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!