We are off and running!

We are off and running!  It has been another incredible week getting to know all of our kindergarten friends.  Each child brings a special something to our class that makes it a great place to be!  We are all getting to know each other quite well.  All the children are learning the names of their classmates and also learning something about each other on the day they are spotlighted as special Kinder-kid.  Names are such a wonderful learning tool because they are so meaningful to the children.  They love playing games with their names and with the names of their friends.  Research shows that one of the first things a child learns to read at school is a friend’s name.  Names also teach us:

§  Directionality – print goes left to right

§  The difference between and letter and word

§  Letter recognition & formation

§  Initial, middle, and ending sounds

As the children learn to read and write many of our names, they use knowledge of letters in names at later stages as part of their analysis of new words.

 

 

This week we added our names to our word wall, traced our names in “rainbow writing”, and made our names with magnetic letters.    We used magazines to cut out letters in our name.  It was great scissor practice.  We also used beans to make our names.  That was great fine motor practice.  Today we wrote our names with shaving cream (Boy – was that fun!).

Reading Workshop

Environmental print is a part of your child’s first reading experience.  It is a powerful tool for literacy.   It is the print that surrounds us.  Children first recognize it from the colors, shapes and pictures that surround it.  Then they move from shapes and colors to recognizing it without color, to then focusing on letters and words.   We did many activities with the labels you sent in this week.  Thank you for helping us create our environmental print wall.  I truly appreciate your support in helping our classroom be a rich literacy environment!

We also worked on…

§  Identifying different letter characteristics.

§  Rhyming words

§  Syllables

We read many great books this week too…

§  A is for Alice

§  Chrysanthemum

§  Andy

§  My Mommy Doesn’t Know My Name

§  Super Hero ABC

§  Chicka Chicka 123

 

Math Workshop

During math workshop we are learning how to work with our math bins.  We also graphed how many letters and syllables are in our name. Then we analyzed the results.   We made AB patterns, practiced making tally marks & counting by tens.

THANK YOU for returning all of the school forms.  I know there were a lot.

 

THANK YOU for sending in their red folder and checking it each day.

 

THANK YOU for the tremendous turn out for curriculum night.  It was so nice to see everyone.