September Already?

I can't believe it will be September 1st on Monday! Wow...time is flying by! I am have been so proud of ALL of my kindegarten friends and how well they have adjusted to full-day kindergarten following directions, sustaining stamina throughout our long day, being kind and respectful while at school to everyone around them and getting all their work done. They have learned SO MUCH in the past 7 days of school! I am so proud of them! Besides curriculum that we have been working on all week in math, reading, writing and SEL (social-emotional learning), we made our first class calendar. When it is a new month here at school, we make a calendar that has all the events happening here at Olive and in our classroom. Each month will have a theme to go along with the month. For our calendar today, it was a school house for September since it is the beginning of school. To make this calendar, I first handed out a school house color by number to the class. I showed them how to read the color key at the top and I showed them that they look at the numbers on the picture and color that part the color it says in the color key. They had so much fun coloring the school house today! When they were all done, I gave them the Septemeber calendar and we talked about all the important dates on it. THey were excited to see Jack's 6th Birthday on September 9th. We will be excited to celebrate with him here at school. I showed them how to trace the numbers 1-30 with a pencil and to ensure they traced the numbers correctly from top to bottom. Next, I gathered them on the rug and I showed them how to put the whole calendar together. They glued the calendar on the bottom first, their cut out school house on top and then I asked them to add some fun detail with crayons. Their calendars turned out great and they were all so proud to show me their finished products.

Have a wonderful long weekend, everyone!I will look forward to seeing all my kindergarten friends on Tuesday!

Monstergarten

The highlight of the day today was when I read the book Monstergarten to them and they got to make their very own mosters out of constuction paper using their own imagination and creativity. This was such a cute book about a monster who was nervous about his first day of monstergarten and he wondered what he would do and if he was going to be scary enough for monstergarten. We had fun reading the book and comparing our experience with kindegarten to the monster's. When the story was over, I sat everyone on the rug and I told them that they are going to get to make their own monster out of colored construction paper. I filled the back table in the classroom with all different colors of paper, googly eyes, and stickers. They all had so much fun creating their own monsters and I loved seeing the BIG smiles holding their finished monsters up with pride and excitement So cute!

Hare are some other things we did today moving right along in curriculum: Math- continuing to work on understanding numbers 1-5 and how to write them from top to bottom the correct way. We are also talking about different comninations of ways you can make each number and practicing our one to one counting to ensure we are counting correctly. HMH Structured Literacy- We are contiuing to learn how to write some capital letters on the lines the correct way getting used to line placement to ensure we start the letters at the top line and that they sit nicely on the baseline. They are doing a great job learning how to write on the lines and writing from top to bottom is hard for some of my kindergarten friends. A lot of them learned to write bottom to top so I am working on breaking that habit. We will get there with more and more practice! HMH reading- we reviewed singualar nouns today and are worked on plural nouns and what that means. We did an activity to help them in identifying different types of plural nouns. We also did a reading response page in our HMH workbooks where they drew a picture of something they can do at school. This response went with the book I have been reading to them this week titled Keisha Ann Can! We also had picture day today! My kindergarten friends looked so cute today all dressed up for their pictures and they all brough their best smiles! I know all of their pictures turned out great!

Tuesday Fun!

Today, we had a fun filled Tuesday. The kids were so excited that we were going to end our day with a visit to the library with Mrs. Brown for our first library lesson. Here's what we learned today:

In HMH structured literacy, we continued to learn all about lines reviewing from our lesson yesterday. We identified the top line, middle line, and baseline and talked about the importance of each one. Today we learned how to write the capital letters L, H, and I on our whiteboards with correct line placement. I ensured everyone was writing the letters from top to bottom NOT bottom to top. In kindergarten we always write our letters and numbers from top to bottom. After we practiced writing the letters on whiteboards, they went to their seats and we practiced writing the same ones in our HMH structured literacy workbook. THey did such a great job writing the letters on the lines with a pencil. Yay, K-1!

In our HMH reading, we continued learning about what an author and illustrator do and we studied the story we read yesterday a little further. I read them the story, Keisha Ann Can! again and we discussed who the main character in the story was and what the setting of the story was. They did such a great job identifying both and we did a page in our workbook documenting what they learned. We also learned all about what a noun is. They learned a noun is a person, place or thing. We watched a short video about what a noun is and we practiced identifying all different types of nouns. Then, they did a page in their HMH workbook where we had to color the things the page identifying what type of noun it was. Was the picture a person, place or thing? They did a great job learning all about nouns today and I will be taking the lesson a step further tomorrow to practice learning it a bit more.

In SEL (social-emotional learning), I did a lesson with the class about how words we say can be hurtful and when we talk, we need to ensure we are saying things that are kind and lift our friends up. We need to ensure our words are NOT hurtful and wrinkle their hearts. We listened to a story called The Wrinkled Heart that had a cute story about a boy who went to school and his classmates said some hurtful things to him. With each hurtful comment, his heart developed a wrinkle because the words made him sad. Then, someone said something kind and he noticed his wrinkles hegan to unwrinkle. The kind words made him feel good. We learned that kind words can make the wrinkles get better but some wrinkles stay with us forever so we need to be mindful of how we speak to others. We need to ensure we spread kindness to everyone! We made a heart out of paper and I let them decorate it however they wanted to. When they were done decorating it, we gathered on the rug. I told them that when I said something that was hurtful, they could wrikle their heart and when I said something kind, they could unwrinkle it. Many friends didn't like wrinkling their heart! They didn't like how the unkind comments made them feel. It was a good lesson to show how words can hurt and leave an impression on our hearts. Then we went to our seat and I gave them paper bandaids. They could glue one or two on their hearts. I told them that when someone says "I'm sorry!" it can heal their heart and make them feel better. Lastly, they signed a pledge that they would think before talking to ensure they were saying kind things to others to spread kindness. It was such a good lesson and one I know my friends will practice each day at Olive!

In math, we learned all about the numbers 3 and 4. The quantity, how to write the number the correct way from top to bottom, and different ways we can make 3 and 4. WHen they learned how to write the numbers, I taught them a rhyme for each one. For the number 3, the rhyme goes "Around a tree, around a tree, that's the way to make a 3." For the number 4, it goes "Down and over, down onece more, that's the way to make a 4." They found the rhymes very helpful to help them to remember how to form the numbers. 4 was a little tricky for them! They did great with math today and I impressed with how well they are following directions, completing their work nice and neatly, and participating in all of our lessons! Way to go, K-1! Don't forget we have picture day tomrrow first thing in the morning. Make sure your child brings their best smile!