Fun week!!

We are moving right along in the literacy department! We are starting week 2 of Unit 1 and our essential question is “How do baby animals move?” We will be reading and listening to some great stories called “Pouch”, “Baby Animals on the Move” and we will also read a version of “The Tortoise and the Hare”. For shared reading (in the crabby book) we will read “We Can” and “I Can, We Can” and then during guided reading when your child comes over to me at the rainbow table they will be either reading “Hop!” or “We Hop!” We are really starting to understand our guided reading routine and it is awesome to see how well they are doing with it!

We are also going to be learning the word “we” this week and focusing on the letter “a” and the sound it makes and where we hear the “a” sound in words! We will continue to work on blending sounds together to make words! Our new vocabulary words that we will be learning are: adventure, movement, arrived, exciting, and exhausted.

During writing we will continue to talk more about nouns and will keep finding nouns in sentences. I know it is crazy - nouns!! Your kindergarten will soon be able to tell you that a noun is a person, place, or thing or even an animal if they can’t already! This week is actually a very big week in writing because up until now your child has been telling stories orally and drawing pictures to go with their story – but this week we are going to learn how to label our pictures and use turtle talk to sound out the words we want to write and also how to use our alphabet chart to help us during writing time! I am very excited to see what writing has in store for our classroom this week!

In Math this week we will continue to explore numbers 1-10 with our counting mats and daily math routines and learn how to make that tricky number 5. We will also learn how to dot-to-dots with straight lines to make an object (the tricky part about this is starting at the number 1 and going in counting order).   We will also be practicing drawing groups of numbers and learning more about shapes and how to make them! We are really enjoying learning about 2 and 3 dimensional shapes! I am also so happy to see all of the homework coming back to school – the kids get super excited every time I hand homework out so I am sure hoping the enthusiasm to do homework is still there when your child gets home! A homework routine is a great thing to start in kindergarten when they enjoy it! Even on days when there is not an actual paper homework please utilize the resources you have at home in your child’s kindergarten folder to keep practicing the skills we are working on!

We are continuing to learn more about our American Symbols – we still have a lot to learn about. But this Thursday, Sept. 17^th is a super fun day for our country – it is Constitution Day! We will be learning about what the constitution is and why we have it and we will also be making our very own Kindergarten Constitution and I am hoping all of my friends will agree to it and sign it so we can have a successful school year. On this day we will be doing lots of fun crafts and you will be getting home our first family project where you will have the opportunity to create your own Family Constitution – so please look for this on Wednesday! We are really enjoying learning about our country and we are very proud to live here! On Constitution Day again please have your child wear red, white, and/or blue!

Picture Day is Wednesday, Sept. 16^th – please turn in your papers if you would like to order pictures!

I hope your child was excited about their kindergarten folder on Friday night – I am hoping this will be a great communication tool that we can use and will help keep important papers organized! Any important note I will be sending home will be in your child’s kindergarten folder and all other important notes from the office and your child’s work will still be put in your child’s Wednesday folder. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns! It is going to be another fun week in kindergarten! 

Sorry this is late!!

Happy Grandparent's Day!!

We want to say HAPPY GRANDPARENT'S DAY to some special people in our lives. The kindergarten kiddos all really love their grandparent's a ton!!!!! They love to stay over, go places, eat food, and play with you!! You are all so special and I hope that you enjoyed your project we made for you. Please enjoy our video and ENJOY your day!! You all ROCK!!! (some of our video pictures may look familiar!!)

Patriot Day

Today we wore red, white, and blue to honor all of the men and women who have fought for and protected our country. We talked about how AWESOME our country is and how we should be proud of all of these special people. We STAND TALL for America and we made a project to show our appreciation. We hope you enjoy our video!!

September is Coming!!!

I can hardly believe that it is almost September!! The start of the school year has really flown by quickly!!! I am sure it is because we are SO busy in kindergarten!! We will continue to get even busier, if that is possible!!!

In literacy this week we will finish up with learning about the alphabet!! We will be learning about W-Z!!  That is SUPER exciting!! Although, next week we will start focusing in on one letter a week!!  On Friday we will review the alphabet and have a little chicka chicka boom boom celebration!!! We will continue to talk about all of the fun things kindergarteners can do. We will continue to review the words ‘I’ & ‘can.’ We have even been reading them in books…YES I said they are reading them. It is pretty amazing to hear these kids already reading. We have also been reading a lot of nursery rhymes…the kids really enjoy these and we have even been learning about syllables!

In writing we continue to become amazing authors!! We now have our writing folders and have been practicing telling our stories out loud to our talking buddies!! This week we will really focus on trying our best as writers and how to draw objects that may seem tricky we will practice drawing people together- but not the stick kind! We will also focus on our first writing trait "Ideas"!

We will continue to discuss Anno’s Counting Book in math! We will also be doing our counting mats and graphing with numbers 1-10!! We have also been working hard on writing numbers and will really focus on writing the number 3 this week! We have also been talking about things that are alike and different!! I love hearing the kids talk about math and seeing them reason about numbers!! They are just SO smart!! Please watch for our first math homework sheets coming home this week!

Unfortunately we did not get our safety unit finished last week- but I just know we will this week! I can't wait for your child to bring home the book we have been working on that is helping us learn all about safety at home and school. This week you will get a note about practicing your child’s important information (full name, address, and phone number). Please keep this sheet at home and practice, practice, practice!!! We will also practice at school and hopefully the kids will be excited to get a special surprise once they can say it by memory!!

Well….I think that is all for now!!! I hope you have a great week!!! :)
We are going to be having another wonderful week in kindergarten!

This week...sorry it is late!!

Well I honestly can’t believe that we are starting our first full week of school but first I want to thank everyone that was able to come to open house last week - I hope you found it enjoyable and informative! I know you and your kindergartener probably felt lots of different emotions last week - excited, nervous, anxious, scared, happy, proud - and I promise that is completely normal! It really is so crazy how fast kids grow up and how time flies but please know that when your child comes to school everyday that I will do my very best to help your child feel comfortable and safe at school and teach them as much as I can. I am so very fortunate to have a job that I truly love and I promise to try my hardest each and every day to make your child’s experience in kindergarten the very best that it can be all year long!

 

The first three days of school we really did talk a LOT about routines and we have been going very slowly which hopefully will pay off and my friends really are starting to pick up on them. We learned our line order - that is how we will line up everyday all the time – for example when we get to school, when we go to lunch and specials and how we line up after recess is over and at the end of the day. Right now my line order is in alphabetical order but will probably change once we get into the swing of things!

We read a lot of books that had to do with starting school and especially kindergarten. I love Chester the Raccoon and we read quite a few of his books as well this past week – I am sure you heard all about it! I also hope you liked the Kissing Hand we made for you! We even got to take a quick tour of our school while looking for Chester and we found out where the office is, the lunch room, all of our specials (computer, pe, music,library and art) classrooms are, we also found the courtyards. I sure hope your kids told you all about it! I know they were all disappointed that we never found Chester - but he did leave us a few things - a project and a bracelet to make so hopefully we will get to make those this next week!

We also practiced a fire drill with our class and this next week will be practicing one with the entire school. When we hear the bells we will line up quietly and go out the door toward the fence by the playground. We will also talk about what would happen if they were not in my classroom when they hear the fire alarms.

In Math we will learned about our Daily Math Routines which we will do everyday and I promise I will explain in detail at a later time. We also started to learn about how numbers are all around us and we LOVE math already! We read Anno’s Counting Book (which actually has no words just scenes so we will get to make up the words) and will be looking at this book again and will actually get to make our own counting books were we will get to draw scenes of numbers and discuss them with our new friends! This week they will also be introduced to our math mats. These are mats that we use to show a number and display objects of that many number. We will learn to talk about our display with our class and listen to our friends as they share WONDERFUL ideas!! This is really a work in progress so we will spend a lot of time watching before we actually get to do it!

In Literacy we learned our ABC chant (which my friends LOVE) and also focused on the letters A-C and this week we will keep on going with as many letters as we can get through! We always practice finger writing the letter and saying the sound it makes! We also read a poem everyday out of our "Big Book of Rhymes" and will continue to do this as well. We even read "Animals in the Park" and will be rereading that as well! We will be talking a lot about books and authors and illustrators and what it takes to be a good reader and writer! We will start to look for capital and lowercase letters and also punctuation marks! Hopefully your child told you we learned a new word "I" and we even read sentences with it!  We can point to the words and read the sentence to our friends! We are SOO SMART! And this next week we will learn another new word "can" and I can't wait to see the sentences we read.

 During writing we read “Library Mouse” and discussed storytelling and about writing about what you know. Then a few of us got to sit on the rocking chair and tell a story that has really happened to them and the rest of my friends will get a chance to share a story this week too! I love hearing details of all the amazing things my friends have done! I know it's kind of crazy but we  are really going to start becoming authors this week!! We will also be discussing the rules and procedures of writer’s workshop. We will practice how to sit, how to write, and how to put our things away. We even get to make a fun chart using our pictures to show the writing expectations!! We might even get our writer’s workshop folders! We will store our writing in them AND be able to use some of the charts to help us spell better! I have learned that we LOVE to talk in our classroom so I know they will love getting introduced to talking buddies. They will have a buddy that they are paired up with. This is the friend they will practice orally telling their stories to before they write. I just know they are going to LOVE this! 

In unit studies we will be learning about safety! This week we will talk about stranger safety, fire safety, and our important emergency information. I will be sending a note home in Wednesday folders about this. On this note I want you to write the primary address and phone number you want your kindergarten child to learn in case of an emergency.The kids are going to be making their very own safety book so they can stay SUPER safe!!

Lunch time has been a big learning time as well – I promise there are many adults that help your child not only go through the line to make sure they get milk, entree, fruits and vegetables, but that they get silverware and get to the table with all their food still on their plate. We will learn how to open our milk and hopefully eat without getting too distracted and finally how to dump our trays and line up for recess!  If you need your child's snap account number please just let me know!

We will continue to go to specials & we all love that time. Here is the schedule for this week:

Mon.: day 4 - P.E. 

Tues.: day 5 - Library

Wed.: day 1 -Art

Thurs.: day 2- Computer

Fri.: day 3 -Music

 

AND we will get to play at some of the different areas in our room if we get through everything - my friends have been asking and begging everyday - so we will have to squeeze that in this week for sure!  

 

JEEZ!!! We will be doing a lot this week and I know I have forgot a lot! Oh one important thing I left off was is that NO I do not approve of bribing kids all the time but I will admit the first week during dismissal time that is what I do. I will be honest and say that dismissal time is a little crazy and that I want to make sure that all of my friends get with the correct person so that is why I bribed them everyday! Unfortunately my budget does not allow me to buy them something for everyday so from now on they will just have to give me a high five or a hug when they see the person picking them up. I appreciate your patience during this crazy time and please know that I will try and make eye contact with you and then I will send them your way! Hopefully this time will continue to get smoother as the year goes on!

WOW, that really is a lot of information!!!! I hope you all had an enjoyable weekend and your kindergarten kid is ready to start their first FULL week of school. As always, if you have any questions or concerns please don’t hesitate to call or e-mail me!! Thanks for all you do! :) Mrs.Schroeder

 

FIRST WEEK!!!

Well...the first week is past us and it has been a SUPER busy and fun week!!! We have been learning all about Meadow Lane and the expectations. We have learned a lot about our 4 expectations...be respectful...be responsible...be safe...and be productive. We have also learned about the voice levels we should use in the building. The week has been filled with lots of excitement and of course, a few tears (most from parents on that first day!!) I know it was hard to send your sweet little kindergarten kid off to school, but I want you to know that I am going to work very hard to make sure they are not only learning at school, but that they also feel special. I am so excited to see what the year has in store for us. I know it will be a good one!!


Please enjoy our first week video..I tried to catch all the parents that brought their child into school on the first day. If I missed you and you have a photo to share I would love to add it to our video!!


Please enjoy!!

JULY!

How can it possibly be July already?!?!?! I am so very sorry I am so late in posting this but time is just flying by this summer.

But anyways I had wanted to blog the week after school got out about a few things and of course life got busy!!
So first I wanted to tell you all again how thankful I am for all the gifts and  thoughtful words on the last day! I really miss all of  my kiddos so much!  I wanted to make something with all of the words you and your families wrote down on the last day of school so it is also down below. Then lastly I need your help and would love for you to take a few mintues to fill out a survey I created to help me plan for next year. I appreciate any feedback or comments you can give me so I can continue to grow as a teacher! You will have to go to my blog to fill it out just like you have to do to watch the videos! Also I wanted to let you all know that next week I will sadly be deleting you all from my blog so you won't be receiving the email alerts every time I post since you now are the proud parents of 1st graders! But please feel free to come back and see me anytime or email if you have questions I might be able to help out with. Again thank you for a wonderful year in kindergarten and I hope to see you all soon! Have a wonderful rest of the summer! :) Chantelle Schroeder