Posted by jstutz1 | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on September 17, 2017
9/11 – 9/15
STAR STUDENTS: We had 5 star students this week in our class. The kids came in every morning and asked who the star student was that day…they were so excited!! Every week I will send home 5 more star student papers until we have learned all about every friend in our class!! Be on the lookout for these papers in your child’s blue folder.
CELEBRATING OUR CONSTITUTION: On Friday we read a book that taught us all about Constitution Day and about the important men that got together and made important laws for our country. These laws are like rules and were made to help the people get along and be nice to others. At school, we have rules we need to follow. We sorted pictures of good choices we should make during the school day (green choices), and ones that we should never do in school (red choices). We will refer to our green and red choices throughout the school day as needed. The Kindergartners also signed our “classroom Constitution” by placing a hand with their name on it around our Classroom rules. We finished our celebration of Constitution Day by making a flag headband to wear. We had fun coloring our American flags!
POPCORN WORDS: I, see, yellow. This week we had fun with our popcorns words! Every morning we read our popcorn words in our morning message and the Kinders found them and circled them. We made a yellow color book that we kept at school and put in our blue book boxes. It has pictures of all different yellow things and we can read it!! We sang a yellow song and searched for our popcorn words we know in the song. We ended the week by reading Pete the Cat The Wheels on the Bus and making our own yellow bus with Pete.
SAFETY DRILLS: This week we practiced learning our school’s safety drills. We practiced exiting the school and learning where our meeting spot is located during a fire drill. We also practiced sitting criss cross applesauce with our hands on our heads in a safe room within school during a tornado drill. In case it was unsafe to be in the hallways, we practiced how to sit quietly in a safe place inside our locked room. That was a lot of practicing drills to keep us safe! The kinders did an amazing job!!
BUS SAFETY: We had a visit from Mrs. DeZeeuw and Mrs. Reeves, who came to Georgetown on a bus! They are bus drivers who taught us many safety rules! They shared bus safety tips with us. For example: No eating on the bus, keep our feet/legs out of the aisle, use quiet voices. We learned the ” 4B rules” for sitting safely on the bus….back to back and bottom to bottom and more.
COOL TOOLS: We finished the last of our cool tools this week. The last two books we read and tools that were inside the tool box were Hurty Feelings (a microphone to teach us that the tone of our voice is important) and Mine-a-saurs (a bug and a wishing wand to teach us that we can say STOP in a kind way). We are practicing using our cool tools in kindergarten!
READER’S WORKSHOP: During reader’s workshop this week, we practiced being a quiet reader and noticing parts of a book. When we read a book together as a class, we talked about the front and back of the book, the title, the author and illustrator and the words and pictures on the page. We have begun practicing our quiet reading time. We had a goal of reading quietly for 4 minutes and they did a great job! We have been practicing reading with our elbow partners this week. The kinders practiced how to “lean and tell” and “turn and talk” during this time too.
MATH: Every day to get our Math brains warmed up we Count to 100 with a “Let’s Get Fit” counting song by Jack Hartmann. The Kinders warm up their Math brain by practicing counting as they warm up their bodies too. This week’s lessons focused on identifying numbers 1-5 and counting objects. We began to identify groups of objects and drew a scene of 2 objects, 3 objects and 4 objects. The kinders practiced writing numbers 4 (Down and across, down once more. That’s the way to make a 4) and number 5 (Half way down, then a big round tummy, draw a hat on top, Mr. 5 is funny). We also got to do our first page in our Math workbook this week!!
HOMEWORK: This week the Kindergartners were so excited to get the first homework papers! Homework papers will be coming home each Wednesday and are due back by the following week. Please read the directions with your child, help them as needed, and encourage them!! The math homework that is sent home supplements what they have learned in class and helps to reinforce it. Thank you!
WRITER’S WORKSHOP: This week during writer’s workshop, we learned about Mat Man! We sang a Mat Man song and watched a Mat Man video. The kids had so much fun with this! We have a big Mat Man in our classroom on our board and the kids practiced making a Mat Man on their own too. They learned how a person has 1 head, 2 eyes, 1 nose, 2 ears, 1 mouth, 1 body, 2 arms and hands, 2 legs and feet. They practiced adding all of these details on their own Mat Man drawing! We also started to draw “shared stories” (things we as a class have all done). We drew our favorite part on the bus safety tour and what we look like on the blue rug when we are ready to learn. We are off to a great start as writers!
SPECIALS: Our specials schedule may look a little different. We had a change in our calendar last week that was last minute. So sorry!!
Mrs. Stutz will be gone from school on Tuesday, September 19. All of the K teachers will be attending a Literacy Learning Day. I will be discussing my absence with the Kinders. Please be sure to contact the office by 12 noon if you have any changes in the end of the day routines or write a note for the substitute.
Please remember to send your Kinder with 2 snacks each day…they are always ready to munch on a healthy snack by snack time. I do have some extra snacks just in case you forget.
UPCOMING DATES:
- Monday, September 18 – STEAM
- Tuesday, September 19 — Gym
- Wednesday, September 20 — MUSIC, Homework due, COLOR DAY…Wear BLUE!
- Thursday, September 21 — ART, School pictures!!
- Friday, September 22 — STEAM, Walk-A-Thon—–Dress like your favorite Super Hero!! Parents…you are welcome to join us for a fun time!!
- Monday, September 25 — GYM, Walk-A-Thon money due.
What another busy and wonderful week you had at school. I love how you are growing the reading and writing stamina. Madison told us all about the bus safety and loved reading her little constitution book to us. Thanks for keeping us in the loop about all of the fun and exciting things you are learning and doing. It’s fun to compare what Madison tell us to what you write in your blog post. We know how much work goes into posting. We appreciate it so much!
Awe, that’s sweet. So glad you are enjoying the updates. I feel soooo lucky to love my job and be able to part of these little ones educational experience.
Thank you so much for all of your hard work you put in with these kids. Makayla loves telling me about all of the fun activities you do through out the week. Her favorite thing right now is counting to 100! She just loves it so we do it often 🙂 Thank you for keeping us up to date with your blog. I love being able to have a sneak peek into the classroom. Thank again for all you do.