College Colors Day

Today we learned that your children are the future Class of 2027!!!

Kendall and Jake are hoping to go to Clemson when they grow up!

Emary Kate and I love the Gamecocks!

Bella loved wearing her Clemson cheerleader uniform.

Ethan was sporting his USC shirt while he was swinging.

Sam showed me his silly face while he and Triston posed for a picture!

Knuffle Bunny

We have LOVED studying Mo Willems this week! His books always make us laugh and I think our class now has a new favorite author. We especially love his Pigeon books!

On Wednesday, each child brought in their favorite stuffed animal from home. We started our writing workshop by reading the book, Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems. 

We connected Trixie's favorite stuffed animal with the ones we brought from home. After that, the students wrote and illustrated a favorite story they had about their stuffed animal. 

These writing pieces turned out very sweet!

Math Stations

We have enjoyed participating in math stations this week! It is a time for the kids to become more independent! Please enjoy the pictures from our stations over the past week.

Chase wrote the number 3 and drew three tally marks in the play doh. 

I'm sure that you can see how hard your kids have been working this week! I am so proud of each and every one of them!

Wonder #1

Wonder #1:

What does it mean to be a good friend?

Wonder of the Week-Introduction

In our classroom, we will begin having a "Wonder of the Week" question for you and your child to research at home.  The topics will vary greatly, but I will match most of them to our science or social studies unit.  I will introduce the question to the students on Fridays, post it to our blog under the label, "Wonder of the Week," and send the question each Friday in my weekly email.  You and your child will have until the following Thursday to spend time together researching for the answer.  I encourage you to participate by responding to my blog post with any answers or resources that you guys found through research. 



Each Thursday in our classroom, we will take the time to research and discover the answer for ourselves.  We will do this by using the answers and resources that you guys post for us on  the class blog as well as any articles, videos, or experiments which I find.



My hope for this:
-I hope this is a fun way for you and your child to learn about interesting topics together.
-I hope this introduces how to research and its importance to your kindergarteners.
-I hope this expands your child's knowledge to topics that may not be discovered otherwise.
-I hope this sparks even more of an excitement in your child for learning.



Below is the website that sparked this idea and is a great resource:
http://wonderopolis.org/



If you ever have an idea for a "Wonder of the Week," please feel free to share!

All About the Number 1

Today, we began learning all about the number 1! We listed all of the ways that we could think of to represent the number. 

As I was creating an anchor chart on the board, the students created their very own in their math journals.

To wrap-up our math, we are currently building our very own number line for each number. On our number line, we have included many different representations (tens frame, on our hands, tally marks, domino, die, and the number word.)

This is our number line we created for the number 1.

What is personal space and why is it important?

Today, we talked a lot about our own personal space and it's importance. I brought in newspaper to serve as a visual for each child's own "space." The children were giving the task to stay on their own paper and dance as the song played. 

After one time, we folded our papers even smaller to make this task more difficult!

I also have included a sweet video for you to enjoy! 

Stations stations stations!

I absolutely LOVE watching the students as they are working independently in stations. This week I have started introducing stations by using 5 "Tubs." These are activities that I feel the students can work independently and be successful with.  The purpose of our tubs is to begin giving the students the opportunities to work in small groups independently.

Our 5 Tubs:

1. Legos

2. Math Manipulatives

3. Construction paper and markers

4. Puzzles

5. Play-doh

What an awesome first day for our class of 2027 graduates!

Wow! We have worked so hard and had lots of fun on our first day of kindergarten! 

We started our day by reading on the back rug while we waited for all of our friends to arrive at school.

Next, we glued colored pieces of paper to create our names!

We drank jitter juice, read First Day Jitters, and created a "kissing hand" for all of our parents!  Please check your child's blue homework folder to find the surprise kissing hand poem

Next, we illustrated a "Map of My Face" and wrote sentences beginning with the sight words I and can.

During math, I presented the students with the following problem:

"I am so excited that you are an Oakland*Star! To celebrate, I have placed starbursts on your tables. But, I have a problem! The starbursts are all in large piles on your tables and are not shared evenly among everyone. Can you please help me by sharing the starbursts in a way that is fair to everyone sitting with you at you learning clubs?

The problem solving, creativity, collaboration, and teamwork was so exciting to see as the students worked to evenly share the starbursts! I was amazed as the groups figured out that each friend at the table needed 3 starbursts! 

We ended our day by reading the book, Do Unto Otters and creating our own rules that the students thought we needed to make our dream classroom.  Tomorrow, we will continue combining our rules into categories and ultimately creating our class promise! 

We had such a fun and successful first day of school! I know that all of my room 201 friends will sleep well tonight! Thank you so much for all of the support and encouragement!