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