Our Fabulous First Week Celebrations!
Congratulations Kinder Families! We made it through our first week of school together!
The first week of Kindergarten is a very exciting time - for the students, for the families, and for the teachers as well. I was so excited to meet our new class of kinders, and we had a fabulous first week together! We worked on learning the routines of our day and getting to know one another better through sharing, conversations, and lots of play!
Every morning we start our day with Morning Meeting - personally, this is one of my favorite times of the day! We begin with a greeting activity which is a great way to practice learning all our friends names in class. Then we get our first counting AND reading practice in of the day, as we count-off to do attendance and read our morning message and daily schedule. We also do some fun movement activities to get our wiggles out, ask your student about "BANANAS OF THE WORLD, ATTENTION!" ;)
Our Academic Coach Ms. Mari and I had so much fun getting to know all our new faces and names in class. Speaking of movement and wiggles, so far we have learned that this year that our kinders are very into singing, dancing, and moving along to our GoNoodle videos! You can check out these super catchy (they will get suck in your head, beware!) and fun videos at home as well on your computer or tablet at gonoodle.com. Our favorite channel is the Koo Koo Kangaroo. Here's a video of us dancing along to one:
This week we have been exploring all the great materials in our classroom. We have investigated our math manipulatives we can use for counting, comparing and sorting. We have enjoyed practicing our sharing abilities when we use the train set and kinetic sand. We got creative with play dough and blocks, curious at our nature table, and we have begun making friendships and practicing our social skills while we play pretend at the kitchen (I had a delicious burger there myself)! But my favorite thing to watch this week has been the natural teamwork our class has begun to exhibit, from trying out large puzzles on the carpet together, to the whole class helping to make a cube train approximately 500 cubes long!
We have shared a number of meals together, practiced taking care of our school by helping to clean up outside, and had lots and lots of fun at recess!
As we got to know each other and our classroom/school environment this week, we talked a lot a lot about our classroom norms, or expectations for how we can learn, play and work together safely and respectfully. We established our classroom norms, that we agree to always:
Be safe – This means staying with the group at all times, following teacher directions right away, and using materials safely in class.
Be kind – We follow the golden rule and treat each other how we would like to be treated. Ask your student about Happy Heart Words!
Try your best – No matter what we are doing, we can try our best! This includes being the best listeners, the best artists, the best friends, and the best writers we can be!
The second norm on the list - Be Kind - was talked about a lot this week with our class. We discussed how we can be kind with our whole body, and our students were very thoughtful and descriptive! They gave ideas like invite others to play with you, use kind words, and offer to tie a friend's shoe! We introduced the term "Happy Heart Words" and did an activity that demonstrated to the students that using kind words when speaking to others makes them feel happy, included and loved. We read the book Have You Filled a Bucket Today by Carol McCloud and thought of our own Happy Heart Words! We also participated in a beautiful Respect Circle led by Ms. Chelsea (our Social Emotional Learning Coordinator) were we further discussed the topic of Respect.
Besides all of the above fun and exciting activities, we ALSO got to do two very special activities this week! We began our Exploratory class with Ms. Latanya, HTeCV's very own Performing Arts teacher on Monday and Tuesday afternoons. In her class we get to play with musical instruments, learn choreography and rhythm, and try out our singing and dancing skills! We also visited the K8 butterfly garden, a very special place for many friends. We used magnafying glasses to explore the garden and look more closely at chickens, plants, flowers, and caterpillars! These two special activities were the highlights of the day for many friends.
What an amazing first week. I already see our students building friendships, becoming more comfortable as they familiarizing themselves with our class and school, and getting excited about all the learning we will do this year. I can't wait to see what next week has in store for us!
With Love,
Ms. Jeanine
