We have been having the BEST time EVER in Kindergarten this year!! I am loving getting to know each child's unique personality, watching new friendships form, leaders emerge, shy students coming out of shells and spending my days with your kids. This is a high-energy, high-curiosity group of Weckies and they are AWESOME!!Thank you to everyone who came to Curriculum Night. We were excited by the great turn out and hope you enjoyed learning all about what we will be teaching your child this year at Dublin! Notes from Curriculum Night have been sent out electronically (like the classroom sign up) and in paper form, the little Remind 101 card as well as our Classroom Routines (on day 1). Thank you to everyone who has signed up for Remind 101. If you have not done so yet, you can simply send a text to 81010 and text the message @weckie and you'll be all set! We do use this handy service frequently in Kindergarten so you will want to make sure you are signed up to get reminders and news from our classroom.
Reader's Workshop
We have excitedly launched our Reader's Workshop over the course of the past two weeks. We began by talking about stamina, how long we can do something and have built our classroom stamina for independent reading from 3 minutes all the way to 8 minutes today. This includes reading text, finding letters we know in our books, examining the pictures, etc. We have learned how to be "Respectful Readers" and how to "Get Ready to Read"! We have spent time reading books about reading like: Read All About It, A Bear Ate It!, Wild About Books, The Best Place to Read and more to come! We are eager to be readers! The kids were excited to get their first sight word book as we focused on the word: see. Each week in Workshop we will focus on a new word, teaching many basic sight words. We read a book about the sight word, write a poem and do several hands on activities throughout the week to re-emphasize the sounds and spelling of the word. We will probably keep our familiar books from home at school a couple more weeks.
Writer's Workshop
We have also launched our Writer's Workshop this week! Daily we work on letter formation on white boards with dry erase markers after lunch. Now we are working on our launch unit with the motto: Think, Draw, Write! The kids are thinking about a story they want to tell on paper (typically a true story), drawing a picture and then if able, writing a letter or a few words about the picture. Over the course of the unit we will talk about Writing Stamina, talk about different kinds of writing paper and tools, talk about Writer Respect and how to stretch out our stories across more pages! This group of kids is very excited about telling their stories - it's wonderful in our room during Writer's Workshop!
Math Workshop
We have launched our Math Workshop this week with lots of COUNTING activities, books, games, songs, raps and more!! We have been reading books about counting, practiced counting objects, built puzzles that involve counting numbers and more. The first unit took us on a Number Walk through Dublin where we recorded the numbers we found all around Dublin - it was great! We even made it all the way up to fifth grade to find numbers and visited our secretaries in the office for more numbers. Next week a Math Homelink packet will come home. I know there is GREAT debate about homework in schools and what the research says and I'll be honest, I'm very torn! This being said, when HomeLinks come home please know that they are optional. They will reinforce the lessons we have done in school and can make for some fun family games at home. You can send them back with descriptions of what you did in each activity and I'm glad to read through, make comments and compliments, etc. but they are not mandatory or required to be completed.Important Date:
It's PICTURE DAY on Monday and we have the very first time slot!! Our picture time is 9:15am. If you plan to order, please complete your order form and make sure to send it with your child first thing on Monday morning. Thank you so much :-).
More fun in 204...
