Umbrellas for Peace Parade 2014

Peace means... you don't pop someone's bubble.

Peace means.... you are nice to everyone.

Peace means... you listen to your families and teachers.

We are getting ready for the parade!

We are lining up in the hallway.

It is going to start soon!

We love our umbrellas!

Thank you Mrs. Gocken!

We are getting ready to walk!

Peace means... we are kind.

Peace means... we work together.

We are peaceful!

Kindergarten News....September 9, 2014

Kindergarten News… September 9, 2014

This week is sure to be an  exciting week!  We are looking forward to walking in the Umbrellas for Peace parade that Mrs. Gocken has been working so hard with us to paint umbrellas.  The parade will be this Thursday starting at 8:45.  We will be walking behind Mrs. Gocken and Mrs. Brockway who will start the parade.  There will be a firetruck that the parade will follow down Main Street and then back up Reed Street back to our school.  Our class will be with the kindergarten section in front if you are able to come to see us - please look for us in the front of the parade!  Parents are welcome to come and sit along Main Street.

This week is also orange week.  We will be doing some orange activities later this week.  Remember to wear orange tomorrow on Wednesday if possible.  This week we learned the rhyme of Humpty Dumpty and cut and glue a sequencing page and put a puzzle together.  

We are starting our unit about apples.  We are going to trace our hands, wrist and arm to make the trunk of an apple tree.  On Monday we read the story ‘A Fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds’.

During calendar time we are learning the months of the year song and the days of the week song.  We are also learning the names of the coins and that each coin has the picture of a president on it.

Thank you for checking your child’s homework folder!  This week there is a poem about apples with activities on the back and a math sheet to do.  Thank you for your help from home!

Just for fun…

When asked what peace means to them, these were the wonderful responses from your kindergarteners… (turn over for responses please)

Peace means...

- being nice

- to take care of your family

- being nice to somebody

- to help

- waiting peaceful

- be nice

- following your family and teachers

- to be quiet

- listen to my family and teachers

- keep your own space

- to always say nice words

- listen to each other and stay in line

- peace

- being nice all the time

- don’t talk to someone if they’re not being nice and don’t pop their bubble

- giving a hug

- you are happy

I am proud of all of our kindergarteners for being kind to each other and for doing a great job learning the I-care rules!  So far our rules are:

1.  We listen to each other.

2.  Hands are for helping, not hurting.

3.  We use I-Care language.

Our new rule that we are going to learn is ‘We care about each other’s feelings’.  Our kindergarten friends are already doing a great job caring about each other.  Keep up the great work!

Mrs. Brockway came to read to us today!

Mrs. Brockway read the story, My Friend Rabbit, with us today.

We had fun sharing ideas of how we could get the plane out of the tree in the story.  

Happy Red Week!

Can you believe it is already the third week of school?  I hope everyone enjoyed their Labor Day weekend and had some extra time to spend with their families.  This week we read the story 'The Little Red Hen' and we are in the process of painting a little red hen to bring home.  Earlier this week the kindergarteners tore red, green and brown paper to glue onto an apple.  We are going to start our apple unit next week.  This week we started our 'blue book'.  During blue book we learn skills such as rhyming, initial and ending sounds and counting words in a sentence.  These skills will help us as we start to read.  We also started fundations.  During fundations we are learning the lowercase letter names, sounds and letter formation.  We started with letters t,b, and f.  Next week we are going to be learning n and m.  Thank you for any extra help from home in learning the letters and thank you also for sending back homework folders and the All About Me bags!  The yellow folders will come home again next Monday.  In math we are learning about same and difference.  Yesterday the kindergarteners had to decide what was the same and what was different about pictures on the smartboard.  They discovered that it may be the same picture such as two bears except it was different because it was a different size.  We continue to learn our I-Care rules throughout the day.  So far we've learned:

1.  We listen to each other.
2.  Hands are for helping, not hurting.
3.  We use I-Care language (kind words).

Next week Mrs. DiBenedetto will start coming to all of the classrooms to introduce us to I-Care cat and review the I-Care rules with us.

Enjoy the weekend and sunshine!

We met our new reading buddies on Wednesday!

We had fun putting glitter on our names and using yarn to measure how tall we are!

Circles, circles, circles...

Today we learned about circles and that they have no sides or corners.  The kindergarteners did a great job thinking of different items that were in the shape of a circle.  These include:

- my cat's cat bowl
- my dog's bowl
- the sun
- a ball
- a shape on the wall
- the ferris wheel
- the purple lanterns
- an apple
- a lime
- the top of a bat
- money
- the letter 'o'
- the shape in the middle of the carpet
- grapes
- the number zero
- an eye
- a button

Great job, kindergarten!

We are happy to be at school!

Thursday, August 21

Today we started two base assessments - one is for uppercase and lowercase letter identification and the other is for number identification, counting and basic shapes.  We will finish these tomorrow.  This will help me know what your child already knows and what we need to learn.  

Our pictures are finished and we should have our picture schedule ready to go next week.  This will help us have more of a routine and let us take turns using the center areas.  

Communicators came home today.  Your child should have a turtle with circles inside and a few notes from the office.  

Next week we have 2 special days... Back to School Night is on Wednesday from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. and Unity Day is on Friday during the day.  We are excited for both of these fun days!

We were disappointed that we ran out of time to have our band although we are going to try again tomorrow!  Your child made a tambourine on Wednesday and we are excited to try them!  

Today we had fun going to gym and music!  Tomorrow we are going to start learning our I-Care rules.  Our first rule is:  We listen to each other.  

Enjoy your night!

Our First Day of School!

Thank you to each of our kindergarteners and families for coming to our open house last night!  I really enjoyed talking with each of you!  Please be sure to check the information in the purple folder during the next few weeks and as you have questions please don't hesitate to ask.

We had a great first day of school!  I know it can be a hard transition as a parent or kindergartener.  I will do my best to help your child have a great first year of school.

After reading the story 'Morris the Moose' we did learn that Morris the moose could be somewhere in our building.  We hoped we would see him at lunch or recess although with no luck.  Earlier in the morning we checked our backpacks for any extra supplies or notes.  We will continue with this routine first thing in the morning.

We loved having lunch at school!  After lunch we met Ms. Durand in the music room.  This afternoon we are going to take our first day of school pictures and play in the block, housekeeping, blue bins and art areas.  Soon we will have a picture schedule for these areas so everyone will have a turn in each of the areas.

Enjoy your night!  Maybe we will see Morris the moose tomorrow!

Our housekeeping area is cleaned and ready to be used.

This is our block area - we have alot of fun building here!

This is one of our math areas.  

I can't wait to meet all of you at our open house on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.!

My older daughter, Annah, helped clean and organize while her younger sister stayed

 home to play with Dad.