop Puxsutawney Phil. Phil says "Six More Weeks for Winter!". We saw pictures of the famous groundhog. The website is groundhog.org. Here are two of our newspaper articles:

Today is Groundhogs day. The groundhogs peeks out of his hole. Six more weeks of winter.
by Kyle

His shadow was not here. How will spring come so fast? by Nicolle

*I did a little editing. Too bad I couldn't include the drawings-they are great!

Here are some other things we did this week:

Dress as Favorite Character day: We had lots of fun dressing up on Wednesday. Lots of creative costumes. We shared our favorite character and book at morning meeting. I read 7 of the books that were brought for Favorite Character day. The other books we just looked through. We had many Barbies and princesses. We had 3 Fancy Nancys. We had football players, hockey players, a ninja turtle, Darth Vader, a Power Ranger, Pikachu, Sponge Bob. Cinderella, a boy with a bucket (loved that book!) and Hello Kitty. Thanks for all of your help getting kids their costumes together. It was a fun way to celebrate reading and books!

This week in reading: We are learning about the letter Ll with Larry Lion. We assessed the sounds p,g,f. We are having independent reading daily. We read a new mini book, Can it fit?-it came home yesterday. We learned a new word family-the "it" family (sit, fit, mit, lit,quit).

This week in writing: We wrote newspaper articles on Monday about groundhog's day. Tuesday we talked about having a beginning, middle and end for our stories. Wednesday and Thursday we had a mini lesson on "snap" words. Words that we can write in a snap. We had a big list of words we already know how to spell. We are going to add some of them in our writing folder.

This week in math: We are continuing our work with money. We are counting pennies, nickels and dimes. We had workjobs on Tuesday. Everyone is now on the yellow workjobs. We are doing a little addition. We are still practicing number writing.

Social Skills: This week we are busy making posters for our Unthinkables. We have made a poster for Rockbrain, Glassman, Braineater, Mean Jean. Today we are going to make one for DOF(defeater of fun) and Wasfunnyonce (being silly at the wrong times). We are writing down the names for the Unthinkable and their trait at the bottom. Three kids are drawing and coloring a picture of them. Then we write down at least 2 ideas of what we can do to defeat that behavior on lightning bolts. Some students are sharing new ideas for Unthinkables-we are going to make posters for them too.

Week of Mon. Jan. 26 to Fri. Jan. 30

Here are some of the things we did last week:
We started computer last week. We practiced logging on and logging off. We explored a drawing program. We are going back on Tuesday (day 4)
Read Alouds: Give A Cat A Cupcake, The Hat, Fifi Ferret's Flute,The Mitten, The Mitten (different version).
Shared Reading: Poem "Stop and Go", Fifi Fish song, Pat and Nan
Reading Activities-We had Independent Reading 4 of the 5 days. The other day we did read to partner or shared reading. We talked about the letter Ff and the sound it makes. We found the letter Ff around the room and on our Fifi fish poster. We practiced sounding out and blending words.
Writing-We did writer's workshop every day last week. Our mini lessons included sketching our pictures, then writing and then adding more to our drawings. We also talked about periods at the end of our sentences and spacing our words. We practiced sound spelling. We also talked about planning our writing. One way is to plan the beginning, middle and end of our stories. We are going to continue to work on planning our writing.
Rest Time-We finished our story "Dinosaur Cove Attack of the T-Rex". We started a new chapter book about a puppy called "Noodle".
Math-We practiced using a ruler and measuring to the nearest inch. We did workjobs on Tuesday. We continued practicing with the ruler. We also worked with money this week. We used the penny, nickel and dime.
Social Skills-We are making posters for our Unthinkables. We have made Glassman and Rockbrain. We have been brainstorming ways to defeat the Unthinkables.

Jan. 14

Morning Meeting-Our quick share was about bowling today. We had surprise sack, letter bucket and Evan shared the Star Suitcase.
Phy. Ed.-We are bowling in phy. ed. this week. The kids loved to bowl. We even had some strikes!
Read Aloud-We read "Hello Snow" today. We also read "The Jacket I Wear in the Snow" and "One Winter's Day" this week.
Shared Reading-We read " Cat Sat". Before reading today, we highlighted the words in the book. We used yellow to highlight out star "sight" words. We found "go" in our book. We used orange to highlight the "at" words. We found "cat" "sat" and "Pat". We used the green to highlight the "an" words. We found lots!
Reading Activities-We had read to partner today. We read "Cat Sat" along with other books that we can read easily.
Writer's Workshop-We practiced stretching words and listening for sounds to spell words in our writing. We practiced whole group with white board paddles. We are learning lots of new words.
Rest time-We finished our book "Dinosaur Detectives" today. We voted on a new book to start tomorrow, "Dinosaur Cove Attack of the T-Rex".
Math-We did calendar and calendar books today. We read a book about the number 3 called "Three Bouncing Balls". We practiced writing the word three and the numeral 3. We also talked about symmetry and matching. We made matching mittens for an art project today.

Jan. 9

It has been a busy week! Sorry I have not been keeping up with my blog this week. I will summarize what we did this week.
Morning Meeting-This week we did the Pippa Pig song for movement activities along with winter songs. We shared fun things we did over break and our favorite unthinkable. We did Surprise Sack and Letter Bucket daily.
Specials-We had stations in Phy. Ed. We made a clay pot in art this week.
Read Aloud-We read many books this week including "Puppies in the Snow", "The Snowy Day", "The Stranger in the Woods", The Twelve Days of Winter.
Shared Reading-We read lots of winter poems this week including; The Snowman, Snowflakes Falling Down, and Hickory Dickory Dock. We do different things with our shared reading. One day we found sight (star) words in the poem. One day we picked words out of the poem and practicing sounding out letter sounds and blending words.
Literacy Activities-We had read to self almost every day this week. Our students are getting to be such good readers. We read between 5-10 minutes a day. I try to meet with 2 students each time we read to listen to their reading. We had read to a partner one time this week. We also had stations one day this week. Our stations included: writing the letter Pp, finding the letter Pp in the Pippa Pig song and around the room, completing a journal page and a cutting activity.
Writer's Workshop-I am amazed with the writing happening in our room! WOW! This week we had writer's workshop 4 out of the 5 days. Our mini lessons included adding sound words, adding feelings to our stories, writing in sequence, writing more ideas, using a period and putting spaces in between our words. After our mini lessons, we write fro 15 minutes in our independent working spots. I conference with 2 students a day during that time. Then we try to take a few minutes to share. This week we had the students who sit on the red and yellow tape share along with a few other students who did such a good job writing that I wanted to shared their work too!
Rest Time-We are still reading our chapter book "The Magic School Bus and the Dinosaur Detectives."
Math-We did calendar every day and our calendar books three days this week. On Wednesday we played the disappearing train game. We practiced counting, adding, subtracting and number writing. On Thursday we talked about sequence and temperature. We did a snowman sequence project. We also read a story about the number 0. We practiced writing the word and making the numeral zero. On Friday we read a book about the number 1. Then we practiced writing the number and word one.
Social Skills-We finished learning about all of the unthinkables this week. Then we read the story Superflex. The super hero, superflex, saved the citizens of Social Town from Rockbrain. Rockbrain is the unthinkable that makes people get stuck on one idea. The kids are loving this unit! It is a fun way to learn about social skills.
Other-Today we made a "Winter Window". We drew a picture on a square piece of paper and then we framed it with construction paper to make a window. They will be up at conference time for you to enjoy.
Have a good weekend!

Jan. 5

Welcome Back!
We started our day drawing and coloring pictures of something fun that happened during our winter break. During our morning meeting we shared our pictures and told our stories about break. We were great listeners!
Specials-We had music today. We earned 3 stars today for being good listeners!
We had snack and free choice time after music.
Reading Activities-We reviewed the "h" "v" "c" sounds. Then we did the "hvc" assessment sheet. I introduced the new Alpha Friend, Pippa Pig. We sang the song and brainstormed "Pp" words. I introduced our new theme "Lets Count". We read the story "Benny's Pennies". We completed the page in our Kindergarten Memory book about the story "Benny's Pennies". Ask your child what he/she would buy with 5 pennies.
Rest Time-We read the story "Scaredy Squirrel". It was a story Grace gave to our class. We all thought it was funny.
Math-We did calendar. We played a penny and nickel partner game.
Social Skills-We are starting a new social skills unit. It is called Superflex. It is about a superhero that tries to help against the unthinkables. Today I just introduced our superhero, Superflex. We talked about what a superhero is. Then I introduced 4 of the unthinkable characters. The first character was "Rockbrain". He says, "I make people get stuck on their ideas." The next one was Glassman. He says, "I make people have huge reactions." Mean Jean was the next character we met. She says, "I get people to act mean and bossy". The last one we talked about today was Brain Eater. He says, "I distract people." After introducing these 4 unthinkable characters, I gave examples of each. Then the students each picked one to draw and color. We are going to talk more about them tomorrow. There are 10 more unthinkables to introduce. We are going to spend time on each unthinkable character and talk about how "Superflex" can stop these behaviors. My goal is to get kids thinking about others. I will give more information as we move through this program.
**We need more snack.***
*I will send home conference letters this week.