Friday, September 18th

 Hello Weckie Parents!

 Welcome to our space in blog-land!! We have been SO super busy in Kindergarten making new friends, learning about our friends, learning our new routines and rules, playing and more!! Please read the blog below to learn and see all about our new learning!

Phonics/UFLI

In UFLI we have been taking time to learn all about letter sounds and the different ways we use our mouth, teeth, tongue and even our nose to make these sounds! Different sounds make you do different things with your teeth, tongue, mouth and nose. Some sounds we are learning, do not even use our voices! We have talked about "stop sounds" and "nose sounds". Additionally we have been doing "sky writing" where we use our arms and "magical finger" to practice talking about letters and how they can use lines and curves to make the letter formation. This is HUGE right now in Kindergarten, reminding our writers to go from "top to bottom, left to right" when forming letters. 

In our Units of Study Phonics we have been learning to about the letters in our name and in our class mascot, Mabel's name! We have been creating "get to know you" posters each day for a new star student, we have been playing with name puzzles and we have been practicing our handwriting on our white boards. On the side we have also been working our way through a mini-book that is teaching us how to write upper and lowercase letters as well as reviewing the letter sounds. We are almost done with this 26 page book!

"Alphardy" Phonics Song

We sing the song above daily to help reinforce learning all of our lower case and upper case letters and their sounds. My lofty goal is to have these mastered by all students by December! Please play this song at home too and help your child with the sounds and see if they can teach you the hand motions. :-)

Readers' Workshop

We have launched our Readers' Workshop! Mini lesson topics have included:

*Reading books to learn about the world (we read Fur, Feather, Fins: We Are All Kin and Packs: Strength in Numbers) to model how we can learn from our books

*Learning how books work (front cover, back cover, back blurb, title, title page, reading from right to left, top to bottom)

*Learning how readers can go back and re-read to get more information or learn something new from a familiar book

*Learning how to read by ourselves and ignoring distractions around the room

Thank you to ALL who have sent in baggies of books for your kiddo to look at! We will be using those starting on Monday. Currently the kids have been using baskets made up of a variety of familiar books from our classroom library.

Writers' Workshop

In Writers' Workshop we have launched our workshop and have been learning all about the routines and rituals of Writers' Workshop. We have learned about using our writing folders as a tool to help us to stay organized and to use the ABC chart inside for help with our letters. We have been using shapes and lines to help us draw illustrations and we have talked about using the right colors when we are coloring our illustrations.

Math Workshop

Counting, counting, counting! We have been counting everything in math! We are currently working with counting from 1 to 20 and have learned a few games to help us practice our counting. We have talked about our birthdays and have been reviewing the months of the year as well as the days of the week. To do this, here are two great songs you can review at home with your Weckie:

Days of the Week Song 

Months of the Year 

Upcoming Important Dates:

**No school on Monday, September 21st

**PTA Stargazing Event on September 24th at Walled Lake OEC (Check Dublin PTA Facebook for more info OR Dublin Times from Mrs. Karban :-))

Pics from around the room:

Friday, March 20th

 Well whoops!! I guess we have just been SO super busy in Kindergarten that I've put the Blog aside for a bit!! So here we are, it's March, these kids are doing AMAZING things and we are LOVING having so many fun Mystery Readers this month!!

Phonics

In Phonics we have been spending all of our time lately playing with the short vowels of a, e, i, o and u! We have a favorite song that we listen to often to help us to remember the short vowel songs. Short Vowels Song <-- Be sure to check it out and have your Weckie sing it with you! We have been using the vowel sounds to help us write CVC words (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. Then we have taken our knowledge of the short vowel sounds and consonant sounds to put them together to make many words and even short sentences!

Readers' Workshop

In Readers' Workshop this unit, we have been focusing in on boosting our "Super Reader Powers"! We have been studying the pictures in books to look for clues about the characters, the setting and the text on the page. We have learned how to change our thinking about a character as characters change across the pages of a story. We have also used the illustrations to help us do some envisioning, or making a movie in our minds about what we are reading. Reading groups continue to meet daily and I am seeing such great progress! Remember to use Literacy Footprints, the digital ereader, at home too with your child! You can easily access this on Classlink! 

Writers' Workshop

We are now writing about true stories in Writers' Workshop... a time when something happened! I told the kids in my story all about Liam, my oldest, winning a 55" tv over February Break in a contest at Zap Zone! Several have been working on great stories from vacations, camping trips, Grandma's house and more! We are remembering to spread our stories out across three pages, not telling the whole story on one page. We are also working on carefully inserting those short vowels into our words now that we know their important sounds!

Mathematics

In Math we have been playing a LOT with the tricky teens! We have been working on writing on number grids up to 100. We have been practicing learning to solve number stories and to make combinations of ten. We are also working now on fine tuning our counting skills when counting by 2s! I'm so amazed at how well they are counting by 1s, 5s and 10s in our class!

Science

We have just begun our unit on Air and Weather! We have been looking at great mentor texts to learn all of the new vocabulary. We have gone outside to check the temperature on thermometers and have our own rain gauge out there measuring the precipitation that is falling! We even made wind catchers so we can take them out to measure the windspeed!

Important Dates Coming Up:

Monday, March 23: Rock your Funky Mismatched Socks for World Down Syndrome Day

Tuesday, March 24: Wear your favorite color from head to toe

Wednesday, March 25: Wear your favorite sports team jersey/shirt

Thursday, March 26: Dress in Purple Day for Epilepsy Awareness

Friday, March 27: Pajama Read In Day (PJS, a blanket, a pillow and books from home can all come in- no stuffies please)

Friday, October 10th

 Hello Weckie Families!! What fun we have been having these last few weeks in Kindergarten!! We had a BLAST at the Color Run today and were all smiles as we came back into the school covered in a variety of colors! Thank you to all who have donated - as a class we have collected $2,960! Thank you to all who came this morning! If you were unable to come, please check our @weckies2025 Instagram account for a collection of photos and videos! (I missed my own daughter’s Fun Run this morning and seeing all of the pictures sure does help!) We celebrated our amazing fundraising with our Movie Party this afternoon! The Weckies enjoyed A LOT of popcorn (with Kettle Corn or White Cheddar flavoring added if wanted) and juice boxes! 

Phonics

In Phonics we have been doing all kinds of activities with learning our letters, letter sounds and how to spell our first few SNAP words! We have made name puzzles, we have practiced finding words inside of some of our names, we have studied names counting their letters, naming their letters, clapping the syllables and more! We have focused on these SNAP words: a, I, see, the and like. Please review these words at home! You can also have your Weckie practice this song at home and teach you the motions as we learn all of our letter sounds! https://youtu.be/MTeUONxZYAs?si=BgbnaiuytkK8PzeW

Our next unit is all about being letter and word scientists! We have begun by comparing different ABC charts (you may have noticed one that came home - hang onto that to reference when helping learn how to spell/read new words!)

Readers’ Workshop

All Weckies have been placed into small groups for guided reading instruction and groups have been meeting now for about two weeks! Some groups are focusing on mastering all of our uppercase and lowercase letters, some groups are focusing on learning the letter sounds and other groups are learning all about reading new books and what good readers do with new books! It has been an exciting time for sure! Partners have also been working on being great supports to one another during partner reading time. I gave out a record number of shamrocks this week catching students being good readers! We have finished our look at “Being Readers” in our unit and have gathered six strategies we can use to do our best reading work!

Writers’ Workshop

Our young writers’ have been doing amazing work. They have been learning to use their ABC charts to help spell new words and stretch out the sounds that they hear. This can be REALLY hard and often requires bravery and patience! We have talked this week about how we have to have patience as we learn to spell new words and that by me just spelling it for them, they never actually learn to problem solve and figure out the words. We will be moving into a book making bend in our unit next week where we’ll discuss putting different parts of a story together page by page!

Mathematics 

Our young mathematicians have been busy learning about: counting to 10 using dot patterns, identifying shapes like squares, triangles, circles and rectangles, counting by 10s, counting by 5s and learning to solve number story problems. We have played games like: Dot Concentration, Top-It with dot cards and Pocket Problems. Thank you to ALL who sent in magazines for our shape collages - they turned out great!!

 

Saturday, September 20th

 Hello Weckie Fams!!

Welcome to our Classroom Blog!! I have tried REALLY hard to use the blog each year and promise to try hard to use it once more this year to keep you up to date in all of the comings and goings in Kindergarten!!

Boy have we been busy these first 18 days of school... having fun learning, growing, playing and laughing together as a class and like I say, as a school family. I am 100% convinced we have the BEST kindergarten class at Dublin and I tell the Weckies this daily. 

Please be sure to follow our Instagram @weckies2025 for more pictures of your kids... almost daily, being posted!!

*Also, please make sure you have sent in a picture for our family picture board... the Weckies LOVE looking at these pictures.

Important Links:

In K we use a ton of songs to help us learn important skills like letters, sounds, counting, the days of the week and the months of the year. These are some of the songs we have been using and I'd love to hear that you are playing them at home too, to help your kiddo learn all of these important skills!

 Days of the Week

Months of the Year

Dr. Jean Alphardy *Might be the most important one here to learn*

Counting by 10s

Phonics:

In Phonics we began the year learning to "own" the letters in our names! Kids have been working on learning all of the letters in their names, counting the letters, clapping the beats and THEN teaching another child how to spell their name and identify all of the letters. The Weckies have been loving using name puzzles to teach a friend how to spell their name! Their names have each been added to the word wall as well! 

Each day we also have a Star of the Day who we learn about and slowly help Mrs. Weckstein to write about them! The Weckies have been practicing writing all letters, but specifically we have focused on the letters A to G so far - uppercase, lowercase and the sound(s) that they can make. Magnetic letters at home or a whiteboard with a marker are a great tool to use when playing with words. The "Alphardy" song above has been in HUGE in helping us to learn the proper sounds that the letters make. 

Next week we will begin learning SNAP words as the word of the week will be "see". Gradually we will build a giant list of SNAPwords that we want the kids to be able to spell, read and identify easily in print.

Our Stars of the Week this past week :-)

Readers' Workshop:

Thank you to ALL who have sent bag in the baggie of picture books for your child to keep in their book bins. If you have not done so, please do it asap! The kids love having familiar books to "read" in their bins that they can retell the stories to, recognize some of the letters and practice finding book elements like the front cover, back cover and spine. We have been getting into a routine of reading independently daily for about 10 minutes and working with partners for another 10 minutes! I have started pulling kids in small groups to get extra practice with upper case and lower case letter identification. We are striving to have ALL kids know all letters by December. We want our young readers to be able to recognize letters from the alphabet out of alphabetical order. Start asking them at home to identify letters you see out about about or even around your house! :-)

Writers' Workshop:

In Writers' Workshop we picked Table Captains who help set our tables daily to write and draw and away we went! Daily we are drawing and writing in K! Right now we are working on telling about something from our heart (something we love- a person, place or thing) by drawing about them. We are learning how to use shapes to help make our drawings more detailed and next week we'll start using our names beyond on the "name" line at the top, but as a label in our drawings to identify us! Our young writers have SO much to share - it's awesome!

Math Workshop:

In Math we have been doing all sorts of number recognition activities! We have been working with 0-5 on a five frame and have been practicing counting daily with our days of school. We are learning to count by 10s with the song above. And we have been working with shapes! Our big goal is to have ALL kids writing their numbers to 30 by the end of the year and being able to count orally to 100 by the end of the year.

Important Upcoming Dates:

*No School: September 23 for Rosh Hashana

*Dublin PTA Meeting: September 30th 7:00pm

*No School: October 2 for Yom Kippur

*Dublin Color Run: October 10th

*Dublin Spirit Wear Day (wear green): October 17th

Friday, January 31st

 Hello Weckie Families!

 I can't believe it is already the end of January... this month has FLOWN by in Kindergarten! We are now headed into a really busy time of year, so make sure to check all of the important dates below. The same dates were also sent out in an email earlier this week. Additionally, if you are not already following us on the REMIND app, please do so! This will help keep you on schedule with all of our fun :-).  Please click on the link below to join our class:

https://www.remind.com/join/weckiesk

We even had a special visit from Mr. Peace to Dublin where we learned all about kindness and always choosing to be nice!

Phonics

In Phonics we are in the midst of learning how words have super powers! When we say that they have super powers, we are talking about how so many different words can rhyme! We have spent a lot of time working on the following endings:

-at

-an

-in

-it

Be sure to ask your kiddo to come up with some words that end with each of those rimes. They should be able to name a few if not a lot! We have then taken what we have learned about these words to help us write more words on our whiteboards, in partnerships and then ultimately in our Writers' Workshop work! We also have worked with picture cards where we had to first figure out the word, and then use that to help us sort them by ending, and write the words. Hard work, but such good work! If you have a few spare minutes at night or in the car, ask your child to help you find words that rhyme! Great ones to work with beyond those four include: -ouse, -ike, -ice, -oat and -ake.

Readers' Workshop

We have successfully finished our iReady Reading Diagnostic! Yay! Please remember this is just ONE snapshot of what your child can do, but it does not show us or tell us everything. We are always just looking for growth! If your child's score did go down, please know that each diagnostic gets harder than the last, so if their score is similar to the first score, they may have still grown! If your child has qualified for an individualized reading improvement plan because they did not meet the cut score of 355 in reading (ONLY), you will be hearing from me today (Friday, January 31st). Otherwise, please look for their score papers to come home in their backpacks either Friday or Monday (depending how fast I can get them printed).  In workshop we paused the last few weeks for iReady but then picked up this week with learning how to read in a comfy spot and learning how to ignore distractions. This is something we will be working on for many, many weeks to come as we instill good reading habits in our young readers! Guided Reading Groups will be launching next week. Look for a baggie with a book to come home with your child sometime next week. It must be returned IMMEDIATELY the next day. If your child cannot return their book, no further books will be sent home. These books are not cheap to purchase as they are a part of a larger set.

Writers' Workshop

In Writers' Workshop we are REALLY getting good at writing words!! While we are expert illustrators, it has been so much fun to watch kids share their writing and realize that they can in fact write words! As we learn to put sounds together and look for word super powers in rhyming words, we are realizing just how much we can spell! Encourage your child at home to draw pictures and add words too! The more practice they have, the more confident writers they will be! We even learned how to write a letter to someone and used our writing skills to impress and thank Mr. Drewno for being such a great principal at Dublin!

Math Workshop

In Math we have been working on all sorts of things! We have been playing with the tricky teens and practicing comparing numbers that fall between 10 and 20. We have learned a game called "Monster Squeeze" that we played with partners first and then on our computers second! This has helped us to compare numbers even more to find what numbers are larger or smaller than other numbers. Today we began talking about capacity and made "Capacity Cakes". Be sure to ask your child about their yummy bonus snack today!

Important Upcoming Dates:

Wednesday, February 5 – Global Play Day (more info in the note)

Friday, February 7 – 101 Dalmatian Day – Five volunteers have been selected… a few need to make sure to return the Criminal Background Forms sent home in your child’s folders ASAP. Our helpers have all been contacted. Thank you! Please plan to be at school that day at 9:20am. Remember, black bottoms and a white top work great for Dalmatian Day. 

 

Diversity Week at Dublin…

Feb 10 – Pajama Day 

Feb 11 – Wear your favorite color

Feb 12 – Wear your favorite sports team (hats are fine)

Feb 13 – Dublin Green Swag

Feb 14 – Red/White/Pink Valentines

 

February 12-14 – Send in Valentine’s Day boxes

 

February 14 – Valentine’s Day Party – Just for the kids and 5 parent/grandparent volunteers. More info to come… look for a Sign-Up Genius for donations soon.

Have a fantastic weekend- stay warm!! :-) Mrs. Weckstein

Here's a few extra fun scenes from Room K2 ...

 (Teachers at Bingo Night)

Friday, December 5th

 WOW!! Where did November go? What a busy last few weeks it has been in K2!! We have been so busy learning, growing, playing and laughing together as a school family. I hope everyone enjoyed reading the "We Are Thankful" books that were sent home just before Thanksgiving. Those took us awhile to create and boy do we have some VERY thankful kids in our class :-).

Phonics

In Phonics we wrapped up our second unit by holding an alphabet parade! We have been doing such great work learning our letters and sounds! We are now even working on stretching out words to hear all of the different sounds in the word to help use our letter knowledge to spell words! The kids loved parading through the first grade and second grade classrooms, then on to the Junior Kindergarten classroom and finally the cafeteria to see the fifth graders and show them just how smart we are! We continue to work on our snap words including: it, is, like, at, I, a, see, the, and, can, go, he and she. Any extra practice at home reviewing these words with your kids is amazing!

Readers' Workshop

In Readers' Workshop we are wrapping up our second unit! The last few weeks we have been set up in reading partnerships and made plans for how we can read books together! We have taken time to talk about what a good partnership does and what a good partnership looks like. Readers have been earning shamrocks when caught doing good partner reading. We talked about how we have partners so we can help each other out with tricky words, recognizing snap words, and how we can talk about the books we read together. While this takes a lot of practice, it has also been a lot of fun!

Readers' celebrating their "Key to Reading" the world!

Writers' Workshop

We are well on our way in our third unit of Writers' Workshop. This unit is where we write about favorite objects or places and practice labeling their parts and using words in our work! There's been such a strong emphasis on drawing, that this makes for a fun shift where they can apply what they have learned in Phonics and Readers' Workshop to their writing! We moved tables recently so we have new students at each table working as the Table Captain (getting our writing supplies ready) and the Table Setters (setting up our word charts/drawing charts) for the table. Kids have really LOVED sharing their writing on the big screen as I work my way around to each table group to confer with the writers' at that table. You have to be pretty brave to get up and share your work enlarged! We have brave writers! Here are a few who have shared :-).

Math Workshop

We just completed our third unit in Math! We have learned a some new games as of late to help us practice our counting. Games have included: Roll and Record and Monster Squeeze. We have taken time to practice writing our numbers on whiteboards and are aiming to get every child to be able to write beyond 30 by the end of the year. We are well on our way to this goal!

Upcoming Events

-Outdoor Center Field Trip - Thursday, December 19th. Remember we will NOT be back here for lunch so everyone needs to pack a lunch. 

-Holiday Party - Friday, December 20th - Afternoon - Kids will need to come in their PJs for our "trip" on the Polar Express. We will only be having our party planning parents attend this event so that we we can use different parts of the room throughout the party and keep the focus on the adventure we are taking. 

SO many more fun pics... Enjoy! :-)