Art

The children are really enjoying our weekly Art class.
Here is a peak at them hard at work.

SCHEMA

What's in your schema?
Not sure what schema is? Ask you kindergartner! 
This week we have been learning about activating our schema.
We have practiced turn and talk and how to share appropriately during sharing circle.

Recording my schema for school

Sharing our schema for school

Adding detail to my schema graphic organizer

Writing

Writing, writing, and more writing. 

We are working very hard at adding labels to our pictures.

Allow time at home for daily writing. If you have gone on a bike ride ask your child to draw a picture and label it.  

We are encouraging our kindergarten friends to use word wall words when they are writing.

Currently we have learned and continue to practice our color words and the words I, the, love, my.

Today we made our first  class book.  It is called Rainbow Valley, Rainbow Valley What Do You See?

The children were authors and illustrators.  Ask your child the difference between the two.  We have our author/illustrator assessment on Friday. 

Your child will have to identify each. 

Information

Here is some important information about the school report card.
http://www.vbschools.com/curriculum/reportcard/

Throughout the school year the guidance team and psychology team will offer informational sessions for interested parents.

“Parenting Children with ADHD or ODD” is a FREE seven week parent training class for parents of elementary aged children (ages 3 to 12) who have a diagnosis of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and/or Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) or who have significant difficulties with noncompliance.

The class is based on Russell Barkley’s “Defiant Children” program and focuses on improving the parent-child relationship and increasing positive behaviors as well as reducing noncompliance and negative behaviors.

The class will be taught by Dr. Suzy Farley, a Licensed Clinical and School Psychologist.

Both parents are encouraged to attend. Childcare will be provided free of charge but registration is required.

To register, please complete the registration form and fax it to 431-1770, attention Suzy Farley. You will receive a call or email to confirm your place in the class. Spaces are limited.

Getting In The Groove!

Happy Friday Rainbow Valley Families!
The children are slowly but surely getting into the daily routines. I can't believe we just completed week 3!!! 
Our focus continues to be reviewing and practicing appropriate classroom behavior.  Many of our kindergarten friends are moving their stars each new day. When a student reaches ten they visit the treat bin!  
One way that we worked on being Bucket Fillers was during reading time.  We learned and practiced Think, Pair, Share.  The children were given something to think about. We paused, closed our eyes and thought. After a few minutes we paired up.  Right now the teachers are doing the pairing, and practiced having an appropriate conversation.  We took turns speaking in a clear voice and made eye contact with our partners when we were speaking.  

Pair up

Share

This week we worked on learning our color words and 3 star coloring.
We practiced each day learning the poem Rainbow Hair. We are working on one to one pointing when we are reading. Each day a student was the pointer.  When you are reading at home encourage this one to one practice. 

Ask your child to share with you Rainbow Hair

 The children worked on journal writing. We learned how and why it is important to label pictures.
We visited our adopted summer tree and observed what attributes it has.  We recorded our finding in our readers workshop notebooks.  We will refer back to this when we move on to the other seasons and discuss how the tree changes over time just like we do. 

Today, Mrs. Mack came to visit us and share her gifted lesson.
We read Q is For Duck.  WHY YOU ASK??? Because they QUACK!
The children were asked to come up with their own.
Some really cool ones that our kindergarten friends came up with  independently were B is for dog because they have lots of bones.  U is for bird because they fly up in the sky. 

Mrs. Mack

 Thursday was our first visit to the computer lab.  Ms. Teri is our computer resource teacher.  We will visit with her for lessons every other Thursday.  Mrs. Stinard and I will be team teaching technology lessons with her.
This week the children played a number counting game called Paint Splat.  If you visit the John B. Dey webpage there is a link that you can click on and play at home. This is great for using the mouse properly, counting, and identifying numbers.  By the end of the first grading period your child should be able to write, count, and identify numbers 0-20 in and out of sequence.

Letters, sounds, and singing!

Today you received a check list of letters and sounds that we recently assessed your child on.
Please review as needed.  We will be reviewing and teaching these letters and sounds during small group as well.
Here is a short video clip of the kids singing Pete The Cat, I love my white shoes!
(Sorry it's sideways!)

Dress Like A Pirate

Tomorrow is dress like a pirate day! 
No swords please. 

Kindergarten Is So Full Of Color!

Today we continued to focus on colors. We are learning our colors, and for those who know their colors we are learning how to read color words.
We reread and retold Brown Bear Brown Bear.  It was great to see so many of our kindergarten friends willing and able to retell, in order, the animals and their colors from the story!
Retelling is so very important in kindergarten.  When you are reading with your child at home check in to make sure they are listening to the story and to see if they are able to retell the events in the story.
Today was Constitution Day!  This is a really hard concept to grasp when you are five or six! 
In order to help our friends understand the importance of the Constitution I made the connection to our classroom rules that the children developed.  We discussed how laws and rules must be fair.  We also talked about how important it is that we share responsibilities much like the 3 Branches Of Government.  We watched an oldie but goodie!   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMoyH1uLhRk

We also read Pete The Cat-I Love My White Shoes.  This was a crowd favorite!

Monday, fun day!

This week our focus is learning about the summer tree.
We have adopted a tree.  Each season we will observe our tree and how it changes over time.
We will record our observations in our reader's workshop notebooks.
This week we are learning about colors.  
Your child will learn the colors and how to read color words.
We are reading Brown Bear Brown Bear and Pete the Cat.
Ask your child the color words this week! :)

Information, information! Read all about it!

This year our room parents are C. Griffith and L. Fand.  They will be contacting you over the next few weeks and asking for you to volunteer your time and talents this school year.  
Please get involved. :)  
This week we are reviewing high frequency words the, my, I.  Please review these often.
During small group learning time the children learned how to log onto the computer and play a language art game on Starfall.com.  For many, this was a familiar site.  We will be visiting many learning sites throughout the year.  If you visit the John B. Dey webpage you can click on links that will take your child to many kindergarten learning sites. 
During small group we also worked on writing.  I am encouraging inventive spelling.  If your child asks you how to spell a word, work on sounding out the consonants together.  Vowels are tricky, so they will come later. If you see they can handle vowels, GO FOR IT! :)
I encourage daily writing and drawing at home.  For the month of September we don't have homework.  Writing and drawing in a daily at home journal is a great way to begin the homework routine.
Today, the children will check out library books.  Please return the books by their due dates.  They will visit the library every other Thursday for a lesson and check out.  If check out looks like it is going smoothly we will send them to the library in the mornings to return and check out as well.  Mrs. Hardesty, our librarian, will let us know when she feels the children are ready for this on their own. 
As you have seen we are working on writing "the school way," counting, and identifying the numbers 0-10 in and out of sequence during our math time.   Ask your child to share with you the number poems they have learned!  One of our kindergarten friends shared with the class that she we home and taught her daddy the poems!  :)
Please feel free to comment on our blog.  I would love to get some conversations going with our Rainbow Valley families.  

Names

What's in a name?
Today we worked on identifying  the letters in our names, how many letters are in our names, and how to write our names the school way.
As the weeks go on , we will talk about what is a vowel and a consonant and how many of each we have in our names.
Ask your child about the story Chrysanthemum.  
Today we worked on making connections to How Full Is Your Bucket and Chrysanthemum.  I also tied in how each of our names are unique.  I have started sharing with the students the stories that you wrote about their name origin. 

Peacemakers

Happy Monday!
Today we reviewed the daily routines.  We also spent a good deal of time reviewing appropriate classroom behavior.  We revisited our Bucket Fillers and Bucket Dippers chart from last week, and we read David Goes To School.   In this story we discussed ways that David demonstrated being a Peace Breaker.  He yelled out, he ran in the hallways, he got out of his seat, he touched his friends and their work, he ate with his mouth open, he did not pay attention.  
The children discovered that David was someone they would NOT like in their class.  
From there, the children developed a Peace Maker anchor chart.  They said Peace Makers, which they are all working on being each new day, use lips and hips in the hallway, raise their hand when they want to speak, keep their eyes on the person who is speaking, are respectful to their parents, use nice words, keep their hands and feet to themselves, try their best.
Please encourage Peace Making and Bucket Filling behavior at home. 
In math, we reviewed the numbers 1-3 and learned the "school way" to write the number four. Ask your child to show you!
During small group we continued to work on one to one pointing when reading, taking turns, and identifying the word" the."
During our daily calendar time we are working all this month on learning the days of the week, months of the year, counting to 100, creating and reading graphs, patterning and letter sounds.  Please make sure you ask your child to share what they know with you about these skills. This is a good way to "check in" to see how well he or she is paying attention during school time. 

A Fantastic First Week!

I can't believe the first week of kindergarten has already come to an end.
This week was filled with excitement!  I know it is going to be a fantastic year.
Our focus this week was citizenship.  We will be working on this for a few weeks and of course practicing being  Super Rainbow Valley Citizens all year long.  
Today the children enjoyed the story The Crayon Box That Talked. In the story we saw that each crayon is unique and holds a special place when used in a drawing.  We discussed how each of us is unique and how our choices impact not only ourselves, but the people around us.
Today we also continued to work on counting and writing numbers 1,2, and 3.
I taught the students that there are 3 lines to use when writing.  The top is called the sky, the middle dotted line is called the fence, the bottom solid line the ground, and below that is worm land.  We also learned some poems about the numbers that we will say when we are practicing writing our numbers.  We explained that all of our numbers start from the top and come down.  Kindergarten friends don't push up their numbers.  
Any work that comes home should be reviewed with your child.  The stamp or stickers are for them.  If the stamp says, "Ask me about,"  ask them to tell you about their work.  For example, we worked on retelling Hey Diddle, Diddle. Ask them to recite that poem for you.    If there is a note on your child's work, please review the skill or strategy at home until he or she feels comfortable with it.  
As we were learning Hey Diddle,Diddle this week we focused on the high frequency word the.
Ask your child how to spell and write the. :)  When reading ask them to point out the word the in literature.

• Please continue to send in healthy snacks and drinks.  So far they have been GREAT!  
• If you have not sent in your child's ear phones or ear buds please do so.  
• All important paper work should be returned no later than next Tuesday. 
• As always encourage your child to stay focused and try their very best each new day.

Our first word wall word!

Painting our unique crayons.

Happiness is all over Rainbow Valley!

Citizenship

During the next few week and of course throughout the school year we are working on being super citizens.  
Today we reviewed The Kissing Hand and feelings that we have.
We read a story called How Full Is Your Bucket.  We talked about what it means to be Bucket Fillers and Bucket Dippers.  Ask your child about this story.  We hope that you will encourage "Bucket Filling" at home. 

During math today we worked on counting and graphing.  The children really enjoyed interacting with the Smart Board.

Just a friendly reminder...if your child is having breakfast at school please remind them to go straight to the cafeteria upon exiting the bus. We have no way of knowing who has eaten at home and who has not.  When we ask everyone wants to go.  ;)

First Day Fun!

Today was AWESOME!  The children were ready to learn!
We began our day with opening and calendar.  The children learned two new songs.
Today we also worked on our class rules and GIVE ME FIVE. Ask you child about those.
We read The Kissing Hand today and wrote in our journals about feeling that we have that were also like Chester's.  Ask your child about what he or she wrote.
The children enjoyed showing us how well they can write their names, draw, and color.  

Please send in your child's school supplies.  Please remember we have snack and not lunch.