YES!!! If you are seeing this blog it means that you have read my letter home for your child and you and have followed up with the classroom blog! I will use this throughout the year for newsletters, photos, etc. and ask you to follow along on our journey through Kindergarten!
More to come soon :-). Jen Weckstein
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Friday, May 6, 2016
Friday, May 6th
Wooooosh!! It's been such a long time since I have posted on the Blog!! We have been having the most jam-packed, fun-tastic, crazy, busy days in Kindergarten in the last month!! I apologize for not communicating earlier besides an email here and there!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for ALL of the love this week for Teacher Appreciation Week!! The cards, pictures, chocolate, crafts, cookies, chocolate, emails, school supplies and CHOCOLATE have just been awesome! It truly is a blessing for me to get to spend my days with 19 of the smartest, most curious little Kindergarten kids at Dublin. I love this bunch so much and cannot believe we are running out of time together!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for ALL of the love this week for Teacher Appreciation Week!! The cards, pictures, chocolate, crafts, cookies, chocolate, emails, school supplies and CHOCOLATE have just been awesome! It truly is a blessing for me to get to spend my days with 19 of the smartest, most curious little Kindergarten kids at Dublin. I love this bunch so much and cannot believe we are running out of time together!
Reader's Workshop: Our big focus the last two months has been on retelling the events of a story. This is a major comprehension skill that our kiddoes will want to continue to get better as as they grow up reading! We have talked about how every story needs a beginning, middle, ending, a setting and characters. We have spent a lot of time using "Chicken Little" as our mentor text and used it to have a great discussion about the problem and solution. Our Sight Word list has grown as well to include the following words: a, am, are, be, can, go, have, has, is, it, I like, look, me, not, of, on, see, to, this, the, wind, we, will, you, your. These are all words we want our kiddoes to be able to read, write and spell correctly!
Writer's Workshop: We recently finished up our Close Reading Unit using the mentor text "Bear Snores On" and used that informational fiction unit to spring us onto our non-fiction writing unit! We have been doing close readings and research on dolphins the last two weeks! Be sure to ask your child what they have learned about this sea creature! Soon we will move into individual animal reports, a favorite in Kindergarten! Thank you for continuing to send the writing folders back and forth with your child each week! Take a moment to look back at how far they have come in their writing and you'll simply be shocked!
Math Workshop: Unit 6 Home Links are coming home today! Make sure to wrap up unit 5 and get those sent back soon! We have been working a great deal on skip counting: counting by 2's, 5's and 10's. We have also been spending a ton of time lately on number scrolls! Be sure to ask your mathematician to tell you how high they have gotten their scroll to be already!
A special thank you to all of the parents who helped chaperone our field trip to the Health Exploration Stations - we had a wonderful day!!
And last but not least....
Thursday, March 3, 2016
March 4, 2016
Happy Friday Weckie Families!
What a fun and busy last few weeks we have been having in Kindergarten!! We celebrated the 100th day of school, we completed the igloo building, we celebrated like 102 Dalmatians and we even kicked of March is Reading Month with Green Eggs and Ham for breakfast in honor of Dr. Seuss and his birthday!! Phew! Please be sure to follow us on Twitter to see pics along the way!! Our user name is @WeAreTheWeckies .
Reader's Workshop
In Workshop we have been busy!! We have continued to add on new sight words to our list. The list now includes the following words: a, am, are, be, by can, go, have, I, in, is, it, like, me, not, of, on, see, to, the, you. Please make sure to continue to review these words with your reader at home. We have spent time in Mini-Lessons learning to look for patterns in sentences, learning to look for sight words and then we have started building our strategies for tricky words! We are learning to break words apart into a beginning, middle and ending sound before we put them all together. It ties in beautifully with what we are learning to do in Writer's Workshop!
Please see the Dublin Times for info on the March is Reading Month incentive program Dublin is participating in with the SkyZone locations around Metro Detroit. For five books read with your child in the month of March, you simply need to print and sign the form, return it to school, and your child will receive a voucher for a free 30 minute jump session!
Also, if you are interested in volunteering to be a Mystery Reader in March for our class, please email me ASAP! I'm gradually replying to emails and booking in the dates/times for this fun activity.
Writer's Workshop
In Writer's Workshop we have begun a new unit on "How-To's". The objective of this unit is to become a teacher and explain sequential steps for an activity. How to sharpen a pencil, how to clean a playroom, how to build a sandcastle, how to brush your teeth, etc. If you're ever looking for something for your child to write about in their home writing folder, a how-to would be perfect practice for them to tie in their writing in school to their writing at home! We are learning to use transition words like: first, then, next, last, second, third, etc. Then we add sequential illustrations to match each step of the directions.
Please make sure your child's writing folder is returned each week. Sadly I only receive about half of the folders back on Mondays and would like to see all participating in this extension activity!
Math Workshop
In Math Workshop we have been doing all sorts of things! We have been working with double-tens frames to help practice our "teens". We have been working on filling in hundreds grids that have some of the numbers there for us already and then completing them. We have been practicing counting by 2s, 5s and 10s. Also just this week we created a tally chart and bar graph of our favorite colors in Kindergarten. It was cool to see everyone work together to gather our data. Please make sure you are working on Unit 4 home links! I have had a few parents ask for prior unit homelinks and those will come home on Friday - I just needed to make new copies :-).
Upcoming Important Dates:
Monday, March 7: Book Fair Preview - no shopping (9:30am) and Spring Pictures (11am)
Tuesday, March 8: Book Fair Shopping (2:40-3:10pm)
Thursday, March 10: Dublin Family Literacy Night 6:30-8pm and Book Fair will be open throughout :-)
What a fun and busy last few weeks we have been having in Kindergarten!! We celebrated the 100th day of school, we completed the igloo building, we celebrated like 102 Dalmatians and we even kicked of March is Reading Month with Green Eggs and Ham for breakfast in honor of Dr. Seuss and his birthday!! Phew! Please be sure to follow us on Twitter to see pics along the way!! Our user name is @WeAreTheWeckies .
Reader's Workshop
In Workshop we have been busy!! We have continued to add on new sight words to our list. The list now includes the following words: a, am, are, be, by can, go, have, I, in, is, it, like, me, not, of, on, see, to, the, you. Please make sure to continue to review these words with your reader at home. We have spent time in Mini-Lessons learning to look for patterns in sentences, learning to look for sight words and then we have started building our strategies for tricky words! We are learning to break words apart into a beginning, middle and ending sound before we put them all together. It ties in beautifully with what we are learning to do in Writer's Workshop!
Please see the Dublin Times for info on the March is Reading Month incentive program Dublin is participating in with the SkyZone locations around Metro Detroit. For five books read with your child in the month of March, you simply need to print and sign the form, return it to school, and your child will receive a voucher for a free 30 minute jump session!
Also, if you are interested in volunteering to be a Mystery Reader in March for our class, please email me ASAP! I'm gradually replying to emails and booking in the dates/times for this fun activity.
Writer's Workshop
In Writer's Workshop we have begun a new unit on "How-To's". The objective of this unit is to become a teacher and explain sequential steps for an activity. How to sharpen a pencil, how to clean a playroom, how to build a sandcastle, how to brush your teeth, etc. If you're ever looking for something for your child to write about in their home writing folder, a how-to would be perfect practice for them to tie in their writing in school to their writing at home! We are learning to use transition words like: first, then, next, last, second, third, etc. Then we add sequential illustrations to match each step of the directions.
Please make sure your child's writing folder is returned each week. Sadly I only receive about half of the folders back on Mondays and would like to see all participating in this extension activity!
Math Workshop
In Math Workshop we have been doing all sorts of things! We have been working with double-tens frames to help practice our "teens". We have been working on filling in hundreds grids that have some of the numbers there for us already and then completing them. We have been practicing counting by 2s, 5s and 10s. Also just this week we created a tally chart and bar graph of our favorite colors in Kindergarten. It was cool to see everyone work together to gather our data. Please make sure you are working on Unit 4 home links! I have had a few parents ask for prior unit homelinks and those will come home on Friday - I just needed to make new copies :-).
Upcoming Important Dates:
Monday, March 7: Book Fair Preview - no shopping (9:30am) and Spring Pictures (11am)
Tuesday, March 8: Book Fair Shopping (2:40-3:10pm)
Thursday, March 10: Dublin Family Literacy Night 6:30-8pm and Book Fair will be open throughout :-)
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Friday, January 22nd
Greetings from the Tundra!!
Not only does the weather feel like the Arctic, but we have the giant igloo taking shape in our classroom!! Thank you to everyone who has been collecting milk jugs, and yes, we need MORE milk jugs!! We can really use any kind of gallon jug that is shaped like a milk jug.
Please click the link below to see our progress!
Igloo Building
This past week we also took a great field trip to the Marquis Theatre! A special thanks to the parents who accompanied us on this field trip. We enjoyed watching the musical production of Snow White. Our kids were shocked to see that the cast was mostly children just like them! Be sure to check out this link to see more about upcoming shows at the Marquis Theatre in Northville.
Reader's Workshop
Upon returning from Winter Break I have been working on several different reading and writing assessments with our kids! It has been so eye opening for me to see all of the growth our students are making in reading and writing. Specifically I have been looking at: reading fluency, engagement in texts, comprehension of texts, written letter formation, rhyming, segmenting, phonemic blending and sight word recognition. As a result, new reading partnerships have been established based on ability and new reading groups will begin on Monday! If your child's book bag has not yet been turned in, please make sure that it is here on Monday. This is the best and safest way to make sure books get home and back to school responsibly!
Sight word envelopes came home last week filled with cards of our current words. Please use these cards!! Many of our kids have said they took them home but have not used them. In order for your child to be able to spell, read and write 80% of our sight words by the end of the year, daily practice at school and at home is essential. The current list includes the words: a, be, can, go, have, I, is, it, like, me, see, the, to, you. With adult supervision, you can also check out Harry Kindergarten on Youtube for great sight word songs we have been practicing at school!
Writer's Workshop
We are working on completing our Personal Narrative Writing Unit! At the conclusion, every child will have their own short personal narrative story. Look for a packet of writing to come home with your child in the next week! You will see many written pieces in the drafting stage and many that have made it to the published stage of writing. Be sure to celebrate each piece with your child or encourage them at home to finish up something that they haven't completed yet!
Writing Folders will begin to come home next week! Each Monday your child will bring home their writing folder. Please make sure they spend time throughout the week with an adult drafting 2-3 written pieces! Ideas can be tricky sometimes, so you may want to encourage them to think of places they like to go, foods they like to eat, toys they like to play with, etc. Some strategies that work well at school for helping them to write words include:
-Drawing lines on the page in a marker for each word they want to write (for example, if they want to say: The dog is brown. You could write on their paper _____ _____ __ ________. Roughly estimating the length of the line for each word.
-Incorporating sight words from our list that our kids should already be able to spell fluently
-Saying words slowly so that kids can stretch out the sounds in the word (and it's okay if the spelling isn't perfect when they do it this way, in fact, it's better!)
-Breaking words apart to hear the sounds with them (for example, cat = /c/ + /a/ + /t/), so you help them hear the sounds and they record the corresponding sound
Math Workshop
We have been busy, busy, busy in Math as of late! Unit 3 Homelinks have gone home and we are moving along nicely! There has been lots of great work done lately around tens-frames. I have included a few pictures below to show you what they look like and how they help us to add numbers up to 10.
We have also explored using number lines to add two numbers as well as counters in groups! Both are great strategies when first learning how to add. This would be something neat you could do at home with your kiddo... adding cereal boxes, adding snacks, adding vegetables on your plate, etc. Math is all around us!
We have also been working on learning about shapes! Shape names we are learning include: square, triangle, circle, oval, rectangle, parallelogram, trapezoid, pentagon and hexagon! We have been practicing drawing shapes with tracers. We have been graphing shapes and we have been counting the sides and corners of shapes. You can point out shapes everywhere at home and see what your kiddo notices! The homelink from Unit 2 did this and this would be something to keep exploring with your children!
Our mathematicians have been diligently working on hundreds grids and learning how to fill them in with different numbers missing in the grid! It's fun to see how aware they are now of number patterns when written in a grid and how fluently they are able to count orally!
Last but not least, we have begun our work with money! We have spent time with the penny and even read a book all about pennies! We are learning to count pennies and determine if we have enough money to buy different things all with values under ten cents! Please get the pennies out at home and help your child explore with this coin value too!
Science:
This week we took a look at Mr. Maple in his winter season. We described the weather in winter and then we went outside and visited our friend. We noticed that all of his leaves had fallen down and many could be seen under the thin layer of snow! Scientists observed that the branches on Mr. Maple had in fact grown and the new sprouts were red! We then found buds on the tips of every single branch! We are excited to see what will happen to the sprouts and buds this spring!
Upcoming Important Dates:
Wednesday, January 27: Quarter 2 Report Cards Available on Skyward (Please let me know if you need help logging on to skyward. A paper copy will not be coming home this marking period or for the rest of the school year).
Sunday, February 27: PTA 6th Annual Crop Day - come support an awesome PTA day of scrapbooking or doing a craft of your choice... All three meals, snacks and contests with prizes make this a must attend day at Dublin. Besides, you'll get to see me! :-) Please keep an eye in the Dublin Times for more info.
Not only does the weather feel like the Arctic, but we have the giant igloo taking shape in our classroom!! Thank you to everyone who has been collecting milk jugs, and yes, we need MORE milk jugs!! We can really use any kind of gallon jug that is shaped like a milk jug.
Please click the link below to see our progress!
Igloo Building
This past week we also took a great field trip to the Marquis Theatre! A special thanks to the parents who accompanied us on this field trip. We enjoyed watching the musical production of Snow White. Our kids were shocked to see that the cast was mostly children just like them! Be sure to check out this link to see more about upcoming shows at the Marquis Theatre in Northville.
Reader's Workshop
Upon returning from Winter Break I have been working on several different reading and writing assessments with our kids! It has been so eye opening for me to see all of the growth our students are making in reading and writing. Specifically I have been looking at: reading fluency, engagement in texts, comprehension of texts, written letter formation, rhyming, segmenting, phonemic blending and sight word recognition. As a result, new reading partnerships have been established based on ability and new reading groups will begin on Monday! If your child's book bag has not yet been turned in, please make sure that it is here on Monday. This is the best and safest way to make sure books get home and back to school responsibly!
Sight word envelopes came home last week filled with cards of our current words. Please use these cards!! Many of our kids have said they took them home but have not used them. In order for your child to be able to spell, read and write 80% of our sight words by the end of the year, daily practice at school and at home is essential. The current list includes the words: a, be, can, go, have, I, is, it, like, me, see, the, to, you. With adult supervision, you can also check out Harry Kindergarten on Youtube for great sight word songs we have been practicing at school!
Writer's Workshop
We are working on completing our Personal Narrative Writing Unit! At the conclusion, every child will have their own short personal narrative story. Look for a packet of writing to come home with your child in the next week! You will see many written pieces in the drafting stage and many that have made it to the published stage of writing. Be sure to celebrate each piece with your child or encourage them at home to finish up something that they haven't completed yet!
Writing Folders will begin to come home next week! Each Monday your child will bring home their writing folder. Please make sure they spend time throughout the week with an adult drafting 2-3 written pieces! Ideas can be tricky sometimes, so you may want to encourage them to think of places they like to go, foods they like to eat, toys they like to play with, etc. Some strategies that work well at school for helping them to write words include:
-Drawing lines on the page in a marker for each word they want to write (for example, if they want to say: The dog is brown. You could write on their paper _____ _____ __ ________. Roughly estimating the length of the line for each word.
-Incorporating sight words from our list that our kids should already be able to spell fluently
-Saying words slowly so that kids can stretch out the sounds in the word (and it's okay if the spelling isn't perfect when they do it this way, in fact, it's better!)
-Breaking words apart to hear the sounds with them (for example, cat = /c/ + /a/ + /t/), so you help them hear the sounds and they record the corresponding sound
Math Workshop
We have been busy, busy, busy in Math as of late! Unit 3 Homelinks have gone home and we are moving along nicely! There has been lots of great work done lately around tens-frames. I have included a few pictures below to show you what they look like and how they help us to add numbers up to 10.
We have also been working on learning about shapes! Shape names we are learning include: square, triangle, circle, oval, rectangle, parallelogram, trapezoid, pentagon and hexagon! We have been practicing drawing shapes with tracers. We have been graphing shapes and we have been counting the sides and corners of shapes. You can point out shapes everywhere at home and see what your kiddo notices! The homelink from Unit 2 did this and this would be something to keep exploring with your children!
Our mathematicians have been diligently working on hundreds grids and learning how to fill them in with different numbers missing in the grid! It's fun to see how aware they are now of number patterns when written in a grid and how fluently they are able to count orally!
Last but not least, we have begun our work with money! We have spent time with the penny and even read a book all about pennies! We are learning to count pennies and determine if we have enough money to buy different things all with values under ten cents! Please get the pennies out at home and help your child explore with this coin value too!
Science:
This week we took a look at Mr. Maple in his winter season. We described the weather in winter and then we went outside and visited our friend. We noticed that all of his leaves had fallen down and many could be seen under the thin layer of snow! Scientists observed that the branches on Mr. Maple had in fact grown and the new sprouts were red! We then found buds on the tips of every single branch! We are excited to see what will happen to the sprouts and buds this spring!
Upcoming Important Dates:
Wednesday, January 27: Quarter 2 Report Cards Available on Skyward (Please let me know if you need help logging on to skyward. A paper copy will not be coming home this marking period or for the rest of the school year).
Sunday, February 27: PTA 6th Annual Crop Day - come support an awesome PTA day of scrapbooking or doing a craft of your choice... All three meals, snacks and contests with prizes make this a must attend day at Dublin. Besides, you'll get to see me! :-) Please keep an eye in the Dublin Times for more info.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Friday, December 11, 2015
Hello Weckie Families!!
It has been AWHILE!! We have been so busy having SO much fun in Kindergarten these last few weeks!!! There is lots to share and lots to tell...
Reader's Workshop:
Guided Reading Groups have started in our classroom over the last few weeks! Everyone is in a group and the groups meet either M/W/FR or T/TH. I will do my best to meet with each group every day although some days will be easier than others with loads of special events coming up in this month of December. Please keep an eye out for your child's book bag coming home. It does not need to be returned daily and it would be wonderful to spend a couple of nights reading these books or doing the letter/sound activity cards your child is bringing home. Remember, we encourage everyone to take 20 mins of time a day to read with your child. My own son Liam LOVES the time we spend each night reading with him... and often times if we skip over one of his favorite books, he has a fit! Thank you for signing the forms that come home in the book bags as well!
In Workshop we have been spending the last week learning how to read with a partner! Everyone has an assigned partner or two who is reading exactly like them, at the same level. Most are in reading groups together as well. With partners we have been learning how to sit together, how to share the book, how to take turns picking the book and how to take turns reading the pages. We practice with our familiar book and look for known words in more complicated texts. The kids LOVE reading around the room with their partner.
Sight Words - our list is growing!! Please make sure you are spending time with these words at home to reinforce the work we are doing at school with these words. Our list includes: see, the, a, is, I, it, like, can, to, go, be, me, do. Be sure to practice writing and reading these words at home with your son or daughter! Flash cards, white boards, even shaving cream on a clean surface are a great way to practice writing all of our words!
Writer's Workshop:
In Writer's Workshop we have been working on writing like a reader! We have been learning about characters and using a character to tell the story. We have been working on adding details to our illustrations and adding words to our work. Sight words have been used frequently to help construct sentences in our writing. In January we will start using weekly writing folders that will come home with your child! Keep an eye out for this soon!
Math Workshop:
We have been SUPER busy in Math Workshop, focusing in on counting numbers and learning about shapes! We have been sorting shapes by features, finding shapes in advertisements and making shape collages, working with magnetic shapes on the white board, working with pattern block shapes to make tangrams and more! We are working on: circle, triangle, square, and rectangle currently! We have been practicing writing our numbers up to 100 and did our blank hundreds grid for December. We have also just begun looking at clocks and telling time to the nearest hour! Please work on your Unit 2 home links and return them either prior or after break. It is important that you do these activities together, but not rushed in one night!
Important Upcoming INFO:
Friday, December 18: Begin building Gingerbread Houses - we need all donations of graham crackers by Friday - thank you!!
Monday, December 21: Decorate Gingerbread Houses with reading buddies - we need all decorations by Monday am - thank you!!
Tuesday, December 22: 2:30pm: All School Sing Along in the Old Gym (parents are welcome, expect a crowd in the parking lot and signing into the school) followed by our classroom party (Polar Express Trip) in our room at 3:00pm.
It has been AWHILE!! We have been so busy having SO much fun in Kindergarten these last few weeks!!! There is lots to share and lots to tell...
Reader's Workshop:
Guided Reading Groups have started in our classroom over the last few weeks! Everyone is in a group and the groups meet either M/W/FR or T/TH. I will do my best to meet with each group every day although some days will be easier than others with loads of special events coming up in this month of December. Please keep an eye out for your child's book bag coming home. It does not need to be returned daily and it would be wonderful to spend a couple of nights reading these books or doing the letter/sound activity cards your child is bringing home. Remember, we encourage everyone to take 20 mins of time a day to read with your child. My own son Liam LOVES the time we spend each night reading with him... and often times if we skip over one of his favorite books, he has a fit! Thank you for signing the forms that come home in the book bags as well!
In Workshop we have been spending the last week learning how to read with a partner! Everyone has an assigned partner or two who is reading exactly like them, at the same level. Most are in reading groups together as well. With partners we have been learning how to sit together, how to share the book, how to take turns picking the book and how to take turns reading the pages. We practice with our familiar book and look for known words in more complicated texts. The kids LOVE reading around the room with their partner.
Sight Words - our list is growing!! Please make sure you are spending time with these words at home to reinforce the work we are doing at school with these words. Our list includes: see, the, a, is, I, it, like, can, to, go, be, me, do. Be sure to practice writing and reading these words at home with your son or daughter! Flash cards, white boards, even shaving cream on a clean surface are a great way to practice writing all of our words!
Writer's Workshop:
In Writer's Workshop we have been working on writing like a reader! We have been learning about characters and using a character to tell the story. We have been working on adding details to our illustrations and adding words to our work. Sight words have been used frequently to help construct sentences in our writing. In January we will start using weekly writing folders that will come home with your child! Keep an eye out for this soon!
Math Workshop:
We have been SUPER busy in Math Workshop, focusing in on counting numbers and learning about shapes! We have been sorting shapes by features, finding shapes in advertisements and making shape collages, working with magnetic shapes on the white board, working with pattern block shapes to make tangrams and more! We are working on: circle, triangle, square, and rectangle currently! We have been practicing writing our numbers up to 100 and did our blank hundreds grid for December. We have also just begun looking at clocks and telling time to the nearest hour! Please work on your Unit 2 home links and return them either prior or after break. It is important that you do these activities together, but not rushed in one night!
Important Upcoming INFO:
Friday, December 18: Begin building Gingerbread Houses - we need all donations of graham crackers by Friday - thank you!!
Monday, December 21: Decorate Gingerbread Houses with reading buddies - we need all decorations by Monday am - thank you!!
Tuesday, December 22: 2:30pm: All School Sing Along in the Old Gym (parents are welcome, expect a crowd in the parking lot and signing into the school) followed by our classroom party (Polar Express Trip) in our room at 3:00pm.
Friday, November 6, 2015
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
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 16, 2015
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.
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.
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