Day 3- Busy Little Owls

Wow! I am so impressed with how well my kinders are adjusting to a full day of kindergarten and how well they are learning the routine and how hard they are all working to do their very best each day! I LOVE seeing all the smiles, giggles and connections they are making with eachother. We are becoming a little kindegarten family and it's been a fun start to the year!

We began the day with calendar and morning announcements. After, we dove right into curriculum and we began our HMH structured literacy program. Today we learned all about the lines on a page. We learned about the baseline, middle line and top line. We practiced writing various lines on the lines with correct line placement making them from the top to the bottom. I shared with the class that when we write in kindergartne we ALWAYS make letters and numbers from the top to the bottom. I showed them a little song and they loved it which seemed to help to make it stick. Yay! We made various lines on the lines such as a horizontal line, vertical line and two diagonal lines that went different directions. We also practiced putting finger spaces between the lines to create seperation on the lines as well. They loved learning about the lines and practicing writing the lines on their small whiteboards. I was so impressed with how well they all did following my directions and using the lines the right way!

In math, we learned all about the numbers 1 and 2. We learned how to form them the correct way from top to bottom and praticed quite a bit. The 2 was a bit tricky for them but with more practice, they got better and better at it. We learned about the quantity of both numbers too and how to count them by crossing objects out as we counted to ensure we counted correctly. They LOVED math today!

After lunch/recess, they got to make their names by tracing each letter with a glue bottle and placing small pieces of colored paper on top. I did a little glue bottle tutorial first where we learned how to take care of our glue bottles and how to use them appropriately. They did a great job! Their names turned out so cute and I can't wait to hang them in the hall for all of Olive to enjoy as they walk by our classroom. They had so much fun with the name project today and they were so proud when they finished! After math, we had reading where I read them a story called Keisha Ann Can! During the story, we talked about what an author and illustrator does. I also taught them that if you see one name on the front of a book that means the person wrote the book and illustrated the book. If you see two names then one person is the author and one is the illustrator. We also talked about characters in the story and setting. They had fun reading this book with me and identifying those features in the book. After we talked about what we can do at school. We talked about things that are the same as Keisha Ann and things that were not. They were very engaged in the lesson and did a great job! I am excited to do another lesson with my kinders tomorrow using this fun story! We ended our day with gym followed by an SEL lesson where it focused on "positive self talk." When we think positively it helps us to make good choices and accomlish things with success. We learned about how the power of positivity can change the way we learn in a great way!

It was a wonderful Day 3! I can't wait for tomorrow!