Week in Review--Families

Reading:

In reading this week, we continued to practice our first two choices Read to Self and Work on Writing and we did so well with those that we were able to learn our third choice, Word Work this week. We talked about how at this choice we do not need to have our book boxes. The other two choices our book boxes are a must to complete the choice. For Word Work, we have different materials and items that are needed. We will have several options at Word Work eventually, but this week we started off by using our white boards, markers, erasers and an alphabet page and a page with all of our class names on it. We built stamina by writing our letters and class names for the entire choice. This is great practice for us to write, write, write so we are ready to begin words and sentences in a few weeks! Eventually, we will have other options like Play-doh, magna doodles and more!

Our CAFE strategies this week focused on print concepts of a book. We learned all about each part of a book, the front cover, back cover, spine, title page, where to start reading, where to go after each word and so on. We even got to practice all of these on a book by ourselves to show how much we have learned!

We have continued to focus on all of the letter sounds like week. We focused in on a few different letters each day, as well as completed our morning daily review every day by practicing all of our letters. In our daily review, we will soon be adding the sight words as well to be practicing reading and numbers!

Our new sight words: can, we

**Be sure to keep the white sight word cards from week to week and continue to practice all of them as new ones are sent home every week.

Our Poem of the Week:

Writing:

This week we continued to focus on writing specific letters in the alphabet. The letters this week were Jj, Qq, Uu, Ss. Everyday we go through an alphabet chart, sing a song all about that specific letter, trace a letter page with the uppercase and lowercase letter and complete another activity or craft that goes along with the letter. We love learning what each new letter will be everyday!

Math:

We completed our very first math vocabulary entry this week! At the beginning of every week we will have a new vocab word that goes with math! Our word this week was the word number line. We learned what a number line is and how to draw one. We then added this new idea to our number of the day and will continue to write number lines every single day in math. This number line will be used later in the year for adding and subtracting as well. Another concept we practiced this week was using a ten frame. We rolled a dice to see a number and then colored in a ten frame according to the number that was rolled.

Content:

This week was all about Families!

• Monday--We were not at school because of Labor Day! I hope you all enjoyed your time home!
• Tuesday--We completed a class chart brainstorming things that families “have, live in and like to do”.
• Wednesday--We read a story about different types of families and how no two families are exactly alike.
• Thursday--We shared pictures of our families and told about things we like to do with them.
• Friday--We completed a family page where we drew each member of our families in a house!

**The picture below was the only one I got this week during content time because I was too excited about seeing and hearing all of the students talk about their families when showing off their photos that I completely forgot to take pictures of them sharing. Trust me when I tell you it was incredibly sweet and they sure do love their families!

PRACTICE AT HOME:

Have your child draw a number line for you at home! Tell them a number to circle and then switch and have them tell you a number to circle until all of the numbers have been circled!

Next Week:

• In reading we will learn a few more choices with Word Work, our new choice Read to Someone AND we will begin using our classroom iPads!
• In writing we will continue learning a letter every day!
• In math we learn about a rectangular array.
• Our theme next week is all about colors!

Important Dates/Information:

**Go to our classroom webpage if you want to see important dates on a calendar! I will update this classroom calendar as dates and events come about.

• 9/19 School Pictures
• 9/22 Field Trip to Exploration Acres (more information to come)
• 9/29 Author Visit
• 10/14 End of 1st Nine Weeks
• Week of 10/17-10/21 Parent/Teacher Conferences

Week in Review--ABC's & Names

Reading:

In reading this week, we have pretty much become experts in Read to Self. We gained and consistently kept so much reading stamina that we were able to learn our new choice called Work on Writing. We learned all of the materials needed, how to use a book from our book boxes, where the paper is found and how to use the crayon pouch and keeping our area organized while writing. I modeled how a WOW (Work on Writing) session would look and after that they took off! Their first round of building stamina, they made it to 18 MINUTES! They did not stop writing, drawing, illustrating, coloring for 18 MINUTES! They worked and worked and did not give up, all while building their writing stamina. We also started to learn how to "shop" for new books in our book boxes. Students picked through a pile of books to find a good fit book that they would want to read during Read to Self. Soon, students will be choosing books at their reading level and from our classroom library! Next week, we will discuss and focus in on print concepts and all of the parts of a book!

We have focused in on the sounds each of the letters make these first two weeks of school and I can already tell this class is going to be blending those sounds and reading in no time! We use our Zoo Phonics videos, letter cards and songs every day to practice these sounds. We also find the sounds in words we write and we love to go on a letter sound hunt to find them too!

Our new sight words: see, the

**Be sure to keep the white sight word cards from week to week and continue to practice all of them as new ones are sent home every week.

Our Poem of the Week:

Writing:

This week we continued to focus on writing specific letters in the alphabet. The letters this week were Dd, Cc, Ee, Ff, Gg. Everyday we go through an alphabet chart, sing a song all about that specific letter, trace a letter page with the uppercase and lowercase letter and complete another activity or craft that goes along with the letter. We love learning what each new letter will be everyday!

Math:

We learned numbers 9 & 10 this week and then continued to focus on a specific number each day, as well as practicing counting as high as we can (we made it to 100 as a class!!!), counting out a specific number of objects one by one and recognizing numbers 1-10 by playing Swat-It! We completed an entry of “Number of the Day” on white boards and I did mine in Book Creator on the iPad in my math journal. Students will soon be completing their own entries in their own math journals on the iPad! After just a week of working on number of the day and writing our numbers 1-10 I have seen an improvement every single day in each student! Their confidence is growing in writing numbers, drawing shapes and writing the number words!

Content:

This week was all about ABC’s and our Names!

• Monday--We counted the letters in each of our names and added them to our class word wall.
• Tuesday--We cut the letters in our names apart and put them back in the right order and then drew a self portrait doing something we love.
• Wednesday--We ripped up paper and and glued the ripped up pieces on the lines of the letters of our names. Not only is it fun to rip up paper but it’s great practice for fine motor skills and building strength in their hands.
• Thursday--We finished up ripping the paper and gluing it down and also traced our names and wrote them on our own and drew a picture!
• Friday--We read one of my favorite stories called Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. In this story all of the letters in the alphabet climb up a coconut tree and it topples over. After reading the story, we made our own coconut palm trees and took the letters of our name and had them climb up the tree!

PRACTICE AT HOME:

Have your child count as high as they can. The goal for the first nine weeks is to 25, then by the end of December 50, March 75 and May 100!

Next Week:

• In reading we will continue building stamina with reading and writing as well as learning a new choice Word Work. We will continue practicing our letter sounds and focus on print concepts.
• In writing we will continue learning a letter every day!
• In math we will continue practicing counting, focusing on numbers 1-10 and will learn about a number line.
• Our theme next week is all about FAMILIES! A note was sent home on Friday to send in a picture of your child's family. We will share these throughout the week.

Important Dates/Information:

**Go to our classroom webpage if you want to see important dates on a calendar! I will update this classroom calendar as dates and events come about.

• 9/5 Labor Day NO SCHOOL
• 9/19 School Pictures
• 9/22 Field Trip to Exploration Acres (more information to come)
• 9/29 Author Visit
• 10/14 End of 1st Nine Weeks
• Week of 10/17-10/21 Parent/Teacher Conferences

Week in Review--Getting to Know You!

Reading:

In reading this week, we continued to build our reading stamina. Our goal is to be able to make it around 15 minutes a couple of times before we move on to our next choice, which will be Work on Writing. I am happy to report the class made it to 15 minutes one time this week and the other times were between 12-14 minutes as well! I am excited to have the class reading independently so quickly in the year! At this point in the year they are mainly practicing reading the pictures in the books, creating their own stories, looking at the letters in words on the pages and finding ones they know. We will slowly but surely start reading the words we find in books. We are on our way to becoming readers! Next week, we will be combining our continued learning of Read to Self with Work on Writing stamina. I have no doubt they will do great things with this second choice! We also focused on the five vowels in the alphabet and the two sounds they make. They are called hard workers because they can make two different sounds in words. Sometimes they say their sound and other times they might say their name instead.  

Poem of the Week:

Every week we have a poem we practice reading every day and complete several other activities to help build our reading fluency. On Fridays, the students perform the poem as a celebration for all of their hard work throughout the week!

Writing:

This week we began to focus on writing specific letters in the alphabet. The letters this week were Ll, Ii, Tt, Oo and Aa. Everyday we go through an alphabet chart, sing a song all about that specific letter, trace a letter page with the uppercase and lowercase letter and complete another activity or craft that goes along with the letter. We love learning what each new letter will be everyday!

Math:

We learned numbers 1-8 this week! We talked about how during math time every single day we will complete an activity called “Number of the Day”. Sometimes we will know the number we are working with and other times we will roll one or two dice to figure out the number. We start the year off by writing the number, number word, draw the dice and draw as many shapes as the number we have on the board. We drew triangles, circles, squares and rectangles. Keep practicing writing numbers and shapes at home, we will be doing this activity every single day. As the year goes on we will add more and more to the number of the day. We will add addition and subtraction, tally marks and more!

Something Extra:

On Monday this past week we took an assessment called the NWEA (Northwest Evaluation Assessment) on iPads. This test is given to K-5 in all TSC schools and measures students growth and needs. The data from the test helps aid with instruction and helps maximize every learners growth. The test is given at the beginning, middle and end of the year. They take two tests, one is for math and one is for reading. We will take the reading test this coming Monday.

Content:

This week was all about the Getting to Know You!

• Monday--We took birthday pictures for our birthday board with friends who have a birthday in the same month!
• Tuesday--We completed an activity where we each had a turn to roll a foam dice and whatever number it landed on went with a specific question we had to answer to get to know one another more!
• Wednesday--We completed a similar activity to Tuesday, but this time we pulled a Starburst out of the bucket and whatever color it was went with a specific question to answer. Bonus...we got to eat the candy after we shared!
• Thursday--We created an iMovie as a class and described something we love and put the iMovie together by adding the videos, adding text and animation! Be sure to watch the video below!
• Friday--We shared our “All About Me” bags. It was so much fun hearing the neat things each student brought to share to tell us a little more about them. Thank you for taking the time to fill these bags with your child. Their faces lighting up when it was their turn to share was so sweet!

PRACTICE AT HOME:

Have your child practice writing his/her name. The first letter should be capitalized and the rest should be lower case. Be sure they are in the right order. Several students are mixing their letters up! *Bonus* try writing numbers and shapes too!

Next Week:

• In reading we will continue building Read to Self stamina and begin building Work on Writing stamina, as well as focusing in on the consonants in the alphabet.
• In writing we will continue learning a letter every day!
• In math we will continue to learn and practice numbers 1-10 as well as counting objects!
• Our theme next week is all about the Alphabet and our names!

Important Dates/Information:

• 9/5 Labor Day NO SCHOOL
• 9/19 School Pictures
• 9/22 Field Trip to Exploration Acres (more information to come)
• 9/29 Author Visit
• 10/14 End of 1st Nine Weeks
• Week of 10/16-10/18 Parent/Teacher Conferences

First Week of School!

Drum roll please........!!

Here are the students in Mrs. Brown's class for 2016-2017 school year!

Reading:

This week in reading we started to learn about our 90 minute reading block and what we do during our reading time. We talked about Daily 5/CAFE and how we are becoming readers. One of the first lessons we completed was learning that we, even as brand new kindergarten students are already readers! Yes, they could not believe it when I told them this news. We practiced reading the 3 ways to read a book....Read the Pictures, Read the Words and Retell Familiar Stories. They were so in shock when they realized that reading the pictures in a book was in fact READING! Woo hoo!

We then introduced the STAMINA chart. This chart records the minutes of reading stamina we, as a class, were able to complete without stopping. Our very first try we made it to 1 minute. I was absolutely shocked and excited at how well we did the very first try! The next day we made it all the way to 5 minutes and then the next round 7 minutes! I fell on the floor I was so shocked at how well they are already doing as beginning readers!

We created our very first I-Chart this week! This chart focused on the student's job and my job during our first Daily 5 choice "Read to Self". The class and I came up with the jobs that are needed in order to have a smooth round of daily five where we all do our jobs! One way we teach the correct way of building our reading stamina is to model, model, model. This week we also had a couple of students model the INCORRECT way to read to self, followed by the correct way. The class got a kick out of seeing students do the wrong thing!

Have I mentioned how amazed I am at these kids and how well they are already reading to self? Just take a look at several of the pictures I took this week to prove it!

One of our favorite lessons when introducing Read to Self is all about doing the right thing vs the wrong thing. Both myself and students model doing the wrong things first and then switching to the correct thing. It's pretty funny to see the wrong thing happening and then exciting to see the right thing!

Wrong way! Having all the books out on the floor!

The right way! One book out at a time and reading!

Wrong way! Not reading ANY books at all.

Right way! Reading one book!

Wrong way! Not treating the books nicely.

Right way! Treating the books nicely and reading!

ATTENTION, ATTENTION, ATTENTION!

The class you see in the picture below made it all the way to 7, yes you read that right, 7 minutes of reading stamina! I could not be any more proud to be their teacher today! Way to go boys and girls!

Writing:

During our writing time this week, we practiced finding different letters in the alphabet during our shared writing of our morning message. The class did an exceptional job finding letters to circle. We also wrote our names on a class chart. We wrote the date at the top of the chart so we can write our names again in a few months to see how much we have improved!

We completed two shared writings this week. The first was all about what they think makes a good teacher and the second was what makes a good student! They had wonderful ideas on both writings!

Math:

During math time this week, we focused on exploring and using our creativity with our tubs of math tools. I saw very many creative and imaginative minds at work! We also sang several songs, counted as high as could and discussed a lot of topics we will learn about in math this year.

Content:

This week we only had one real content lesson because the rest of the time we spent learning procedures around the school. We read the story The Kissing Hand and completed a craft to go along with the book that helped us share how we felt on the first day of school. In the story, the main character Chester the raccoon is scared and sad about going to school because he will miss his mom. She gives him a kiss in his palm and tells him that if he ever misses her to put his hand to his cheek. He was so excited that he went to school and had a great time!

Next Week:

• In reading we will continue building reading stamina and trying to reach our goal of 15 minutes of stamina!
• In math we will be focusing on the numbers 0-8 and learning how to show them in various ways, what they look like and counting objects.
• In writing we will begin focusing on a specific letter of the alphabet every day.
• Our theme next week is GETTING TO KNOW YOU.I will be sending home a bag on Monday for you to complete with your child.

Important Dates/Information:

• 8/25 Meet the Teacher Classroom Information NIght 5:30-7:15
• 9/5 Labor Day NO SCHOOL
• 9/19 School Pictures