Almost September!

I can hardly believe that it is almost 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 and we have even been learning about syllables!

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!! 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! 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 our first math homework sheets coming home this week!

Unfortunately we did not get our safety unit finished last week- but I just know we will this week! I can't wait for your child to bring home the book we have been working on that is helping us learn all about safety at home and school. This week you will get 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 will also practice at school and hopefully the kids will be excited to get a special surprise once they can say it by memory!!

Well….I think that is all for now!!! I hope you have a great week!!! :)
We are going to be having another wonderful week in kindergarten!

Day 10 is coming up!

We are really getting the hang of things now in kindergarten! We have been practices our routines and going over the rules daily and I think we are really getting the hang of things. I would say that we almost have line order figured out and we know that when we are on the carpet we have to sit criss cross applesauce, our body needs to be still, our voices need to be quiet, our eyes need to be watching, and our ears need to be listening (which really is a lot of things to do all at once but we are getting use to it :)). We have gone over this a lot and we even met some new friends, Puppy and Snail, and they helped us practice following directions and focusing on the speaker. We have also been talking a lot about BIST - which at open house you should have received a pamplet on. We have all been practicing going to the safe seat and please know that this is a safe place in our room where your child might need to go and that they are NOT in trouble - we have been going over this a lot - but I want you all to know that! If your child has to go to the buddy room they will have to fill out a sheet that will be sent home so you know what happened and we have talked about how we do not want to go to the buddy room and leave the classroom because we might miss out on learning. I will hopefully be sending out a more detailed sheet regarding these things later on in this week!

 

Tuesday 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 “Teddy’s Week”, “At School”, 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 and will continue to practice reading!

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 3 on the calendar  – so this week again it falls on a Friday so make sure to mark it on your calendar. 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! 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! 

 

Also this Tuesday is our first PLC Day so we will be dismissing at 2:18 which is 80 minutes earlier than usual. It will be a fast, fun day. Also on Tuesday I will gone and Mrs. Bogner will be here for me. Mrs. Bogner is a wonderful sub who works a lot at Meadow Lane and I know the kids will love her. It also helps this year that Ms. Shipley will also be in the room to help out as needed!

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

First Full Week of School!!!

Well I honestly can’t believe that we are starting our first full week of school but first I want to thank everyone that was able to come to open house last week - I hope you found it enjoyable and informative! I know you and your kindergartener probably felt lots of different emotions last week - excited, nervous, anxious, scared, happy, proud - and I promise that is completely normal! It really is so crazy how fast kids grow up and how time flies but please know that when your child comes to school everyday that I will do my very best to help your child feel comfortable and safe at school and teach them as much as I can. 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 all year long!

 

The first three days of school we really did talk a LOT about routines and we have been going very slowly which hopefully will pay off and my friends really are starting to pick up on them. We learned our line order - that 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 read a lot of books that had to do with starting school and especially kindergarten. I love Chester the Raccoon and we read quite a few of his books as well this past week – I am sure you heard all about it! I also hope you liked the Kissing Hand we made for you! We even got to take a quick tour of our school while looking for Chester and we found out where the office is, the lunch room, all of our specials (computer, pe, music,library and art) classrooms are, we also found the courtyards. I sure hope your kids told you all about it! I know they were all disappointed that we never found Chester - but he did leave us a few things - a project and a bracelet to make so hopefully we will get to make those this next week!

We also practiced a fire drill with our class and this next week will be practicing 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. We will also talk about what would happen if they were not in my classroom when they hear the fire alarms.

In Math we will learned about our Daily Math Routines which we will do everyday and I promise I will explain in detail at a later time. We also started to learn about how numbers are all around us and we LOVE math already! We read Anno’s Counting Book (which actually has no words just scenes so we will get to make up the words) and will be looking at this book again and will actually get to make our own counting books were we will get to draw scenes of numbers and discuss them with our new friends! This week they will also be introduced to our math mats. These are mats that we use to show a number and display objects of that many number. We will 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 before we actually get to do it!

In Literacy we learned our ABC chant (which my friends LOVE) and also focused on the letters A-C and this week we will keep on going with as many letters as we can get through! We always practice finger writing the letter and saying the sound it makes! We also read a poem everyday out of our "Big Book of Rhymes" and will continue to do this as well. We even read "Animals in the Park" and will be rereading that as well! We will be talking a lot about books and authors and illustrators and what it takes to be a good reader and writer! We will start to look for capital and lowercase letters and also punctuation marks! Hopefully your child told you we learned a new word "I" and we even read sentences with it!  We can point to the words and read the sentence to our friends! We are SOO SMART! And this next week we will learn another new word "can" and I can't wait to see the sentences we read.

 During writing we read “Library Mouse” and discussed storytelling and about writing about what you know. Then a few of us got to sit on the rocking chair and tell a story that has really happened to them and the rest of my friends will get a chance to share a story this week too! I love hearing details of all the amazing things my friends have done! I know it's kind of crazy but we  are really going to start becoming authors this week!! We will also be discussing the rules and procedures of writer’s workshop. We will 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! 

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!!

Lunch time has been a big learning time as well – I promise there are many adults that help your child not only go through the line to make sure they get milk, entree, 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!  If you need your child's snap account number please just let me know!

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

Mon.: day 4 - Library 

Tues.: day 5 - Art

Wed.: day 1 -Technology

Thurs.: day 2- Music

Fri.: day 3 -P.E.(please send your child to school wearing their tennis shoes)

 

AND we will get to play at some of the different areas in our room if we get through everything - my friends have been asking and begging everyday - so we will have to squeeze that in this week for sure!  

 

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 the first week during dismissal time that is what I do. 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 that is why I bribed them everyday! Unfortunately my budget does not allow me to buy them something for everyday so from now on they will just have to give me a high five or a hug when they see the person picking them up. I appreciate your patience during this crazy time and please know that I will try and make eye contact with you and then I will send them your way! Hopefully this time will continue to get smoother as the year goes on!

WOW, that really 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

 

First Week of Kindergarten!

Well...the first week is past us and it has been a SUPER busy and fun week!!! We have been learning all about Meadow Lane and the expectations. We have learned a lot about our 4 expectations...be respectful...be responsible...be safe...and be productive. We have also learned about the voice levels we should use in the building. The week has been filled with lots of excitement and of course, a few tears (but not for long- I promise).  I know it was hard to send your sweet little kindergarten kid off to school, but I want you to know that I am going to work very hard to make sure they are not only learning at school, but that they also feel special. I am so excited to see what the year has in store for us. I know it will be a good one!!

Please enjoy our first week video...I am so sorry I did not get a picture of each of you with your child before the first day of school - if you took a picture and you don't mind sending me one that would be wonderful! It kind of got crazy in the hallway and I forgot I had wanted to tried to catch all the parents that brought their child into school on the first day.

Please enjoy the video!! You will have to actually go to my blog to watch it! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!