ask me about thursday, September 15, 2022

Crazy day, but we are back on track.  We weren't able to use the old Promethean Board the past few days all day, but we got the Boxlight delivered.  But it wasn't set up and we didn't have directions, so I tried but couldn't get it going on my own.  Today our IT guy, Mr. Reed, came and set it up for us in the afternoon.  We are really excited to have it, especially since our Really Great Reading is done on the board!
We talked more about counting and how numbers get larger and smaller.  We showed how that would look with a sunrise and with a rollercoaster.  We also listened to a story called My Name is Elizabeth, by Annika Dunklee.  This is a great story about speaking up when someone calls you a nickname, and you would like to be called by your full name.  We talked about speaking up politely to let people know what name you would like to go by.  We found out there are a lot of nicknames for Elizabeth!  We also practiced writing our name the kindergarten way.  We are working on using a capital letter to start the name, then lower case letters, as well as where the short letters, tall letters, and letters with tails go on the lines.  The kids are doing so well learning the names of everyone in our class.  In the morning when we pass a hello around the carpet, there are only a few who have to ask the person next to them what their name is so they can pass it on.

We are working still on self-control.  We have a lot of kids just touching each other, not really to hurt them, but to distract them.  We also have A LOT of tattling.  LOL, your kids are advanced because I have found this usually happens around January!  We will have another lesson in self-control and next week I'll introduce DeBug so the children have strategies to handle kid-size annoyances.  We will talk about what is a kid-size problem, and when to get help right away.  

It's been a bumpy few days trying to fit in testing and getting things accomplished.  Yesterday and today I pulled kids during play time and, since it was on the computer, I was able to get a lot done in a short period of time.  I'm just about finished with the KRA, which is a test/survey with 50 questions.  About half of them are teacher observation, so I have been doing that and just need to enter it in the spreadsheet.  I will be starting Dibels tomorrow.  This is a series of 1 minute assessments.  I also have a few other assessments I need to do that we need to report out to the county throughout the year.  It's a lot but we're getting a good start.

Tomorrow your child will bring home a computer keyboard with their log-in information on it.  Please keep it at home, and if possible, practice either on the paper keyboard or on a real keyboard, so your child can have practice logging in so they don't spend a lot of time doing that instead of working on the computer.  I love Fridays because the kids don't go to any specials, and I get more time with them to do some fun things.  Today we International Dot Day, but we are going to make special dots tomorrow.  I'll take pictures of the kids with their dots and post them on the website, but probably over the weekend.  I can do it faster on my computer at home.

I hope you know how much I am enjoying my time with your children.  We have had some technical issues but they have been patient.  They play so well together during playtime, and they are not reporting any problems at recess or lunch.  

Have a nice evening!
​Miss Wolfe