September and into October

We have been so busy in Kindergarten these past four weeks.  The kids have acclimated well to our classroom routines for every part of our day. They are enthusiastic about their learning and working hard to get along with their classmates and work as a team.  They enjoy all of their Specials and are respectful and attentive in the lunch room, the hallways and in all of their classrooms.  We have earned nearly 70 Soaring with Pride stickers so far!  :)  I am really proud of all their accomplishments. 

Mrs. Sell delivered our classroom Chromebooks.  We have five and Mrs. Crosby has five but they are housed (and charged) in our classroom.  We took a test drive with them when they were first delivered. 

It is my intention for every Kinder to use the Promethean board each day.  One way that we use it is for a morning question.  Sometimes it's an opinion graph, sometimes a vote, sometimes it is a connection to Phonics like the one you see here.  

The Kinder really enjoy Write-the-Room activities.  It gets them to move about the room and I have been able to incorporate it into Phonics lessons, Math activities and Social Studies units thus far.  Next week we have one for Science... testing our sense of sight! (and backwards letters and hand mirrors ;)

We continue to build our stamina for independent reading.  

Literacy Centers :)

One of the titles that was included in the stage performance that we saw at the Weinberg Center was The Dot.  It is a great story to illustrate the power of a growth mindset.  The Kinder created artwork, just as the main character did, starting with a single dot and we hung them in the hallway for a while to share with UES students.  

Literacy Centers 

Math Rotations 

Recess... I bring in my tennis balls and the kids love playing with them at recess.  Of late, they are "dinosaur eggs" and the kids have been building nests to keep them safe ;)

Another Write-the-Room

Practicing identifying beginning sounds of words during Phonics.

Hmmm...

Field trip to the Weinberg Center!

 The Kinders really loved seeing all the characters from the books that we read in class come to life on stage.  They would shriek, "There's the dinosaurs!" or "I see Cocoa the Horse!"  :)

 To begin our Fire Safety unit, the Kinders played a graphing game with dice. 

Our second field trip in less than a week!  

Many, many thanks to the volunteers at the Urbana Fire Station.  

We made thank-you posters once we returned to our classroom.  

Computer lab time 

Write-the-Room ;)

Math Rotations

Listening and speaking practice!  

Such a vital skill for ALL of our Kinder curriculum. 

We met our Third-Grade Buddies!  Mrs. Wills' class welcomed us to their classroom and we enjoyed spending time getting to know our special buddies.  We will see them again next week! 

Our dear Ms. Albinson had a birthday so we made cards for her and brought them to class.  I think that we REALLY surprised her! :)

I am so glad that the Kinders had such a fun time at the UES Fun Run!

We read Spookley the Square Pumpkin and then made our own square pumpkins for a classroom pumpkin patch.  Later, we wrote about what size, shape and color we would be if we grew on Spookley's pumpkin farm.  

As part of our Science unit on the Five Senses, we tested our sense of taste with red, yellow and green apples.  Not a bad way to spend the last bit of Thursday afternoon ;)

Happy October!