Welcome to Kindergarten!!

 

Wow!! We have had two AMAZING weeks in Kindergarten!! I love to use this blog page to show off all of our activities, learnings, fun and give important updates to parents! Please know that I LOVE to use pictures on our blog. If you would prefer for your child NOT to be featured in pictures on our blog page, you need to let me know ASAP. I try to post two blogs a month. I will post again in two weeks and have SO many fun pictures of the Weckies!

Thank you for ALL of your help in getting your child to and from school! They are coming in each morning excited to learn and that's all thanks to your hard work at home! We still have a few kids confused daily about: if they can get school breakfast (it's free so I always say "sure"), if they are getting hot lunch or packed a lunch, and what truly is their snack verses their lunch. Please continue to discuss this with your children at home!

They are doing an AWESOME job of remembering to bring their yellow everyday folders to and from school. Normally there will not be a ton in their folders daily - we are just really busy getting organized right now, so I feel like a lot has been coming home! I do also try to check daily for any communications you may have written on the front of their folders. If it is something urgent, feel free to jot me an email instead.

Phonics

Names, names and more names! The past two weeks we have been playing with our names! We read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!  and did several activities with the tree and our names! We were introduced to our phonics mascot, Mabel, the elephant this week. We spent time learning about the letter "m", brainstorming words that started with an "m" and even looked for kids in our class with names that began with an "M"! Then we took time to start learning each others names through a simple sentence activity. ("My name is _____) and each child has gotten to come write on the giant chart paper, their name! We're about halfway and will continue with more names next week! We also did a fun pencil craft to help us count the letters in our names (and practice following detailed directions). They did so great!!

Readers' Workshop

In Readers' Workshop we launched our workshop this week! We did a fun opening activity to relate to our learning target of "We can read the world" by practicing reading environmental print! The majority began the lesson saying they could not read. Once I started putting things up on the screen like logos for: Target, Walmart, Pepsi, Nike, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Rice Krispies, Kit Kat, Snickers, etc. they were shouting out the names fast and realized quickly that they CAN in fact read! Reading environmental print is the most amazing way to help build their esteem of their abilities to recognize and read familiar words! Students then had time to read our classroom looking for things they could identify like: books, sink, doninoes, happy birthday, etc.. We spent time with a new book called, Fur, Feather, Fin - All of us are Kin and learned about how we are all alike and all "kin". This was a cool vocabulary word to also start using with the kids. We talked about the beginning of books, the middle and the endings as we build our concepts about print. We have also read SO many other great Kindergarten books! We are loving to hear stories!

Writers' Workshop

We launched our workshop this week with an "on-demand" narrative piece! The kids were given the task of drawing a picture about a time that they did something. We brainstormed all kinds of ideas before they got to drawing. They were even encouraged to add labels or words if they were able. Mrs. Weckstein then dictated a sentence or two for them about their pictures. It will be incredible to compare these September 5 pictures to a story they'll write come June!!

Math Workshop

In Math we have been doing all sorts of fun learning things! We start with a calendar routine daily to practice our days of the week, months of the year, notice the weather and count the days of school! We have also been practicing counting to 100 already! I wanted to stop at 20 but the Weckies said they could go HIGHER! I wanted to stop at 30 but they again said: HIGHER! Phew! We finally stopped at 100 :-). We also did a partner match activity with colored strips of paper practicing using words like: shorter and longer.

Important Dates

*Tuesday, September 10th- Curriculum Night for Kindergarten @ Dublin in our Room K-2 6:00-6:30pm (please just adults only) If you are unable to attend, please let me know by Tuesday morning! This helps for planning purposes.

*Friday, September 13th - Homecoming at WLN - The parade starts at 5pm and ALL WLN elementary school students are invited to participate!

*Tuesday, September 24th - 1/2 Day of School