Our Fabulous First Week!
Our New Kindergarten Class of 2018-2019 had an amazing first week together! We spend our time getting to know one another, getting to know our surroundings and classroom structures and routines, and establishing our classroom norms. We read books, played with math manipulatives, sang songs, drew pictures, practiced writing our names, had Morning Meetings, danced and moved our bodies, explored all the fun materials inside our classroom, enjoyed our playground, and even visited Ms. Shar's STEAM Exploratory classroom! We did so much in just one week!
We always start our days off with a Morning Meeting, during which we do a Greeting to say good morning to one another, then we usually read our Morning Message. The message gives us clues about our day, as well as a. chance to practice some important literacy skills. After that we play some kind of Game or do an activity to loosen us up and take a break from sitting. We then take a look at our Daily Schedule to see whats happening that day, an finally we do a Movement activity - our favorite is guided dances from GoNoodle.com. Check us out dancing along below!
On our very first day of school we were feeling a wide range of emotions - from excitement and anticipation, to anxiousness and maybe even some nervousness. Some friends were even grumpy and tired from having to wake up so early - ha! Me too friends! We talked about these feelings together and shared them with each other. We learned that any and all feelings are ok everyday. We talked about how we would stick together and be like a family now, and how we would each help one another get through the day and weeks to come. We also talked about how we could have "the best year ever" together and what we wanted our classroom to be like. Our class came up with so many great "norms" this way - or things we all agreed we would try to normally do everyday. The three Norms our class agreed upon for this year are:
1. We are safe.
2. We are kind.
3. We always try our best
Our class read the story Have You Filled a Bucket Today? by Carol McCloud and we learned about how we can fill someone's invisible bucket by being kind to them, saying or doing kind things, helping them out, and making them feel cared about and loved. We practiced this by drawing pictures of things we could do or say to someone to be a "bucket-filler" ourselves! Ask your child about what they drew and who they gave it to!
We read so many books this first week of school, some together and some all on our own. We even had our 1st Mystery Reader come to surprise our class - my Mom, Ms. Monica! She read us a very funny story appropriately called The Day My Mom Came to Kindergarten by Maureen Fergus. The mom in this story has no idea how to behave or what to do in kindergarten! We used this book as another way to practice some of our routines and teach my own mother how we move around our classroom and what to do if we need to use the restroom!
Our class really enjoys books from what I can tell so far. We started our Reader's Workshop lessons this week by exploring our school to look for all the things we already know how to read. We realized that readers don't just look at the world around them, they READ it - and everyone of us can already do that! Then we practiced strengthening our reading muscles (our eyes) by looking at some books from our library: 1st - We can look, 2nd - We can think, and 3rd - We can read! Don't let these kinders fool you, they CAN already read! We can read the pictures!
Another time of the day that our class really enjoyed this week was Math Workshop, during which we started exploring the many types of math manipulatives we have in class. We started noticing what we could do with these materials, such as counting them, arranging them into different patterns, pictures or shapes, and sorting them too - all great early math skills! We counted all kinds of things in our class this week starting with who's in class each day, and moving on to pencils, erasers, shells, toys, cubes and more! We will continue to build on these skills and dive deeper with them as we master our counting and sorting skills over the next few weeks.
Our class did some great writing and project work this week as well! I told the students our first project was to get to know one another, the things we like, what we don't like, each other's names, and how we can get along, play, learn and grow together respectfully and in a kind helpful way. We took some time this week to start writing an "I Like..." class book during Writer's Workshop. Some friends decided to make more books on their own about other topics too! We also drew pictures of ourselves, our families, and the things that we love. We each made our own "Heart Maps" to help us share and learn about the important things to us. Some of us can already write our names and even some letters and words all by ourselves, while some of us will be working on mastering hose skills this year - and both are ok! We will continue to celebrate all our efforts in reading and writing throughout the year, and aim for improvement no matter where we started!
After lunch and another read aloud (and a little rest time) we are usually ready to play! We have free play time called Exploration Activities when students are allowed to choose pretty much anything they can find around the classroom that interests them to play with or investigate further. This may just look like "playtime" to the unknowing eye, but this time provide our class with invaluable opportunities to practice and build our social skills, literacy development, imagination and curiosity, question-asking and problem solving strategies, and cross-curricular learning. Did we mention it is also our favorite part of the day for most of us - because we are viewing all this learning as FUN! ;)
This very first week of school we even got to visit Ms. Shar's STEAM Exploratory class! For this whole first trimester, our class will get to spend time with and learn from Ms. Shar every Monday and Tuesday afternoon. Shar teaches STEAM - which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math. She is an amazing teacher who will integrate these domains into one fun and exciting class for our kinders where they will learn to use all kinds of interesting materials and mediums, design, test and modify plans for creations, engineer solutions to help solve problems, and of course, play! This week Ms. Shar helped the students start exploring the many materials she has in her room by thinking about their own houses and how they could represent them, from using blocks, legos, paper, paint, and more. Ms. Shar also loves to read books with the students and have them discuss big topics with her. She teaches every grade level, and one of our kinder's ideas made it onto her science board to share with the upper grades too!
Well that about does it for our first week of kindergarten. As you can see we did a whole lot of learning, laughing, playing, and getting to know one another! All of which we will continue to do over the next several weeks with each other. Please check back soon for more Kindergarten Updates!
With Love,
Ms. Jeanine
P.S. - These adorable "1st Day of Kindergarten" photos below maaaay or may not have actually been taken on the 2nd day of school! haha OOPS!!! Sorry parents! We were so busy having fun the 1st day it totally slipped my mind! I had the sign ready and everything that 1st day, we just didn't get to it! Please forgive me LOL!
