Thank You

I just wanted to thank all of the parents and guardians who came to help with the holiday party. I would never be able to thank you enough for all of your kindness and support. The kids had a blast! Have a wonderful holiday, everyone!

Merry Christmas!!

Break

Happy Tuesday! I just wanted to write a quick post about break while I wait on the kids to get here.
I wanted you all to know that I will be sending home their reading logs. Whatever they read or read with help, mark it down. If you run out of room, use the back. Also, over break, work with them on writing their last names. I will be working with them on reading and writing each others last names after break. Sooner or later they will be writing their first and last names on their work. If you would like me to send anything else home, please let me know. I can put something together if you'd like me to. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!!!

My Wonders

At the end of the school day today, all I wanted to do was hug each and every one of my students. I wish that we hadn't been in such a rush to get to the buses because I definitely would've. I also would've read the book "You Are My Wonders" that I read at the beginning of the school year. Since we were in such a rush, I just told the whole class that I loved them and that I was so happy that they were in my class. Hug your kids extra tight tonight! 

Tall and Fall Letters

Your kids may be singing the ABCs and dancing around like a crazy person tonight haha. We listened to Alphabet Train today while doing motions for tall (lower case letters that touch the top line) and fall letters (letters that fall below the bottom line) and letters that only touch the middle line. Take some time to talk to your child about what letters are tall, which letters fall, and which letters only touch the middle line.
We have also been talking about symmetry. Prompt your child to look around the house for things that have symmetry. 

Next Thursday is our Holiday Party. You are more than welcome to come. Please do not be any earlier than 2:15 (unless you are volunteering and have talked to Barbara Johns). 

As always, feel free to email me or call me at school with any questions or concerns :)

Volunteer Spot

I know that I have shared this information before, but I have had some recent questions about read aloud. One of the parents told me that whoever is running read aloud scheduling for the rest of the school told her that we don't have read aloud. That is not true. We do have read aloud and I have been scheduling people every Wednesday since the beginning of school. I just do it myself instead of having someone else do it for me.  The only problem that I have seen recently is that no one was signing up. I will be sending home a note as a reminder that I do keep a blog instead of sending lots of notes home to cut down on my copy allotment and save paper, but if you know other parents from our classroom, please let them know! There have only been about 5 people on the blog for the past month.


We’re using VolunteerSpot (the leading online sign up and reminder tool) to organize our upcoming activity. Please sign up - here’s how it works in 3 easy steps:

1.Click this link to go to our invitation page on VolunteerSpot:

http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/12329980400104

2.Enter your email address. (You will NOT need to register an account on VolunteerSpot.)

4.Sign Up!  Choose your spots. VolunteerSpot will send you automated confirmation and reminder messages.  Easy!

Note: VolunteerSpot does NOT share your email address with anyone or send spam emails. If you prefer not to enter your address – please contact me and I can sign you up manually

Reading Logs

I just wanted to clear up some confusion about the reading logs.... The students have been bringing home small b&w paper books. Those are to be written on the reading log, signed, and returned to school the next day. You may ALSO write the name of any other books the students have read at home. I count 20 minutes for each book read for the Book It Program minute tracker. Please let me know if you still have questions about the logs!

Progress Reports

I just wanted everyone to know that progress reports will be sent home tomorrow. You will notice that each goal is labeled with Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4 for each quarter. Q2 are the new goals that I will be assessing for the next report card. If your child has a "+" next to the Q2 they have already mastered the goal and will have a MS on their report card in a few weeks. If they have a check mark next to the goal they are approaching the standard, and the "-" means they need support. I have seen so much progress in my classroom. The students are beginning to write journal pages on their own, reading by themselves, and I have seen so much improvement on everyone's hand writing.  I hope you are all as pleased with the progress reports as I am!

December 20th

December 20th will be our holiday party day and Polar Express day at school. If you would like to help with the party and you were not notified for our fall party, please email me and let me know that you would like to be a party volunteer (unless you have already talked to Barbara Johns). I cannot believe that Christmas is almost here!

Canned Food Drive

We are still collecting cans this week and next for the food drive. I explained to the students that this is a way that we can help people in our community who may not be able to afford food. Please try to have a meaningful conversation with your child about why we help people if you're giving them food to bring to school for the food drive (and even if you're not). I like to turn every opportunity into a learning experience. I believe that it is very important for children to learn about helping our neighbors at a young age.

A Lesson For the Teacher

I love moments in my classroom that I realize I am learning just as much as the students are. The moments came to me yesterday...As Thanksgiving is upon us, I have begun talking about Native Americans and Pilgrims in the classroom. To kick off the unit, one of our parents, a Shawnee Indian, came to talk to our class about the traditions and customs of her tribe. I believe that it is very important to expose children to different cultures, and this was an amazing experience for the students. She brought in many things for the students to see and explained that all of the items handmade by her family. The students were in awe! She even let us listen to a song that the children of her tribe dance to and the students were excited to hear the man in the song singing the words to Sponge Bob. Please take some time to talk to your children about this experience. Discuss the reason behind learning about Native Americans for Thanksgiving. Who was at the First Thanksgiving? Don't forget to explain that Native Americans have always been on this land. They were here long before Columbus got here. It is important to share facts with our children. http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr040.shtml
We will continue our Thanksgiving lesson the week after break and have a feast at the end of that week!

http://www.indians.org/articles/shawnee-indians.html

Read Aloud

No one has signed up to read for next Wednesday. Please go to Volunteer Spot and sign up if you're available! Thank you :)

Estimation

We have started talking about estimation in math and the definition of estimation. After today we understand that an estimation is a "smart guess" that you make when something cannot be counted. We practiced using counting bears in a jar. I have sent home home-link page 15 for the students to work on with you. In the home-link it asks the family to begin collecting pennies in a jar. Throughout the week make estimations about how many pennies in the jar. After making an estimation, count the actual number. Please practice saying "I think there are ABOUT ___ pennies in the jar today." I want the students to understand that we say "about" because we do not know the exact number until we count. I think this will be a fun activity for you to work on as a family. Get them thinking!
Also, I have started talking about what we do if we do not know what a word means. We have been talking about dictionaries and definitions. Please take some time to sit down with your child and look at a dictionary. Next time you're reading a story to them and there are words they do not know, take the time to look them up and show your child how to search for words in a dictionary. 

Read Aloud

Thanks to a reminder from one of the parents, I have updated my volunteer spot page and I have sign ups for read aloud in November available now. There are only 3 days available in November because of our week off.  We'd love to see some new faces in our room (not that we don't love the read aloud volunteers that have been coming)! 

Thank You!

I know I haven't posted in a long time! Assessments, report cards, planning, and working both jobs have taken up a lot of time this month. I will post some pictures from the zoo, community helpers week, and our Halloween party soon, but I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to my parent volunteers who helped with the party. The kids loved it! I got my parent volunteer list from the PTO. If you did not hear from Barbara Johns about the party then your name is not on it. Please email me if you would like to help with other classroom parties! lwebster@access.k12.wv.us Thank you all so much!!!

Pictures

If you have any pictures throughout the year, could you please email them to me? We need to start compiling pictures for the yearbook! You can send them to lwebster@access.k12.wv.us. Thanks!

Fall Festival

It’s time to start thinking about the fall festival on November 2^nd! Some of you may already know that each classroom will create a basket that will be raffled off.  Every year, each class fills a basket related around a certain theme and it is raffled off at the Fall Festival by people buying tickets and placing them in a bowl in front of the basket they want.  If their ticket is drawn, they win the basket!  It’s fun!  Our basket’s theme will be family night. We are asking you to donate an item to the basket. Items may include; board games, movie theater gift certificates, DVDs, popcorn, restaurant gift cards, etc. If you donate DVD’s please make them only G and PG rated. 

Wow!

I am so proud of my students for all of their hard work to put our museum and presentations together! I am also very proud to say that we had 30 parents/ guardians in the classroom. That is amazing! They did such a great job, didn't they? 
I wanted to do my first PBL early in the year because I wanted the students to understand that questioning is very important. I also wanted them to understand that we are all students and teachers in our classroom. They were always amazed when they would ask me a question about their animal and I would tell them I didn't know the answer. Sometimes they would laugh if one of their classmates were talking about an animal  and I would raise my hand to ask a question about it. We would all go to the carpet and look on Google and in our animal books to see if we could find the answer. One time a student even asked me if I was joking that I didn't know. I didn't want to do a lot of talking on Friday, because I wanted them to have full ownership of their projects. Thank you all for coming! It was so nice to see so much support.
On that note, hopefully your child showed you the note, but we ARE going to the zoo on Friday this week! We'll be going to Hovatters' in Preston Co. We will leave the school around 9:45. Cost is $4.50 for students and regular price for any parent or guardian that would like to meet us there.  If you are meeting us there, please, please still send you child to school at the regular time. I don't want them to miss circle time.  Also, I would like the students to stay with the class while we are there. We will walk around the zoo as a group. Even if they are with you, I would still be responsible for them during a school function. I don't want some students all the way on the opposite side of the zoo with their parents while we are on the other side. I don't mind you walking with us or even next to you child, just please do not take them away from the class. 

Also, the students DO NOT have school tomorrow. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns about the zoo!

Red Folders

Wow! It's been a while since I've updated. Sorry! We've been super busy. I wanted to clear up some confusion about the red folders that go back and forth from home to school. We do not use the "return to school" and "keep at home" pockets. The students keep their red folders in their mailboxes all day. At the end of the day they take all papers that are inside their mailboxes and slide them into their folders. It is their responsibility to pack and unpack. I don't want to make it even more confusing and time consuming for them to have to use the correct side of the folder. Does that make sense? 
On that note, the students came home with an invitation to our presentations next Friday at 10:00 am. Please send them back with an option marked so we can plan accordingly. Thank you! 

Museum Of Wildlife Biology

The students have all begun their animal research now and we all seem very excited about it. I'm learning just as much as the students! Did you know that a giraffe drinks 10 gallons of water a day?! We have a lot to work on, but I was thinking about maybe opening our Museum of Wildlife Biology to parents at the end of next week or the beginning of the week after that. Some students are working in teams and others have decided to research an animal of their own. All of the students will be presenting their animal to the class and I want to parents to come too! We will be working on invitations for parents probably some time this week, so watch out for them!

Thunder

Thunder the eagle came to visit us today! She is a 20 year old Bald Eagle that has been in captivity for 19 years due to the fact that she was shot when she was a year old. The visit was part of the reward that the students earned for the summer reading challenge, but how great is it that she was here during the beginning of our animal research?! 

New Popcorn Words

one   
two  
you  
red  
blue  
cat  
dog  
to  
fun  
it 

Book It!

We are going to start our Book It! reading challenge on October 1st. I have gone to bookitprogram.com and registered our class. I will be tracking the number of minutes your child reads each night and while we're in class on our minute tracker. I have set our goal to 2,000 minutes a month per child. That is 20 minutes a night for 5 nights a week. I will be sending home reading logs beginning next week for you to write the name of the book your child has read and how long they read it. It is a great idea for them to read the books more than once and talk about what is happening throughout the story to check for comprehension. Feel free to write any comments on the books you share!


P.S. we need read aloud volunteers! Sign up at http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/12329980400104

Learning Through Exploration

We are beginning project based learning in my classroom. Project based learning happens when "the students decide what projects they want to tackle, and teachers guide them to resources, on the Internet and in books, that help them create something from what they learn. Whether they're building an airplane or a cruise ship, or conducting a funeral for the class praying mantis, AEEC students are learning more than basic facts and skills.They are acquiring a taste for the process of lifelong learning. " Please check out the rest of that article on http://www.edutopia.org/beginning-journey! It's a great explanation of what PBL is all about.
Sometimes I wish you all could be flies on the wall while your children are really, deeply engaged in what they're learning. It is an amazing thing to see! You'd be surpirsed at how their brains work when they are learning something that they are interested in. Last week I started the animal lesson with one of the groups ("teams") in my class. That group decided that they would like to visit Hovatter's Zoo to learn more about some of the animals we will be researching. We used their want to go to the zoo as a letter writing lesson, and they wrote a letter to Mrs. Hartshorn to ask if we could go. We should have an answer this week!
Encourage your children to find answers to things they want to know about. Children, and adults alike, become more excited about learning and learn more when they want to learn. Whenever they have a question about something try not to just give them the answer. Encourage them to find the answer. Provide books and help them on the internet, but make sure that they are actively involved in the learning process.

The Crayon Box That Talked

Today we continued to talk about what makes us unique. I read The Crayon Box That Talked and we talked about how the crayons in the book were like the members in our class. Each color is unique, but each color is needed. In our classroom, we work as a team-we are a family. Each of us brings something different in to our room. I drew a picture on the smart board of a house, tree, clouds, and the sun, but I only used a blue "marker." I told the class that I am the blue in our class, but showed them that you can't draw an accurate picture with only a blue marker. We decided that green would represent the boys in our room and I colored over my blue grass green and made the leaves on the trees green too. The girls in our class were represented by red and I colored the flowers in our picture red. Each group of people-girls, boys, classroom helpers, leader of the day, and aide- were represented by a color. The students were able to see that each color was very important in the picture, much like each person is very important in our class. 

We have been in school for 15 days and I have already seen a huge difference in your children. Research has shown that it takes, at least, 6 weeks for students just to understand the rules and procedures of each classroom. Yes, we still have some work to do, but we are improving! Most of the students un-packed their backpack and brought notes and homework to my desk this morning completely on their own- that in itself is a huge improvement. Talk to your children about working as a team in the classroom and encouraging their teammates to try their hardest. 

I am slowly moving into student directed learning and want my students to have a sense of ownership in their classroom with what they learn and how they and their teammates are acting. I like the idea of having the students deal with small problems (she touched me) with other students on their own. I have been working with them to learn our debug system. In the debug system the students talk out problems between themselves, it takes away the whole he said/ she said issue. We will be discussing peer mediation a little later in the year, as well. 

Reminder, please send your child's puzzle piece back to school tomorrow. Decorate the side that has the picture on it. 

Popcorn Words

I added some new words to our word wall last week. These words are called popcorn words, because they pop up in things we read and write all the time. The first set of words are:
I
a
see
me
be
can
like
the
yes 
no

Practice them with your child as often as possible. We will be adding more soon!

Wow Factory Studio Classes

I promise this won't happen often, but I wanted to take the opportunity to share a link with you that doesn't really have to do with school. I work at the Wow Factory, and one of the girls I work with is an art teacher. She will be teaching studio kids art classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays! https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-WOW-Factory/155842414455550

Exploring Coconuts



Today we listened to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
again and talked about not only letters, but coconuts too!

 

This is Miss Sophia exploring a coconut
with a magnifying glass.

Johnny exploring a coconut.

   

Lydia thinks the coconut tastes "disgusting".

"Who likes coconut in our class?" graph
We counted and 8 people do like coconut
and 11 people do not.





Coconut Senses. How do coconuts look, taste, feel, smell, and hear?

Book Club Ordering Link

Some of you have asked about ordering Scholastic books online. Use this link https://orders.scholastic.com/L97TT if you do!

Family Project!

Next week will be my "We are all alike, we are all different" unit. I want to send each student home with a puzzle piece. It will be you and your child's job to decorate the puzzle piece to represent your child. At the end of the week we will put the puzzle together, showing that, even though we are all different, we all fit together. I will send the piece home next Monday. Try to have it decorated by next Wednesday :) Thanks!!

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Today we made handprint coconut trees to go along with our unit on Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. The Students also spelled their name and stamped the letters climbing up the coconut tree. They're so cute that I just had to share a picture! We are also learning how to count down from 10. Practice this with your child at home. They can even say "blast off!" when they get to 0. You know they'll want too. :)

Who Let the Letters Out?

We all had too much fun today, which is why I'm posting so late-I fell asleep when I got home. :) 
This week I am doing a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom unit and we are talking about the alphabet. We listened to "Who Let the Letters Out" today. Each student got a balloon which had a capital magnet letter inside. On my magnet board was a list of lower case letters that the students matched their upper case magnet letter to, after popping their balloon, of course! They had a blast! It was so funny watching all the different ways they had to pop their balloon. I actually video taped the lesson, and you can watch your child when you come for parent conferences (will schedule soon), if you want.
We also started talking about writing letters. We stared with capital letter F. I shared a link with you a while ago about a wet-dry-try app you can download for your iPad. I reminded the students about this app if you have an iPad. We follow Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum, and wet-dry-try is one of the ways to teach writing letters. I started teaching the letter F by doing wet-dry-try with the class today and sent home a practice sheet. I explained to the students that they will get a sticker and a heart around their best letter F when they turn their paper in tomorrow. There is no right or wrong. I just want them to practice. Help them follow the instructions on how to write the letter at the top of the paper. The lines on the F are numbered with arrows, showing which to draw first and which direction to move the pencil.  You will begin to notice that handwriting is different today than it was when we were in school. We all learned to write with a "tail" on most lower-case letters. That style is called d'nealian. Now, the students are learning a more simple, clean, vertical style of printing. 
Visit http://www.hwtears.com/hwt to read a little more about it. 

Happy Wednesday!

September Breakfast and Lunch Menu

http://boe.mono.k12.wv.us/Childnutrition/menu/index.html

10 Fun Ways to Add Learning to a Day Out

I found this great article while on Pinterest looking up lesson ideas tonight and wanted to share some of it with you all. 

This is from http://carrotsareorange.com/10-fun-ways-add-learning-day/

1. Visit your local library and borrow some books related to the place you’ll be visiting A mix of both fiction and non-fiction books will add to the fun and learning potential. If you’re planning a visit to the zoo for example, borrow some factual books about animals, and perhaps some story books about visiting the zoo. Borrow the books before the big day out, read them each day leading up to the outing, then continue reading them after the visit. Before the day, ask your kids questions about what they think they might see. Then,

after the trip, relate the books back to what they actually did see and experience.

2. Prepare a scavenger hunt
Draw or print out some pictures of things you expect to see on the day such as animals (for the zoo), sea shells (for a trip to the beach), or a particular painting (for a trip to a gallery). Add the pictures to a single page and bring it along with you. Your kids will have a great time searching for the items and then crossing them off as the discover each one.

3. Do some online research
Using the zoo trip as an example, google pictures of the types of animals you expect to see, or you could even visit the website of the place that you are visiting to plan your day.

4. Make a collage
This could be done before or after the trip. Flip through some old magazines and collect pictures of
anything you expect to see/did see and paste them onto a sheet of paper. You could add glitter,
paint or even your own drawings to the collage too. Go wild!

5. Create a small world play scene
Small world play enhances imagination and fosters language skills. The idea is to create a mini playscape that relates to the place you visited. These invitations to play can be put together easily with recycled materials and items found in your home. For a trip to the beach or aquarium, you could use blue felt or cardboard for the water, add some sand or pebbles and add some sea-creatures found at the dollar store. For the zoo, add some leaves from your garden, a few animal toys, and again some blue felt for a watering hole. Then watch as your kids become lost in their imaginations, making up all sort sorts of funny adventures and stories.

6. Letter reinforcement
Particularly for younger kids, you could create some letter games and crafts, concentrating on a letter such as Z for zoo, B for beach, or M for museum. “We’re going to the Zoo next week! What else begins with Z? Zebra! Do you think we’ll see a Zebra when we go to the Zoo?” You’ll find lots of letter reinforcement games on my Literacy and Numeracy Pinterest board.

7. Hand your child the camera
Let your child have use of a camera for the entire day. If your child is young and you’re concerned about your camera being damaged, why not try a disposable camera? Kids LOVE taking photos. Afterwards, print out the pics, make a collage and hang it on the wall, or create your own mini album by stapling together some sheets of paper and pasting the pics onto each page. You can then use the pics to talk about all the things you did/learnt on the day.

8. Collect items to bring back home
If you’re visiting somewhere natural such as the beach or a nature hike, collect some pebbles, shells or leaves. Bring them home and start a nature table or a treasure box filled with natural items and add to it each time you do something outdoors. For a zoo trip, you could buy just one little toy animal and add to the collection, one animal at a time, each time you return to the zoo.

9. Make up stories based on your day out
After the visit, make up stories with your kids about everything you saw and did. Ask questions like “I wonder what those monkeys get up to at night when all the visitors and zoo keepers have gone home?” and see what imaginative ideas your kids come up with. There’s so much potential for imagination and language development when you make up fun stories relating back to somewhere you’ve been.

10. Cook a dish which reflects the place you visited
Cooking with kids is so beneficial. It boosts their confidence, enhances maths and language skills and is just plain fun! If you went somewhere cultural, such as to an exhibition of Italian painters, then cook some pasta, if you visited the beach, perhaps make a tropical food such as grilled pineapple, or for a zoo trip, how about cookies made with animal shaped cookie cutters?

I hope these ideas have given you some inspiration to add to the fun and learning potential of your next family outing. What are your favourite places to take your family to have fun and learn?

Seeing Stars

Today was the first Friday of the year that we had S.O.A.R time which is based on the behavior plan-I mentioned my behavior plan in a post last week, which we started this week. If the students can stay on green or above on my clip chart for at least 3 days, they get to participate in S.O.A.R time at the end of the week. This week was a bit of trial and error, because it takes over a month for kindergarten students to fully understand and follow the rules at school. We have been doing an amazing job, though, and students who were moving clips down at the beginning of the week have gained an understanding of the consequences. Everyone is improving!! 
During our classroom meeting on Friday we talked about working as a team and celebrating our classmates success. You would be amazed how well your children do with this. When someone in our class moves their clip up, they all congratulate them. When they notice that someone needs to work a little harder, they encourage them to try their best. It's so great to see. I was honestly almost in tears the other day during recess when my leader of the day came up to me and let me know that they told one of their classmates how proud they were that  their classmate got to move their clip up. 
They're really starting to gain a sense of ownership of their classroom and the people in it. We're starting to feel like a family-making friends, encouraging each other, and working as a team. Because of all of that, I didn't really stick with the "you can only participate in S.O.A.R time if you don't have to move your clip down for at least 3 days" thing. Everyone was able to watch The Magic School Bus Sees Stars. I was amazed at how many students hadn't seen any Magic School Bus movies! They loved it! 


Have a good long weekend with your kindergartener! Ask your child to show you how to track their name, cheer their name, and count the syllables in their name. The cheering is the cutest thing you'll ever see :) We've also been counting and looking for numbers in our environment (as you know from their homework). Continue to practice these things. ALSO (as a side note) please, please, please do not do your child's homework for them! I know some of you may feel like I won't be able to tell what their paper says or what their picture is, BUT we had a huge discussion about whose responsibility it is to do their homework. I did not grade their math on their drawing ability. They simply got a sticker if they turned it in. I was sad to see that when we discussed the homework in class, some of them couldn't even tell me what their pictures were of because they didn't draw them. Your child will feel more proud of their work if you allow them to do it themselves. Yes, it is ok to help them. I want you to work with them on their homework. It is important for you to show them that you care about what they are doing in school. I just want them to do the drawing (when their homework calls for it) even if you don't think I won't be able to tell what it is. They will remember and gain more information when they do the work themselves. Thank you! 

M my name is Mrs. Webster

We wrote our first class book today called "We Are Here". On each page the students wrote the letter their name started with, their whole name and something that they like. We then talked about drawing with a pencil and coloring with crayons/markers. Each page says something like M my name is Mrs. Webster, and I like pizza. They did a great job! I can't wait for you all to see the book at our next open house! 
Today we also went for a walk on the playground to talk about playground safety. The students in our class were great role models for the Pre-K kids who were playing at the time. We talked about the correct way to use the equipment and not to throw mulch- you'd be amazed how popular throwing mulch is among the kindergarten and first graders. :) 
Remind your child to take the papers out of the red folder/ backpack each evening.  They will probably be reminded, but try to make it their responsibility to clean their backpacks out. It is their responsibility to pack them at school, so if they practice unpacking at home they will have more practice and more sense of responsibility. 
Thank you for your comments so far! It feels good to know that there are some of you reading the blog!

Read with your children tonight :)

Our Daily Schedule

Some of you have asked for a schedule so that you know what your child is doing at certain times throughout the day. :)
Our schedule on Monday and Tuesday is as follows;
8:25-8:45-Students begin arrival. Please drop your child off at the main building on the first floor (if you bring them to school). After this week, we are asking parents to no longer walk their student to the classroom.
8:45-unpack and sign in
8:55-attendance and lunch count
9:00-morning meeting
9:10-circle time-weather, news of the day, calendar
10:00-11:30-90 minutes of uninterrupted reading/ language arts
11:35-12:05- Recess
12:05-12:35- Lunch
12:40-1:00-quiet time
1:00-2:00-60 minutes of uninterrupted math
2:00-2:10-prepare of dismissal
2:10-2:30- daily centers (free time)
2:30-2:45- snack
2:45-3:25-P.E
3:25-Dismissal

Wednesday- Friday look like this;
8:25-8:45-Students begin arrival. Please drop your child off at the main building on the first floor (if you bring them to school). After this week, we are asking parents to no longer walk their student to the classroom.
8:45-unpack and sign in
8:55-attendance and lunch count
9:00-morning meeting
9:10-circle time-weather, news of the day, calendar
10:00-11:30-90 minutes of uninterrupted reading/ language arts
11:35-12:05- Recess
12:05-12:35- Lunch
12:40-12:55-quiet time
12:55-1:55-60 minutes of uninterrupted math
1:55-2:05-prepare of dismissal
2:05-2:45- Music or Art-we alternate days
2:45-3:25-Read aloud (Wednesday) /World Language (Thursday and Friday)
3:25-Dismissal

If you are coming to do read aloud on Wednesday, all we ask is that you finish up by 3:15. We have been having to rush to the main floor for dismissal since, you can see, that we are busy right up until 3:25 most days. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

You Are My Wonders

Today was the first somewhat "normal" day that we have had. We started out the day with our job chart, and some of the students were assigned classroom jobs. We have a greeter, door holders, flag holder, meteorologist, librarian, floor checker, and play center helpers. Each child will get the chance to do each job more than once. I like the idea of classroom jobs because it gives the students a sense of responsibility and ownership of their classroom. 
We also had our first library day. Half of the students went with Ms. Pat to the library while the other half stayed with me to start learning how to read and spell our classmates names. Tomorrow we will switch. Also at station time today, we talked about the meaning of top, middle, and bottom. I can tell that the class is getting more and more used to the routine and classroom rules. We did a lot of kissing our brains today! They are all doing so great! Don't forget to remind your children that you know about the behavior clip chart too. Talk with them about classroom rules (they know what they are).
Todays read aloud book was You Are My Wonders. It's all about what students mean to their teacher. I love it! 

REMINDERS:

• Sign up for read aloud days on www.VolunteerSpot.com! I already have some volunteers and we're excited to host our first parent read aloud of Wednesday!
• If you have not turned in your child's shot records, we need them!
• On P.E. days (Monday and Tuesday) the students HAVE to wear tennis shoes. Mr. Woods will not allow them to participate otherwise.
• Email me or call the school if you have ANY questions or concerns. I love parent involvement. I feel that it is very important. I want to hear from you! 
• Read to your child for at least 20 minutes a night. Next week we will start a sign in sheet where you will write the amount of time read and what was read and sign it. If you would like to use books I have in the classroom, please let me know!
• If your child would like to bring a book to school for me to read on their leader day, feel free to send it with them. Make sure your name is on the inside cover, though.

Feathers and a Dunk Tank

I'm sure you heard all about how crazy our day was compared to the last two. Things were a little out of whack with the schedule. First we had a fire drill, then music in the morning instead of after lunch, and a reading celebration in the afternoon. Our class took the changes in their (just adjusted to) schedule very well. I was pleasantly surprised! 
Over the summer the Easton Eagles were asked to keep track of all the books they read. Since we are new to Easton, we just counted the books read in class over the past couple of days. One of my students also went to the summer reading celebration and checked out a book from the library. Since we were able to count this as a book read over the summer, he had one extra book read than the rest of the class. He received a $10 gift card from Wal-Mart!! We were all so proud of him! Each student had their name on a feather for each book read, and we added our feathers to a "naked" eagle. The students thought it was hilarious that the eagle had no feathers! During our reading celebration, the Easton Eagle was revealed and had been completely covered in feathers from books read. It was great for us all to see the amount of books read just over a summer- and the first few days of school.
After the reading celebration, we got to stay and watch the 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders dunk their teachers in a dunk tank for reaching their goals on the WesTest. The kids loved it! I was laughing just as hard as they were- probably because it wasn't me in the water!  We had a blast!

In the midst of the crazy schedule, we did have some time to talk about some things that will be starting for our class on Monday. Monday is going to be the first day that we have a "leader of the day", classroom jobs, and we will start our behavior plan. We will be moving clips in my class for the start of the year, and by the end of the year we will start using the school-wide behavior plan so that the students understand how it works in 1st-5th grade. Our chart looks like this-

Talk with your children about what each of the colors mean. We have a set list of rules in my classroom. The students have been learning them slowly over the last couple of days. We know that we are to keep our hands to ourselves, respect each other, use careful movement (no running),  raise our hand and wait to be called on if we have something to say, and we take care of our room and supplies. They know that, if they cannot follow these rules, they will have to move their clip down. If they are following all rules and going above and beyond, they get to move their clip up! Each Friday we will have something called S.O.A.R time. If the students have to move their clip past yellow two or more times, they will not be able to participate in our S.O.A.R time. Some of my S.O.A.R time ideas include: movie and popcorn, show and tell, bring a stuffed animals to sit with us for the day, and no shoes (only in the classroom) all day. We will come up with some things as a class as well.

I hope everyone has an awesome weekend and is ready for their first full week of kindergarten next week-parents included! If you have any questions about anything, do not hesitate to email me at lwebster@access.k12.wv.us, comment on a post (if it's not confidential),  or call me at school.

ALSO, thank you to everyone who as already signed up for read aloud! Give me some feedback on VolunteerSpot. Do you like it? Is it easy to use?

Peanut Butter and Spanish

I don't know how many of you have heard of Dr. Jean, but if you haven't, your children LOVE her! The class and I listened to some new songs of hers today during circle time to wake ourselves up and feel a little more at ease about being in school. Ask you children about the Peanut Butter song. Oh my goodness, they were so funny dancing and singing! 
We also started our Spanish class today, and we learned so much! Your kids are picking it up a lot faster than I am! In the near future our Spanish teacher will be speaking 90% in Spanish to our class. We learned three colors, numbers 1-10, and some vocal commands (stand up, sit down, raise your hand, listen, and look) today.  I love watching the students open themselves up to other cultures. They are our further. It is important for them to know and understand that people are different. I was so pleased to see that none of the class giggled at Ms. Judy when she began to speak.  I read today that learning a foreign language can improve your memory skill resulting from reading, learning and memorizing. It will also open up your mind to be more acceptable to other people’s differences. I am excited to see what all they (we) learn!

Breakfast/Lunch Menus

http://boe.mono.k12.wv.us/Childnutrition/menu/index.html

Our First Day of Kindergarten!

Our first day of kindergarten for the class of 2025 has come and gone, and I can already tell that I am going to love this group of students! I waited all summer to meet their toothless smiling faces, and the day was well worth the wait. Today we wiggled and giggled and learned new rules. We had to learn how to put our things away, check our "mail" and even the correct way to sit on the carpet.  We met new friends and even started reading! It's going to be a great year!
Today I sent home a snack/leader calendar, a photo consent form, and your child's first homework assignment. Practice reading environmental print with your children. Any word that they recognize on a sign, advertisement, or food label helps them understand that text conveys meaning, which is very important when it comes to reading and learning how to read. Also, next time you read with your child help them practice parts of a book (front cover, title page, etc). We have also started talk about the care of a book. We turn the pages from the corner and put the books back where we got them when we are finished. Practice these habits with your son/ daughter. Last but not least, reenforce the use of the red folder with your child. Remind them to check it every morning when they get to school and every evening when they get home. 
You all have amazing children! I am so excited to spend the year with them!

              Mrs. Webster

Handwriting Without Tears

In your red folder, I added two sheets that shows how your child should learn to write letters and numbers. This curriculum is called Handwriting Without Tears. "Handwriting Without Tears® aims to make legible and fluent handwriting an easy and automatic skill that students can master. Our dynamic curriculum design, teaching strategies, and compelling lessons make it easy for parents to teach Handwriting Without Tears in the home, in only 15 minutes per day."
I wanted to share their web page with you, because there is some information I thought you all might want to know. ALSO, if you have an iPad, you can download an app called Wet-Dry-Try. It looks like something the students would like. From my experience, I know that they love technology. Why not make it something educational? http://wetdrytry.com/

http://www.hwtears.com/hwt/parents

Links!

On top of trying to get the classroom ready, staff meetings, our parent meeting, and preparing for our home visit, I have been looking a websites that are great for kindergarten parents/students. Take some time to look through them. I'm sure I'll be posting more as I find them.

http://boe.mono.k12.wv.us/resources/studentresources.htm

http://www.education.com/grade/kindergarten/

http://www.scholastic.com/parents/

If you and your child have not already discovered pbskids.org, check it out! It has a lot of educational games and resources that I guarantee your child will LOVE!

www.starfall.com

VolunteerSpot.com

We’re using VolunteerSpot (the leading online sign up and reminder tool) to organize our upcoming activity. Please sign up - here’s how it works in 3 easy steps:

1.Click this link to go to our invitation page on VolunteerSpot:

http://www.volunteerspot.com/login/entry/12329980400104

2.Enter your email address. (You will NOT need to register an account on VolunteerSpot.)

4.Sign Up!  Choose your spots. VolunteerSpot will send you automated confirmation and reminder messages.  Easy!

Note: VolunteerSpot does NOT share your email address with anyone or send spam emails. If you prefer not to enter your address – please contact me and I can sign you up manually

Welcome!

I wish to welcome you all, parents and students, to the new and exciting world of kindergarten! There will be a lot of change happening for all of us this year. I spent last year teaching at Woodburnn so, like most of my students this year, I am new to Easton. I am very excited about it, though! Easton Elementary has this amazing atmosphere that makes you feel right at home as soon as you walk through the doors. 

I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere appreciation for allowing me to be a part of your child’s life during this precious time of growth and discovery!

Since we will be moving to a green school some time this year, I would like to go paperless when it comes to sharing information about the class. Over the school year I plan on updating my blog at least once a week so that I am able to share what your child is doing at school, useful websites, pictures, volunteer sign up, etc. 

I am very big on building a solid parent-teacher relationship. I urge you to play a big role in your child's schooling. I like to look at it like we are a team. You know your child better than anyone. Please feel free to share anything you think I should know about them. I will also get to know your child quite well. Think about it-I will be with your child 40 hours a week!

I encourage you to contact me if you have any questions or concerns at any time. Please feel free to send me a note or email me at lwebster@access.k12.wv.us. I'm looking forward to a wonderful year with you and your child!

-Mrs. Webster