Second Quarter

 Full Time FUN! 

Hope everyone had a wonderful fall break and that you are looking forward to our return as a FULL class of 24 friends!! There will be a lot of excitement and new friendships made this week as we return to school for the beginning of our second quarter! 

Since our parents have not been in our school building this year....here is a peek at the hallway outside our classroom. We have our cute faces project from the first day of school that line the top of our wall. We created Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Trees a few weeks ago. All of our name studies are complete as well. We learned about each of our classmates and how they got their unique name. We got to hear about all of their favorite things and we wrote in our journals about our cohort classmates. We will now use those journals to share with our new friends to teach them about their new classmates. We will also share our Family Journals that we wrote in at home during our remote days this first quarter. 

We have been learning about changing leaves and the fact that we are now into 
a new season called Fall or Autumn. The kids each had the opportunity to paint a 
fall leaf during centers and we made this pretty fall tree in the back corner of the 
classroom to remind us of this beautiful season. 

We can't MASK our excitement about being in school together! 

Two friends below had matching masks on the first days of school. They went home with each other's mask! I am happy to report that that only happened one time! The kids have been doing well wearing their masks even as it is not the easiest thing for little ones all day long, they are making the most of it. They love to compliment each other on their masks too! They remove them at lunch time and when they are outside for recess. They put them back on before entering the building. 

MATH in kindergarten:

We have completed the first two units in our Envision program and our whole Number Book. We have been working on concepts of different ways to show a specific number. We learned about number lines, ten frames, manipulatives, patterning, counting jars, subitizing, and concepts of greater than, less than and equal to. We play sorting games as a full class. We look for specific numbers on the 100s chart. We have been practicing the months of the year and learning what months our birthdays fall in. We have created a few graphs as a class. I am looking forward to having them everyday so we can learn some more of our independent math games which are hands on and engaging for the kindies! Below are two classmates working on a math game called Roll and Record where they roll a dice and make a graph depending on which numbers they roll. Which number will win and reach the top first? They have also enjoyed using our pattern blocks to build shape puzzles. 

Read, Read, READ!! 

We  began our small reading groups a few weeks ago and that has been going well. They love the smaller group dynamic and have been very independent working on their Alphabet readers while Mrs. Padrnos and Mrs. Widdison run the reading groups. The kids will continue to bring home their colored, leveled reading books nightly and a word sort every week. Those will now be their homework instead of remote work. 

We practice our alphabet sounds and symbols daily. We have been adding new sight words to our vocabulary every week. We are learning strategies and habits that good readers do. We made reading envelopes and filled them up with classroom books and are beginning a collection of books that we know how to read so that we can read independently during quiet reading time. We will begin that this second quarter. 

Dates to add to your calendars: 

October 19th- return to school full time

October 30th- Halloween parade at 8:45

November 3rd- No school: Furlough Day

Nov. 4/5- Parent-Teacher conferences

Nov 23-27- Thanksgiving Break