Week 6

Apple Fun Day was a success! Everyone had a good time with our apple learning!! 
On Monday, all three kindergarten classes came together to experience the apple activities. 
Each child completed a craft which shows how an apple tree looks during each season. They made apple prints, played with apple scented play dough, used tongs to scoop apples from the sensory table, and made a Johnny Appleseed hat. Math and science concepts were practiced as the children weighed and measured an apple then decided if it would sink or float.  The children tasted red, yellow and green apples and decided which one they liked the best. The results were graphed to determine the most popular. This year, red apples won by a landslide! On Tuesday, we made apple sauce.The boys and girls used the apple peeler machine to peel apples and then we cooked them in a crockpot. Mrs. Deemer's class and ours came together to taste the delicious treat. Although some students were reluctant to try the applesauce, most loved it and asked for seconds! 

This week, one story read to them was Ten Apples Up on Top. The children made a character of themselves with 10 apples on top of them.Our weekly story was the Little Red Hen. From this story, the children were introduced to the terms, character and setting. The children had several opportunities to act out the story and be one of the characters. We worked with letters /a/ and /g/ and learned the sight words "to" and "purple". 
We are as busy as bees in kindergarten!
Enjoy the weekend!

Week 5

It’s hard to believe that we have reached the end of September! Time does fly when you are busy! This week we concentrated on letters /o/ and /c/. We continue to learn color words and practice sight words. One story we concentrated on was Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? We spent some time retelling the story and sequencing the events. We even made our own class version called, Kindergartener, Kindergartener, What Do You See?. Orange was the newest color word we worked on. In math we continue to print numbers, practice patterns, and play number games.

Some of our learning was centered on the theme of apples and we will continue this into next week. Monday will be Apple Fun Day. All 3 kindergarten classes will come together in the afternoon and work on projects and activities involving apples! On Tuesday we will make applesauce.  If possible, please send in an apple or two.Thank You!!

Have a great Weekend! Go Shoremen!!

Reminder: Bring your smiles. Picture day is on Monday!

Here are a few pictures of some of this week's activities.

Carson and Lillie enjoying the sensory table. Thanks for the beans!

Clara, Emma and Kaeden completing a number graph with Fruit Loops.

    Bingo! We love Bingo! This is a letter matching version.

Week 4

September 19th

This week the children have been introduced to the letters /i/ and /u/. They learned that these letters are vowels and your mouth needs to be open to say these sounds. The sight words, 'like' and 'green' were introduced and practiced.

Our story of the week was Chicka,Chicka, Boom Boom! We used this story to discuss the difference between upper and lowercase letters. After the lesson, the children went on a Letter Hunt. The children needed to find a letter, decide if it was an uppercase or lowercase letter, and mark it on their paper. The children also completed a project to go along with the story.

September 17th was Constitution Day. Mrs. Drotleff, our librarian, read a story called, We The People, which gives a simple explanation of the Constitution. As a class, we reviewed our rules and all agreed that they are necessary for a safe and productive class. To make it official, everyone signed the document. And finally, we made the adorable red, white and blue hats. 

In science, we have been discussing the 5 senses. Today our lesson was on the sense of taste and everyone tried something salty, sweet, sour and bitter. After tasting the baking chocolate, they decided that 'bitter' was not a flavor they enjoyed and that chocolate tastes much better with sugar! 

In math we continue to compare numbers, print numbers and work with the concepts of greater than, lesser than, equal and one more. They are all working hard! :)

Scroll down for a few pictures from this week.

Have a good weekend!

You may have seen papers like this come home and wondered what they are. This center activity is called, Pokey Pins. It helps strengthen fine motor skills and reviews letters and sounds.

                             We play many games throughout the day. This one reinforces number writing.

                                                 Here we are on Constitution day! Sooo cute!!

                                                                    This is our Letter Hunt game.

                                        Take a look at our cute Chicka Chicka Boom Boom projects.

Week 3

This week we worked with the letters /m/ and /n/ and have learned 2 more color words, blue and yellow. With each color word, we learn a song to help with the spelling of the word and the color word in sign language. In math we have begun a unit on comparing numbers. Chrysanthemum was the story of the week. It is about a little girl with a very long name. We counted the letters in our names and graphed the results.

I have sent home some Scholastic Book order forms. If you are interested in ordering books, there are 2 ways to do so. You can fill out the order form inside the flier and send a check made out to Scholastic Books. Or you can order online by visiting https://orders.scholastic.com/HGKVX. Orders are due by September 12th.

Chart

Your child may have come home talking about our Clip Chart. Many of you may be wondering what this is all about.

In our classroom, I use a behavioral management system adapted by the Clip Chart system developed by Rick Morris. This method promotes positive behavior choices and encourages students to self-monitor their behavior.

How it works...

• Each student has a clothespin labeled with his/her name, and begins the day clipped to the green center of the chart labeled Ready to Learn. 
• During the course of the day the students have the opportunity to move their clothespin up or down the chart according to their behavioral choices - "clip up" or "clip down".
• Positive behavior choices allow the students to move his/her clothespin up one level: conversely inappropriate choices cause the clothespin to move down one level. 
• Rewards/consequences are issued later in the day, when students no longer have the opportunity to move their clip.

Clip Chart Advantages...

• Students can be acknowledged for positive behavior choices.
• Students feel a sense of accomplishment when they have the opportunity to clip-up.
• Students who have had to clip down have the opportunity to improve and clip-up later in the day, thus they continue to stay motivated to make positive behavior choices.

Our Clip Chart and sticker charts.

Our chart:

Red : Outstanding	3 stickers
Orange: Great Day	2 stickers
Yellow: Good Job	1 sticker
Green: Ready to Learn	1 sticker
Blue: Slow Down	Warning
Purple: Think About It	10 minute time out during playtime
Pink: Oh No! Stop!	10 minute time out during playtime + parent contact

Rewards...

Each day your child collects stickers on their chart for being on green or above. The sticker charts are pictured next to the Clip Chart. Once their chart is filled, they can get a Reward Coupon. The coupons introduce so far have been:

• Pick from the Treasure Box
• Special Spot Swap (they can trade their carpet spot for the day)
• Bring a toy to school
• Free cut in Line

They love picking coupons! More coupons will be presented as the year goes on.

Please be sure to celebrate if your child comes home and says they ended the day on green! I tell the the children that being on green is a good day! Sometimes they may have done everything asked of them and I just didn't catch them being good. Just keep doing the right thing and I will notice. Sometimes I am looking for certain behaviors in order to clip-up. Often I use clip-ups to shape particular behaviors of certain individuals or the whole class. On certain occasions we get a "class clip-up". This is very special. 

Have a great weekend!

Week 1

Welcome to my classroom blog! I hope to use this as a means to keep you up on the happenings in kindergarten and to share some pictures of our day.

Hip, Hip Hooray! The boys and girls worked very hard their first week of kindergarten and I am very proud of them! As I mentioned earlier, during the first few weeks of kindergarten procedures will be explained and practiced...and practiced some more! The days may seem long to your child at this time, but once the routines are established, we can really get into our kindergarten learning! During the week the children have played games, learned songs, made new friends and visited all of the "specials" classes.

Several of you asked about volunteering in the classroom. Thank you! Soon I will have a sign-up on Sign-Up Genius. I will inform you when this is available.

I have sent home some Scholastic Book order forms. If you are interested in ordering books, there are 2 ways to do so. You can fill out the order form inside the flier and send a check made out to Scholastic Books. Or you can order online by visiting https://orders.scholastic.com/HGKVX. Orders are due by September 12th.

Just a few reminders:

• Please have your child bring in a snack each day. Or send in several at one time and they can be stored in their locker. We have been having snack in the morning and this seems to be working just fine. No complaints of being hungry in the afternoon! :)
• Next Tuesday morning the kindergarten teachers will meet the children at the door, and from then on they will walk in with the rest of the student body. They are ready! :)

Have a great 3-day weekend!