Happy October 1st! :-)

It has been another fantastic week in Kindergarten! We had a lot of “firsts” this week in Room 301. The pictures below show our first day of workstations!

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Reading: This week we read a new big book, “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed”. We learned the song and practiced the words by re-reading the book. We even used this book to help us practice our counting for math! We also spent time on a new little book, “The Apple Tree”.  First students listened to the book in a read aloud format and then we went back through the book and practiced reading the words together. Students took this little book to their Reader’s Workshop book drawers where they are keeping it for more practice during Independent and Partner reading. Speaking of Reader’s Workshop, we started Reader’s Workshop this week! Each child has their own book drawer where they are keeping the little books that we have made so that they can practice reading them (in the sense of recognizing letters, words, sentence patterns, etc.) As we build our collection of little books at school, look for more books to come home to be practiced more. Your child can even put these books on their October book log!

Writing: This week we also launched our Writer’s Workshop! Our writers each received a yellow folder where they are collecting their drawing pieces. The program we use begins by helping our children to develop strong oral language to retell a story. Students spent time this week sharing stories with the class… we heard lots about fun family vacations, things our pets at home do, funny stories from pre-school and more! Then the children have a chance to work on a detailed drawing of a story on special paper. We have spent time learning how to add details to our drawings. We have some very detailed illustrators in our room! By establishing solid drawings with details, we are laying the foundation for our students to transition soon to adding labels to pictures, words and eventually sentences to tell the story of their illustration.

Math: This week we have focused on numbers. Numbers on our calendar, numbers counting the days of school (today is day #18), counting the number of teeth we have lost this year, counting the letters in the names of our classmates and counting shapes in our new shape books. Each child has been working on a special counting book that not only uses numbers to count but also shapes! These books are looking great and will be a wonderful addition to your family library at home soon.

Important Announcements: Snack Leaders for next week include: Monday: Robby L; Tuesday: Nick M.; Wednesday: Carly M.; Ava M.


We are also collecting Box Tops for Education and Campbell Soup Labels in Room 301! If you have these at home on food, kleenex, zip loc bags, soups, etc. please send them in with your child. We have yearly contests at Dublin to see which class can collect the most. Be sure to check with cousins, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, etc.! Let's see if Room 301 can collect the most!

P.S. If you want to check out something neat, go to: http://www.classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=118873 . This link will take you to the Student Blog that I have kept with fourth graders, second graders, and soon, YOUR kindergartners! Yes, that's right! Your kids will be blogging this year and have their own pages. You can scroll down the link to the Room 301 blog and see what my we were up to in the past years!