The chilly wind and crisp mornings are here! Fall is definitely on it's way. Please make sure your child dresses appropriately and in layers as the temperatures change throughout the day. This week, we will begin answering the question: Why do seasons change?
Another great week has come and gone in the Cottontail Rabbit classroom. First off, thank you so much to the families that attended Thursday's Curriculum Night. It was a great success and I feel so lucky to be involved with such a wonderful and supportive community. If you were unable to attend this year's Curriculum Night please don't worry. Take some time to check out the website and really go over each page. The website is stocked full of information that we covered at Curriculum Night. Please look to the recent addition of the Cottontail Handbook as this will give you anything you may want to know about our Kindergarten routines.
This week we started many new activities in our classroom. We were very busy learning our Word Study routine, our Guided Reading routine, and a handful of new songs and activities during our Handwriting time. Our Word Study time was a great success. Check out the pictures of your child spelling with shaving cream and working with their sorts. They seem very excited to be studying letter sounds. Thank you for helping implement a consistent Word Study routine at home. Check out the Word Study Routine document on the Welcome page for more information.
In addition, I was able to meet with each Guided Reading group once or twice this week. The students love their book bags and it has been a pleasure to work with small groups of four students. The Dr. Seuss group discussed the word "the" and identified the parts of a book (the front cover, the back cover, the title page). The Dr. Seuss group was also excited to hear that they would have "homework" this weekend. At a time convenient for your family please help your child add two more sentences to the book The Classroom. There is space at the end of the book for your child to do so. Our next meetings, we will share our additions with our small group.
Our Handwriting time was interactive and so much fun. I bet your Cottontail has gone home singing some of our new favorite songs including: Where Do You Start Your Letters?, Tap, Tap, Tap, Picking Up My Pencil, and Frog Jump Letters. Through the use of song and dance we are working on controlling our fine motor skills to help with our printing. Picking Up My Pencil is a great song to help encourage proper pencil grip. I also introduced a new Center activity where students can use wood pieces to create letters and words. The Cottontails also worked in their very own workbooks where we focused on our fine motor skills and printing the capital letters, B & M. What a busy week full of letter fun!
Here are some fun peeks into classroom conversations!
~ The blocks have become quite the Center activity. Students have used our big blocks to create classroom wide domino courses and bowling alleys. It is fun to watch them work and create together. When trying to move the heavy bucket of blocks, one student said to another, "Come on, girl, you can totally do it!" The other student said, "Thanks, girl! Let's do it together!"
~ During Morning Meeting, we are learning to count in Spanish. As we were counting, "dieciseis, diecisiete, dieciocho, diecinueve" the question "Come se dice 20 in Espanol?" came up. With much confidence a Cottontail Rabbit chimed in, "diecidieci". So much logic was put into his response! Although 20 is veinte in Espanol I was so impressed with this friend's thought process!
~ While at Wednesday's GD, we were participating in a timed Roll Call. When we found out our Roll Call only took 33.3 seconds one Cottontail said, "Hey! With the Racerunners gone that means it took us about one second per person." They were so right! There were 35 of us at GD that day. Amazing!
~ It was time to weigh our trash at Friday's GD. A few weeks back the K-6 students set a goal of only accumulating two pounds of trash at lunch. When we weighed our trash (trash, recycling, and food waste) we found out that we had about 1.5 pounds of trash. To determine this amount our older friends had to complete quite a bit of fraction reconfiguring. One Cottontail whispered to another, "Wow! They are doing a lot of Math!" The other whispered back, "I know! After all that Math, I still hope we will be under our goal." We were happy to see that we did even better then our goal and set an even lower goal of one pound for our next lunch trash weigh in!
The things our friends say are just too cute!
A few quick reminders:
~ Please sign up for a PEP Conference. In addition, if you have not filled out your Parent Survey please do so. Both links can be found to the right on the Welcome page.
~ Don't forget! Each day, please see that your child is prepared for school by bringing their take home folder, Cottontail Communicator, spelling sort and book bag. These items are incredibly important parts of our day.
~ The Harvest Fest is THIS Sunday from 2:00 - 4:30. We can't wait to see you there. Please sign up to host a half hour block at the Cottontails' Book Walk station. Also, gently used or new books are need for this event. Lastly, look to Ms. Carly's Weekly Note or the Front Desk for information on what food to bring for our potluck.
~ We will be traveling to the library on Friday, September 30th. Please make sure your child has their library card.
~ Check out our "Volunteer Opportunity" section on our Welcome Page. A handful of volunteers are needed for various activities.
Have a great week, friends! Thanks for all you do!
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