Friday, September 27th

 Wow are we rocking and rolling in Kindergarten!! We are learning our routines and following our daily schedule so well! We are learning how to walk in the hallways and how to open containers at lunch! We are having fun decorating our room for Fall and have been enjoying these warm sunny days out on our Kindergarten playground! It has been an awesome 21 days in Kindergarten so far!!

We ARE super excited for our Color Run today and appreciate ALL that you have done to help make today possible!! :-)

Phonics

In Phonics we continue to play with our names! We have been having a "Star of the Day" each day and have been studying what we notice about each name (looking for letters we also have in our own names, counting the number of letters, noticing if there are any double letters and then cheering for each letter of the name! We then do a shared writing where we find out our Star Child's favorite: food, color and thing to do! We have some very interesting favorite foods - crab legs, frog legs, Lunchables... I love it! We have also spent time working on letter formation. This is a HUGE deal in Kindergarten (think: Top to bottom, left to right). Please continue to help your child write their letters at home and notice print around them too!

Readers' Workshop

In Readers' Workshop we have been learning to be "StoryBook Readers!" We have taken time to learn about:

-How to approach a book - looking at the front cover first, how to go from front to back, top to bottom, on each page and how to notice the pictures to see if they could match the words

-Mentor Texts: "The Three Billy Goats Gruff", "Max and the Tag Along Moon", "Big Mooncake and Little Star" and "Caps for Sale"

-Routines for independent reading (how to set ourselves up to read successfully)

-Routines for partner reading (how we sit side by side, one book in the middle, and take turns "telling" the story)

Writers' Workshop

Our young writers are busy, busy, busy! They are learning to draw about stories they want to tell and a few are even attempting to add letters and words (YAY!!) We continue to brainstorm ideas about what writers' do and why writers' have stories to tell... and boy do your kids have stories to tell! I continue to encourage them NOT to worry about spelling and to just put the letters they think down if the sound matches the picture! 

Math Workshop

Numbers are EVERYWHERE! We continue working with numbers daily! The goal is to have all kids fluently counting to 30 (if not higher) and able to recognize these numbers out of order.  We have been noticing numbers around the school, we have been noticing numbers in our books and have even begun writing our own number books where we practice writing numbers and drawing a picture to match the number.

Literacy Stations

Literacy Stations were launched this week and have been incredible! The kids are engaged in 8 different literacy stations with a partner or two and spend about 15 minutes at each rotation. Two of the rotations see me and we have been diligently working on their iReady Reading Diagnostics.

Welcome to Kindergarten!!

 

Wow!! We have had two AMAZING weeks in Kindergarten!! I love to use this blog page to show off all of our activities, learnings, fun and give important updates to parents! Please know that I LOVE to use pictures on our blog. If you would prefer for your child NOT to be featured in pictures on our blog page, you need to let me know ASAP. I try to post two blogs a month. I will post again in two weeks and have SO many fun pictures of the Weckies!

Thank you for ALL of your help in getting your child to and from school! They are coming in each morning excited to learn and that's all thanks to your hard work at home! We still have a few kids confused daily about: if they can get school breakfast (it's free so I always say "sure"), if they are getting hot lunch or packed a lunch, and what truly is their snack verses their lunch. Please continue to discuss this with your children at home!

They are doing an AWESOME job of remembering to bring their yellow everyday folders to and from school. Normally there will not be a ton in their folders daily - we are just really busy getting organized right now, so I feel like a lot has been coming home! I do also try to check daily for any communications you may have written on the front of their folders. If it is something urgent, feel free to jot me an email instead.

Phonics

Names, names and more names! The past two weeks we have been playing with our names! We read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!  and did several activities with the tree and our names! We were introduced to our phonics mascot, Mabel, the elephant this week. We spent time learning about the letter "m", brainstorming words that started with an "m" and even looked for kids in our class with names that began with an "M"! Then we took time to start learning each others names through a simple sentence activity. ("My name is _____) and each child has gotten to come write on the giant chart paper, their name! We're about halfway and will continue with more names next week! We also did a fun pencil craft to help us count the letters in our names (and practice following detailed directions). They did so great!!

Readers' Workshop

In Readers' Workshop we launched our workshop this week! We did a fun opening activity to relate to our learning target of "We can read the world" by practicing reading environmental print! The majority began the lesson saying they could not read. Once I started putting things up on the screen like logos for: Target, Walmart, Pepsi, Nike, Amazon, Netflix, Disney, Rice Krispies, Kit Kat, Snickers, etc. they were shouting out the names fast and realized quickly that they CAN in fact read! Reading environmental print is the most amazing way to help build their esteem of their abilities to recognize and read familiar words! Students then had time to read our classroom looking for things they could identify like: books, sink, doninoes, happy birthday, etc.. We spent time with a new book called, Fur, Feather, Fin - All of us are Kin and learned about how we are all alike and all "kin". This was a cool vocabulary word to also start using with the kids. We talked about the beginning of books, the middle and the endings as we build our concepts about print. We have also read SO many other great Kindergarten books! We are loving to hear stories!

Writers' Workshop

We launched our workshop this week with an "on-demand" narrative piece! The kids were given the task of drawing a picture about a time that they did something. We brainstormed all kinds of ideas before they got to drawing. They were even encouraged to add labels or words if they were able. Mrs. Weckstein then dictated a sentence or two for them about their pictures. It will be incredible to compare these September 5 pictures to a story they'll write come June!!

Math Workshop

In Math we have been doing all sorts of fun learning things! We start with a calendar routine daily to practice our days of the week, months of the year, notice the weather and count the days of school! We have also been practicing counting to 100 already! I wanted to stop at 20 but the Weckies said they could go HIGHER! I wanted to stop at 30 but they again said: HIGHER! Phew! We finally stopped at 100 :-). We also did a partner match activity with colored strips of paper practicing using words like: shorter and longer.

Important Dates

*Tuesday, September 10th- Curriculum Night for Kindergarten @ Dublin in our Room K-2 6:00-6:30pm (please just adults only) If you are unable to attend, please let me know by Tuesday morning! This helps for planning purposes.

*Friday, September 13th - Homecoming at WLN - The parade starts at 5pm and ALL WLN elementary school students are invited to participate!

*Tuesday, September 24th - 1/2 Day of School