Welcome to Kindergarten Weckies!!

Are you ready? Here it comes... the very first day of... Kindergarten!!

Thank you for coming to check out our Kindergarten, room 204, classroom blog! This page will serve as an important communicator for our parents throughout the year. I will post newsletters bi-monthly and photos on this page. Bookmark: mrsweckstein.blogspot.com or sign up on the righthand side to subscribe to our blog and receive a copy of each posting in your email. I'll be sure to post more in the next few weeks about myself and this great school year ahead! For now, soak up summer and rest up for a fantastic year! :-) Mrs. W.

Thursday, March 12th

Greetings from 204!

 Have you seen any cute little green men walking around lately? The Weckies are on a mission to catch the leprechauns at Dublin this St. Patrick's Day! Thank you for all of the great recycled supplies you have sent in to help your little engineer construct their traps! The challenge has been posed: Can you create a trap that can catch and hold one leprechaun?

Reader's Workshop:
In Workshop this week we have introduced a new reading strategy called "Wise Owl". We spent time talking about the word "wise" and how it meant someone who was smart and made thoughtful choices. The strategy says to be wise in figuring out the sounds of word with what would make sense with the words around the tricky word. Reading groups have taken a couple of weeks off so I can do individual assessments and because our students have spent more time in partnerships exploring new texts (to practice our new strategy), I have seen all in conferences instead. Look for books to be returning late this week to early next week home. Again I continue to stress the importance of reading daily for 20 minutes at home with your child... we're even working on this with Liam at home too!

Writer's Workshop:
We have been working on a new unit called "Close Reading" in Writer's Workshop... yes, you can write about your reading!! You should have had a mini book come home all about dolphins last week and some additional writing your child did about dolphins. Close reading is exactly that, we read a text super carefully (three times) and then do writing about our reading. We are learning to answer questions about the text and to use DETAILS in our writing! Little by little our writing has looked more like sentences with detailed answers and this is HUGE! We have continued this week and last week with a close reading on Whales. Next week the kids have selected four ocean animals to research in small groups. Look for info to come home with your child as they will need your help researching their animal! We will use our close reading skills at school to learn more about our animals. This includes: Sea Turtles, Sea Horses, Sea Stars and Sharks.

Math Workshop:
We have been busy in Math... we are practicing all sorts of things! Months of the year, days of the week, days a month, counting with tallies, counting up to 100 by 2's and 5's and 10's and then most importantly, working on our addition with numbers adding up to or close to 10. We have done several activities that use pictures or manipulatives to count objects when adding up groups. Please try this at home to reinforce what we are doing at school!

I'll be sure to keep you posted on the leprechauns... the traps are looking awesome!!
Happy Friday!
:-) Mrs. W.

Thursday, February 13th

Hello Weckie Parents!!

 We have been busy, busy in Kindergarten these last couple of weeks! The kids are very excited for Valentines' Day tomorrow and have done an awesome job filling out and passing out their Valentines cards. Remember that our party starts at 3pm and all are welcome to come and join us in the classroom from 3-4pm. A special thank you to Erin Callico and her team of parents who are helping to make the day so special.

Reader's Workshop
Reading groups are well underway for ALL of our readers! Yay! Please make sure to sign the reading slip when you complete sharing a story with your child at home. I will do my best to see groups on a regular basis and appreciate your help when the schedule gets off a day or two! Lately we have been catching up from snow days and groups have been meeting on different days. Thank you for your help with this!

In Reader's Workshop we have been working with a new fluency strategy called "Slippery Snake". This skill teaches your child to run their finger under a tricky word, slowly stretching out the sounds each letter makes and then putting the parts of the word together into one word. Try to use this one at home with your son or daughter when they get stuck!

Writer's Workshop
Our Writer's have been BUSY!! We have been working hard on writing sentences. We've spent time learning about letters, how you put them together to make words, and then how you put those words together to make a sentence. We have been working on lowercase letters and periods at the ends of our sentences. Thank you for your help practicing with this at home! It's amazing to see such great writing at school and at home! Please make sure folders come back to school on Monday.

New Word Wall Words include: black, brown, all, he, she, am, at, ate, did, do, are

Math Workshop
We have been doing all sorts of math lately! Approaching the 100s day of school has us practicing our counting daily! We've been working on learning the months of the year, using tally marks, counting with base-ten blocks and practicing writing our numbers!  Math stations have got us learning how to use geoboards, making shapes with play-dough and using number tiles to count to 100.

Important Information

• No School - February 16-20: Mid-Winter Break
• School Resumes - February 23rd
• 101 Dalmatian Day - February 24th - 2:30-3:30pm
• Dental Health Assembly for K - February 25th - 1:30pm
• All Day Crop - February 28th - 9:30am-9:30pm (Come join me!!)
• No School - March 3: Professional Development

Friday, January 9th

Happy 2015!! Welcome Back!!

It's been an awesome first week back in Kindergarten! It AMAZED me how excited the kids were to be back on that first day after break. Typically when I taught second grade, the first day back the kids were pretty mellow and quiet. Most wished they were still home. Kindergarten kids are a way different breed! They were so excited to see everyone, there was lots of hugging and lots of stories being told. It has been SUPER!

Reader's Workshop
The kids continue to build their book drawers of familiar books. It is great to see how quickly they are picking up new words and patterns in texts. This week we talked about words vs. letters and practiced finding words and practiced finding letters.

Currently I am working on Language Arts Assessments. The kids will be doing a series of mid-year testing including: letter ID and sound recognition, rhyming, sight word recognition, a writing sample and then a reading assessment. Reading groups will begin for ALL students in the next few weeks. Some have had a chance to meet in a group and take a book or two home. This will be happening for ALL soon and is VERY exciting!! A colored book bag will come home with your child and need to be returned on the days indicated in the bag. Those are the days I will see your child's group. Most often you'll have a book for two nights so don't feel like you need to send it back immediately if your child doesn't have reading group that next day. Play with the text, the words, the letters, etc. for a couple of days. There will be a form in there for you to sign and leave any comments, questions or concerns! This is an exciting time!!

Writer's Workshop
We are just wrapping up a unit on Pattern Books. Pattern Books have a repeating line throughout each page... I like ______ . I like ______. to start each page. We have written a few different pattern books and we have fabulous writers in our class!! Please look for Writing Folders to start coming home as well in the next few weeks. There are directions inside the front pocket for how we will use these folders for the rest of the year. Yes, your child will have writing homework too! It's a great way to reinforce the concepts we are working on in school at home.

Math Workshop
1...2...3...4...5.... We have spent a LOT of time this week working on counting!! We have been filling out a hundreds grid daily and you should be seeing these come home. I'm not concerned with how much the kids get through here as each child is working at their own pace and ability. Already though, I've seen huge growth! The first day we just worked on counting up. The second day we counted by 10s and highlighted those on our charts. Today we have been working on counting by 5s. These charts do not need to be returned however I would like them to be completed at home. Many of our kids will need help with this and it's a great time to spend one-on-one with your child helping them to sharpen their counting skills. Once the grid is filled you can use it to play a simple counting game like a "Chutes and Ladders" minus the chutes and ladders. Familiarity and fluency with numbers is a huge developmental milestone in kindergarten and the goal is to have ALL of our kids writing to 100 by June.

Upcoming Dates:
Friday, January 16 - NO SCHOOL - Professional Development for Teachers
Monday, January 19 - NO SCHOOL - Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Observance
Wednesday, January 28 - Report Cards Available on Skyward**

**If you are not sure how to view your child's report card on Skyward, please let me know! I would be glad to help you get this set up now. Skyward will follow your child through their entire K-12 career and you need to be able to use this tool now for report cards and later for daily grades, attendance, lunch accounts, and teacher communication.

November 7, 2014

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.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Wow, have things been busy in Kindergarten!! We have so many great things happening in 204 and I'm excited to share them with you in our newsletter!

Readers' Workshop
These past two weeks we have done all sorts of things in Workshop. We have maintained our 12 minute stamina for independent reading and have been focusing in on partner time. I'd like to announce that the "Honeymoon" phase of their partnerships have ended and there are many minor (but normal) typical arguments with partners lately. We have slowed down to focus on sitting side by side, with one book in the middle. We have spent time learning how to take turns picking a book (phew, is that exhausting) and how to take turns reading. We have also been spending a great deal of time with two different books, "Some Birthday!" by Patricia Polacco and "The Hello Goodbye Window" by Norton Juster. We picked out three words from Polacco's story: strength, familiar and investigate to be our vocab words for the week. We spent a lot of time during the week talking about the definitions of these words. From Juster's book: regular and different were our two words of focus this past week. I have been meeting with small groups of kids (2-3) daily to work on letters and sounds. Chances are, if your child was low in letter recognition and letter sounds, they have seen me! Please keep working on this at home too!

Writers' Workshop
Boy oh boy are we busy in this workshop!! We have been working on drawing pictures of a time something happened, adding labels complete with arrows and writing any letters or beginning letter sounds we can on the lines about our story. We also took a written assessment this week for Writers' Workshop. This provides me with info on where our beginning writers' are and how I can group them accordingly to work on their skills! The kids had to write a story about an animal - whether it was real or make believe. We had some pretty creative ideas and stories in our bunch! We will discuss these further at Parent-Teacher conferences on November 13!

Word Wall
These are the new words on our wall this week:and, it, play, two, you, we
These are the words that were already on the wall: a, blue, can, go, I, in, look, me, my, not, red, see, to, the, up, yellow

Math Stations
Counting, counting and more counting!! We have been working on counting up to ten and have been exploring with ten frames as we learn to add numbers that total ten! Your first Unit 1 HomeLink packet came this week. This is a "return to school" packet but on your own time. It would be safe to say, they should be back typically within a week to ten days. There are activities for you to do at home that are important to reinforce concepts we have covered or will cover soon in school! Our goal this year is by the end of April, to have all of our students writing their numbers correctly up to 100. We have been practicing our number writing during the day just like we practice our letter writing!

Halloween Update!
Halloween is going to be a very FUN day to be in Kindergarten! Information came home this week updating you on our field trip, permission slip, cost as well as parade and party! Thank you to the Moms and Grandma working hard to plan our awesome party! All are invited to come join us for the parade and party in our classroom :-).

Fun Run Update
Thank you to EVERYONE who helped donate to the Dublin Fun Run. Our school raised over $13,000 which is truly unbelievable! Thank you as well to all of the parents and grandparents who came out to cheer us on! The kids had a blast and you helped make it so much fun when we ran by and heard all the cheering and applause.

Friday, October 3rd

It has been an outstanding last two weeks to be a Weckie! I am floored daily how much these kids have learned and grown in only 23 days of Kindergarten! I have to brag and say that in our hallway, the Kindergarten kids get into the room faster than their second grade neighbors and are ready to learn! I am so proud of all of their hard work.

Friday Packets

You’ll find your child’s first Friday Packet in their green Everyday Folder today! Although there is not a lot of work in there, the work that is there is awesome! We spent time early on reviewing our colors and the first letter of each word and then we did two different practice activities for literacy stations. There are two sheets coming home in their packets featuring our six sight words for last week. We will focus on six words a week as we become more familiar with letters, words and patterns in spelling. This past week the words your child should know include: a, can, go, I, red and see. Please review these words with your child at home and spend time going over these pages in their packets. This would be a great time to start a collection of flashcards with these words! Attached to every Friday Packet is a colored note for you to sign and return back to school with your child the next week. If you have any comments, questions or concerns, feel free to write them on the half sheet of paper!

Reader’s Workshop

Our readers have already built up our reading stamina to 12 minutes! For 12 whole minutes they are quiet, in their seats, looking at books. We have many who are practicing touching the words as they go (even if they can’t read just yet), we also have many who are using the sight word books we have created in class to practice reading stories they have learned and can read. We have also spent time working with our Power Partners. Our Power Partners are our reading partners and were assigned based on abilities. We will keep these partners for the first few weeks. We have been learning how to sit side by side, how to share one book to read, how to pick the book we read and how to take turns reading. This in itself has been quite a task, and the kids are getting better and better each day!

We also completed our Brown Bear, Brown Bear project where each child made a book complete with all of the animals that they see throughout the story. We are going to keep these at school for a little while to practice reading and then they will come home. This was a HUGE task and the Weckies ROCKED!

Writer’s Workshop

We have just begun to put our thoughts down on paper in the form of pictures! A few writers have been trying to add letters and words they know to their illustrations. Now that we have spent the first three weeks doing a lot of oral story telling about things we know, it is neat to watch that transfer from oral work to written work! We will be doing a writing assessment next week that will help guide instruction on just what each child needs in writing. I have seen a lot of growth already in everyone’s letter formation and we spend time daily working on our handwriting. Soon we want to get everyone writing their name with a capital letter to start and lower case letters for the rest (now that we have everyone writing their name)!

Math Workshop

In Math we have spent time working on numbers: counting by 1s, 2s, 5s and 10s. These counting patterns can be tricky but we will get it! You can practice this at home with your child orally as they learn to do them in school. This was new for many of our kids, so expect some difficulties at home! We have also been working on calendar routines which help kids in counting. Every morning we have a Super Leader who helps with calendar, a pattern of the day and counting the days of school using base-ten blocks. We will make it through our last two kids next week and then begin all over again!

Just an important reminder, the weather has turned cold this week! We are outside every day when it is dry and the kids need warm jackets! Many kids are coming to school with just a sweatshirt and then complaining about being cold outdoors! Please watch the weather and plan accordingly!

Have a fantastic weekend…. Stay warm and of course, GO GREEN! :) Mrs. Weckstein