“Yea!, it’s the weekend!”  I think almost everyone in the classroom has said this today.  J  We have been working so hard on learning new routines and learning new materials as well.  We all deserve a three day weekend!

This week we have started Social Studies and are learning about how to get along with others.  In this unit we have been talking a lot about what to do when someone bothers you, someone says unkind words, and we have been practicing how to be a good friend and student as well.

For shared reading, we have been talking about school and getting along with others too.  Our key words that we have learned about were: learn, share, and friends.  We have practiced writing about this as well as reading stories to go along with this topic.  During this time block in class we have been working on phonics and phonological awareness skills.  This week, our focus letter was the letter Mm and we have practiced rhyming words and listening for the number of sounds in words.  We have also practiced recognizing the letters U, S, M, R, and C and practiced making their sounds.

We have kicked off our apple unit in class.  During the next couple of weeks, we will be learning all about apples.  We have read several stories about apples and have learned many apple facts.  See if your child can tell you how an apple grows.  Our centers this week focused on apples.  The class practiced rhyming, writing numbers and coloring the correct number of apples to match the numbers, we also worked on our last shape- the cube.

On Thursday, the kids had a speech and hearing screening from Mrs. Larkin.  If she has some concerns about your child, she will be contacting you. 

Finally, on Friday, we are so close to finishing up our animal island book.  This has been a favorite of everyone in the class!  I have attached some notes from the PTO and Mrs. Douce for you to read below.  I hope everyone has a fantastic and relaxing three day weekend!  See you on Tuesday!

Below is a note from our PTO:

It has been a wonderful start to the year at CE and so fun to see the students excited about school.  The PTO is an essential partner in making our school a special place for students to learn, grow and thrive.  Throughout the school year, we rely on the PTO to help support and enhance our programming.  The PTO has already helped to provide numerous volunteers and funding to support a successful back to school kick-off.  A few examples are listed below:   

• Bus Greeters to help escort students to class
• $100 Teacher Grants for staff to buy new items for their classroom
• Coordinating the Ice Cream Social
• Staff Appreciation – School Kick-off
• Teacher iPads

Please take a moment to click on this Google Survey for our PTO.  You will have the opportunity to fill out your information for the PTO Directory and learn about volunteer opportunities the year.  We would love for all parents to complete this short survey.

From Mrs. Douce:

***Attention families:  If you are in need of a computer at home for your student, please contact Mrs. Douce, Student Services Coordinator, at 844-0168 or jdouce@ccs.k12.in.us.  A program called Net Literacy will be donating refurbished computers for families in financial need.  Please contact Mrs. Douce by September 15^th if you are interested.  

Friday Facts!

It was great seeing all of you at the Meet the Teacher night on Wednesday.  I always enjoy sharing with you what we are doing in the classroom during the school day!  I did forget to mention that the PTO has a need for room parents for our classroom.  If you are interested, feel free to contact the PTO or myself and I can forward your information on to the PTO contact person.

We have had a busy week in class.  We continue to learn about shapes and colors.  This week we have learned how to cut a circle, an oval, and even talked about a heart.  We have also learned how to read and recognize the colors orange, purple, and green.  Next week we will finish up with learning about cubes, spheres, and stars as well as the colors pink, white, and black.

During our writing time, we have focused on the letters B, L, F, H, and P.  Next week we will work with the letters S, U, M, R, and C.  When we are working we letters, I am teaching proper formation (starting from the top), the letter name, and the letter sound.  We also work on learning a key word to help us remember each letter.  For this week, the key words are boy, lamp, fish, hat, and pig.

I am excited for next week because we are going to start our writing workshop. This is a time where we practice our writing skills daily and work on composing stories.  We are also going to work on recognizing rhyming words, syllables, and continue to practice counting the number of words in sentences.

Just wanted to remind everyone about our Meet the Teacher Night tomorrow at 6:00-7:00 pm for K-2 and 7:00-8:00 pm for 3-5.  I look forward to discussing our classroom in more detail.

You may have noticed your child coming home with "smelly lotion" today.  Everyone clipped up on our clip chart and each child has earned a reward for clipping up.  Our smelly lotion (flavored hand sanitizer) is a popular choice for a class reward!

Fun Friday Facts!

It is hard to imagine that the first week of school is over!  All of the kids have been working so hard.  We have learned a lot of routines this week with more to come next week.  We have learned about how to write and say the sounds of the letters a and t this week.  Ask your kids to tell you what key words go along with those letters (apple, top).  We are also working on recognizing colors and how to spell their names.  This week was red and yellow.  We have fun songs that we sing to go along with this learning activity.  As a class we are listening to a story about animals and letters called Animal Island.  It is a group favorite.  The animals in the story live on an island and find letters that float ashore.  So far we have heard about the letter a and b.

I wanted to let everyone know that you no longer need to have your child wear their owl tag next week.  If your child would like to, that is fine with me.  I have also had some ask if they could pin it to their backpack and that is fine too.  Either way works for me!  We also will have the option of ordering all of the choices on the lunch menu next week if you choose to do so.  I have also listed our specials schedule under the schedule tab so you can see what days we have a certain special.  Please send in or wear gym shoes on PE days and library books are due back on Friday.  

Finally we have read a story about a monster that came to school and was misbehaving.  I use this story to talk about appropriate school behavior.  We discussed behavior that is above the line, below the line, and bottom line.  Have your child tell you some of the behaviors that can be found in each section.  We had a lot of good discussion about this in class!

Have a great weekend!

Hello everyone!  

Welcome to our classroom blog!  I am looking forward to a great year in kindergarten.  We have had a great first two days of school!  We are working on learning color words and learning how to create shapes.  Today we worked with a square.  Mr. Square is "magic" because we use him to make the other shapes that we will be talking about in the next few days.  I hope you check back often to learn about the many different activities we do throughout this school year!

First Kindergarten Visits

Welcome to Kindergarten at CE!  It was great seeing everyone and meeting you.  I can't wait for Wednesday and the first day of school!