Halloween Info.

Happy Friday, families!

Please be reminded that we will be celebrating Halloween on this coming Tuesday, Oct. 31st. The children are encouraged to wear their costumes to school that morning. Please join us for a costume parade outside starting at 8:45am. A "festive" bag was sent home with the children last week. You may use the bag to pack a secret treat for your child's snack. I apologize for them being so small and please feel free to provide your child with their normal snack bag as well!

We are asking our Barrows School community to donate canned goods and other materials to help those suffering in Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. Students may bring in donations now until November 9th.

The students have been busy little bees continuing to work on their letter recognition and hand-writing, as well as number formation up through number '9'. We have begun to distinguish between vowels and consonants when exploring our letters.

In Writer's Workshop, the students are continuing to work on detailed pictures, but are now also encouraged to "stretch words out" and begin to label beginning and ending sounds that they hear in their words. We began using special pens this week to do our labeling with - such a treat to use rather than pencils!

I appreciate all of your patience with my being out again last week for Professional Development time. Have a wonderful weekend with your littles!

October 13, 2017

Hello everyone! What beautiful fall weather we have enjoyed these past few days! The children have enjoyed exploring all things "fall" this week. Please check out our Class Dojo photos daily to also get an up to date taste for what we are doing in the classroom! (It seems that the app was freezing up a bit today, so hoping all photos are able to be viewed.)

We are cruising along in Fundations and have now learned letters t, b, f, m, n, c, and o. The children are encouraged to practice writing their name with their first letter being uppercase and rest of letters lowercase. Feel free to practice this at home as well. 
In math, the children have practiced counting and writing up to the number '7'. 

**Please note that all Kindergarten teachers will be out next Thursday and Friday, the 19th and 20th, for Professional Development Training. I am also slotted to be out on that following Tuesday the 24th, also for mandatory Professional Development Training. I will let all families know if there are any changes to these dates. I truly apologize for any inconvenience!

We will celebrate Halloween on Tuesday, 10/31.  The children are allowed to wear their costumes to school that day.  That morning all of the kindergartners will parade around the school; you are welcome to see our parade – just stick around the blacktop after drop-off.  Then we will return to the cafeteria for a mini-monster mash of sorts.  Please send your child to school with a plastic bag; I ask that the costumes be relatively easy to put on and take off so they don’t get damaged.  I also ask that no face paint be applied and that there be no weapons of any kind. We will enjoy a special snack that day (details to come) and will also enjoy a mini celebration in the room. Unfortunately due to our large class this year, we cannot invite families to attend. Room parents will reach out if help is needed.

Have a wonderful weekend!

October 3, 2017

Today the children wrapped up their Literacy Station exploration on the book, Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. In the story, Chrysanthemum is picked on at school because her name is too long. We tied our book discussion into our Open Circle lesson for this week and discussed how making fun of someone can be called bullying. We also talked about dangerous and destructive behaviors in and out of the classroom. The students all agree that making fun of someone or bullying them is a form of dangerous and destructive behaviors and is not okay.
We have continued to practice our Barrows School Pledge as well as school song during our mornings. On Wednesdays the children meet up for Sing-Along practice with the other two kindergarten classes. There, the children sing our school songs, fall songs, and songs about the alphabet and counting. It is a nice way to come together as a team and relax a bit!
In math we have formed numbers up to the number 6. We are still singing our "Skip To My Lou" tune to help up remember how the numbers are formed correctly.
In Fundations we have now taught t, b, f, n, m, and now i. We talked today about how "i" is a vowel letter and we often see it in between two other letters called consonants.
In Writer's Workshop we have continued becoming great storytellers. We know that in order to be a great writer, you must be a great storyteller first with LOTS of details. Our stories right now are still in the form of beautiful illustrations. Today we told true stories about things we like to do in the fall and then illustrated our thoughts.
We will be attending the Book Fair this Thursday from 9:30-10. Parents are welcome to join!
Have a FABULOUS WEEK!

September 25th

Happy Monday! I am really starting to notice that the kids are falling into a nice routine and are understanding the flow and expectations of each school day.
In Fundations we have now learned lowercase letters t, f, b, n, and m. The children are continuing to practice writing these letters with proper formation as well as identifying the sound that each of these letters makes.
In Math we have now counted and explored up to number 5. The children are doing a nice job with their number formation and enjoy singing our number song (to the tune of "Skip To My Lou My Darling".)
In our social emotional curriculum, Open Circle, we spent a lot of time "cleaning house" and talking about different things and choices we have all been observing in the classroom. If they were poor choices, we discussed ways we could make them better. We also have been talking a lot about showing our "listening look", having our bodies calm and voices at a "0". We made a Classroom Pact together and decided on what are positive behaviors that we can show together in the classroom.
The children are doing great during their Daily 5 Reading time as well as their Interactive Writing lessons at the end of the day.
Parent contact information was sent home today. Please review it and email me if any changes need to be made. Children have also been pulled for assessments by either myself or our tutor, Mrs. Delaney. The kids work on identifying their letters, letter sounds, concepts of print, segmenting/blending words, and rhyming. This assessment is repeated throughout the year. Right now, it is more about seeing "what they know" and then measuring their growth by the end of the year. The assessments are given in a laid back manner with a "no pressure" reassurance from the teachers! After all, it is only our fourth full week and we just want to get a feel for what they still need to learn!
Our Book Fair will be the first week in October. As soon as I have a time slot reserved for our class, I will notify all parents of this. I welcome parents to come in during our scheduled time to browse and buy books with their children.
Thank you all for a smooth start to the week!

Welcome To Kindergarten!

What a busy, yet positive first few weeks we have had! I want to thank all of you for being so patient with the hectic schedule that was last week. I am so happy to have had a solid week in with the kids. I am seeing such a dramatic difference in their behavior and confidence this week, now that we are in the swing of things.
I like to use this blog as a sort of "newsletter approach" to communicating with parents. In years past, I also uploaded photos of the children at work on this page. This year, I would like to engage parents with a more immediate approach to photos of the kids. I have started a class dojo account where you can access photos of our classroom as soon as they appear each day. It gives you a little window into our classroom to see the fun we are having and the work we are completing. I sent home paperwork regarding account setup yesterday and I do hope that you all download it and enjoy!

At this point in our first month, the children are welcome to buy lunch each day if they (and you!) like. A letter should have gone home this week explaining lunch prices, menus, etc. I have a laminated lunch card for each child that I will give them prior to buying. I will also accompany each child through their lunch line to make sure they receive their lunch properly.

I will be sending out information regarding classroom volunteers within the next week. We are a class of 21 and the class can feel a bit hectic at times! I want to make sure when working with my small groups that the children have my undivided attention. In order to be successful with this, I utilize Mrs. G. as well as any parent volunteers that might like to come in. Please note this is not mandatory or expected, but much appreciated! The links for signing up will be sent out via Sign-Up Genius online. I will also be sending out a Sign-up Genius for being a Mystery Reader. In years past I only utilized a Mystery Reader for birthdays, but I am hearing of a lot of interest from parents so I would like to open this opportunity up to every Friday morning at 10:30 for any that are interested and able to do so.

Our class blog will also update of any supplies needed, important upcoming dates, our sharing calendar, and our specialist schedule.

I also am working on a parent email list as well. I am hoping to get most of these items out to all of you next week. This will have parent contact info (email and phone) so that you may set up play dates and what not with your child's classmates. Please email me if you DO NOT want your information listed.

I will do my best to update our class blog every Friday afternoon so please check back often!

Your children are doing wonderfully and I am enjoying getting to know each and every one of their little (BIG) personalities.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

The children had quite the exciting Friday morning! When they arrived into the classroom, they were quick to notice that a sneaky little leprechaun had run around their classroom and better yet......used their toilet!!! (The leprechaun conveniently only used his right foot, but the kids didn't seem to notice!!!) They got quite the kick out of what our leprechaun did!

For his sharing today, Liam shared with us a video of him performing a real Irish Step dance in his recital from a year or so back! We even got to learn a few new steps from him!

The children have started to learn about famous author, Eric Carle. Eric Carle wrote many children's books, his most popular being "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". The children learned that what makes Eric Carle's illustrations so interesting is that he actually paints pieces of tissue paper to get all of his incredible textures and colors! Today we started to create our own tissue paper animals to be shown at the end of the month during our Open House.

Finally, a special thanks to Mrs. Dee for coming in yesterday as our Guest Mystery Reader! Thank you for sharing such fun books with the class!

Working hard!

The children were so excited when they learned they had earned an all-school dance party for showing one of our important Barrows Beliefs: COLLABORATION

We danced our morning away - complete with a disco ball!

We had so much fun watching The Fairy Tale Players perform some fables for us! Thank you to Deanna Dodge for organizing our morning workshop!

The kids are really taking off with their reading and writing skills! During Writer's Workshop, the children are now working on "How-To Writing". They know that good writers need to:

1. Tell what do do in clear steps.

2. Number their steps.

3. Have a picture for each step.

We also celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday last week and explored many of the fun books that he wrote.

"How To Make a Balloon" By: Sophie

"How To Make Cookies" By: Emily

James proudly showing his work: "How To Have a Clean House"

Melanie proudly reading her work!

Building words during Literacy Stations.

After listening to The Cat In The Hat By Dr. Seuss, the kids wrote about what they would do if the Cat In The Hat came to their house........

Read-A-Thon Reading Log

Click on the link below to download a copy of the Read-A-Thon Reading log!

Reading Log for Read-A-Thon

Fun days to cure our winter blues!

Some fun photos from our Groundhog Day, 100th Day celebrations, Liam's snowy birthday, and our Valentine's Day card exchange! Thank you to Mrs. McDonald for our Valentine's Day photos!

Granoth Valentine's Day

Check out our excited readers looking for all of those trick words!

Still smiling even though the groundhog saw his shadow....

100 year old Kindergartners!

Our Day 100 Assembly

Snowy substitute school day at Liam's birthday!

The Mitten and more!

Along with acquiring all of their literacy and math skills, a major component of Kindergarten is being able to retell important details within familiar stories. This year we have been focusing on understanding different genre types such as folk tales and animal fantasy, and we continue to work on our "Show me 5" skills which includes retelling five or more important details from text and writing that the kids work on. 

This week, the children listened to two different versions of the folktale, The Mitten. We read The Mitten by Jan Brett as well as The Mitten by Alvin Tresselt. Both stories are about a boy who loses a mitten in the snow and various animals crawl into the mitten to keep warm.

Following the readings, the children worked together to brainstorm details in each story that were the same and some that were different from the other. They were then sent off to their seats to illustrate two of their favorite details that were different from each story. Earlier in the week, the children brought home their own paper mittens. Ask them to RETELL the story to you!

We have some busy little writing bees in Writer's Workshop as well! The children are moving from the labeling process of their writing to actually starting to write full sentences. We learned this week that good writers stop, think, and say their sentences out loud before they begin to write. They are continuing to stretch and tap out sounds in words that they hear, remembering to use spaces between words, start each sentence with an uppercase letter, and end their sentences with a period. They have come so far in their writing and I am so proud of their accomplishments!

Emily modeling what "good writers do". She is thinking about her writing piece before she starts to write it!

Fun in dress up!

Diving into the new year!

We have had quite the productive first two weeks back! Can you believe that in just a few short weeks, our little kinders will officially be celebrating Day 100 and on their way to being First Graders?! Time has flown this year!
Today we spent the day talking about Martin Luther King Jr. The children have no school on Monday and we spent a lot of time talking about why. Mrs. Papa, our librarian, also did a nice job presenting a slideshow on the Smartboard explaining about Dr. King while in library yesterday. Check out some of our fabulous and thought provoking work!

This past Tuesday, the children participated in an all-school assembly. The Kindergarten students and teachers presented the story of The Mitten Tree to the rest of the school. Students had the opportunity during the assembly to donate mittens that they brought in from home. The mittens will be donated at the end of the month to those in need. Thank you for your very generous contributions!

Check out Ada donating her mittens to our Mitten tree!