Friday Motor Group

During motor group students are working on moving in  a slow and controlled manner.  They are working on balance, strength, recognizing and respecting other's "bubble space", and much more.

This Week in Kindergarten (Dec. 12-16)

We made new bags for our "Just Right Books"

Taking turns being the Teacher

Book Making

This Week in Literacy (Some things we worked on)

• Reading with engagement, independence, volume and stamina.  
• When we figure out a pattern in our book we can use that to predict what will happen next.
• We can guess at tricky words then check to see if we are right by: checking the picture, the beginning letter, and asking ourselves, "What would sound right in this book?" and "What would make sense here?"
• If we get stuck on  a tricky part we can go back a couple of pages and get a running start.  We read as smoothly as we can so we can really hear how the pattern sounds.
• Writers have to be brave word solvers: we have to use all of the resources we have, like the word wall to  write words that people can read.
• Writers can stretch words out and write down all of the sounds they hear to write words people can read.  
• We read some Hanukkah books and had a special snack of cookies shaped like dreidels, menorahs and stars.  Amy Wallace also discussed Hanukkah with our class and students got to play with dreidels.
• We read The  Gingerbread Man and got to eat some homemade gingerbread!  
• Shared Reading was sent home this past week.  We colored and read a mini-book: December is time to Celebrate.
• In our  Word Study time we are counting syllables in words, writing uppercase letters and working on ABC order.

This Week in Math (Some things we worked on)

• Developing and extending measurement skills by using children's feet to measure objects.
• Thinking about combinations of digits used to write numbers.
• Recognizing and finding equivalent names for numbers.
• Using addition and subtraction clues.
• Using multiple attributes to find and describe objects.
• Applying sorting rules.
• Copying and extending a visual pattern that is not based on color.

Holiday Book Festival at L.L. Bean

Chris Van Dusen,author of The Circus Ship, and Dahlov Ipcar (we've read The Cat at Night, it is a kindergarten favorite) and more than 25 other authors will be meeting fans and signing books all weekend long, turning each book into a one-of-a-kind gift.  Go to this link and scroll down for more information. http://www.llbean.com/shop/retailStores/northernLights/

Thank You

Dear Kindergarten Families,

I wanted to share a thank you note that our class received regarding the Arts and Crafts Basket that was won at the Pasta Dinner.  The winner of the basket wrote:

"To Ms Finnen and her class,
Thank you very much for the craft basket.  You have helped me make 7 children happy this Christmas.  It was very beautiful.  All of you keep up the good work.  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you."

Have a wonderful weekend!

Ms. Finnen

This Week in Kindergarten (November 28-December 2)

This Week in Literacy: (some things we worked on)

• Reading with engagement and independence, building stamina, reading lots of books.
• Building our reading lives by choosing a special spot to read at home.
• Warming up for reading by reading words we know by heart in a snap. (We now have these words on word cards in our reading bags.)
• Recognizing patterns in books and knowing that the patterns can sweep us along in our reading.
• Writing pattern books.
• Having whole class conversations about books.  (Looking at the person who is talking.  Building on what was said before.  Taking turns.)
• We finished learning the lowercase alphabet in our Fundations/WordStudy work with the letters: /y/ and /x/.  

This Week in Math: (some things we worked on)

• Modeling and solving subtraction stories using manipulatives.
• Learning the (-) symbol.
• Recognizing "take away" situations as subtraction.
• One-to-one Counting.
• Recognizing and writing numbers.
• Sorting blocks according to different attributes.
• Figuring out and applying sorting rules.

We are Thankful

I asked the students what they were thankful for today and I was so impressed with their responses I just had to share.

"I am thankful for..."

• all the people in the world.
• all of the teachers.
• all of my friends.
• all of my grandpas.
• all the stuff we do at school.
• the Earth that gives us a place to live and for trees that give us oxygen.
• everything that is in our village.
• our families.
• my brother.
• everything and everyone.

And I am thankful for all of the kindergarten families!  It was so nice to meet with all of you for conferences.  I know this is a busy time of year and I really appreciate the time you took.  Have a wonderful holiday.

This Week in Kindergarten (November 14-18)

Putting an ABC puzzle together in ABC order

This Week in Literacy: (Some things we worked on)

• This week we talked about how all of the strategies we have for reading are like superpowers.  So many concepts have to come together for children to decode and understand what they are reading.
• Readers look at the pictures and really think about what the book is about.  This includes making a movie in our minds about the book.
• Beginning readers point under each word and make sure the number of words said matches the number of words on the page.
• Readers read words we know by heart in a snap.
• Readers look at the first letter in words and get their mouths ready to say that sound.  
• Writers go back into their books to make a good book, great!  We add to the words and the pictures to help the reader read the book.
• Writers leave spaces between words.
• We studied the letters /Z,z/ and /Q,q/ and learned how to write them properly.
• Shared Reading this week was:

Apples,

Pears,

Peaches,

Plums,

Tell me when

your birthday comes.

This Week in Math: (some things we worked on)

Measuring using nonstandard measurement

• Developing and using strategies to find the sum of two dice rolls.
• Creating a graph of dice rolls.
• Making squares, rectangles and triangles using geobands and geoboards.
• Counting by 1s through 50 using different starting points.

This Week in Kindergarten (November 7-10)

Partner Reading

Taking turns as "Drill Leader"
during Fundations letter practice.

Reading in our Shared Reading Binders

This Week in Literacy (some things we worked on)

• We talked a lot about building our reading muscles and stamina by being engaged in our books.  We reviewed strategies for what to do if our minds start to wander.  
• Readers know that pointing helps you focus on the words.
• In writing we talked a lot about making plans for our writing by telling the story across the pages before putting the words down. 
• We can write about things we know about!!!  Students have been writing about: dresses, McDonald's, trucks, getting ready to go outside in snowy weather and so much more!!
• We read and colored a mini-book about Veteran's Day.
• We are almost through the Fundations lowercase alphabet.  This week we studied the formation, name and sound of /v/ and /w/.  
• We also worked on word awareness and ending punctuation of sentences.

This Week in Math (some things we worked on)

• Reading and comparing numbers.  
• Solving addition number stories using linking cubes.
• Recognizing "joining" situations as addition.
• Learning about the plus symbol.
• Creating and describing patterns with pattern blocks.
• Continuing pattern block patterns.
• Constructing a class bar graph of our favorite colors.
• Discussing information presented in a bar graph and answering questions.

Thank you Kindergarten Families for the great items in our Arts and Crafts Basket!!!  You are the best!!!  It was great to see many of you at our Thanksgiving Lunch on Thursday.  

This Week in Kindergarten (October 24-28)

Guest Reader, Ms Jane (my mom) reading a childhood favorite of mine, "Owl at Home"

This Week in Literacy: Some things we worked on.

• Readers can make plans for how to read emergent storybooks with a partner and what to talk about together.  We are using post-its to mark places in books to share with our partners.
• Readers can read emergent storybooks like storytellers.
• Readers point under the words, rather than on top of them.
• Readers notice words they know in text and practice reading those words with ease.
• Writers do their best and keep on going. When writing an unknown word writers: say the word, ask, "what do I hear?", then write it.
• Writers go back and read what they have written to help remember the story.
• Writers make stories come to life by adding what people are saying.

Partner Reading (Sharing a Funny Part in "Green Wilma" by Ted Arnold).

Counting and Comparing Lengths

This Week in Math: Some things we worked on.

• Reading and Writing numbers
• Creating simple graphs of dice rolls
• Comparing the weight of different objects
• Comparing and ordering numbers
• Measuring objects using  objects of uniform length
• Comparing lengths and arranging items by length
• Developing strategies for solving addition and subtraction problems using concrete objects

Reading our shared reading poem of the week to Mrs. Campbell.
I love you, I love you
I love you so well.
If I had a peanut, I'd give you the shell.

Partner Reading

This week we read many books about firefighters and fire safety. We identified which books were fiction and which were nonfiction.  On Friday, we made a special fire truck snack.  Yum!!!  

Website for Students

The following website has age-appropriate literacy activities:

http://www.uen.org/k-2interactives/abc.shtml

It has been said that the lobster ABC game has a lot of advertisements.

This Week in Kindergarten (October 17-21)

Rainbow Writing of Sight Words

This week in Literacy (some things we worked on):

• Determining if a book is fiction or non-fiction and thinking about author's purpose.
• Rainbow Writing...a  new way to practice sight words.
• Talking with each other about parts in books that give us strong feelings.  We practiced growing ideas by starting with, "This part made me feel ...because..."  Saying "because" helps us say more.
• Building our reading muscles by reading long and strong.
• Strategies for staying focused on reading when our minds start to wander.
• Finishing up vowel introduction, with E,e and U,u (We are only using the short sound of the vowels at this point)



Fancy-Up Friday
Adding Color to Books 

• Discussing why illustrators choose to draw the pictures in books the way they do and about color choice.  (Today was "Fancy Up Friday", where students can color the books they made this week)

Shared Reading was:

I Love You Little

I love you little.

I love you big.

I love you like

a little pig.

This Week in Math (some things we worked on):

Building and Reading Patterns

Favorite School Activity Graph

Matching Numerals to the Correct
Number of Objects

• Patterning
• Drawing and solving number stories
• Numeral writing
• Graphing our Favorite School Activity
• Matching numerals and number words with the correct number of objects

Bottle Redemption to Help build a Basket Ball Court at WCS

WCS has partnered with Bootleggers Beverage Warehouse to assist us with raising money to help build a new basketball court on the playground.  When you return your cans/bottles at Bootleggers just let them know you'd like the money to go to WCS.

Arts and Crafts Basket Donations

Friday, October 28 is the deadline for donations for our class "Arts and Crafts" basket.  Some ideas for donations are: markers, crayons, colored pencils, paints, scissors, glue, paper, etc.  If you don't have time to shop, but would like to donate, you can send a monetary donation to school.  The Friends of Williams Cone will do the shopping for you.  The basket will be raffled off at the pasta dinner.  Money raises will support programs at our school.

Craft Fair Volunteers Needed, November 5th

• Put up signs
• Donate soup or baked good (to be dropped off at 8am)
• Attend bake sale table 

1. 8am-10am (includes set-up)
2. 10am-12pm
3. 12pm-2pm
4. 2pm-4pm (includes clean-up)

• Attend Kid-Made craft table

1. 8am-10am (includes set-up)
2. 10am-12pm
3. 12pm-2pm
4. 2pm-4pm (includes clean-up)

• Help Clean up and take down 3pm-4pm

Please email Mandy Russell at arusse71@maine.edu or call 729-7460

This Week in Kindergarten (October 10-14)

A fun fall birthday snack!  Jack-O-Lanterns made from oranges, filled with fruit salad.

Independent Reading 

Partner Reading (sharing our favorite part of a story)

This was a busy week in kindergarten.  We read many new books (check the shelf) and then worked on retelling the stories in our own words, using story language and character's voices.  The primary focus is on building meaning and growing our talk about books.    In writing, we began book making and this will continue as we learn to tell/illustrate/write stories across pages.  Again, the focus is on making meaning.


Shared Reading this week was a poem by Nellie Edge called, "Reading is Fun" it goes:

Reading is Fun,

Reading is Fun,

Reading is Fun for everyone.

The more you read

The better  you read.

So, Read, Read, Read.

We worked on finding words we know, counting words on each line, reading  fluently, together with "one voice".  On Friday, students read and illustrated the poem, then added it to their shared reading binders.

Students worked with partners to build chains to represent "teen" numbers.

Making Number Charts

In math we continued to work on number sense, counting and building number grids.  We also began exploring "teen" numbers by writing numbers 10-19, using visuals to represent teens as ten and some more, and building chains with partners with 12-19 links...the first ten one color, then adding on another color. (see photo above)

Going Green

Mr. Ciembroniewicz is interested in sending his monthly principal's newsletter electronically to save on paper.  Some of you have already let me know that you would like to receive the letter via email rather than receive a paper copy.  If you want to make this change, just send me a note or an email and I'll communicate this to the office.

This Week in Kindergarten (October 3-6)

This Week in Literacy (some things we worked on):

Seven Guiding Principles of the Independent Reading Workshop within a Balanced Literacy Framework:

• Readers have time to read books independently every day.
• Readers select their own appropriate books.
• Readers take care of books.
• Readers respect each other's reading time and reading lives.
• Readers have daily opportunities to talk about their books in genuine ways.
• Readers don't just read the words but also understand the story.
• Readers' work in the independent reading workshop is replicable outside the classroom.            (Collins 2004, Growing Readers)      

All of the students are working on using story language and character's voices to retell familiar stories that we have read repeatedly in class.  All students are encouraged to be detectives and find words they know in print.  All students are encouraged to pay attention to the pictures and to print and use what they know about letters and sounds to read words.  Some students are using this information to read whole books at their just-right reading level.  Other students will be doing this soon, as they become ready.

• We learned the letter name, sound and correct formation of the "plane line round letters" g and o.  
• Our shared reading poem this week was "Colors of the Flag"  We focused on reading it fluently (with a talking voice), and reading the color words red, white blue and the.  It goes:

I stand with hand on heart.
My teacher stands up, too.
We look at the flag together.
It is red, white and blue.


In Writer's Workshop we focused on a procedure to write.  This includes: think, draw, label and write.  Students are encouraged to write a story from their own lives by thinking, "One day..."

This Week in Math (some things we worked on)

• Developing number sense by representing numbers in many different ways.
• Understanding that each consecutive number is one more than the last.
• Making patterns using our knowledge of pattern and how to draw simple shapes.
• Counting, beginning at many different numbers.
• Writing the numerals 0-8 correctly.
• Making numerals with play dough. 

Next week, on Friday it will be picture day.  Mrs. Rogers will be in for me on Friday.  Ms. Dutton, Mrs. Anderson (our literacy teacher leader) and I will be attending a workshop in Portland on teaching beginning writers.  I am very excited about this workshop and look forward to bringing what I learned back to the classroom.

Upcoming Events

•       Friday, October 14th is Picture Day
•     Tuesday, October 25th 7:00pm, Friends of Williams-Cone Meeting
•     Thursday, November 3rd KinderConcert Field Trip
•     Saturday, November 5th WCS Craft Fair
•     Friday, November 18th, Friends of Williams-Cone Pasta       Dinner and Basket Raffle

   

This Week in Kindergarten (Sept.26-30)

This Week in Literacy (Some things we worked on):

• Identifying letters vs. words
• Identifying the first sound in words
• Writing and recognizing the letters and sounds  introduced so far, and learning /I,i/ and /R,r/
• Making a plan for our reading before we begin
• Labeling the classroom
• Labeling pictures/illustrations in our writing
• Reading each other's names

Every Monday we have book buddies with the students in Mrs. Richard's class.  It is so precious to see the 4th graders reading to the kinders.  Pretty soon the kindergarten students will be reading to their book buddies as well. 

This Week in Math (some things we worked on):

• M-Th we made a different shape collage/picture each day.  (Circles, squares, triangles and rectangles)
• Counting (beginning at one, and starting from different numbers and counting on)

Each Wednesday we have "Amy Time", where Amy Wallace, our school counselor, comes into the classroom.  This week students learned about "bubble space" and how it is important, especially at school, to give others bubble space.  In other words, we must work on keeping our hands and bodies to ourselves.  

There will be no school Friday, October 7th or Monday, October 10th.

I got a very good report on the students' behavior while I was at the Teacher's College workshops!  It was so great to be back in the classroom on Wednesday!

This Week in Kindergarten (Sept. 19-23)

This week in Reader's Workshop we worked on:

• Choosing our own special spot for reading in the classroom.  (Children have been encouraged to pick out a special reading spot at home, as well.)
• Staying in one spot and reading the whole time. 
• Looking closely at the cover and thinking, "What will this book be about?"
• Reading the pictures and/OR the words.
• Saying, "and then" before turning to pages to connect the story.

Our read-alouds this week included: "Green Wilma" by Ted Arnold, "It's Hard to be Five" by Jamie Lee Curtis, "If you Take a Mouse to School" by Laura Numeroff, "Silly Sally" by Audrey Wood,  "Let it Fall" by Maryann Cocca-Leffler, "Salt Hands" by Jane Chelsea Aragon, "Swim, Swim" by Lerch, "The Leaves on the Trees" by Thom Wiley, "Autumn Leaves are Falling" by Maria Fleming and "Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten", by Joseph Slate.  

It is said that, "Reading aloud frequently and regularly is one of the most important things teachers of emergent readers can do for their young learners.  In her book When Kids Can't Read-What Teachers can Do (Heinemann, 2002) Kylene Beers cites research showing that children who have been read to frequently before entering school are familiar with about 35,000 words.  Children who lack these literacy experiences begin school knowing about 12,000-14,000 words.  (The Teachers College Reading and Writing Project 2009)  Read-alouds happen several times a day and students are encouraged to connect what they hear to their own lives by thinking, "This reminds me of..."


In Writer's Workshop we worked on:

• Making sure our illustrations/pictures tell a story
• Working independently
• Telling/writing a story about our own lives

In Math we worked on:

• Calendar routine. We've been in school for 17 days!!!
• Putting number/numeral cards in order from least to greatest
• Looking at a numeral card and counting that number of objects using Ten Frames
• We talked a lot about shapes and played a shape sorting game

Next week I will have a substitute teacher on Monday and Tuesday.  K-2 teachers are being trained on site by Marjorie Martinelli. Below is information about Marjorie I obtained from the following website: http://www.unitsofstudy.com/iuos/author_bios.asp

 Contributing author Marjorie Martinelli brings a background in art to her work as a classroom teacher. For years, she has worked as a classroom teacher, reading specialist, teacher-researcher and an adjunct teacher at Bank Street College of Education. As a staff developer at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project, Marjorie currently helps teachers throughout New York City and in other locations across the country learn to lead effective reading and writing workshops. Marjorie has also worked collaboratively with classroom teachers in leadership groups which have inquired deeply into specific topics including writing in the primary grades, the role of literature in a writing workshop, and managing rigorous and gracious writing workshops. Marjorie is the mother of two daughters, Katherine and Christina, and her inspiration to write and to teach comes from them.

Information about October Book Clubs

Cut and paste the web addresses below to see Favorite October Books from Scholastic.  Book Orders were sent home today and will be due next Friday.  Orders can be turned in or placed online anytime before then.

Firefly:            http://bcove.me/ml1fw6zn



SeeSaw:          http://bcove.me/0anrzp2p

What is Shared Reading?

In kindergarten, an important part of our literacy program is Shared Reading.  Here is an overview of what Shared Reading is:

I define Shared Reading as any rewarding reading situation in which a learner- or group of learners – sees the text, observes an expert (usually the teacher) reading it with fluency and expression, and is invited to read along.

Regie Routman Invitations, 1991

The Components

The text:

• Enlarged so that all children can see the text

• Big Book, Song/Poem/Rhyme Chart

• Predictable • Rhythm, rhyme, repetition • Familiarity • Limited text

A new Shared Reading selection is introduced on the first day of the school week and reread every day.  At the end of the week students get a smaller, personal copy to read, illustrate and put into their binders.  We "visit" with these binders often.  

This Week in Kindergarten (Sept. 12-16)

This week in Literacy we worked continued to work on previously introduced skills.  Some of the concepts we worked on are as follows:

•  Building stamina (spending more time independently in books) and reading the pictures to retell the story.  
• We read the poem "See You Later Alligator" several times together and illustrated a copy to put in our binders.  I'm thinking many of you have heard this poem at home.  
• I read many books aloud to the group including, "Froggy Plays Soccer" by Jonathan London, "I Went Walking" by Sue Williams, "First Flight" by David McPhail, "A House for Hermit Crab" and "Pancakes, Pancakes" by Eric Carle, and "The Three Billy Goats Gruff", a Norwegian Folktake.  I  hope the characters and scenery made it home and your child told you the story!
• During Writer's Workshop we are focusing on working independently, getting an idea to write about, sketching a picture that will match the words, figuring out how many words will be written and writing beginning sounds. 
• We have also introduced several "SIGHT" words that students can read and use in their writing including: mom, dad, you, me, cat, dog, the, yes, no and love.  We have songs for most of these words; maybe your child can sing them to you?!
• In Word Study, we worked on recognizing the letters M,m and N,n as well as the proper letter formation for lowercase m and n.  So far we have studied: t,b,f,m and n.  

This week in Math we worked on:

• Sorting and Grouping
• Making Patterns with several materials
• Writing  the numbers 1-5
• Developing number sense and counting skills by playing "Give the Next Number". 

Don't forget sneakers for PE on Monday!!!  Have a wonderful weekend!

Kindergarten Screening

Tuesday, September 13th we will be doing our kindergarten screening.  Mrs. Rogers will be substituting for me in the classroom while I work with individual students.  This will give us information on how to best meet your child's academic needs at school.

Thank you to everyone who came for Open House!  What a super turn-out.  It is so great for the students to get to share their classroom with families.

This Week in Kindergarten (Sept. 6-9)

This week in literacy we worked on:

• Talking about books with each other 
• Reading words and/or pictures
• Choosing books we find interesting
• Retelling familiar stories
• Getting ideas in our minds about what we are reading 
• Getting started right away during Reader's Workshop
• Matching our pointer finger to the print and to the words on a page

We read many books by Eric Carle, "Max's Chocolate Chicken" by Rosemary Wells, "Dog Loves Books" by Lousie Yates, "Cookie's Week" by Cindy Ward and much more.  

This week in math we worked on:

• Comparing measurements of various objects
• Building patterns and learning the shape names of pattern block shapes (green triangle, orange square, blue rhombus, red trapezoid, tan rhombus and yellow hexagon
• Counting in a variety of ways (forward and backward)
• Sorting by attributes
• Learning the Calendar routine

Students got to meet Mrs. Morneau, our music teacher and Mrs. Murphy for Motor Group on Friday.  Please remember to have children wear sneakers on Mondays for PE and Fridays for Motor Group.  Sneakers are great for all days, anyway for playing on the playground!

What to Look for in the Home-School Folder:

• The letter from Mr. Ciembroniewicz on blue paper regarding a celebration of our heroes.  We are asking you to send in names of heroes and heroines in the lives of our WCS students.
• A brief report on your child's behavior in school so far
• Baggie with "Hattie and the Fox" characters.  Please have your child tell you the story using the props!  We told the story to our friends in Ms Dutton's class.  Wow!!!  They did such a great job.

I am hoping to see you and your child Monday for our annual open-house/ice cream social.

Keep on Reading!

This is a video from Scholastic about Book Club ordering.

http://bcove.me/dg4cisop

Open House/Ice Cream Social

Our annual Williams-Cone Open House/ Ice Cream Social will be Monday, September 12 6-7 PM.

First Week of School

We had a great first week of school.  The focus this week was on learning procedures and routines and getting to know each other.  We read "The Kissing Hand" by Audrey Penn, "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendack, "Bear's Bargain" by Frank Ash, "Hattie and the Fox" by Mem Fox, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" by Eric Carle and many more.   We began our Reader's Workshop by learning about our classroom library and how to take care of books.  We talked a lot about reading the pictures and retelling stories.  We also spent time reading each other's names with the following poem, "___________ is at school today.  We're so glad, we'll shout HOORAY!"  We inserted each child's name and chanted the letters in each name.  Children made self-portraits after learning the poem, "There are millions of people all over the place, but nobody else with exactly your face."  In math we began calendar, and explored many of our math materials.  The students met Mrs. Stack in the computer lab and spent time on Starfall.com.  They also met Mr. Hickey, our art teacher, and got to use a variety of stamps with paint using the concept of symmetry.  They were introduced to our librarian, Mrs. Suthers and listened to the book, "Tacky the Penguin".  Book check-out will begin next week.  A very busy first week.  I am looking forward to next week!  I am so impressed with this new class!