Friday, January 7th

Happy New Year and Welcome Back to School!

It has been a VERY productive week in Room 301 as we have gotten back into the routine of school! I hope that everyone enjoyed their two weeks off (or perhaps it was two weeks "on" with your kids at home). It has also been a VERY cold week outside at Dublin. Please make sure that your child has snow pants, boots, gloves and a hat to wear outside daily with their coat. Even when there is not snow on the ground, these warm clothes will help protect them against the wind. Many of the kids without warm clothes have been complaining this week about “freezing” outside.


Reader’s Workshop – This week in Reader’s Workshop we started a new mini-book that features the lyrics to the “Pledge of Allegiance”. This tied in perfectly with our Social Studies lessons this week as we have been learning about the American Flag! We also started working out of our Poetry folders this week, practicing poems we have been learning all year to help build fluency in our oral language. Over the course of this past week and next week I will be conducting Reading and Language Assessments with each child. Look for new reading groups to start after the MLK Jr. holiday break!


Writer’s Workshop – This week in Workshop the kids began keeping their very own Word Wall within their folders. We have been working on five new sight words this week: I, a, in, the and my. Each has been placed on the big Word Wall in our classroom and the small Word Wall in the kids’ folders. These are five words that the kids are now being held accountable for in their writing, reading and spelling. Next week look for a packet of writing to come home with your child. This is a collection of stories they have created in the first few months of Writer’s Workshop.


Math – This week in Math we have done a couple of different things. We have been working on writing our numbers in a Numbers Book as well as working on counting items using stickers within the Numbers Books.


Social Studies - In Social Studies this week we talked first about the flag. Be sure to ask your child how many stars are on the flag today and challenge them to see if they can remember how many stripes are on the flag (13). We also spent time talking about rules and why rules are important to us. The kids brainstormed a giant list of rules which will lead nicely into a class project we will be working on next week to help keep our classroom safe (as rules help us to do this)!


NEXT WEEK we will begin a unit on Colors! Please use the schedule below to help your child wear something in the color listed on each day.


Monday = Red


Tuesday = Yellow


Wednesday = Green


Thursday = Blue


No need to buy new clothes – just try to find something that your child can wear on each of the days!


Snack Leaders: Monday = Thomas, Tuesday = Lily, Wednesday = Benjamin, and Thursday = Kasey


**Remember there is NO school on Friday, January 15 (Teacher Records Day) and Monday, January 18 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Observance).


Have a wonderful weekend – Stay warm! :-) Mrs. W.

Friday, December 10th

Run, run as fast as you can,

You can’t catch me,
I’m the gingerbread man!!

If you haven’t heard the news… there has been a “Cookie Alert” out in the halls of Dublin for 21 missing gingerbread ornaments!! After all of our kids helped measure the ingredients, mix the dough, roll the dough and cut our ornaments, we placed 21 men into the ovens in the Teacher’s Lounge. We checked on them 5 times in 3 hours.Each time they were resting comfortably in the oven. When we returned at 3:00pm to take them out (three hours later) they had VANISHED! They left us a note and candy canes. We need your help! Please make sure to check your child’s backpack, lunch box, etc. for the missing gingerbread men. Your child will be thrilled to help search! Our first clue led us to Mrs. Entwhistle in the library today but they cookies were not there. Instead they left us chocolate and another clue. They asked that we look for them on Monday in the office. The mystery continues Monday…
Reader’s Workshop: This week workshop had a holiday theme to it! Students had two new books, one with a gingerbread many story (no surprise there) and one with a Christmas tree. Our students enjoyed learning the words to these two stories and had time to practice reading them with their Reading Partners.


Writer’s Workshop: This week in workshop we talked about the three steps a writer has to do to write a small moment. First, we picture a time something happened to us in our head. Then, we sketch a picture and third, we write down the words to describe our story. Our writers are getting better and better and listening for sounds in the words that they want to write and attempting to write words!


Math: This week in math we learned how to use a ruler!! Our students have been eagerly measuring things around the room using special caterpillar rulers. Next week they’ll learn how to measure, with candy canes!


Important Info: If you have not yet sent in a wrapped book for our gift exchange for the party, please do so ASAP. These need to be turned in soon so that I can make arrangements if someone does not have a book to donate.
Friday, December 17th: AM – All School Sing-Along (time TBD); 2:40-4:00pm – Classroom Holiday Party

Next Week’s Snack Leader: Monday: Skylar; Tuesday: Geneva; Wednesday: Gabby; Thursday: Emma; Friday: Hannah

Friday, December 3rd

It’s been another fantastic week in Room 301! We have transitioned from turkey projects right into holiday projects…

Reader’s Workshop: This week in workshop guided reading groups did not meet! Instead I have spent time this week in conferences with the kids talking to them one on one about their reading. Introducing the kids to conferences is the final piece of our Reader’s Workshop (Mini-Lesson, Independent Reading, Partner Reading, and Share are the four other parts). Next week we’ll have both conferences and reading groups running simultaneously! If you have not yet done so, please return your November Reading Log to school.

Writer’s Workshop: This has been a good week in Workshop as we have been practicing telling the story of one small moment. There has been some hesitation by many of the kids towards writing because they  “can’t spell the words” as they say. I have really been encouraging them to put down the letters they hear in the sounds of the words while also showing them patterns in words they can spell. We took a look this week at the –at chunk at the end of words. The kids were amazed that because many can spell “cat” they can also spell: sat, rat, mat, bat and hat!

Math: This week we have done work with counting (writing out the numbers up to 30) as well as learning how to measure objects. The kids were thrilled to take rulers around the classroom and see how long different objects were! We will continue this exploration next week, as we use a special holiday object (it’s top secret) to measure things in our classroom.

Important Dates:

Monday, December 6^th: 4:00pm – Parent Meeting to plan our classroom Holiday Party

Friday, December 17^th: 2:40-3:40pm – Classroom Holiday Party

Upcoming Snack Leaders:

Monday: Kaylee; Tuesday: Mason; Wednesday: Evan; Thursday: Alycia; Friday: Nolan

Friday, November 19th

It has been a turkey-riffic week in Kindergarten! We are getting very excited for our big Pow-Wow on Wednesday, November 24th! Our Pow-Wow will begin at 9:15am in the Old Gym. Parents are welcome to come and enjoy our celebration with us. If you have not yet sent in your child's tunic for the celebration, they are DUE on Monday, November 22nd! We need time to paint and feather them before Wednesday!!

While our morning will be consumed with the Pow-Wow, our afternoon will feature a P.J. & Movie Party! Please look for a bright pink note in the front of your child’s folder explaining the celebration we will be having Wednesday afternoon!


Reader’s Workshop: This week our students have been working on a couple of different things. While guided reading groups are meeting with Mrs. Weckstein, our students are either: a) reading independently at their seats or b) reading with a partner. This week we have discussed and practiced this routine nearly every day as it is still tricky for the kids to remain at their seats or in their spots around the room with a partner while Mrs. Weckstein is working with groups.


Writer’s Workshop: This week we began our Small Moments Unit. Students have been introduced to Vera B. Williams’ book, A Chair for My Mother, as one of our Mentor Texts for the unit. This unit we will spend time increasing our writing stamina as we learn to become authors of our own small stories. Using an excerpt from Williams’ book, we were able to zoom in on a tragedy that happens to the family, a house fire, and talk about how Williams told us the small story of this moment in time. Our authors seemed very eager and excited to write a story as well as to have the time to share their story up on the SmartBoard!


Math:This week in math we have done a few different things! We have learned about the words: shorter and taller. We read a book called Where’s My Teddy by Jez Alborough and talked about the size of the teddy Freddie, compared to the size of the boy, Eddie. We did a sort up on the SmartBoard where the kids had to compare common objects to a large teddy bear icon. We also talked about numbers this week and how numbers are everywhere in the world! To prove this point, we set out with clipboards, paper and a pencil, and went and explored the hallways of Dublin. We found several numbers as we traveled down the hallway, up into the old building, into Mrs. Vackaro’s 4th grade room and then eventually up the stairs and to the top of the old building, into the fifth grade hallway! The kids were AMAZED with how many numbers we saw, and exhausted after our hour long trek!


Important Announcements:


Snack Leader’s: Monday: Lily P.; Tuesday: Benjamin P.; Wednesday: Kasey T.


Have a fantastic weekend…. Stay warm!!


Mrs. W.

Friday, November 12th

A BIG thank you to everyone who came to Parent-Teacher Conferences yesterday! Conferences are a great time to sit down and reflect on the first 10 weeks of school and celebrate all of the success our kids have had in Kindergarten thus far. I hope that you found the folder of ideas both informative and helpful.



Reader’s Workshop: Guided Reading Groups began this week in Reader’s Workshop. Each group is comprised of 3-5 like-ability readers. With many of our kids being at a similar level, the groups have also been structured to help students who have similar abilities (one-to-one matching of words, recognition of sight words, etc.) develop further. Please look for a colored “book bag” to come home many times during the week. There is info inside the bag telling you when the bag needs to be returned. Please make sure to return these prior or on the due date!


Writer’s Workshop: This week we spent more time stretching out the sounds that letters make within a word so that we can begin to write more words with our story illustrations. It has been impressive to see the growth in all of our writers and boy do they LOVE Writer’s Workshop!


Math: This week in math we have been working on skip counting. We introduced the concept of counting by two by using the days on our calendar. We have also been counting by 10s and are going to start counting by 5s next week! We will also begin doing some measuring next week.


Important News: Snack Leaders: Monday: Nick; Tuesday: Carly; Wednesday: Ava; Thursday: Thomas.


*As you may have heard, our kids have filled the “Big Catch”! I am still deciding on a date for this party, either next Friday, the 19th or Wednesday afternoon on the 24th. I will let you know as soon as I have info!


*Just a reminder to please begin sending in your child’s outfit for the Pow Wow on the morning of Wednesday, November 24th.

November 5, 2010

It has been a busy, busy week in Room 301!

Reading: This week we practiced talking about books with our partners! We have been learning to tell about our favorite part of a book. The kids have enjoyed reading a book one time through to learn the story and then re-reading the book to pick out their favorite parts. Mrs. W. finished assessments this week for reading levels and is eager to begin Guided Reading Groups next week. Please look for a colored “book bag” to come home with your child. There will be instructions in the bag for reading activities at home. It will also tell you inside when the bag needs to be returned to school for our next group meeting day!

Writing & Word Study: This week students have been learning to put words down after illustrating a picture. We have been practicing writing a story to go with our illustrations. We have looked at photos and made up stories about the photos to help us warm-up our minds for writing stories down in our Writing folders. To help build our letter-sound associations, we spent time doing an activity where we had to trace the letters of our name and put small punched out shapes on top of the letters. We also had a workstation where the kids used play dough or stamps to make letters and put them into words.

Math: This week we have done all sorts of things with math! Our calendar on the Smartboard has taught us about using unifix cubes to count. We have been working with cubes (each cube represents 1) and longs (each long represents 10 and is made of 10 cubes). We have tried counting different numbers and have been using these longs and cubes to count the days of school. Today was our 41st day of Kindergarten!

Important Announcements: Snack Leaders for next week include: Monday: Gabby; Tuesday: Emma; Wednesday: Hannah; Thursday: NO SCHOOL; Friday: Robby


**Please remember to return ALL October Reading Logs to school!!**


Important Upcoming Dates: (Make sure to set your clock back on Saturday night!!)


*Wednesday, November 10th – 9:30am “Buster the Bus” Bus Safety Assembly
*Wednesday, November 10th – 1:00-3:00pm Picture Retakes
*Thursday, November 11th – Parent/Teacher Conferences at Dublin
*Friday, November 12th – Spirit Day at Dublin – Hat Day

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! We are currently in 4th place of all of the classes at Dublin with 156 box tops turned in!


Have a fabulous weekend!! :-) Jen W.

Monday, November 1st

We had a spooktacular week last week in Room 301! A special thank you goes out to all of our Party Planner Extraordinaire Parents; Room 301’s party was one of the best around! It was fantastic to see everyone out on the parade route and at our party on Friday afternoon. Look for pictures to be posted onto the blog soon from our Halloween celebrations!

Reader’s Workshop In Reader’s Workshop this week we worked on our “D” and “E” books. Students have been practicing reading with their partners. We have really spent a lot of time modeling and practicing sitting “side by side” with the book in the “middle”. We’ve brainstormed ways the kids can share the job of picking the first book as well as topics partners can discuss with one another. Please make sure that you have sent in your Reading Log from October as new logs for November will come home on Wednesday!

Writer’s Workshop: This week we did our writing assessment. Each child was asked to draw a picture of a real or imaginary story that had to have an animal in it. We had some pretty creative illustrations! Then each child had to write a few words about their story. For some this was a very hard task (despite that many forget that they do know letters and their sounds) and simply have to put the sounds down to form the words. Please know that this is something we will be practicing ALL year long! I reinforced with many of the students the idea of simply putting down the beginning sound to each word and found that many instantly gained confidence in their writing abilities.

Math: In math this week we did many different counting activities. Our goal for the first quarter is for all students to be counting to 30 and many are well on their way past 30! We spend time daily counting different things in the room (calendar, days of school, kids in our class, etc.) and its becoming easier and easier for most of our kids to count this high.

Important Reminders: October Reading Logs need to be returned by Friday, November 5^th for your child to qualify for a special surprise. Please make sure you have returned your log to school. If you have lost your log but are certain your child has been read to, or been reading to you nightly, please feel free to drop me a note or an email.

Snack Leader’s for the week include: Monday: Skylar, Tuesday : NO SCHOOL, Wednesday: Narek, Thursdsay: Mrs. Weckstein, Friday: Geneva

Please remember there is no school on  Tuesday, November 2^nd due to Election Day. We simply do not want the kids in the building on the days the general public are all over the building for voting purposes!