Kindergarten Happenings!

We had a "marbulous week" and filled our jar!  The children were super excited about our marble party today and loved having their stuffed friends with them for the day!  

Here are some pictures from our hard working week!  

 We began writing in our journals this week.  We begin with a teacher writing what the child says but as the year moves along the children begin writing and sound out words.  It is amazing to see how much they learn from September to June! 

 We encourage details and the use of different colors.  We focus on thickness when drawing people and animals and try to stay away from stick figures.  We also use step draws to help children when they are drawing.  

 Alphabet Arc - We will use this arc for many activities. 

 Working with partners to show ways to make 5! 

  Fine Motor Fun

The girls above are using tongs to pick beads out of rice.  This is a great way to strengthen finger muscles.  We also included some math questions once all the beads were fished out. They sorted, counted and compared the beads.   

 Finger exercises - practicing circles, big & little lines from the top, zig zags and curved lines.

 Push pin art - using push pins to work on our pinch grip

We did the letter "Aa" and added apples to our tree.  

 Hole punching the letter "Aa" ~ another way to strengthen our hands

 Choice time!  Look at these smiles! 

 Writing center is becoming very popular!  They love drawing, coloring and creating!

 Dramatic play!  Another popular activity! 

 Whisper phones - I introduced whisper phones to the children.  They are a great tool to use so they can hear themselves read and also a great way to work on those whisper voices because when you have a phone your voice sounds pretty loud unless you really whisper.  

 Daily Five

Read to Self ~ We keep working on our stamina but we are only at 5 minutes right now.  So we introduced Word Work.  Word work involves activities to help us with letters/sounds, building words, sentences and more.  Our first time we worked for 10 solid minutes! Way to go!! 

 We introduced wikki sticks to make letters / words and practiced sight words with read it, build it write it!  The kids really enjoyed these to activities! 

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! 

Kindergarten Happenings

Here's a preview of our class pictures today!

Hope the real ones came out just as good if not better than this one!  

They did a super job!  

I will post additional pictures this weekend!  Enjoy your weekend!  

Kindergarten Happenings!

Here are a few pictures of last weeks walking field trip to the fire station.  The children were amazing and did a fantastic job!  We lucked out with perfect weather as well.  When we arrived at the police & fire station we laid out a few blankets and read a story/discussed safety.  

 Here is a great picture of the two classes in front the the beautifully decorated front doors!  

 We have had a busy week and we are becoming more comfortable with the rules & routines of school.  We have practiced writing numbers 1-4 using magnetic boards, Handwriting Without Tears ap on ipads & practicing writing in our HWT workbooks.  We strengthened our fingers with a little push pin art of the letter M and came up with creative ideas why an apple was paired with it.  "MMmm good" "munch" or Macintosh apple.  Pretty clever!  

 A little "STEM" challenge

We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and then created our own trees using a toilet paper roll, tongue depressors & magnetic letters.  The children were challenged to fit all the letters on the tree.  If they met the challenge they were then challenged to decrease the number of sticks they used.  They had a great time and enjoyed the challenges! 

 Practicing number writing again.  We also used shaving cream and practiced writing numbers, our names and shapes.  I was busy working with students on ways to make 5 and never got a photo. However, you can be assured that most of them loved getting messy and writing in the shaving cream! 

 numbers with playdough

 Reading a poem with Miss Torgersen, finding the sight word I and practicing coloring in the lines.  

We read some stories, talked about being a good friend and created a second class book.  

We hope you have a wonderful weekend!  

Kindergarten Happenings!

What a welcoming sight!  Thank you to the individuals who took time out of their day on Monday to decorate the two entryways!  They look amazing and such a nice surprise!  

It was very nice to meet many of you at Open House on Wednesday!  Thank you for coming and hopefully I didn't talk to fast as I tried to fit it all in.  Let me know if you have any questions. I received a couple notes to share with a few children.  If you send it in I will share it with them when I get it.  The children really enjoyed listening to their special message!   

 Working to strengthen our finger muscles!  The children worked to squish tissue paper with their fingertips and then glued it on the outline of a letter.  

 It is harder than it looks and does take some concentration. 

 We have been working on writing numbers 1-5 mostly using magnetic boards and playdough.

 Alphabet Arc activity ~ There are many things we can do and practice using the alphabet arc.  The first steps are matching the letters correctly and being able to say the letters in the alphabet.  

 Zoey is working on sorting letters in her name and not in her name. 

Journey is working on the alphabet arc.  

 We introduced the first part of Daily Five ~ Read to Self. We learned about the words independent and stamina!  Two big words we use to describe some of the things we are working towards.  Working independently on activities so teachers can work with individual children or small groups.  Stamina is doing anything for a long time without getting tired or giving up.  We were able to read to self for up to 3 minutes before some children lost focus.  We will keep practicing and hope our stamina increases.  Our goal is to be able to engage in a round of Daily Five for 15-20 minutes.  We have some work to do but I know we will get there!  

 Germ Busters!!  

Mrs. Amaral came to read us a story and talk about germs.  

We also had a chance to use the germ buster machine to show us the germs we can't see.  

We talked about coughing or sneezing into our elbow or "chicken wing" instead of our hand or not covering at all.  Hopefully we will wash our hands well so we don't get sick this year!  

 special germ buster lotion 

 An awesome geo block creation! Way to go!! 

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!!