Monday, August 27, 2012

August 27th - August 31st

*Every week I'm going to post a sneak peek of what our class is going to do for the week.Sometimes I might come back and fill in missing parts :)

 READING:
  • Animated Alphabet - 
    • Monday: We are going to draw a pup and put together a mixed up sentence using the SMARTboard. e a math sheet
    • Tuesday:  We are going to learn the song "Catch A Fish" and then write about what kind of animal we would catch! 
    • Wednesday: We will be learning the letter "O" and meeting Ollie Ostrich. 
    • Thursday: We are going to do a sort of the letters "O" "P" and "U"
    • Friday: We are going to use fruit loops and make a colorful "O" on a paper plate.
MATH
  • Math Expressions - 
    • Monday:  We are going to continue to use our math manipulatives and work on showing a number with tiles and pattern blocks. Next we will be drawing a scence of 3.
    • Tuesday:  First we will discuss our scenes of 3 using the document camera. Following that we will show amounts of objects by drawing with crayons. For example, "show 3 hats."
    • Wednesday:
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL
  • Solution Cards
    • Share: We will read a book about sharing and talk about using our solution cards. 
    • Get A Timer: Talk about using a timer to help solve problems with friends. 

Sunday, August 26, 2012

The Year Has Begun!

Oh my, oh my, oh my! Our first week of kindergarten is over and our second week is about to begin. The kiddos did so well adjusting to a longer day full of big kid expectations. I for one came home every night exhausted, so I'm guessing my little ones did too.

To start the week off, we all reviewed the rules and expectations of our classroom. We have four rules that we follow and respect.
  1. Keep hands, feet, and other objects to yourself.
  2. Raise your hand to talk.
  3. Listen and follow directions.
  4.  Walk quietly inside of school.
All three kindergarten teachers have the same four rules for inside of the school. We also have recess rules, these are very similar, but there are some details about swinging and sliding on their bottoms, as well as keeping rocks and sticks on the ground. All in all, we want our kiddos to be as safe as possible so that they can learn and thrive in school.

Along with our rules we also started our Clip Chart on Tuesday.  Kennedy is a PBS school, which stands for "Positive Behavior Supports" and this means that teachers and staff focus on the positive doings of kids, rather than the negative. In my room I use our Clip Chart to encourage the kiddos to do the right thing first and then I reward them just for that! Every day the kiddos clips start on green (Ready to Learn). As the day progresses they aim to get to the top, which is red for OUTSTANDING! This week all of the kids were above green and were simply rockstars.


Red = Outstanding
Orange = Great Day
Yellow = Good Job
Green = Ready to Learn
Blue = Think About It
Purple = Teacher’s Choice
Gray = Parent Contact

Along with practicing routines and procedures we also learned two letters!, We started with the letter "P" and the character Polly Panda. Polly has her own story and song. We glued popcorn kernals onto purple p's and found words that start with "P" using our SMARTboard.

On Thursday we met Uncle Upton, who stands for the letter "U." Uncle Upton loves onion soup and he is an umpire, so we talked about our favorite sport and read "Curious George Plays Baseball." Friday we read the book "Aliens in Underpants Save the World." It was hilarious and really got the kids engaged. After reading the book we colored paper underwear and I strung it up around the room!

Please continue to send those BEE books and snacks! We appreciate all the help that we can get!