Thanksgiving & Letter P

Well time sure does fly! Our first 9 weeks is already over and its Parent-Teacher Conference time! I am very impressed with how well my students are doing so far! We have been starting some Thanksgiving activities now that it is already half way through November! We did thankful feathers that are on our classroom door. They look great! We brainstormed what we were all thankful for and then the kids did the writing and illustrating!

 

 

We also had our first family project! We sent home "Tom the Turkey" with each family and asked them to create a disguise for him so that he wouldn't get eaten on Thanksgiving!! They kids had a blast and I am amazed at how creative our families are!!

This week was also "P" week so I had a little surprise for them for snack on Tuesday...Pancakes!! They were telling me it was the best day ever! They got to help make the batter and even poor their own pancake!

Halloween Party

Well the Halloween Party was a success!! What a crazy way to start the week though! Thanks to those parents who were such great helpers! And the snacks were awesome!!

Pete the Cat

Well, we had an exciting week! We met a new friend, Pete the Cat!! He is a very cool cat that loves his shoes! But the best thing about Pete is.....He can tie is own shoes!!! He even has a very special club that you can join when you learn to tie your shoes!! Our class is very excited to join Pete in his new club!! We already have 4 people who have already joined, and many more on their way! We know that tying shoes takes lots of practice, so not everyone will get it right away, but that's ok!! When you join his club, you get a special certificate to take home, a badge to wear, and you get your name on our very special bulletin board out in the hallway! Keep practicing to join Pete's club! You can also check out Pete at his website where you can listen to him read his stories!

Pumpkins

Well we got very familiar with pumpkins this week! We compared apples and pumpkins (who knew they were so much alike?), we estimated how round they were using string, we read pumpkin stories, and we ended our short week with our pumpkin investigation where we learned if pumpkins sink or float and we got to open up a pumpkin to see what they look like and feel like inside! Everyone was brave and stuck their hand inside! And since we already had the pumpkin opened up, the kids thought we should carve him into a jack-o-lantern, so we did!! We named him Punky Pumpkin!

Western Day and Pumpkins

Well we ended our fire safety week with a western day on Friday to celebrate the rodeo! The kids loved dressing up in all their cowboy gear! They looked pretty cute too! We read "Armadillo Rodeo" by Jan Brett and did some boot decorating, along with some cowboy boot patterns.

We also got a great surprise in the morning! Mr. Fettig brought a whole truck load of pumpkins to the school and let each student choose one! We didn't get to take them home just yet, because we are going to do some fun activities with them in the coming weeks!

Fireman Visit

Well today was a very exciting day! It is fire safety week and we got a visit at our school from some fireman! They talked to us about 911, stop drop and roll, crawling low in smoke, and things that can start fires. We got to also see a fireman dressed up in all his gear. The best part of all was that we got to check out their brand new fire truck!! It was very cool! The fireman even told us about the citywide fire drill next Wednesday, October 12th at 7:00. They are asking all families to create a fire drill plan and to practice it on that night. They will even have their fire trucks out and about! It was a fun day!

Daily 5

Well we have now begun our Daily 5! The kids have started out great and I am so proud of them! We have introduced the first daily which is Read to Self. We learned about the 3 ways to Read a Book, so even if we don't know how to read all the words, we can still be reading. We also completed our Read to Self I-chart that shows the desirable behaviors for Read to Self time. Each student has their own book box filled with books that they use during this time. We have already built our stamina up to 13 minutes of reading time after only 6 days!! Very impressive!

We also did an art lesson on Warm and Cool colors. We talked about the colors that remind us of the warm sun and the colors that  remind us of the cool water. They each got to sponge paint a page for warm and cool, and then we put a picture frame around it. They turned out great!

Community Helpers

This week we dove into our Community Helpers Unit. We read books and made lists of Community Helpers. We looked at the many hats some Community Helpers wear, as well as some that don't wear hats. I had to be gone Wednesday for a DIBELS training, and they got to discuss Construction workers and make tool belts while I was gone! On Friday, we even got to make ourselves into a Community Helper by choosing 1 of 5 hats to put on our heads! They turned out awesome! I can't wait to put them in the hallway!

First 9 Days!

Well the first 9 days has flown by!! Boy life is crazy between my 3 month old, teaching Kindergarten, and going to grad school! My goal was to get up a post up last Friday, but that didn't happen so I will show you what we have been doing in the first 2 weeks! Our first week we had a lot of fun getting to know each other and learning routines. We did lots of fun activities with the book "Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom."

 

We made a big bulletin board in the hallway with the other Kindergarten class.

 We played spin-a-coconut and found the letter coconut that matched the letter we spun.

We also played roll-a-number coconut tree and covered up the number we rolled with our dice!

The second week of school was "Apple Week." We read books about apples, sang songs about apples, graphed with apples, investigated apples, learned the parts of apples....is there anything with apples we didn't do?? On Friday we even got a special treat of homemade applesauce made with our apples we brought to school. (Well the ones that weren't bruised up from being dropped over and over! ;) I had a few extra of my own just in case!)

We read Dr. Seuss' book, "Ten Apples Up on Top" and we made out own version of the book. It turned out so cute!

We have had a great first 9 days! The kiddos are getting better at routines everyday. We started the quick overview of the letters Aa-Ee. Next week we will be continuing with our letter overview and we will start our unit of Community Helpers! Until next week!

First Day

Well we made it!! The first day of school has come and gone and we all made it in one piece! I am excited about my new little group of kiddos! The first days of school are always a shock because you forget that those new Kindergartners just haven't been in school before!! Routine, routine, routine! I definitely know my name by the end of the day! We will keep working on our routines and I can't wait to see what this year holds for us!

Classroom update

Well things are starting to look better! After many, many hours spent at the school and many sleepless nights thinking of all the things that need to get done, I think the classroom is finally ready! I have one more day to get myself ready now!! We had an open house on Friday and we had a great turnout! It is always good for the little kiddos to come see the room before school starts so that they can prepare themselves. School here we come!

Classroom

Well the school year is starting off in a bit of a frenzy!! The first day we were allowed back into the school was August 23rd. School is starting on September 6th. Oh Boy!! The school is taking longer than we thought to get cleaned so that is safe for everyone. This is what my classroom looked like after working the first day. I still have LOTS of work ahead of me!!