We had a wonderful week here in Kindergarten! Here is a look at what we worked on. We started practicing our sounds and letter formations alongside Echo the Owl with our Fundations curriculum.

We also kicked off our Bridges Math curriculum by exploring different attributes of our shoes and sorting them into categories. We introduced many manipulatives like coins, chips, polydrons, shape tiles, and unifix cubes and talked about the various ways we can do math with them. We also introduced fives frames and tens frames. We had great conversations about different ways to play and explored various types of toys during our EL lesson.

Important Reminders: 

-Please decide at home whether your child will have a school lunch or bring lunch from home. Giving children both options can be confusing for them and difficult to manage during busy lunchroom times.

-Visors are no longer needed at school. Your child is always welcome to wear theirs on the way to school if they'd like, but it is not necessary.

Thank you so much for the playdough donations! You can still sign up if you'd like for this month or later in the year. You can find the sign up on the class website linked below. Have a fantastic weekend!

We had another wonderful week together! Our focus has been on continuing to build our daily routines and growing our classroom relationships.

"Giraffes Can't Dance" & The Power of "Yet": We read this fun story and learned about having a growth mindset. Whenever something feels tricky, we remind ourselves: "I just can't do it... yet!"

Helpful vs. Hurtful Choices: We explored how our choices impact our friends and how to keep our classroom a safe, caring space. We made two big hearts: one filled with glitter and pictures of helpful choices, and another with hurtful choices. Afterward, I crumpled up the hurtful choices heart to demonstrate that even when we apologize, hurtful choices leave "wrinkles" that are hard to smooth out completely.  

Turn-and-Talk Practice: Students practiced sharing their ideas with various partners using "turn and talk," which helped us get to know new friends and build strong speaking and listening skills. This is something we will do often as we learn and explore new topics.

PLAYDOUGH! We use playdough a lot and I'd love some homemade playdough for our class to use. If you're able and willing to make playdough this year I've created a sign up sheet that is posted under "Helpful Links" on our website. You can access it here. Any help is appreciated!

We've seen some nice growth in our classroom this week, with everyone doing really well learning our routines and expectations. It's been nice to see our Kindergarteners getting to know each other and talking and playing with new friends!  We also really loved getting to visit each of our specials like gym, health, library, art, music, and digital learning and to get to know those teachers too!

We read The Dot and Our Classroom Home this week and had conversations about the stories and completed some fun activities to go along with them. We also did a sorting activity to identify respectful classroom choices. All the children did a great job!

We have had a fun and busy two days of school! We have loved meeting and starting to get to know your children. This week (and next) we are working on learning each other's names, learning our classroom routines, and learning about our classroom and school. 

We learned about different places in the school on our search for Pete the Cat, who left a mysterious note in the back of Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes. We also read The King of Kindergarten and decorated our own crowns.