Ask Me About Thursday, September 10, 2015

Today we finally played Stand and Deliver!  I had it on our morning plans for three days and we were able to do it today.  Stand and Deliver is a warm-up to share vocabulary for a topic.  We will be learning about weather this marking period in Science so we started with the very broad topic of weather.  Everyone stands in a circle or rectangle and we go around with each student saying one word related to weather.  The children have listen well to each other because they may not repeat a word.  When they run out of words to share, they sit down.  Then we read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, by Judi Barrett.  The children listened and made a W with their fingers when they heard a weather word in the story.  Then they drew a picture of their favorite type of weather and a picture of their favorite food/s falling from the sky as in the book.  I will send these pictures home tomorrow so they can tell you about them.  
We also listened to a story called Yoko Writes Her Name, by Rosemary Wells.    
Ask me to tell you the problem in the story.  Yoko writes her name in Japanese and some of the children say she will not graduate from kindergarten because she cannot write her name.  We talked about how special it is that she can her name in Japanese and that just because she can't write her name the first week of school doesn't mean that she will not learn.  Ask me what Angelo does in the story that shows empathy toward Yoko.  
We had a class meeting today and read a book called The Golden Rule, by Ilene Cooper.  The book introduces the golden rule and how it is part of many religions. A grandfather is teaching his grandson about the golden rule and he tells him that it is important to use your imagination to think about how other people feel in different situations.  Then you are able to think about how you would feel in that same situation and treat them the way you would want to be treated.  They use the example of a new student at school and how they might feel shy and nervous, and how a smile would make them feel more comfortable.  I introduced the word empathy to the students and we related it back to our morning story with Yoko.  I highly recommend this book for your family or as a gift.  It's visually stunning and it's so the message is so simple, yet so important for learning how to be part of a group.


Please be sure to go over the discipline policy with your child that was in the Back to School Night folder last night.  It needs to be signed and returned to school after you have talked about it with your child!


Thanks again for coming to hear more about what happens at school each day!  I enjoyed talking with you last night!


Have a nice evening!
Juliet