ask me about thursday, January 18, 2024

What a week!  We had so much planned for this week, but didn't get the chance to do it!  Next week will be really busy for us!
Today we started with writing from personal experience.  The children were to write about what they had done over the snow days or the weekend.  Most of them chose the snow day of course!  They were so excited to write about playing in the snow.  We are working now on making sure we start sentences with a capital letter, put spaces between words, and end sentences with punctuation.  I am encouraging the children to go slow and finger stretch the words they are writing.  We are working to learn to spell more than CVC words, consonant vowel consonant, and write multiple syllable words.  To do this we are pounding out the syllables and breaking the word into parts so that we can finger stretch the parts.  
The kindergarten team was working overtime today trying to teach and get ready for a potential virtual day.  Although we were somewhat ready, we needed to get current materials together and last minute details finished.  We also needed to get the children back on the Chromebooks and practice zooming.  The children did a really great job logging in independently, most using their log-in sheet to remind themselves of their username and password.  They went to Clever and just had to go to our Zoom link and wait to be let in to the Zoom Room.  I'm really glad we practiced because there are some differences in Zoom from when we were virtual during the pandemic.  There are a lot of distractions available to the users, like tons of emojis and backgrounds.  I locked all of those so the children will not be able to use them if have to go virtual at any time.  The biggest thing I noticed was the lack of focus and listening with the Chromebook in front of them during our Zoom practice.  We will continue to work on listening in general, but also in focusing instead of thinking of the Chromebook as a toy and the websites as playgrounds.  We will talk about the Chromebook being a tool and talk about consequences for not staying on the website or Zoom assigned..  One of the big things they might need to do is turn on the camera, and they know how to do that now, and turn on their microphone when necessary.  We tried that but with a room full of Chromebooks with mics on and kids talking, it sounded like a million mice in a tunnel and it just kept getting louder.  So I had to mute them all and we didn't get as much practice on that as I wanted.  With the latest information from the county about virtual snow days, it looks like this will only be used in the event of a major snow event like a blizzard.  And I'm pretty sure the K Team has jinxed the possibilty of a blizzard with our readiness now!
I hope the children have fun in the snow tomorrow!  Please stay safe and warm!
​Miss Wolfe