Thursday, September 18

   

Thursday, September 18
Black Day (Character Education)

Mrs. Weninger will be here this morning to read Have You Filled a Bucket Today? This book helps children see how our actions and words can be helpful or hurtful.

READING AND VOCABULARY

Big Book: One Happy Classroom By: Charnan Simon

Print Concepts: Turning Pages 

Match Pictures to Text 

Foundational Skills in Context

FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS

Phonological Awareness: Counting Syllables, Matching Initial Sounds

Phonics Focus Skill: Uppercase Letters D, P, B, R

WRITING AND GRAMMAR
Proper Nouns

Writers Workshop: Drawing a Shape Person
Teaching the kids the way to draw a person with simple shapes will help them do it efficiently and effectively. This will make the process easier when the time comes to add illustrations to their written stories. (We didn't get to this yesterday.)

KinderMath:  Ordering Numbers 0-5 

Referring to the Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, the kids will be working on lining up the paper beds 0-5 and placing that number of 'monkeys' on each bed. Next, they will line the beds from 5-0 and put the corresponding number of monkeys on each bed. This lesson helps develop Collaborative Number Sense.

Bus Safety 

Lesson: Stay out of the Danger Zone
Project: The kids will make a school bus to hang in our hallway.

Pedestrian Safety
~The kids will learn about pedestrian safety with follow up questions for discussion. 

 I encourage you to view this short video with your child!

https://youtu.be/PzghGxEqBMQ

~We enjoyed celebrating with Isabelle yesterday!

 ~No school tomorrow: Teacher Workshop Day.  
Have a great weekend, everyone!

Wednesday, September 17

   

Wednesday, September 17
Green Day: Library  
Happy birthday, Isabelle!

The kids will check out their first book today. Books will be due back on the next Green day but can be sent back earlier when finished.
 Our library time is from 8:20-8:55.

READING AND VOCABULARY

Big Book: One Happy Classroom By: Charnan Simon
GENRE Fiction 
Connect and Teach: Plot (What happens in a story.)

Engage and Respond: Build Knowledge and Language

Read Aloud: A Squiggly Story By: Andrew Larsen
Listening Comprehension: What happens in the beginning, middle, end?

FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS

Phonological Awareness: Alliteration, Counting Syllables 

Phonics Focus Skill: Uppercase Letters O, Q, C, G

WRITING AND GRAMMAR: Proper Nouns: a word that names a specific

person, place, or thing.

KinderMath: Read and Write 0

            Using the story, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, the kids will be acting out the story to get to zero. What does '0' mean? How do you know? The kids will work on this skill through a variety of activities. 

It's already our 10th day of school! To celebrate, the kids will meet Zero the Hero, our puppet friend who loves the number 0 and only comes to visit every 10th day of school.

Writers Workshop: Drawing a Shape Person
Teaching the kids the way to draw a person with simple shapes will help them do it efficiently and effectively. This will make the process easier when the time comes to add illustrations to their written stories.
Bus Safety 
Cross in front of the bus safely and obey the bus driver at all times.

                                                           

 Music class today

~Your child's scrapbook page is due Thursday.  
~No school on Friday, September 19: Teacher Workshop Day.

Tuesday, September 16

   

Tuesday, September 16
Orange Day: Technology   
Technology class with Mr. Brown will be from 8:20-8:55.  

Read Aloud: A Squiggly Story By: Andrew Larsen
GENRE Fiction 
Introduce Power Words: idea, offer, stuck

FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS

Phonological Awareness: Rhyme, Matching Initial Sounds

Phonics Focus Skill: Circles & Curves (To help the kids stronger at writing letters.)

READING AND VOCABULARY

Connect and Teach: Story Elements

Engage and Respond: Build Knowledge and Language

WRITING AND GRAMMAR: Common Nouns: a word that names a

generic person, place, or thing.

 KinderMath: Comparing Numbers 1-5
The kids will be comparing two different amounts of items (up to 5) and use math vocabulary (more/bigger, less/smaller) to tell what they notice. This is a basic introduction lesson for comparing numbers.

Writers Workshop: Using Pattern Blocks to Make People
Using pattern blocks to build a person is a great first step to do before the children draw people. In this unit, we are focusing on the basic shapes to form parts of the body for our story characters.
Bus Safety 
 I stay seated when riding the bus.

  
Phy Ed Today

~Your child's scrapbook page is due this Thursday.  Thank you!

Monday, September 15

  
Monday, September 15
Gold Day: (No library, character education, or technology.)

School Bus Safety Week
To kick off School Bus Safety Week, the kids will see a live puppet show about bus safety from M & M Bus Co. and learn about waiting for the school bus in a safe place.
                   

Read Aloud: A Squiggly Story By: Andrew Larsen
GENRE Fiction 

BUILD KNOWLEDGE AND LANGUAGE

Social Studies Connection: Citizenship/Belonging 

FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS

Phonological Awareness: Alliteration, Rhyme

Phonics Focus Skill: Uppercase Letters X, Y, Z

READING AND VOCABULARY

Connect and Teach: What is a fiction story?

Engage and Respond: Build Knowledge and Language

WRITING AND GRAMMAR: Common Nouns 

KinderMath: Count to 5 and Back

Again, it may seem like an easy concept, but children need to accurately count orally, count objects, and identify the missing number when counting forward and back. We are building the foundational skills for counting and cardinality.
What better way to teach this than to work with the story, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed!

                                                           

 Music class today.

Here is the video of passing on the Irish spirit from our senior class to our kindergarten students. It was such a special thing to watch!

~I managed to get about half of our class with individual photos with the time we had...my apologies that I couldn't get everyone!

~All items listed on the "To Do" list from Meet the Teacher day are due this Thursday.  Thank you!

Friday, September 12

  

Friday, September 12
White Day: (No library, technology, or character education.)

FOUNDATIONAL SKILLS 

Phonics Focus Skill: Uppercase Letters V, K, W  

Handwriting: Tall Line/Short Line Down Strokes
READING AND VOCABULARY

Read Aloud: Keisha Ann Can! By: Daniel Kirk

Response to Text: Connect Reading to Writing (The kids will draw a picture of one thing they do at school.)

Big Book: School Day! By: Jesus Cervantes

Review Power Words: plan, polite, share 

Review Big Idea Words: discover, dream, partners

WRITING AND GRAMMAR

Identifying Singular & Plural Nouns 

 Handwriting: Learning the "Pinch, Rest, Tuck" Pencil Grip

Kindermath: Read and Write 5
 Read and Write 5

This lesson focuses on recognizing different groups of objects to 5. While it may seem like an easy concept, we are building foundational skills for accuracy in counting while developing number sense at the same time.

Project: Self-Portraits
The kids will create a self-portrait like the photo below. They will be hanging in our hallway for awhile.
  
Phy Ed Today

We are going to the homecoming pep fest in the high school this afternoon. A tradition was started where the seniors give the kindergartners an Irish Hanky as a symbol to carry on their Irish Spirit. It's a pretty cool thing to witness and it's sure to be exciting, loud, and fun!

   ~Yesterday, Officer Coon, Mrs. Marsicek (Social Work Intern), Mrs. Weninger, Mrs. Jerman (Irish Support Teacher) and Mrs. Reedy visited with the kids about being safe at school. 

 
~The scrapbook page is due Thursday, September 18.
~ The kids have been learning so much about kindergarten and it's nice to see them settling into their new routine!

Have a great weekend, everyone!