We Tried a Lot of New Things!

One  of our morning meeting activities this week was Twinkle Friends (one of Dr. Jeans songs). The class seemed to enjoy this partner song.

We also enjoyed singing and moving to the Three Little Pigs and Building a House songs.

We all tried out the Chill Out Chair.

We also used the Workboard for the first time on Friday and we did a great job!

We tried out Quiet Time this week and by Friday we were all enjoying this 4 minute rest after recess to collect ourselves and refocus for our afternoon lessons.

Some Observations After Our First Few Days.......

The start of the school year can be very busy, tiring and a bit overwhelming.
 Everyone is doing quite well.  That said, we would like to share a couple of 
observations and thoughts to help the positive energy continue.

1- Eat a big breakfast.  It may be difficult but we do encourage you to get a
good meal into your children in the morning.  We eat lunch around 11:00 am.  
They are all quite hungry by the time we are sitting to eat.

2- Pack an extra water.  There is a water fountain down the hall from our classroom
but it is not conveniently located for a quick drink.  At times we are quite thirsty.  
If students had a water bottle from home in their back pack they could have a quick 
sip at the ready.

3- Rest, rest, rest - We are quite busy the entire time we are at school.  The children
 have done well thus far but we are noticing that many are tired (especially during the 
last hour).  Tuesday we had a couple friends ready to put  their heads down for a little 
rest!  The second half of the week will be a little more challenging for all  in terms of 

stamina and staying focused for a school day.  If possible, we recommend tucking
everyone into bed a little earlier the next few nights.

Note:  All these recommendations apply to the teachers as well.  We are trying to eat
 a healthy breakfast to give us the energy to work through the morning.  We are 
packing lots of water bottles to have on hand and we are certainly trying to get to bed early!

Tonight is Open House!

Open House Reminder

Pine Glen's Parent Open House Night is tonight, Wednesday, September 14 from 6-7:30PM. 

Teachers of all grade levels and specialties will be speaking about their respective curricula in two consecutive sessions.

Mr. Lyons will make an introductory speech before the first session at 6PM. Based on surveys sent back to school,

most of the parents of Room 101 students plan on attending the first session. The first session will be a formal 

presentation, the second session will be informal. Parents are not required to attend both sessions, but are

encouraged to use the alternate session to visit with specialists and counselors who also work with their children 

and to stop by the Pine Glen P.T.O. membership table to learn more about Pine Glen's fabulous upcoming events! 

For more information about Open House stay tuned to Mr. Lyons' blog.

We hope to see you all tonight!

Our Awesome Kindergartners

We completed our third day of kindergarten and our students have been amazing us! They have been earning many stickers and becoming super stars. We are also filling our popcorn jar quickly! We will tell parents all about these motivational systems tonight at our open house.

The students are also impressing us with their academic abilities. The students learned how to hold writing utensils  correctly. They were also introduced to the Fundations writing grid. We did some sky writing and then we practiced writing lines and the number 1 on the dry erase boards. We also introduced the students to rainbow writing.

The students were given a huge math challenge today to see if they could order numerals from 0-10 and then match dot cards and counters to demonstrate their number sense knowledge. Again, we were impressed by our students. All students put forth their best effort and many students were able to do this task independently.

At the end of the day we explored some of our math manipulatives.

We had another busy day in room 101!

First Day of Kindergarten!

 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 14th.

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!

Here are some pictures of our day.  We were very BUSY!

Kindergarten Orientation 2016

Today we had our Kindergarten Orientation.  We welcomed many families back to Pine Glen and we introduced many new families to the Pine Glen family.  We will have 16 students in our class this year. Looking at all the newly created name tags the students made they are all ready for kindergarten! The new kindergartners took their first job seriously and did an excellent job. We will be using these name tags during our Morning Meeting on Monday.

It has been wonderful getting to know all of the families of our students through our Listening Conferences. 75% of the families have met with us already! Please remember that Mrs. Kearney and I are available to communicate with our families whenever the need arises.

Thank you for attending Orientation!  We hope to see you all again next Wednesday night, September 14th, from 6-7:30 at our Open House.  We will be going over curriculum.  This evening is for parents. We will hold two sessions 6:15-6:45 and 6:55 -7:25.  Please send survey forms back to Pine Glen on Monday so we will know when to expect you. 

Summer Challenge Update

Last June, Mrs. Gordon and I challenged our kindergartners with a summer writing challenge. We are pleased to announce that two of our students fulfilled this challenge. Both Cadence and Evan wrote in their journal once a week, every week of the summer, adhering to the kindergarten expectations. Cadence and Evan wrote at least 3 sentences and an drew an illustration with 6 colors for each entry!  We loved reading about all the adventures that were had over the summer. Congratulations! Continue to write in your journals. We'd love to read more about all the different things you are all doing in your lives. We would love to read any of our past students journal writing. Hopefully you all remember our classroom is Room 101!