It was so nice to see so many families at Back to School Night last night. I hope you left with a better idea of what happens during the day in kindergarten! As part of our study about rules, we read a beautiful story called The Golden Rule, by Ilene Cooper. This book is beautifully illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska. The story is about a little boy and his grandfather who see the Golden Rule on a billboard in the city. The little boy asks his grandfather what it says, and he explains that this is a rule that all religions and groups around the world have in common. He reads "Do unto others and you would have them do unto you." The story tells how the rule is said in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and the Shawnee Tribe. The grandfather goes on to tell the boy this is really thinking about how others feel. We took time to talk about the word empathy and what it means and how it helps you to make good choices. If you live by the Ask me to tell you about the Golden Rule and empathy. I don't work for Amazon, although I probably should, but this is a book I strongly suggest to families looking for a new book for the family or as a gift. I told the children this is a book we will read many times throughout the year to remind ourselves how important it is to think about others and to use empathy as you are making choices about your behavior. One thing that I didn't mention last night or put on our schedule are our Brain Breaks. Children and adults need that chance to take a break from their work and move. We will have many different kinds of Brain Breaks during the year, but the ones we do most often are dance. We watch a few Dance Party songs, mostly Disney, that are for Wii. The kids watch what the characters are doing and copy it. Here are a few snaps of the kids dancing today. We learned about writing lists today. We thought of different kinds of lists and why we use them. Then we made a list of things we can do. We made a title, I Can..., then wrote a word of short phrase to list things we can do. I also introduced a writing tool the children can use to help them make sound/letter connections, as well as to remind them of how certain letters look. We had a great lunch together in the lunchroom today. I will be sitting at one table each day, and we will rotate the groups of kids who sit at that table with me. On Friday I will eat at the Peanut Free table with children who sit there. As long as there is room, children who buy a lunch may sit at that table with a friend who needs to sit there. Here are a couple pictures of lunch. Of course, the highlight of the day was going to the library and getting to chose a book to bring home for the week. Ask me to show you my library book!
Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe
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Today was a busy Monday! We learned about collaboration, which is our other thinking and academic skill we are working with this marking period. To help discover what it means to collaborate, we watched three short videos and talked about what we noticed in all three videos. We studied the problems, but really focused on the how the animals solved their problems. Ask me to tell you about these videos and how the animals collaborated. The videos are below. Get ready for belly laughs from your kinder on the last one! We read the story Friends, by Helme Heine. This book is about three good friends who like to do everything together. Each animal, alone, could not do most of the things on their own that they do in the book. Ask me to tell you and show you the picture I drew that tells about one of their adventures. Mrs. Kanter, our school counselor, came in to visit today. She told the children about her job, and they sorted pictures to help understand what problems Mrs. Kanter can help with, and what problems other adults in the building can help them with each day. Your child should have a letter from Mrs. Kanter that introduces her program to you.
Have a nice evening! Miss wolfe We started our day with a fire drill today! The kids did a great job as we talked and walked through our first fire drill. We will remember to keep moving, quiet mouths, and watching to see where to walk. We have a very friendly fire alarm, so everyone seemed very comfortable with the drill! We read a story by Todd Parr called It's Okay to Make Mistakes. This is really important in learning in all content areas, but especially in writing. A few children were concerned that what they wrote on Thursday wasn't "right" and it stopped them from writing more. This is very common, so throughout the year we will revisit the importance of making mistakes when you are learning. After all, if you never make a mistake, you are probably not trying to do new and harder things. Today we started a morning routine that we will do every day called Talk Time. The students will study a photograph, painting, or video and notice and note things about it. We talked about analyzing, which is one of our Thinking and Academic skills so we looked at different things in the painting that could give us clues about what the painting was all about. The students then turn and talk to a partner or two about what they noticed and what they think. Then, we share out ideas all together. Ask me to tell you about this painting! We started Writing Workshop today. Today we talked about the format of our workshop. We have a short mini-lesson, often associated with a book that we use to inspire and show the students how to write. Most days I will model how to do whatever it is we are talking about as writers. The children then conference with a partner before going to their seats to write and draw on their own. Usually we will have a sharing time after where we look at the work a few of our writers did that day. Next week we will be learning about tools we will use to help us in our writing.
In math, we read an Arabic counting folktale called How Many Donkeys, by Margaret Read MacDonald and Nadia Jameel Taibah. Ask me to tell you about why Jouha kept thinking his donkeys were getting lost! We also played with some of the manipulatives we will be using in our Math Workshop. This week we really focused on learning routines and expectations. Overall, the children did a really great job. Today, we have a few bumps in the road but that is to be expected! We took time to really get to know each other as well! I'm so excited to work with these children, and am looking forward to talking to you at Back to School Night on Tuesday. Have a great weekend! Miss Wolfe Hello Families! I'm so excited to be starting our blog for the year. You can visit our website and blog and most days find out about what we did in school. I will include a couple "Ask Me Abouts." These are questions you can ask your child to start a conversation about what we did at school. I know this will help you to know what we are doing in school. I will maintain this blog daily when I can, but there may be days when I can't because I have something I need to do after school and won't have time. But most days you will have some information, photographs, classwork or videos to see about our day. In addition to the blog I will keep our website up to date with information about what we are learning about each marking period. For today, I just want to tell you about our first three days. We have spent a lot of time learning routines in our classroom, the lunch room, and in our special areas. The children are learning to stop, look and listen when I need to give directions. They are also learning to do what I ask when I ask them to. We know that when they start school they often are on what we fondly call "Kindergarten Time" which means they do it leisurely or when they feel like it! Kindergarten is usually more structured and has more places we have to be at specific times than in preschool, so this is an adjustment. The kids are doing great with these routines and expectations. I'm so proud of how they have learned to come in to the classroom and unpack. Today they learned how to sign in on the Promethean Board and indicate what they are doing for lunch. I'm going to share some photographs today that I took the past few days so you get a peek at what's been going on. We did some data collection in math. After reading the book You're Finally Here, by Melanie Watt, we talked about the different feelings the bunny in the book was feeling. Then we talked about how we felt on the first day. We looked at the data and talked about what we noticed. Mrs. Bekdash and I also voted so you will see 23 responses to our first day feelings. Ask me to tell you about our data! I'll post a picture of the entire class as soon as I get all the permission slips back, but for now you can see we have some very happy little kinders!
Have a nice evening! Miss Wolfe |
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May 2018
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