Friday, November 6th

Hello Weckie Families!!

What an awesome and warm week this has been!! Thank you for checking in on the Blog to see and hear all of the latest out of our classroom. A special thank you to Samantha Ogle and Ashley Kurpinski for an awesome Halloween Party last Friday afternoon. It was wonderful to see so many parents, grandparents and siblings all come to our parade and party. We had a fabulous time!

Reader's Workshop:
The past couple of week's in workshop we have introduced some new sight words to add to our rapidly growing list! So far we have the following four sight words: a, see, the, is. We have now added: like, it,  and I. These are words your child is expected to know - both being able to read them and write them. The list will continue to grow as the year goes on and I will continue to update you here, on the blog, of our sight word list. Please make sure as new familiar books are coming home they are being stored in a safe place at home and you are continuing to practice reading these books with your children on a nightly basis. The repetition and frequency will help strengthen them as new readers.

In the next few weeks guided reading groups will be starting. I will be meeting with groups of kids based on skills and abilities. Work will come home typically 2-3 nights a week with your child and a note saying when it needs to be returned. This may be books coming home, this may be word cards to sort with directions, white boards and markers, etc. it all depends on the needs of your child. Please make sure these items are returned in the bags in a timely manner.

In Workshop mini-lessons we continue to work on building our routines for Reader's Workshop, how to manage the supplies in our book drawers, how to share books and how to be good listeners during mini-lesson time. We have picked "elbow-partners" and practiced doing a "Lean and Tell" and a "Turn and Talk" often with our classroom book discussions.

Writer's Workshop:
In Writer's Workshop the goal has been to get your kids to write!! Young writers can be very reluctant so I have been modeling daily writing with the kids to help them learn to stretch out words, look for sounds and write the letters down on paper. At conferences you'll have a chance to see the written work your child has completed during our Launching unit of Writer's Workshop! They have come a long way!

In mini-lessons we have also been focusing on our writing stamina, our writing routines for folders (green dot work vs. red dot work), sharing with elbow partners and the routines for workshop time. 

In the next month or so we will begin using writing folders to encourage daily writing at home. Look for more info to come soon about this neat experience helping to connect our school writing to writing we can do at home!

Math Workshop:
Counting, counting, counting and counting!! Lately all we have been doing is counting numbers!! We are getting better and better at writing our numbers. We practice daily and go up to 30 most days. We have done several counting chants orally (counting by twos, fives and tens) as well as singing songs that help us learn the names of the numbers up to 100! Our goal in Kindergarten is to have all kids able to recognize any number up to 100 and be able to write all of their numbers on a blank grid up to 100. This week we did a whole group hundreds grid... it took us forever, but we did it!! We celebrated our hard work and while some got further than others, that was okay!!

Parent Teacher Conferences:
I am looking forward to sitting down with everyone next Thursday, November 12th. I have lots of great information to share with you and would be glad to review your child's report card as well! Please bring any questions or concerns you have as well, as this is a great time to chat and explain anything that I can about kindergarten!  Please remember this is a no school day and ideally this is just an adult-only conference. If you are unable to find childcare, your kiddo is fine waiting in the hallway with something quiet to do if you are comfortable with this. We will have chairs out in the hallway.

Bundle up this weekend... Looks like we won't be seeing those 70 degree temperatures for many more months to come!!
:-) Mrs. Weckstein

Friday, October 16th

Happy Friday Weckie Parents!

What an incredible last couple of weeks we have been having in Kindergarten! These kids amaze me daily with all they are learning, are capable of doing and the amount of energy they have, even first thing in the morning! It has been so rewarding to watch friendships form, routines mastered and the group come together like a big family. It was wonderful to see so many of you at our pumpkin sale last night and we even had one lucky winner in our class, guessing the correct number of candy in one of the jars... Congrats Ellen!

Reader's Workshop
In Workshop we have been learning all about books! How to be a book lover (picking a book, holding it correctly, turning the pages carefully and how to put the book away). We have learned about Reading "Elbow" Partners and how we can turn and talk or lean and tell our partners something in a classroom discussion about books! We have talked about the parts of a book (front cover, title, illustrator, title page, picture, words and back cover) and soon we will be moving onto learning about the jobs of authors and illustrators. 

Each week we make our own familiar book... these are our high frequency sight word books. So far we have the following four sight words: a, see, the, is. These are words your child is expected to know - both being able to read them and write them. The list will continue to grow as the year goes on and I will continue to update you here, on the blog, of our sight word list. We incorporate these words daily into our Reader's Workshop (familiar book and poem), Writer's Workshop, Literacy Stations and Handwriting Practice. You'll want to be sure to continue to practice these words at home with your child. Next week they will bring home their first familiar book, "I See". Please spend time with them reading this book, helping them point to the words, and use their eyes to use the pictures to help them read. Keep these books in a safe place as a new one will come home every week. 

Writer's Workshop
In Writer's Workshop we have been learning to write stories through the use of pictures. While all of our kids are comfortable drawing pictures, we have been focusing on: adding details to the pictures, adding arrows with labels, and even putting words down on the line. Only about 5 of our 21 are putting written words down right now and that is okay! I am modeling with them daily and writing the words on their paper for them. As we move into November, I'll start passing the pen off to your child, encouraging them to try writing. Strings of letters, first letters of words, even just a few sight words are all developmental at this point in the year. As we continue to write daily, this will become more and more comfortable for all writers.

Math Workshop
Math Workshop is such a fun part of our Kindergarten day. These past couple weeks we have zoomed in on a few different things... counting to 20, writing our numbers to 10, learning to use different math tools (counting blocks, pattern blocks, base-ten cubes, etc.) and how to create tally charts. In Math Stations we have explored making numbers with play-dough, practiced reading numbers orally, practiced writing our numbers in a number book, made shapes on geo-boards and made patterns with counters. Math is a fun time! Please make sure all unit 1 home links are returned next week. Unit 2 home links will be coming home soon!

Science
One of our science units in Kindergarten is learning about the seasons and in particular, trees! We have a Maple tree in the bus loop area at Dublin that we have adopted named Mr. Maple. Throughout the year in K we will be checking in on Mr. Maple to see how he changes through the seasons. This past week we went out to check on Mr. Maple and see how he looks in Autumn (which was way different than how he looked in Summer). We talked about his parts, about the change in the leaves and why some had fallen on the ground. We made a maple tree project in the room that will be a part of a book your child will receive at the end of the year, showing the four seasons of our maple tree.

Have a fabulous, Fall weekend... stay warm!! :-) Mrs. W.

Friday, September 25th

Hello Weckie Families!

Thank you for taking the time to read our News Blog! It has been a great couple of weeks in Kindergarten! I am having so much fun getting to know your children. We have been hard at work while also making time for fun activities. It's amazing just how much like little sponges Kindergarteners can be! They are soaking up new things daily and catching on quickly to routines, songs, expectations, etc. New friendships are forming and new social skills are building.

Reader's Workshop
We are in the midst of launching our Reader's Workshop! We have spent this week learning about the parts of a book: front cover, back cover, title and illustration. We have also been working on something called "Reading Stamina". We have been reading (or looking at pictures and creating the story in our heads) for 5 to 6 minutes each day following expectations of sitting quietly, keeping our hands to ourselves, looking only at our books, etc. We also created our first familiar book this week focusing on the sight word "see". Below is a picture of the words of our story written out on a pocket chart. Daily we have been working with this book and using our first reading strategy of using our "Eagle Eye" to be a detective! We can figure out unknown words by looking at the pictures - this is reading!

We have also been working on our own book of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?" taken from Eric Carle's original. This book project has helped reinforce fine motor skills (cutting, coloring and gluing) while also helping us to review our colors and animal names. The kids are eager to finish these up, but we are going slow and making sure our work is our best!

Math Workshop
In Math Workshop we have done several different things already! We have had math stations where the kids travel as a table to four different stations. We have learned how to use math manipulatives like: geoboards, base ten blocks, pattern blocks, play-dough (to make the numbers), a counting grid game on the interactive white board and some number line puzzles. We have also had some whole group activities looking at patterns with shapes (using three shapes to make a pattern) and working with partners to explore the words: shorter, longer, taller, tallest. Math is always a fun time in Kindergarten because we explore and are geared at hands-on learning.


Important Info
Mass Emailing:
Thank you to all who emailed back upon my mass emailing to confirm you received the message. I've been marking you in as I receive notice so that I know the email address you have provided is correct. If you have not done so yet, please respond to the whole class email just to me, so I know you have gotten my message.

Remind App:
If you have not yet signed up for our Remind App please do so ASAP. Your child will miss out on valuable information for school if you are not registered. I currently only have 16 of 21 signed up except that a few are two numbers for one student (which is totally fine) so it means I'm still missing a handful of families. Information came home in your green folder from curriculum night on the easy steps you can take to sign up.

Johnny Appleseed's Birthday:
Monday is Johnny Appleseed's birthday and as a surprise for the kids we will be making homemade applesauce. Please do not tell them why they need to bring in one apple, any color and flavor, for school on Monday. In order to have enough for everyone, I am asking that every child bring in one apple.

Classroom Volunteers:
Thank you to everyone who has sent back their paperwork to volunteer in our classroom. As my schedule is now set up, you'll be hearing from me soon to get you in to help out. I will gradually bring in new volunteers each week until we have everyone in and set up to help. Thank you so much for your donation of your time!

Have a fabulous first fall weekend!!
:-) Mrs. Weckstein

Friday, September 11th - Welcome Back!

Hello Weckie Families and Welcome to Kindergarten!

Make your own slideshow

It has been a most AWESOME week to be a Weckie! I have had so much fun getting to know your children this week and am the most blessed teacher to get to spend my year with your children. We have been having so much fun and already the kids are soaking up everything I have been showing them like little sponges! New friendships are being formed daily, routines are being learned and I can already tell, this is going to be the best year!

We have spent a lot of time this week learning the routines of Kindergarten: how to make a line in the hallway, how to get to different places in the building, how to work at our tables, how to eat snack at our spots, how to play with the toys and then clean up, how to use scissors, how to use glue sticks, coloring practice, etc. We have been learning new songs to help us learn the days of the week, months of the year and our abc's with the sounds of the letters.

We have read several back to school books and then spent a lot of time working with the book: Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom and created our own class book about our names going up the coconut tree! If you are not familiar with the story or want to hear it again, click this link below to watch the video at home with your son or daughter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH4bBMW8eus

Another important routine of Kindergarten is our daily calendar routine. We have already begun counting the days of the school year using base-ten blocks, filling in a September calendar, learning how to check the weather and learning new songs we will sing daily at calendar time. It's pretty neat to watch the kids begin to do the calendar routine instead of Mrs. Weckstein in the next few weeks up on our interactive whiteboard.

Over the course of the next few weeks a lot of notes will be coming home. Please make sure to send your child's green folder back to school daily! I hope to see everyone at Curriculum Night next Wednesday night at 6:30pm in the old gym.

Have a fabulous three-day weekend!
Mrs. Weckstein :-)

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