Happy October 1st! :-)

It has been another fantastic week in Kindergarten! We had a lot of “firsts” this week in Room 301. The pictures below show our first day of workstations!

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Reading: This week we read a new big book, “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed”. We learned the song and practiced the words by re-reading the book. We even used this book to help us practice our counting for math! We also spent time on a new little book, “The Apple Tree”.  First students listened to the book in a read aloud format and then we went back through the book and practiced reading the words together. Students took this little book to their Reader’s Workshop book drawers where they are keeping it for more practice during Independent and Partner reading. Speaking of Reader’s Workshop, we started Reader’s Workshop this week! Each child has their own book drawer where they are keeping the little books that we have made so that they can practice reading them (in the sense of recognizing letters, words, sentence patterns, etc.) As we build our collection of little books at school, look for more books to come home to be practiced more. Your child can even put these books on their October book log!

Writing: This week we also launched our Writer’s Workshop! Our writers each received a yellow folder where they are collecting their drawing pieces. The program we use begins by helping our children to develop strong oral language to retell a story. Students spent time this week sharing stories with the class… we heard lots about fun family vacations, things our pets at home do, funny stories from pre-school and more! Then the children have a chance to work on a detailed drawing of a story on special paper. We have spent time learning how to add details to our drawings. We have some very detailed illustrators in our room! By establishing solid drawings with details, we are laying the foundation for our students to transition soon to adding labels to pictures, words and eventually sentences to tell the story of their illustration.

Math: This week we have focused on numbers. Numbers on our calendar, numbers counting the days of school (today is day #18), counting the number of teeth we have lost this year, counting the letters in the names of our classmates and counting shapes in our new shape books. Each child has been working on a special counting book that not only uses numbers to count but also shapes! These books are looking great and will be a wonderful addition to your family library at home soon.

Important Announcements: Snack Leaders for next week include: Monday: Robby L; Tuesday: Nick M.; Wednesday: Carly M.; Ava M.


We are also collecting Box Tops for Education and Campbell Soup Labels in Room 301! If you have these at home on food, kleenex, zip loc bags, soups, etc. please send them in with your child. We have yearly contests at Dublin to see which class can collect the most. Be sure to check with cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, etc.! Let's see if Room 301 can collect the most!

P.S. If you want to check out something neat, go to: http://www.classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=118873 . This link will take you to the Student Blog that I have kept with fourth graders, second graders, and soon, YOUR kindergartners! Yes, that's right! Your kids will be blogging this year and have their own pages. You can scroll down the link to the Room 301 blog and see what my we were up to in the past years!

Friday, September 24th

What a fun and busy week we have had in Room 301! Everyone seems to be learning the routines of the day and many new friendships have been formed. I love hearing from the kids that they “Love School!” :-) Be sure to read all the way to the bottom of this post to see a slideshow of our ABC Yoga routine!



Read Alouds: This week we read aloud several books. Students continued hearing Robert Munsch Books as we talked about the message in each book. We began our interactive read-aloud program called Making Meaning and read the book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie. The kids enjoyed guessing what would happen next in this story as it follows a circular pattern. We have also read books like: The Eensy Weensy Spider, Counting to Ten and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! Look for a project to come home with your child early next week that will help them to practice their ABCs while using the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom palm tree!


Shared Reading: We spent all week working with the poem, “Good Morning in September”. Each day we have done a different activity with this poem as we work on building fluency, letter recognition and concepts about print.


Reader’s Workshop: We also began Reader’s Workshop this week! We created an anchor chart titled, “What is a book?” and we talked all about books. When you read with your child at home have them identify the: title, pictures, front cover and back cover. These are all words we are now using to describe books when we read. To help build our stamina for reading and to help get our minds ready to read we have been creating several “little” books. You will be receiving more info about “little” books next week and their role at home with you and your child.


Math: In math this week students spent time learning more about the math manipulatives we use in Kindergarten. We did a counting activity where each table used different counters to find different numbers. We also did some working with patterns in colors using unifix cubes and colored chains that hook together.


Important News: Just a couple of reminders and announcements this week! A BIG thank you to everyone who has volunteered to help in the classroom and an even BIGGER thank you to those who have already come in to help. Right now I need help copying, laminating, cutting, etc. Soon when parents come in to help we will have literacy and math workstations running and you will get a chance to work a station with the Kinderkids of 301. If you have not had a chance to respond to my email about volunteer days/times please do so as soon as possible.


Snacks Leaders for next week include: Monday: Geneva Gilliam, Tuesday: Gabrielle Hajji, Wednesday: Emma Kimler, Thursday: Hannah Kryzhan <- Please note this is an updated list of snack volunteers from the original calendar that went home!


I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! Mrs. Jill Jones will be my Guest Teacher on Monday (a wonderful, former Dublin teacher) as I will be heading to Memphis, TN on Saturday morning to participate in the Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) Walk on Sunday afternoon with extended family, an annual trip! I look forward to seeing everyone back in Room 301 on Tuesday! :-) Mrs. Weckstein


P.S. If you haven’t heard, we do have a GIANT box in our room containing our SMART Board! We are still waiting for an installation to occur. If you are curious, check out: http://smarttech.com/

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Friday, September 17, 2010

Our first full week of Kindergarten!

It has been a fantastic first full week of Kindergarten! Everyone seems to be learning the routines of our day and lots of new friendships have been formed. On Friday’s I will post a newsletter to this site telling you about our week! Throughout the week I may also post photos to show you new things we are learning, places we have been and more.

Read Alouds: This week we read aloud several books. Students were introduced to Robert Munsch (a favorite author of mine and many kids worldwide). Books we read included: Andrew’s Loose Tooth, We Share Everything and Get Out of Bed! We talked about the stories and any connections we had to our own lives.

Shared Reading: We spent all week working with the poem, “The Flying Man” and read the corresponding “Big” book, Dan Comes Home. This book gave us many different methods of transportation. We spent time with the word “H” and found as many words as we could in the Big Book that began with “H”. We also brainstormed a list of methods of transportation (airplanes, submarines, helicopters, etc.) that were all mentioned in the book. Students had the opportunity to draw an illustration of what they might pack for an adventure like Dan has in the story.

Math: In math this week students spent time working with partners as they were matched up by finding a student with the exact same size strip of paper as them. Words like: shorter, longer, bigger and smaller were all introduced and used in this lesson. We also spent time this week exploring with Pattern Blocks. We learned about triangles, squares, trapezoids, rhombuses and hexagons! We sure had fun using these blocks to make all kinds of patterns! J On Friday we had our first Math Workstations. Each table was equipped with a different set of math manipulatives and had time to explore with the math tools while using them to create patterns and designs. When asked what the kids thought of math, they told me, “We LOVE Math!!”

If you are looking for a great way to review with your child what they learned this week, ask them to help you sing this new triangle song we learned to the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat:

1, 2, 3 straight sides,

And 3 corners too,

Triangles here,

Triangles there,

We find them EVERYWHERE!

Important News: Just a couple of reminders and announcements this week! A BIG thank you to everyone who has volunteered to help in the classroom. Now that we have our specials schedule I will be sending out emails Monday to let you know about days/times we can set up to get a regular rotation of volunteers in the room. Another BIG thank you to everyone for coming to Open House last night, it was great to see so many enthusiastic smiles about Kindergarten last night.

Snacks Leaders for next week include: Monday: Evan C., Tuesday: Alycia Y., Wednesday: Nolan C. and Thursday: Skylar C. J

Have a fantastic, fall weekend! J Mrs. Weckstein

P.S. Please make note of our Special’s Schedule listed on the blog below!

We have our FAPES Schedule!!

Here is our Schedule for our Specials Classes 2010-2011:

Monday:
9:20-9:50am - Media (Library books returned)
3:10-3:40pm - P.E. (Your child will always need gym shoes for P.E.)

Tuesday:
9:15-9:45am - Music
9:45-10:15am - P.E.

Wednesday:
11:05-11:35am - P.E.
2:40-3:10pm -  Music

Thursday:
Block Planning - Teacher Work Time (students spend 1/2 hour indoors, 1/2 hour outdoors for recess)

Friday:
1:40-2:40pm - Art

T.G.I.F. :-)

Hi 301 Parents!
 If you are reading this message give yourself a pat on the back! I'm so glad to see people coming onto our blogspot. I hope to use this page for parent communication as well as a place to share pictures of our daily activities!

I am LOVING all of your kids and hope you are hearing lots about their day when they come home. If not, try asking them some of the following questions:

1) What songs did you sing today?
2) What books did you read today?
3) Did you do anything special today? (Art, music, P.E., Birthday treats, etc.)
4) What did you play with during free choice?

Please comment back to this post (click comment below) so that I know you have seen our Blogspot and now know where to come for the latest 301 news!!

Have a great weekend! :-) Mrs. W.