Mrs. A- Showed Us A New App!

Mrs. A. came into our classroom and introduced us to a new app called Drawing Pad.  All students drew a self-portrait.  Mrs. A., Mrs. Gordon and Mrs. Parnell were very impressed with the students work! We think all the parents will be impressed too!

Mrs. A showed us our finished slideshow.

We worked hard on creating our self-portraits.

Below is the slide show Mrs. A. created from our work!  

High Frequency Words

Today the first set of high frequency words or sight words went home with your child.  There are 10 words in the set.  The words are: we, did , the, to, and, made, I , went, said, like.  Please practices these flashcards with your child.  A few minutes each day will help with memorization!  Our first quiz will be on Friday, October 23rd.  Thank you for your help!  If you look at the top bar of the blog you will see a link to the Kindergarten High Frequency Words.  On this link you will find the flashcards of the high frequency words.  These flashcards is another tool that can be used to practice.

We Explored Some Math Manipulatives

We had a few minutes to explore some of our math manipulatives. The students did a great job with the large foam pattern blocks and the connecting cubes. 

We Estimated!

We have been learning about apples this week. We estimated the number of seeds in each kind of apple- Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith and MacIntosh. Ask your child what shape is inside the apple! The students did a great job estimating. The students also made an Apple Tree Though the Seasons book that we will read and highlight on Monday then it will go home. We also made apples made out of clay and we made a cross section diagram of the apple. We were really busy!

Learning How to do the Kindergarten News!

These pictures are from the formal lesson we had on being word detectives in our first edition of Kindergarten Room 101's News.  We hope our news will help keep parents informed of all that is going on in our classroom.  We are doing a lot of AMAZING things!  We know all the parents will be impressed.  Reading the news and doing the finding the words activities is a difficult job, but the students really worked hard.  We were very proud of them all!

This is a list of the words we look for and the colors we use to circle the words.

We hope parents will take the time to read the news with their child and help them be better word detectives. The words we hunt for will be part of the first set of sight word flashcards that will be sent home soon.  Thank you for your help!

First Edition of Our Kindergarten News!

After we had the whole group lesson we each got our own 

newspaper and we were word detectives.  We completed the 

word hunting for the first page at school.  There are three 

more pages that can be completed at home and then 

the Bb song is attached to the back.  Your child can highlight 

all the Bbs in the song and circle the to words.  

Remember we circle the word to with a dark blue marker, 

crayon or colored pencil.

Choice Time Centers

During our WorkBoard ELA time, when all "jobs" are completed the students are allowed to go to a choice.  The choice centers vary by day and all students appear to enjoy these centers.

The students have been enjoying the sandbox.

The clay table has been a busy center.  Using the clay is great for fine motor development.

The block area has also been a popular center!

EnVision Math Game

We used our EnVision Math Mats for the first time.  We played the Topic 1 game.  This game can be played at home too!  All you need are some counters, (pennies and nickels would work well), a pencil and a paperclip.  The students played the game well, taking turns and supporting each other!  On the flip side of the game is a letter to parents letting you know what Topic 1 will be about and how you can help support your child at home.

Letter Boards

Yesterday we used our FUNdations letter boards for the first time.  We practiced writing our lines and tracing back up again.  We also practiced holding our markers the correct way with an alligator grip.  Ask your child what this grip looks like! This practice will help us when we start writing our letters.  We will start our letter writing today with the lowercase letter t.  All students did a great job with this exercise!

Sky Writing!

This morning the students were introduced to our writing grid.  We will use this grid to instruct letter formation in kindergarten.  We use our pencil arms to help us learn and practice pointing to the lines. Tomorrow we will start forming vertical lines on the writing grid dry erase boards based on the verbalization of the teacher.  We had some fun with our sky writing today!

Letter Aerobics

Today we started the day off with some aerobics, Letter Aerobics that is!  We stretched, clapped, jumped and sang along.  We needed to move a bit after sitting for our morning lessons.  This song will help us recognize which letters start at which lines and also reinforces the letters that go into the worm line space.

Reach up high for the tall letters (b,d,f,h,k,l,t)

Hands on hips for plane line letters (a,c,e,i,m,n,o,r,s,u,v,w,x,z)

Clap down low for the letter that go down to the worm line (g,j,p,q,y)

Math Placement Test

Yesterday we introduced our EnVision Math Program.  We started with the difficult job of the placement test.  The students were introduced to the format of the test on the TouchIt Board.  Filling in letters to match the answer is hard for kindergartners who are new to school aged work!  We used the privacy tents for the first time.  These dividers come out when it is important for us to do our own work and to be able to focus and attend to important assessments.  We also used the dividers this morning when we wrote our names, letters and numbers that we all knew.  This information gives us data and informs our instruction.

We Met Echo

Last Friday we were introduced to the Fundations literacy program.  We met Echo the owl.  During our morning greeting this week we hope to meet and pass Baby Echo around.  We talked about Echo being an owl and owls are very smart birds.  They can hear very well and turn their heads almost all the way around.  All the students were able to touch Echo and turn her head around.  All the students appeared to enjoy holding Echo.

Twinkle Friends

We started our day with the alphabet song and the song for the letter A.  Then we read a version of the 3 Little Pigs.  To get to know each other better we danced to the Twinkle Friends song and greeted our partner with a high 5.  We are on a roll in Room 101!

Remember tomorrow is yellow day!

Day 2- Orange Day!

We had a great 2nd day of Kindergarten.  We are starting to learn all the kindergarten rules and routines.  We all earned 2 stickers on our Kind Kindergartners Charts for doing great kindergarten work and we added popcorn to our jar today!  We are working toward a special class reward! Mrs. Gordon and I are very proud of the students in Room 101.

Below are some of the class working on our Peter, Peter book page.  The orange book page was more difficult than the red one.  The students tried to make Peter and his wife's faces look like real people faces!  

Fantastic First Day!

Hello Parents!

We had a fantastic first day.  All students left with a prize!  Be sure to ask your child about the sealed envelope in their backpack.  We will talk more about our incentive program at Open House on Wednesday, September 16th.

Orange Day is tomorrow.  We will learn about Peter, Peter the Pumpkin Eater, the Three Little Pigs, and introduce the calendar.  

Be sure to get plenty of rest.  This first week of school makes everyone(teachers included)very tired.

Thank you to everyone for sharing your beautiful children! 

We are looking forward to a wonderful year!

Lunch

We were hungry for lunch today.  We worked really hard in kindergarten!

More Centers!

Making our Kissing Hands

We LOVED the iPad station.

We had time to explore some choices.  The Legos and Duplo Blocks were a big hit.

We worked on our fine motor skills when we played with the red clay.