Our third week of Kindergarten was very productive. Our morning routine is starting to gel. We made "Gimmie Five" hands to remind ourselves of the five essential steps the students need to make when they arrive in the classroom. These are setting lunches on the bookcase in the hallway, checking and putting blue folders in the bin, hanging up backpacks, putting the Attendance Apple in the basket and finally, choosing an Application Center for that afternoon. We also check with ourselves about the need for a drink of water or a trip to the restroom ;)
As the children finish their morning routine, they are to play quietly on the Rainbow Rug. Each week, I set out a different set of activities or manipulatives for the children to explore. This past week, the children enjoyed 15 wooden puzzles and I was proud at the way they shared, worked together and then cleaned up when I rang the bell. Announcements begin just after the 8:55 am bell and we are ready and attentive for them each morning!
We continued learning about our classmates by interviewing five more who were each the Student of the Day this week. The kids are asking great interview questions and are learning how to be good listeners as our speakers respond to those questions. We also made a book for each of these students for them to keep at home. If you son/daughter has not been been selected as the Student of the Day, "maybe next time!"
In order to practice the importance of labeling our drawings, the kids got to label me! I was quite the sight with post-its stuck all over... yes, eyeballs was one child's suggestion and while I did write it down, I explained that I couldn't actually stick it on my eyeball. We also labeled a poster and the kids labeled their paper (you probably saw it in their blue folder on Monday). This is a skill that is essential to our Writing Curriculum so it was a great way for the kids to really see what and how to label. Lots of giggles! They drew and labeled their face, drew something that was hard for them and labeled it, wrote a letter to you and made a book this week... we have very busy writers in Kindergarten!
Stan Straight and Curly Carla helped us to think about the formation of letters. We sorted magnetic letters on the white board from our Book Nook, cut, sorted and glued letters at our seats all while learning to use the recycle bin and then, on Wednesday, we sorted the letters in our own names (which are hanging in the hallway for the entire school to admire).
Another focus this week was looking at Concepts of Print. These include the title page, the author and illustrator, how to handle books, letters, words, pictures, turning pages, the direction of sentences, one to one correspondence using our finger on words, "turn and sweep," and the back cover. We read If You Take a Mouse to School and had a lot of fun imagining what we would show Mouse if he came to our classroom! We also practiced, with both a large poster and smaller sentence strips, "reading" from left to right. Each student bravely came to the magnetic easel and used the wand to lead the class "reading" the shapes across the page. The next day, we "read" the sentence strips with a partner on the carpet. We also used this opportunity to learn how to pass materials around the circle and use then one partner-pair at a time (we had twelve sentence strips and they went all around our circle).
To practice our letter recognition as well as good sportsmanship, we played a game called "Uh-Oh!" on Friday. I modeled a bad sport's reaction to getting the Uh-Oh card and the class had a good laugh at my routine. They then went on to play the game in small groups of about five students and did a fantastic job working together, having fun and being good sports when the Uh-Oh card showed up (Star Student stickers didn't hurt either!).
Our Social Studies lessons this week focused on taking care of things both at school and at home. Thank you parents for helping your kids choose an item to share with their classmates. We had a great day on Thursday sharing with one another on the carpet and then browsing the items on display in the classroom. I think we had about 85% follow the "no-touching" rule! Not bad for the first time!
Our visit to the Media Center went very well. Everyone returned last week's book and so everyone was able to check out a new book. Remember, we visit the Media Center on Wednesdays. We also got to have our first experience in the computer lab this week! The kids really enjoyed themselves. We worked with Pixie and the kids explored writing their names, painting pictures, stamping and erasing. Mrs. Marcel, our school IT, was a great help to us there.
Math is a wonderful time of day. The kids continued their Number of the Day pages in their journals, they practiced our Math Rotation routine, built numbers, sorted buttons, played a dice game with a partner, counted students, wrote out numbers to 10 on whiteboards and created chains of various numbers of links.
The kids are loving Specials! We are so lucky to have such wonderful P.E., Music and Art teachers at UES. The kids are all smiles when I come to retrieve them from their Specials classes. Of course, the fact that snack time and Center time is next doesn't hurt either ;)
We do not have school this coming Friday which means we will miss computer lab time this week. Not to worry though, we have a lot of fun activities planned... including our first visit with our third-grade Buddies. This will be a great time on Tuesday afternoon! All of the classes at UES are paired with other classes and we get together approximately once a month to enjoy activities together. I am looking forward to Tuesday and having the Kinders meet their special friends in third grade!
Have a great Sunday and I will see those incredible Kinders on Monday!
:)
Mrs. Vetter
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