Our First Week of Kindergarten!

Please Note:  Please be sure to read ALL blog postings carefully.  The subsequent blog posts include important information about upcoming events, parent “homework”, and school-to-home routines.

Wow!  This first week has been full of fun and adventure!  The excitement of the first day did not diminish in the days that followed.  I am thrilled in the days, weeks, and months ahead.

Last week (and the weeks to come) are all about routine building and becoming a united classroom and school community.  In Kindergarten, we talked about the fun our families had over Summer break.  We shared our summer memories with one another and then wrote about them.  We also illustrated what Willowwind looks like in summertime.  We took our time with our illustrations being sure to use accurate colors to provide people with the best idea of what our school looks like during the summer. Take a look at our Summer work on our Project Room bulletin board.  As we continue to talk about Summer we’ll post more student work to share with you.

We also read Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready forKindergarten and wrote and illustrated about our own activities that helped us get ready for school.  We enjoyed comparing our “get ready” activities with Miss Bindergarten’s students’.

Then, after reading Tony Baloney: School Rules, a story about a penguin’s new adventures at school, we generated a list of our own class rules.  Each rule was created by the students.  When our list of rules was complete, we signed the poster vowing to dou our best to follow our class created rules.

As a whole school, we spent a lot of time learning about school wide routines.  We had many great student led discussions about enhancing our current routines.  We even sang “Happy Birthday” (in FOUR languages) to our August birthday friends.  Each month, we’ll celebrate Willowwind birthdays by singing to our friends in English, Spanish, French, AND Korean.  As your child learns how to sing “Happy Birthday” in each of these languages ask them if they can teach them to you.  This week, we began our hilarious school wide read aloud Sideways Stories from Wayside School a chapter book "classic" by Louis Sachar.

What I loved most about GD is your child’s eagerness to share and be a part of our school community.  GD can often be an overwhelming time for new Kindergarten students.  At GD, there are a lot of “big kids” and “new faces" - this can be intimidating at times and many Kindergarteners are happy to be listeners rather than active participants.  This year, our Cottontail friends are thrilled to be a part of it all.  Most Cottontails have raised their hands eager to share their thoughts with the rest of the school!

Our afternoons together were filled with time to rest our bodies and play in our classroom centers.  Students build in the Wood Block Center sort stuffed animals by type in the Stuffed Animals Center, gather materials from the Art Cart Center, sort and count magnetic letters and shapes in the Dry Erase Board Center and much more.

We also spent time in the Classroom Library learning about all the books our Kindergarten class has to offer.  Reading Penelope Popper, Book Doctor helped the Cottontails see the importance of caring for our books and treating them with love and respect.  They were shocked and excited to find out that many of the books in the library were my very own from when I was a child.  They are doing a great job of handling our books with care.

At the end of the week we took time to reflect on our first week of Kindergarten.  Self-reflection is an important part of growing and learning.  Kindergarteners will get many opportunities to reflect upon themselves, their choices, and their schoolwork.  Take a look at our reflections upon our first week of school.

While reflecting, students also answered our “Question of the Week” – What if your favorite part of Kindergarten?  What did your child answer?

Finally, we got to meet Katherine (our Music teacher) and Karen (our Physical Education teacher) – stay tuned for a special Specials blog post in the coming weeks.  We also spent a lot of time outside, enjoy the beautiful weather, as we discovered and explored “the big kid playground” during Recess.

Be sure to check out Willowwind on Facebook.  Here you can find peeks into our school days and the classroom adventures that await.

Please continue to read the blogs that follow.  The next three blog posts introduce you to our classroom blog segments titled – Parent Homework, New Routines, and Save the Date.  Many thanks!

I am sure your child is tuckered out this weekend from our busy days.  The week flew by!  I can’t wait for tomorrow!  See you then!