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


                 

Happy Birthday Isabelle!!!!

Today was a very special day in kindergarten, because our friend, Isabelle, turned 5! This was the first birthday since we have started kindergarten and it was a little crazy this morning in our classroom. For the past few years I have had an elf - yep I said elf - come to my classroom during the holidays to keep an eye on my students while they are at school. Some of you may have heard of the "Elf on the Shelf" tradition and boy does Mrs. Woita love when Snowflake (our elf) is watching because my friends are always on their very best behavior. But... last year I heard about Santa giving special permission to some of his elves to help come and celebrate birthdays because Santa loves birthdays too! So I wrote Santa and Snowflake a letter asking if they could come and help celebrate birthdays in my classroom and guess what? SNOWFLAKE CAME! He was even dressed up in his birthday suit! The kids were so excited to read the book he left about the birthday tradition! Snowflake was so silly he left confetti all over Isabelle's desk and all over the carpet (although Mrs. Woita might have to write another note about the confetti and maybe keeping it at the north pole next  time but we will see what Snowflake thought of it - since he was watching us all day long too). I sure hope Isabelle had a great day too, I know she is very much looking forward to her Frozen birthday party this weekend and so are some of her new friends. This morning we all thought of words to describe Isabelle and Mrs. Woita made her a little gift from all of us - we sure hope she likes it! Here are a few pictures from our fun day!

                                                Isabelle's desk with her birthday crown 
                       (the crown was from Mrs. Woita but Snowflake brought the confetti)

                                                   Snowflake in his birthday suit!

                                              The book Snowflake left for us to read!

                                                Birthday girl, Isabelle, and Snowflake

                                               Birthday girl, Isabelle, with her friends

Happy Birthday Isabelle! We hope you had a fantastic birthday!!!!!

Day 10 is coming up!

We are really getting the hang of things now in kindergarten! Monday will mark day 10 of kindergarten and in math that is some very exciting news, because we will be able to finally make a group of 10 on our 120 chart and a group of 10 on our money chart – I just know that the kids will all be super excited for this! During math we will be continuing to explore numbers with our counting mats as well as our own counting books but we will also start practicing how to write the numbers 1 and 2 and comparing things that are the same and different!

In literacy we will be continuing to learn about letters and the sounds they make and will be focusing on letters up to the letter V this week! We are loving the ABC chant and loving the songs we get to sing that practice the letters and sounds! We also will be reviewing the words “I” and “can”. We are becoming readers so FAST!!!! This week we will be reading “Tikki Tikki Tembo” (make sure to ask about this story and the little boys name) and we will also be reading “Teddy’s Week”, “Kindergarteners Can”, and making connections back to our Alphabet in the Park book! We have found out that it is fun to read sentences that have exclamation marks at the end of them!

Speaking of Literacy… please remember Thursday, Sept. 4^th is our Literacy night here in our classroom from 6-7pm. I sure hope you and your kindergartener can make it! We will be talking about what we do in kindergarten and also getting some materials to take home so you can practice! It is sure to be a lot of FUN so I hope you all can come! A flier will be coming home this week about it!

In writer’s workshop we will be getting our very own folders and will learn how to use them to help us become better writers! We will also be looking at the book “Good Dog, Carl” (which is a book with no words) that will help us learn that stories can be told just through pictures – which is where we will start. In kindergarten we start by drawing pictures then we will add beginning letters to our pictures, then labels, and finally start some sentences (we will be focusing on just pictures this week and will slowly get to the rest).

Remember we go to P.E. on Day C – so make sure to mark it on your calendar – this week it is on Tuesday. You can find the day on the lunch calendar!

In unit studies we are continuing to learn about how to stay safe and will finish up our safety books! We will hopefully get to go on a safety walk around the school to practice using the crosswalk and also so we can see the signs that are all around us to help us stay safe. If we are super lucky on Friday we will get to read “Officer Buckle” and watch the video AND make a stoplight snack! But we have a lot to do so I sure hope we work hard all week long and learn how to stay safe at school and at home!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and of course if you have any questions or concerns please let me know! :) Mrs. Woita

Wednesday folders

I hope you all had a wonderful Wednesday night! I wanted to let you all know that I do not love worksheets- yes they can be great and are wonderful practice tools for some skills but we just haven't quite got there yet so you haven't seen anything your child has done yet at school and I am sooo sorry! I am sure you want to see something and I promise you that the paper is going to be coming. tomorrow we will do our first workbook page in math and let me tell you there are a lot of workbook pages! I also have a lot of booklets that we keep in the classroom that I will send home every once in awhile as well, but I guess the reason I am writing tonight is because my son, Henry, came home tonight with a little booklet that he colored and was able to read to me and I was SOOO proud (I made him read it probably five times to me) and then I thought that all of you wonderful parents would like to see your child read as well so tomorrow night make sure to open up your child's backpack because in the morning we are going to be coloring and reading our very own book (I swear it is already in my lesson plans and actually I have every single booklet printed off for the entire year- I just wasn't planning on sending them home so soon- because I love the kids to practice with them) but wanted you to know that there is some great learning going on in Woita's world and you should be very proud, because I know I am! I am enjoying getting to know all of your children and can't wait to see all that they will learn this year! 

Week two of kindergarten FUN!!!

Well……we really DID survive the first week of school. The week was spent learning a lot of Meadow Lanes routines and procedures. We had so much fun and already started learning how to become better readers, writers, and mathematicians!!! We have a busy week coming up and we EVEN get to stay in school an hour longer so we can get so smart!!

In literacy we are going to continue learning about letters in the alphabet! We will learn about the letters E, F, G, H, & I!!! We always practice finger writing the letters and then listen to a fun song about each letter. They really are silly songs, but I have learned that we LOVE to sing AND dance!!!

We will also continue to learn about the sight word “I” and will even learn ANOTHER new word, “can”. We have been practicing using the words in sentences. We then can point and read the sentence to our friends! We really are so smart!! An example sentence would be “I can jump.”

Of course, we are always reading stories and making connections in the stories. This week will be rereading “Animals in the Park” and we will also read “ The Three Sisters.” As we read we love to look for letters of the alphabet and look for capital letters and punctuation marks!!

We are really going to start becoming authors this week!! We will continue to tell stories orally. Each kid gets to sit in the rocking chair and then share a story from his or her life. We practice using a lot of detail and I LOVE hearing all of the wonderful stories!! We will also be discussing the rules and procedures of writer’s workshop. We practice how to sit, how to write, and how to put our things away. We even get to make a fun chart using our pictures to show the writing expectations!! We might even get our writer’s workshop folders! We will store our writing in them AND be able to use some of the charts to help us spell better! I have learned that we LOVE to talk in our classroom so I know they will love getting introduced to talking buddies. They will have a buddy that they are paired up with. This is the friend they will practice orally telling their stories to before they write. I just know they are going to LOVE this! On Friday each child will get to show me how good of writer’s they already are during our pretest! Please be assured this usually consists of a beautiful picture, but very few words or letters.

Who doesn’t love math?? I know I do and I LOVE to watch kids explore numbers!! This week they will be introduced to our math mats. These are mats that we use to show a number and display objects of that many number. We learn to talk about our display with our class and listen to our friends as they share WONDERFUL ideas!! This is really a work in progress so we will spend a lot of time watching Mrs. Woita and doing it along with her! Last week we read Anno’s Counting Book. This week each child gets their own counting book! We will be drawing scenes of numbers in our books and discussing them with our class! I can’t wait to see all of the colorful drawings, it will take us a few days to finish!!

We will continue to go to specials and we all love that. Here is the schedule for this week:

Mon.: A -Computer

Tues.: B -Music

Wed.: C -P.E.(please send your child to school wearing their tennis shoes)

Thurs.: D -Art 

Fri.: A -Computer & we will go to the library for the very first time!!!

In unit studies we will be learning about safety! This week we will talk about stranger safety, fire safety, and our important emergency information. I will be sending a note home in Wednesday folders about this. On this note I want you to write the primary address and phone number you want your kindergarten child to learn in case of an emergency.The kids are going to be making their very own safety book so they can stay SUPER safe!!

WOW, that is a lot of information!!!! I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend and your kindergarten kid is ready to start their first FULL week of school. As always, if you have any questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail me!! Thanks for all you do! :) Mrs. Woita

Here is short video of some of the fun things we did this past week. I won't be able to make a video every week but I just thought you might want to see your kindergarteners hard at work (I know that I want to know what Henry is doing but the only thing I have got out of him this week was playing at recess and there were a lot of kids and they read a monster book, but he said he loves school so that makes his kindergarten teacher mommy very happy!). I hope you enjoy it! We had tons of fun!

          

First Day!

Well... we all survived the first day of kindergarten! I am hoping that all of my new little friends went home and said that they had fun! Of course I know that they all wish they could have played longer or played somewhere else, but I assure you that they all had smiling faces for almost all of the day! I won't go into all the details of our fabulous day because we sure did a lot and Mrs. Woita is tired and needs to go to bed, but I thought I could show you a quick glimpse of our day. Please check out this video to see your kindergartener at Meadow Lane on the first day of school!
                

First Week of Kindergarten!

Well I honestly can’t believe that we are starting school this week!  Last Thursday night was open house, and it went great! I am so glad that almost all of my new friends got to come in and check out our classroom before the school year starts! Thank you all for coming!

Tuesday, August 12^th is the first day of Kindergarten and I know that probably both you and your child are feeling all sorts of different emotions – excited, anxious, nervous, scared.. and when you tuck your child into bed Monday night the next morning they will be going off to school and it will seem surreal! It is so crazy how fast kids grow up and how time flies but please know that when your child walks into my classroom at 8:55 that I will do my very best to help your child feel comfortable and safe at school. I am so very fortunate to have a job that I truly love and I promise to try my hardest each and every day to make your child’s experience in kindergarten the very best that it can be!

This first week we will be going over A LOT of routines and the kids will probably not like me very much because I have learned that it is much better to go slow and learn things well than to go too fast and have to reteach everything (yes I learned this the hard way) –and  I am sure I will hear at least 50 times in the first hour – is it time to play or when is lunch or I am bored? But I assure you we will be having fun along the way to learning the routines of kindergarten.

We will learn our line order – this is how we will line up everyday all the time – for example when we get to school, when we go to lunch and specials and how we line up after recess is over and at the end of the day. Right now my line order is in alphabetical order but will probably change once we get into the swing of things!

We will also learn our three school rules – Be Respectful – Be Responsible – Be Safe – we will be going over one rule very well each day and on Wednesday you will be getting a behavior contract that I would like you to read over and discuss with your child and return to school. If it is returned your child will receive a special “key to success” necklace! Attached to the behavior contract will be the homework helper sheet – the homework I send home your child should be able to complete independently but it is a great routine to start to love at a young age and hopefully it will be fun for your child. I do keep track of the homework returned so please make a point of returning it when it is completed! You probably think it is crazy but my kindergarten friends usually LOVE doing homework and ask for it everyday! It will probably be sent home 1-3 times a week.

Everyday this week your child will get a nametag to wear and we will be working on getting to know each other better. We will get to roll a dice and answer a question about ourselves.

We will be reading a lot of books that have to do with starting school and especially kindergarten. Mrs. Woita loves Chester the Raccoon and we will read quite a few of his books as well this week – I am sure you will hear all about it!

We will take a tour of the school and find out where the office is, the lunch room, all of our specials (computer, pe, music, and art) classrooms are, we will also find the library and the courtyards. And we will be meeting some important people along the way!  Please make sure to ask your child about this on Wednesday night!

We will practice a fire drill twice – once with just our classroom and the other one with the entire school. When we hear the bells we will line up quietly and go out the door toward the fence by the playground. I will also talk to my friends about what would happen if they were not in my classroom when they hear the fire alarms.

In Math we will be learning how numbers are all around us, we will be reading Anno’s Counting Book (which actually has no words just scenes so we will get to make up the words), we will also be learning about our Daily Math Routines which we will do everyday and I will explain in greater detail at a later time!

In Literacy we will again be learning the routines but also be focusing on letters A-E and learning the word “I” – yep we will be reading before you know it! We will read a different poem everyday and we will also be talking a lot about books and authors and illustrators and what it takes to be a good reader and writer! We will read “Library Mouse” and discuss storytelling and then everyone will get to sit on the rocking chair and tell a story that has really happened to them!

In Unit Studies we will be focusing on staying safe when we are at school and learning the school rules!

Lunch time will be a big learning time as well – I promise there are many adults that will help your child not only go through the line to make sure they get milk, and fruits and vegetables, but that they get silverware and get to the table with all their food still on their plate. We will learn how to open our milk and hopefully eat without getting too distracted and finally how to dump our trays and line up for recess! Your child does not need to know their snap number until later on in the year – I just wanted you to have it in case you would like to put money in your child’s account on-line! They will have lunch cards that they will give the lunch ladies!

JEEZ!!! We will be doing a lot this week and I know I have forgot a lot! Oh one important thing I left off was is that NO I do not approve of bribing kids all the time but I will admit this first week during dismissal time that is what I plan on doing. I will be honest and say that dismissal time is a little crazy and that I want to make sure that all of my friends get with the correct person so I am planning on bribing them everyday with a little snack. So PLEASE be patient as dismissal time will take a little bit longer this first week! When your child sees you they will need to say to me “there is my mom/dad/sister (whomever it is that is picking up your child) and then I will try and make eye contact with you and give your child a treat for telling me and I will give them either a high five or a hug and I will send them off to you! I promise the treats are only for the first week and until I become familiar with who is picking up your child!

Please know that I am so very excited and looking forward to this new school year and working will all of my new friends and watching them grow as learners! If you have any questions or concerns please know that my door is always open!

Tell your kindergartener I can’t wait for our first day together! Mrs. Woita