October!

Wow - I can't believe it is already October! What another busy and fun week we had in Kindergarten. Enjoy the pictures and summary of the week. Please make sure to see the reminders and action items at the end of the post - Spirit Week and Field Trip info!

Let's take a look at the week...

Fundations:

The children continued to practice writing "sky line" and "plane line" letters by participating in class skywriting activities, writing on their writing tablets, and drilling sounds with Echo the Owl. This week we introduced "i" and "u." We discussed how these letters are special because they are vowels. The kids were taught that vowels are special because there needs to be at least one vowel in every word. Now that vowels have been introduced we are ready to start writing CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words. We only practice writing the letters that have been formally taught. I encourage the kids to say the word slowly to hear all the sounds. I also model "tapping" out each letter - this strategy will be taught to the kids later in the year.

The children also took turns narrating the story, "Echo Finds Dinner" while I acted it out using baby Echo. The children retold this familiar story in their own words based on the motions made by Echo. I loved listening to their stories and I was amazed by how accurate their retellings were!

Math: Look for Small Groups

This week during math, we focused on recognizing and naming groups of up to 4 objects and images without counting. This skill (subitizing) is essential to students’ number work. Although some students may count to determine how many, the focus of this lesson is on recognizing groups of objects without counting. The children practiced recognizing small groups of objects in picture books and in our classroom environment (such as 2 scoop chairs or 3 plants). When students use number names to describe groups of objects in the classroom, students are relating quantity to physical objects.

The kids also worked in math centers this week working on Stage 1 and Stage 2 of connecting cubes, pattern blocks, geoblocks, and picture books.

Journals: Habit #2

This week during morning meeting we had many conversations about Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. This habit is all about having a plan and setting goals. I asked each of the K kids to come up with a goal. Many of the kids said they wanted to learn how to read or cross the monkey bars.

Phonics:

Every day during morning meeting we spend about 15 minutes working on phonemic awareness, using the Heggerty curriculum. The lessons are engaging and fun! We use "choppers" to chop out syllables and clap to make compound words. The class favorite has been the nonsense words with various categories - names, colors.

D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read)

Every day the children spend quality time with books. They are encouraged to engage with the books in many different ways. They can choose to go on picture walks, look for small groups, identify letters, read, etc. They are encouraged to swap out the books in their bins as often as they would like.

Morning Work

When the kids enter the classroom each day they know to change into their school shoes, sanitize hands, and get started with their morning work. Morning work is typically phonics/word work or a review of something that we have been working on in class. This is a great opportunity to see how the kids engage with the work and if they are able to complete the task independently or with teacher support.

STEM Challenge: Create a Styrofoam Structure

Have you ever used Magic Nuudles? They are non-toxic/biodegradable and let kids build and build without tape or glue. Simply moisten them with a little bit of water and they will stick to just about anything! The kids watched a short video for inspiration and they got right to work building their styrofoam structures!

PE:

PE class starts with a student-led warm-up followed by many fun gross motor games including Sharks & Minnows, Red Light Green Light, Stock Pile Volleyball, Freeze/Melt Noodle Tag, and Builders & Breakers! On occasion, the kids get to experience free choice in the gym where they can freely explore scooters, pool noodles, and balls.

Recess:

Free Choice & Other Pics:

Reminders & Action Items:

-It's Spirit Week next week so show your school spirit!

• Monday: Fandom Day

• Tuesday: Mismatch Day

• Wednesday: Roycemore Day

• Thursday: Pajama Day

• Friday: Beach Day

-Please send $10.00 in with your child to cover the cost of our bus for the field trip. You can send cash in an envelope with your child's name and "Mrs. Aksimitowski".

Begin with the End in Mind

Leader in Me:

This week we introduced Habit #2 – Begin with the End in Mind. Habit #2 is “the habit of having a plan.” In the second story from the book, The 7 Habits of Happy Kids, students learned about Goob the Bear in a story called “Goob and the Bug-Collecting Kit.” Goob passes a toy store, sees a bug-collecting kit, decides he has to have it, and makes a plan to earn the $4 it costs to buy the kit. He then spends his time putting his plan into action with the help of his buddy, Jumper Rabbit. They set up a lemonade stand, split the $20 profit, and each makes choices about how they will spend their money. Goob makes smart choices with his money and is able to buy the bug-collecting kit plus additional items. Jumper makes impulsive choices and finds that his money “just kind of disappeared.” In the end, Goob helps his buddy figure out that he needed to plan ahead, to begin with the end in mind, in order to get what he really wanted. After reading the story we had a discussion and talked about different examples. For young children, a good example is that of a jigsaw puzzle. Before doing a puzzle, they look at the cover of the box.

Fundations:

In Fundations, the children continued to practice writing "sky line" and "plane line" letters by participating in class skywriting activities, writing on their writing tablets, and drilling sounds with Echo the Owl. Not only have they been doing an excellent job remembering all of our letter-keyword-sound cards, but they also played an important role in helping me "act out" the story titled "Echo Finds Dinner." Instead of reading the words, I acted out the story using Echo. The children retold this familiar story in their own words based on the motions made by Echo. Believe it or not, the version they told was better than the original!

Math:

At the beginning of the week, the children explored various math tools, including, pattern blocks, two-colored counters, 5-Frames, and geoblocks. Later in the week, the children were introduced to stage 2 of the connecting cubes and pattern blocks centers. In these centers, students use connecting cubes to make objects pictured on cards, and pattern blocks to fill in simple puzzles.

Reader's Workshop: Fiction vs. Nonfiction

This week during reader's workshop the children were taught that there are lots of different kinds of books. There are storybooks (fiction) and "learn about the world books" (nonfiction). During the mini-lesson, the children were taught how to read a nonfiction book. Then the child had the opportunity to pick out a nonfiction book and tried their best to look, think, read and learn!

Mystery Bag STEM Design Challenge:

This mystery bag STEM design challenge was an absolute hit! In this design activity, the kids were given a bag of mystery materials (an assortment of recyclables and other random items) and then challenged to create a toy character using only the items in their bag. It was so exciting to see all the cool ideas the students came up with, and the kids loved sharing their creations with each other.

Journals - "I like..."

The children are starting to understand the process of journal writing. During journals, the kids are presented with a prompt and are instructed to draw a picture and write a corresponding response. The kids are learning to add details and lots of color to their pictures! They are also instructed to use a pencil when writing and to write a sentence with the first letter uppercase and the rest lowercase. They are also taught to use finger spaces between words and to end the sentence with a punctuation mark. The kids are working on sounding out the words - phonemic spelling. Phonemic spelling is a system of spelling in which each letter represents one spoken sound. We teach the kids that writers don't ask how something is spelled - they must try their best to sound it out! This is a fluid process and takes lots of practice.

Art:

In art, the children created pinch pots using clay!

PE:

The kids had a blast learning new games this week - Builders & Breakers, Messy Backyard, Soccer, and Lion's Den.

French:

Continuing our work on fruit and colors!

Music:

The kids enjoy singing and dancing to Fuzzy Buzzy Bumble Bee and playing instruments while marching in a circle!

Library:

Recess:

Free Choice:

This week the kids loved using the kinetic sand and exploring the water in the sensory table! Sensory play has so many benefits. Sensory play encourages the development of motor skills, supports language development, and encourages 'scientific thinking' and problem-solving while they play, create, investigate, and explore! During Free Choice the kids also enjoyed playing one of our new games - Shelby's Snack Shack. This game promotes visual lessons in number recognition, counting, and beginning adding and subtracting while exercising fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. The children are also learning how to be a "good loser." It's really difficult for some children to lose, especially those with a low frustration tolerance. Our goal in class is to always play by the rules and to encourage the kids to use coping skills and promote resilience when things don't go their way. At the end of the game, no matter who the winner is, we encourage all the kids to say, "Good game!" or "Rematch!?"

Monster Money:

The kids are working hard on earning Monster Money! When the kids are witnessed making a great choice, being a leader, and going above and beyond, they are rewarded with Monster Money. Every Friday the kids get to go shopping at the Monster Store! The Monster Store has bins filled with different toys and each bin is priced differently. The kids can decide to buy something or save their money for something they really want (Habit #2). This program teaches the kids responsibility for their actions and simple math skills.

Reminders:

-If you haven't yet changed out your child's extra clothes in their cubby to seasonally appropriate attire (long sleeve shirts, pants), please do so next Friday at pickup or pack them in your child's backpack and let us know, we will change them out for you. Please make sure your child has a sweatshirt/sweater in their backpack daily or one to stay at school. Our classroom gets cold and often the kids need an extra warm layer.

-We have confirmed our field trip to The Grove on October 22nd. The children will go on a hayride and nature walk, along with seeing animals and having a picnic lunch (do not order school lunch this day, you will need to pack a brown bag lunch). If you would like to chaperone we will need one parent or guardian to accompany us. More details to come!

Everyone Can Be a Leader

Leader in Me

Inspired by The Leader in Me by Stephen Covey we began the week talking about what it means to be a leader. We discussed how leadership is a daily choice and whether or not we're a leader is determined by our actions. It's one of my goals to help the Kindergarten kids unlock their leadership potential and start to understand the language of "The 7 Habits" and what they mean.

Habit #1 Be Proactive

I want the children to understand that they are in charge of themselves and that they choose their actions and attitudes. During our brainstorming session, we talked about what we have control over and what we do not. We cannot control other people, but we CAN control our mindset, work ethic, and how we treat other people. As an extension of this conversation, the children worked on their first journal entry. The journal prompt was: "How can you be proactive at school?" The kids worked so hard on this! As the year progresses you will see your child's writing improve as they learn proper letter formation/placement and sentence structure.

Calm Classroom

This week we introduced Calm Classroom. Calm Classroom promotes mindfulness in the classroom and provides skills to students and teachers to create a healthier and more empowered learning environment. The 3-minute scripted techniques focus on breathing, stretching, focusing, and relaxation techniques. We begin our morning meeting with Calm Classroom as well as when we get back inside from recess and PE. Calm Classroom helps us relax our bodies and get ready for the next activity.

Fundations

Fundations is a comprehensive reading, spelling, and handwriting program. This week the children participated in letter-keyword-sound, skywriting, and practiced writing on their writing tablets. The kids learned the names of the writing lines - sky line, plane line, grass line, and worm line. The kindergarten kids are learning correct letter formation (top-down, left to right) with very specific lessons. Letter formation is very important as it is needed in order to become an efficient writer. This week we started to learn how to write "sky line letters."

Reader's Workshop: Readers Read the World

This week we began Reader's Workshop! During Reader's Workshop, each session begins with a mini-lesson followed by independent work. As students work, the teachers confer with the students while delivering a mid-workshop teaching point. The workshop ends with a share. This week the children learned that readers walk through the world in a special way - they don't just see things, they READ them! They read them by looking at things like signs, directions, books, and think, "I wonder what this says." They think about the words. During the mini-lesson, I showed the kiddos pictures that I took of signs around the school. We tried our best to read the signs. If we weren't sure what they said, we looked at the pictures to figure out what the sign was telling us.

Math: Explore Connecting Cubes

This week the K kids began our math curriculum. Unit 1 focuses on "Math in Our World." The goal of the unit is for students to recognize numbers and quantities in their world. In Unit 1 the children will explore and use various math tools that they will use in math activities throughout the year. These math tools include connecting cubes, pattern blocks, 5-frames/two-color counters, and geoblocks. This week the children explored connecting cubes. They shared their thoughts and ideas about connecting cubes during the Notice and Wonder routine and then tried their ideas during free exploration. During the first few lessons, the students get the opportunity to explore the math tools before they are asked to use them to represent mathematical situations in later lessons. The students are learning the structure and routines of our math lessons.

STEM Challenge: Index Card Tower

The Index Card STEM Activity gave the K students such a fantastic engineering opportunity to think through problems and solve them. To begin the activity, I asked the students to think about ways they could change the shape of the card to make it stronger. They had a few ideas and then I showed them some ways to make different columns (circular, triangular, square), and how to make an accordion shape with the card. We got to work making our index card STEM towers!

Centers:

PE: Scooter Races

Art: Scented Markers

Please see the message below from Ms. Lorenz:

Hello Roycemore families!

I am happy to be teaching Art to your children PreK-4th grade, and I have been reviewing different ways to give you a sneak peek into what they are working on (and why). For now, I think Google Classroom is best, and I have created a Classroom for Art where I will post a few pictures & descriptions as we finish each project. Please join with the link below.

https://classroom.google.com/c/Mzg5MTExMTQ2NDI4?cjc=lrpike4 password is rlpike4

Also, please send in a smock that your children can keep in their cubbies. A t-shirt is fine - one or two sizes larger than their own, not too large, please. Please write their names on their smocks. Thank you!

Please feel free to email me anytime - I love talking about Art!

glorenz@roycemoreschool.org

Gina Lorenz

Recess:

French: Colors - Red

Free Choice:

Field Trip:

Early Childhood (Pre-K, JK, and K) will be taking a field trip on October 22nd to The Grove for their fall program! The kids will enjoy a hayride, take a guided walk on a trail, and see animals in the interpretive center. We will be taking a bus to The Grove that morning and returning after a picnic lunch. More information to come!