A New Friend

A full week of school is complete! The class did great and are adjusting quickly and very well to school. I received some big news that we have a new addition to our classroom family: He comes from Burnsville and his name is Wayne! 

Wayne wears a pony in the back. Once his hair grows long enough, he plans to donate it to Locks of Love in honor of his older brother who passed away from leukemia about a year ago. I thought it was a very honorable act to do for a young five year old. We are so happy to have a new friend in our room; now our class number is up to 19.

What's Going On in Room 132?
During the first week of school on Friday, we made rainbow names where students tore colored pieces of construction paper and glued it onto the letters of their names. It took a lot of effort and time, but they turned out so colorful!

Last Monday, we started our ABC notebooks. Each day has a letter for the day so we started with A first. Students glue a poem in their notebooks, highlight the letter of the day, and then create a picture that begins with the letter. Below are the first 3 letters. 

We also started the ABC Letter Bag where students get to take turns being assigned a letter, bringing the bag home, and finding things to put in the bag that begin with their letter. I will try to get photos of examples next week!

For Guided Discoveries, we learned how to use scissors properly as well as how to hold them if we ever need to walk with them in the room. We cut straight lines and for an added challenge, zig zag lines! "Open shut, open shut. That's the way we cut, cut, cut! Thumb on top, fingers on bottom. Open shut, open shut."

Other guided discoveries that we did was learn how to care for our books in our classroom library. The boys and girls got to practice handling books and look through them. The first set of books we looked at were BOB books. These books are very well known and suited for kindergarten/first grade readers because there is not a lot of text and the illustrations are simple. 

Look at this wonderful classroom of LEARNERS! Yipee!!!!

The second round of guided discoveries with books was learning how to read using the PICTURES. I told the class earlier last week, "You know what? After school today, ALL of you will be readers! Yes, each and every one of you. I want you to go home tonight and tell mom and dad when it's time to read a bedtime story that they won't be reading it, YOU WILL BE! And they'll say, What?? But you can't read yet! And you'll say, YES I CAN! I can read the pictures. And you'll take the book and start reading the pictures and telling the story. Mom and dad are going to be amazed!" 

This is an effective emergent reading skill that is taught in kindergarten. As adults, we assume that only reading the text in books is acceptable when it comes to reading. Wrong! Good readers use pictures to help them read as well, and it's okay to take a book and only read the pictures out loud or in your head. It is still a form of reading a book. Encourage this type of reading at home! It helps build their confidence as readers as well as helps formulate a story in their head.

With this Guided Discovery, we read wordless picture books. The kids LOVED these!

Here is our friend Sophie modeling how to read a story using the illustrations.

The last Guided Discovery we did was going on a "Listening Walk" to some of our Outdoor Learning Areas at Jeffers Pond. I noted three main points to follow whenever we go outside: 1. Be within eye's reach of the teacher (ME!) the whole time. 2. Stay on the path. 3. Leave nature outside. So many kindergartners want to pick or grab things from outside and bring it back inside to keep for themselves. Things like rocks, sticks, and leaves are great--and sometimes we will be able to bring them inside of our classroom to observe, but we emphasize at school to leave everything outside where it belongs. 

Using our ears to listen for different sounds outside!

Testing out our boulder garden...we each got to sit on a rock and listen there.

We walked across one of the two bridges, got to see our picnic area, and walked on a trail into the woods.

Different sounds we heard on our first Listening Walk: an airplane flying overhead, sticks cracking as we were walking, the wind, crickets, squirrels, birds chirping.

I absolutely love all the resources we have here at school for outdoor learning! We will be utilizing these different areas throughout the whole school year...yes, even when it's snowing. We have snowshoes and raincoats so that way we are ready for what the crazy MN weather brings us. Bring it on!

Creating Our Hopes and Dreams

At the beginning of the school year, I have all of my students think of something they want to accomplish during their time in kindergarten. It has to be school-related, whether it's academic and social based. First, we had a discussion on why we go to school. Answers included, "To learn. To get smarter. To meet and make new friends." Our hopes and dreams are something we hope to achieve by the end of the school year. 

Here is our brainstorming list.  

After students had a solid understanding of what they wanted to achieve, they drew a picture of themselves doing it.

P.S. I just LOVE kindergarten drawings--they are so quirky and fun. Teaching this grade is the best!!!!

Even teachers can have their own hopes and dreams. Here is mine.

We will post our Hopes and Dreams in the classroom so we are reminded of them every day. Next week, we will have a discussion on how we will achieve these Hopes and Dreams. In order to accomplish our different goals, we need classroom EXPECTATIONS (aka rules). This will be important to our success in the classroom. The class will help me create expectations to follow and abide by for the year. Having them be involved in the process of this rule-making process is key to holding them accountable and giving them ownership of our room.

Bus Safety

We learned about bus safety on Friday and got to meet a bus driver who told us all of the different ways to be safe while riding the bus. While not everyone rides a bus to and from school, all of us will be when we go on field trips.

We got to sit inside and learn how to sit respectively. We also got to exit from the back in case of an emergency.

Along with safety stuff, we had our first practice Fire Drill on Wednesday. The class did great and I'm hoping on the next fire drill, we will all be quicker and quieter with getting lined up at the door and outside. I made sure to emphasize that it is not a real fire, but just a practice one and that we practice these things to be safe so that we know what to do if there ever is an emergency. 

Name Activity

I printed out each students' name and had them cut out and glue the letters of their name in order on a colored rectangle. We then sorted our names on a big piece of chart paper according to how many letters are in our name. I loved this activity because it includes a lot of fine motor skills (cutting and gluing) as well as focuses on how each student's name looks. They also learn each other's names this way and compare differences/similarities.

 

A Thoughtful and Caring Community
I am absolutely loving how well my students are doing with one other as well as with me. They are starting to remember each other's names as well as caring for and helping each other. We have an awesome bunch, each and every one of them. Parents, you are AMAZING! I am finding so many things to love about your child!

Birthday bulletin board is complete. They love seeing their photos up!

Stay tuned for next week's weekend post.