Starting Unit One...

    

This next week in kindergarten is going to be a fun one because we are starting unit one in literacy which means we will be talking a lot about what good readers do! The strategy we will be focusing on is “asking and answering questions” and we will get to read a great book called “What about Bear?”. Our essential question this week is “how can we get along with new friends?” which is wonderful because we are continuing to build relationships with our new classmates and this ties in very nicely to making good choices and being respectful and responsible! We are going to be focusing on the letter “M” this week as well and will be sorting pictures that start with the sound M makes and we will also work hard on making the letter m correctly and by the end of the week we will be blending sounds together to make words! We will be making connections between all of the books we read and it is going to be a blast! We will also be putting the word “the” up on the word wall – please ask your child about the chant we do when we spell the word “the”.  Remember any extra practice you do at home will only benefit your child! We are also going to be starting guided reading (start is the key word) but please know it might takes us a few weeks to get into the full guided reading routine – your child will either be reading the story “Soup” or “Mouse and Monkey” at the rainbow table with me. Remember you can go online to the wonders website and check out the things that we will be doing in our classroom!

In writing we will be talking about nouns – yes I know what you are thinking nouns in kindergarten  but we really do learn about them and the kids do a great job! We will learn that a noun can be a person, place, thing, or animal! We will also be focusing a lot on our pictures when we are writing our stories from our lives, because readers can find out more detailed information from our pictures. We will be talking about planning out our pictures and what we should if we don’t know how to draw things – although the most important thing to remember in kindergarten is that we always try our best! Hopefully by the end of the week we will get the chance to read the story “Scaredy Squirrel” and talk about why authors sometimes use labels in their stories.

In Math we will be continuing to learn more about numbers but will really be focusing on the numbers 4 and 5 and how to write them. We will also be distinguishing between different sized groups and counting a certain number of objects. Last week we started talking about 2 and 3-dimensial shapes and will continue to talk about the difference between them this week too and also have some discussions about shapes and what makes something a shape! I love when the kids learn the characteristics of shapes and are able to tell me all about them! For example a triangle has three corners and three sides that are all connected and that triangles can be all different sizes and can look different. Oh how we love shapes and numbers!! We will also be having homework every single night this week so please be on the lookout!  Don’t forget to make sure your child’s name is on it so they can get credit for doing it!

America… America… America! We are loving learning about the symbols that represent our wonderful country! We started our symbols book and will continue to work on it this week as well. This Thursday, Sept. 11 is Patriot’s Day and I would love for every child in my room to wear red, white, or blue as we honor and remember our patriots.  We will be talking about how we need to stand tall and be proud of the country that we live in! I truly feel so lucky to live in this country!

Also this week is StudentServe week at LPS and you might see things in the paper or on the news about it.  Student Serve is a student-led, district-wide initiative committed to instilling civic responsibility and preserving democratic ideology in students by promoting behaviors of good citizenship in their local, national, and global communities. This year in kindergarten we are going to try and do one project a month that will benefit people in our community - this month we are going to help make cards for the organization called "Cards for Seniors". They distribute cards through Tabitha, Meals on Wheels, and other nonprofit organizations to seniors. I am sure my friends will love making the cards to fill up other people's buckets!

Thanks again to all the families that were able to come to our Literacy night – I hope you had as much fun as I did! It was great to see all of you there and I am hoping you all learned something new – remember I will be sending home more things throughout the year to put in your binder if you purchased one.

I know it is going to be another fun and busy week in our classroom! :) Mrs. Woita

Happy Grandparents Day!

On Sunday we will celebrate a VERY important day.....Grandparent's Day!!! The kids have been telling me all week how special you are to them and all of the fun things you do together! Thank you for all you do....know you are loved. Here is a little poem for you...

GRANDPARENTS

Grandparents are special people
with wisdom and pride.
They are always offering love and kindness
and are always there to guide.
They often make you feel
so confident and strong.
Their arms are always open
no matter what you did wrong.
They try to help out
in every way that they can.
They love all their grandchildren
the same whether you're a child,

Or a woman or man.
They are always there to listen
and to lend a helping hand.
They show you respect
and they try to understand.
They give their love, devotion and so much more,
that's easy to see.
Grandparents,
what perfect examples
of the kind of person that we should be.

~By Stacy Smith~

Please enjoy the video we made for you...some of the pictures might even look familiar to you:)

I hope that all the grandparents that are still with us have a wonderful day...  :) Mrs. Woita

                          

Happy Birthday Jordan!

Today we had another birthday in our classroom - Jordan turned 6 years old today! We sure hope he has a wonderful birthday! We all thought of words that describe Jordan and we made him a gift on his special day! Also Snowflake came back to our classroom but this time he was watching us from a different spot, he even put streamers above Jordan's desk! Jordan also brought in some very yummy cupcakes that we all enjoyed very much - so thank you Jordan! Again we hope he has a great day! Check out a few pictures from Jordan's birthday!

                                Jordan's desk with his birthday crown

                         Snowflake watching from the top of the tree

                                       Jordan's delicious treats

                                      yummy... we love them!

                                        Happy Birthday Jordan!!

Home Visits!

Thank you so much to the families that allowed me to come on home visits! I can't believe it was almost a month ago now! But I LOVE getting the chance to sit down and talk outside of school as you must have realized and since I took some pictures I thought that I better share them! I want you to know that I wrote these little notes before school started - but Mrs. Woita is a little behind as you can tell but I still thought I would share my thoughts with you all! I am enjoying getting to know your kindergartener and am looking forward to an awesome year!

Sopheigh – I loved seeing all of your ninja turtle things! Mrs. Schroeder and I enjoyed coming to your house and meeting your pets and of course you and your sister! I think you and I will get along very well!

Miliani – I am so sorry I messed up and got the wrong day for our home visit! You and your mom were so nice to me!! I love your backyard and wish I could have stayed there all day.

Nicole –I hope your big brother didn’t tell you everything we do in kindergarten. Your trip to Disney World sounds like it is going to be so much fun – I can’t wait to hear all about it! Hopefully you will be able to tell him some cool things we are doing in kindergarten this year!

Hayle – Oh how I love your bedroom, your bed is the coolest thing ever! Your mom and dad must love you very much! Thank you for showing me everything! I went home right away and showed Justin the pictures I took! Hopefully we will be able to find some things on pinterest that your mom hasn't seen yet that we can do as projects this year!

Zach – You and your brother Nate are so nice! I loved hearing about your soccer camp, swimming lessons, and karate! You sure are a busy boy!

Bella – I can’t believe your mom took off the whole week and you girls got to do fun things everyday – how lucky are you!!! I loved seeing your room and talking to you girls! I sure hope you had fun rest of the week!

  Cody – I am so glad that I finally found where you live! I love the view you have and can’t believe that you see deer out your window – that is soo cool! Those legos you and your brother have are pretty cool as well! I also loved the caricature of you!!!

Xander – Wow your toys were so super cool! I will have to start learning more about transformers!  Your parents are way too nice to me! I can’t believe all the school supplies they bought for our class! You are one lucky boy!

Briley – You are just too fashionable for me! I loved all of the outfits I saw! I will never forget when Sarah Rebecca jumped towards me and scared me! I am soo happy to hear that the sheep showing went well! I am so glad I got to come over to your house – it was a good reminder of our fundraiser that we need to do this year!

Olivia K.– I enjoyed hearing about your shopping trip that you had with your mom. I am excited to see you new backpack and lunch box! Your sister is so cute and so lucky to have you as a big sister!

Chloe – Your bedroom is so organized and you have motivated me to organize all of Lily’s things at home! I am so jealous you have a pool and little park right outside your window!

Gabbi – I am so bummed I missed the dance party with my favorite song, if only I would have been running on time! Your pink room is adorable and I loved the closet organization! Your flips on the trampolines were amazing!

Keegan – Your giraffe snake was so cool! I learned a lot from you about snakes! I am so glad you are such a good helper and big brother!

Josiah – I really enjoyed looking at your scrapbook, it was so neat to see all of your pictures! Thank you for taking the time to show me!  Your ninja turtles were so cool, of course you know I don’t love the snake but it was crazy that it was taller than you!

Olivia M – You are such a great big sister. Your twin sisters are so cute and are so lucky to have you as a big sister! The bed you were making was so cool! I am so glad that I got to come visit you!

Sam – Oh Sam I can not believe that there was a bird in your fireplace – I don’t think I will ever forget that! It was so fun meeting your dog and your big brothers! I am so excited to work with you this year!

September already!!!

I can hardly believe that it is already September!! The start of the school year has really flown by quickly!!! I am sure it is because we are SO busy in kindergarten!! We will continue to get even busier, if that is possible!!!

In literacy this week we will finish up with learning about the alphabet!! We will be learning about W-Z!!  That is SUPER exciting!! Although, next week we will start focusing in on one letter a week!!  On Friday we will review the alphabet and have a little chicka chicka boom boom celebration!!! We will continue to talk about all of the fun things kindergarteners can do. We will continue to review the words ‘I’ & ‘can.’ We have even been reading them in books…YES I said they are reading them. It is pretty amazing to hear these kids already reading. We have also been reading a lot of nursery rhymes…the kids really enjoy these!!

In writing we continue to become amazing authors!! We now have our writing folders and have been practicing telling our stories out loud to our talking buddies and drawing pictures!! This week we will really focus on trying our best as writers and how to draw objects that may seem tricky we will practice drawing people together- but not the stick kind!.  We will also focus on our first writing trait "Ideas"!

We will continue to discuss Anno’s Counting Book in math! We will also be doing our counting mats and graphing with numbers 1-10!! We have also been working hard on writing numbers and will really focus on writing the number 3 this week! Please remember to practice with your children and also remember that sometimes they write number backwards…but we will work on that!! We have also been talking about things that are alike and different!! I love hearing the kids talk about math and seeing them reason about numbers!! They are just SO smart!! Please watch for math homework coming home this week!

In unit studies we start a new unit!! We will start to talk about American Symbols!! The five symbols we focus on are the Bald Eagle, Statue of Liberty, American Flag, White House, and Liberty Bell. We will be reading stories, looking at pictures, and making pages for our very own American Symbol book!! This is a really fun unit and one of my favorites!

I have some reminders to give to you as well!! Please remember that we have literacy night this Thursday (September 4^th) from 6-7 in our classroom!! This is a very important night and we will talk about things you can do to help your child at home!! If you did not send back your RSVP please know that you can still do this! If you can’t make arrangements for other children it will be okay to bring them, but they won’t be allowed to play with things in the classroom.



Also you can send me pictures if you have any for our special project we will be working on this week - if you have any questions please email me at acuster@lps.org

Well….I think that is all for now!!! I hope you have a great week!!! :) Mrs. Woita

Safety...It's important!

Hello again!! I hope you are enjoying a relaxing weekend and got to watch some Husker football!!

Friday at school we finished up our safety unit. In this unit we talked about stranger danger and what to do if a stranger tries to give us something or talk to us. We also talked about who a stranger is and that not all strangers are bad, but we need to be careful!!

We also talked about fire safety and what to do in a fire drill. We practiced leaving school quickly and quietly and listening very carefully to teacher directions. The kids really did a great job!! We also practiced what to do if our clothes caught on fire. We would STOP, DROP and ROLL!!!!! 

Then, we talked about what to do if there is an emergency AND what an emergency is (our house being on fire and NOT losing our favorite toy). We practiced calling 911 (on a pretend phone :)) and speaking slowly as we gave our important information. 

You also got a note about practicing your child’s important information (full name, address, and phone number). Please keep this sheet at home and practice, practice, practice!!! We also are practicing at school and the kids are very excited to get their special surprise once they can say it by memory!! 

During this unit we also talked about street safety!! We even got to go outside and practice!! We know we need to use the crosswalk, cross quickly, and of course, LOOK BOTH WAYS!!! We also talked about wearing our bicycle helmets to protect our heads!!!

To finish off our safety unit we got to make a SUPER FUN snack. We used graham crackers, frosting, and m&m’s to make a stoplight.Thank you to the parents that donated the supplies for us to make this fun snack! We also made a stop light on paper, but I think the snack was their favorite!! We really practiced our stoplight song and I think the kids know it well so make sure they sing it for you!! After our delicious snack we watched Officer Buckle and Gloria to celebrate being super safe kindergarten kids!!

Next week we will start to learn about American Symbols!! This is one of my favorite things to teach and we always have a blast!! We also take some pretty awesome pictures!!! Have a great weekend and enjoy our video capturing our safety fun!!!!

:) Mrs. Woita
Also I wanted to let you all know that I will be gone Tuesday morning because I will be taking my daughter, Lily, to her first day of preschool, but I will be back after lunch! I told my little friends I would be gone but with the long weekend they will probably forget!

                        

Lovin' the Library...

As many of you know, we get to go to the library every Friday!!! We get to hear stories, check out books, and read. It is SO much fun!!! If your child brings back their book from the week before they get to check out a new book. If they forget their book they can still look at books but the rule is you must return a book to check another one out. Please enjoy our video of our first day at the library - we went today too and I just couldn't help myself I had to take pictures of Mrs. Schwindt and the kids saying nursery rhymes together so there are a few pictures in there from today too!

Have a SUPER GREAT long weekend! Watch for another video this weekend about our safety unit!!

:) Mrs. Woita