Hi! What a great first full week of school! We got lots accomplished! We added UFLI, Math, Morning Slides, Art, Guidance and GUESS BOX to our schedule. We celebrated our names and who we are. We got a few assessments out of the way. We will do a few more next week and then we'll be able to really jump into our "normal" schedule. This group continues to work hard to remember that there are lots of us so we have to be patient while waiting, help each other, keep our talking at a low volume and to listen with a caring heart.
It was so fun looking at everyone's baby pictures today (even teachers)! There were so many smiles as we tried to guess who was who. We also shared where our names came from, so many interesting stories! Thank you so much for getting the pictures to me! This is the first year in a VERY long time that I got pictures from every student! And they were all in on time so I had time to prep the activities! You guys are amazing! No wonder your kids rock!
We did our first try of stations in our second classroom. The kids moved independently between a hallway scoot, coloring our controlled vowels, playing Top It and playing Number Squeeze. They did great!
We read some big books this week to practice our reading strategies. We worked on figuring out words we don't know by using the meaning of the story to get our minds ready for when we sound out words. It makes those hard words come out easier and faster! We brainstorm words that would make sense and then look at the letters again!
We worked together to solve our first GUESS BOX!! We can only ask yes/no questions. If students guess correctly in 20 questions or less, they keep what is in the box. If not, teachers get it!!! Very sad news...teachers have never won :(! There were pull back cars in the Guess Box. We had fun racing them in the hallway! They reminded us of our Secret Story Er, Ir, Ur...they always drive too fast and have to put on the brakes which makes the RRRRR sound. Also, R is always bossy and never lets E, I, or U drive so they can't even talk! We'll be learning lots of Secret Stories this year. It's a fun way to make those sounds stick in our brains. We also learned AU/AW (awwww so cute), (they're so silly, always sticking out their tongues at each other when together.
We have lots of gems being earned each day. When your child gets ten they can turn them in during Afternoon Break. Their choices are: a prize or a coupon. The coupons are: Pajama Day, Show and Tell, Hat Day, Read to A Class or Teacher, Bring a Stuffy to school or Dress Up Day. Dress Up Day means fancy attire or costume. If your child picks a coupon, it'll be in his/her folder. They can use it for the very next day or the next day s/he remembers. If they lose the coupon but tell you about it, I would trust them. :)
We had two special afternoon snacks this week. Our nurse, Mrs. McCloskey, got our school involved with a Maine Farms program. Twice a week we will get snacks from Maine farms! This week the who school was invited to try Maine peaches, plums and rainbow carrots! Delicious! What an amazing program!!
We learned three new math games. Top It (basically the old version of War with a kinder name),. You can change this up to make it more challenging by adding numbers of the cards taken. Number Squeeze- use a number line, take turns guessing which number the other person is thinking of. Make sure to move your fingers to say if the number is greater than or less than their guess. Penny/Dice Game-put a bunch of pennies in a bowl. Take turns rolling the dice and taking that many pennies. You have to roll the exact number to empty the bank at the end. Count your pennies to see who had the most.
Dates to Remember
* Our school has so many walkers and pick ups this year that we are going to need to stagger our dismissal times a little. PreK will get picked up at 2:15. K-2 will be dismissed at 2:25. Grades 3+ will be regular time. Thank you for your help with this! :)
* No school Monday, September 7.
* I know the school nurse is putting something out to the entire school but I figured I would add it here. This is totally normal especially for this time of year. We have lice in our building. Please make sure to check your child's head. This way we can stop the spread before it really gets going. Thanks!!
* Book Orders are due Friday, September 11th. Our classroom code is DV68C. You can order books anytime by going to www.scholastic.com and using our code. I will get an alert that you ordered. I usually push all books through on our due date so they will arrive together. :)
* Picture Day will be Wednesday, September 16. More info will come out soon.
Can you guess the who the babies are?
