Hello Weckie Parents! Happy Friday!
It has been a super past two weeks to be a Kindergarten kid! We have been busier than ever! A special shout out and thank you to the parents who helped organize our awesome Halloween Party. The kids had such a fun afternoon! Another thank you to the parents (many who did both) who helped chaperone our field trip to the Dublin Community Senior Center. We had such a fun time and the seniors loved the kids. We sang songs and recited a couple of poems for Halloween. If you haven't seen this, be sure to check out the link to The Oakland Press from last Saturday morning, showcasing nearly 100 pictures of our rockin' Kindergarteners! http://media.theoaklandpress.com/2014/10/31/dublin-elem-kindergartens-visit-the-dublin-senior-center/#1
Just a reminder about the weather.... it's COLD out there!! Please make sure to LABEL everything and make sure your child has a coat, hat, gloves, etc. The kids have been coming in saying they are very cold but many do not have a real coat for recess. Please help in making sure your child is dressed appropriately. We will do our best to keep track of mittens, hats, etc. but labeling goes a long way too! :-)
Reader's Workshop:
In Workshop this week we have changed "Power Partners". We have spent time getting to know our new partners and have been given a partner who reads at the same ability. It has and will take some time for the kids to get to know their new partners, but they have transitioned quite well. We have been focusing on a new reading strategy this week called "Eagle Eye". As a reader, we use our "Eagle Eye" to study the picture in a book and see if it can help us figure out the words on the page. These readers have been great at using their "Eagle Eye" in their familiar books. A new familiar book is coming home with your child today: "Brown Bear, Brown Bear". We made these fairly early in the year so any mistakes along the way you might notice, was totally developmental for September! This has been a favorite book of the kids and it took us awhile to make, so we kept them here a little longer than normal.
Writer's Workshop:
In Writer's Workshop we are wrapping up our launching unit and the growth these writers have made is incredible! I'm excited to share their writing with you at conferences so you can see all of the growth they are making. To prepare for our next unit we have been reading several books that feature personal narrative stories and we have been pulling out vocabulary words from the texts. Some Birthday (Patricia Polacco), Come on, Rain! (Karen Hesse), The Hello Goodbye Window (Norton Juster) and Heat Wave (Eileen Spinelli) are all examples of personal narratives we have been exposed to. To help build our possible writing topics, we have been brainstorming lists of our favorites! We have created lists of: our favorite places, our favorite people, and our favorite things. It's been fun to share all of our favorites. These will go in your child's writing folder to help as story starters.
Word Wall:
These are the new words on our wall this week: big, is, one, run
These are the words that were already on the wall: a, and, blue, can, go, I, in, it, look, me, my, not, play, red, see, the, to, two, up, yellow, you, we
Math Workshop:
We have spent time lately practicing our counting up to thirty. We are working on learning how to write our numbers up to 30. We have been using cubes and base ten blocks, counters, puzzles and video clips on the smart board! These mathematicians have also been learning to count by 2s, 5s and 10s orally! They rock!
Reminders!
Next week on Thursday, November 13th we will have parent-teacher conferences. For many of you, this is an exciting first! I'm excited to show you all your child has learned and done this year in K! It's remarkable how much growth they have made in 10 weeks. Please feel free to bring any questions or goals you may have with you to this meeting. While it is my turn to tell you information about your son or daughter, I'm also very eager to hear from you! We have a 15 minute block of time and we need to watch the clock carefully. If you are the next conference and the prior conference has gone over the time, please knock gently on the door so we know! I'll do my best to watch the clock, but while discussing your children, that can be hard too! :-)
Have a fantastic fall weekend... Stay warm!! :-) Mrs. W.
