Our Week In Kindergarten

We have had a great week in Kindergarten!  We are so busy learning how to be a community of learners at Northview.  It is amazing how quickly we are getting used to our new routines.  We were just talking today about how the Kindergartners are the youngest, smallest kids in the school.  Yet we have the most to learn…how to go to lunch, the playground, how to put things in our lockers, how to line up, how to walk in lines…the list goes on and on.  After 8 days, Mrs. Kurt is very excited and impressed at what we have already accomplished!

On Tuesday, we had a special guest reader.  Mrs. Town, our principal, came to our classroom and read us a story called Flight School by Lita Judge.  It is a story about a penguin who wants to learn to fly.  With the help of his friends, the penguin keeps trying, never gives up and accomplishes his dream.  It reminded us of being kindergartners…sometimes things are really hard for us, but if we keep trying and don't give up, we will succeed, too!

   

We love hearing great stories!  After Mrs. Town was finished, we did a community writing project which was a thank you note thanking her for reading to us.  

We have also been busy learning how to properly use all of our school tools.  We've done some exploring with crayons, flair markers, crayola markers, scissors, glue sticks, connecting cubes and pattern blocks.  We learn how to take care of them, how to use them and how to clean up and put them away when we finish using them.

   

In Reading Workshop, we are learning how to talk about stories and share our ideas.  Sometimes when Mrs. Kurt reads a story, she stops and asks us to "Turn and Talk" to the person sitting next to us.  We talk about what we think might happen next in the story, or why we think a character did something, or even what the message is that the author wants us to learn from the story.

One of our favorite times of the day is going to lunch.  We are doing great learning our lunch numbers, choosing healthy foods and drinking all of our milk at lunch!

      

Something we use in our classroom that you may have heard about is our All Star Student behavior chart.  Each student has a clothespin with their name on it.  When they arrive at school, they place it on the green "Ready to Learn" section.  The clothespins, or clips as we call them, can be moved up or down throughout the school day based on our behavior and choices in school.  The thought behind this is that everyone makes mistakes and sometimes we may have to move our clip down.  However, there is always the opportunity to move it back up.  As you can see, each section is pretty self explanatory and our hope is to have students be responsible and accountable for their actions.  Let me know if you have specific questions on this chart.

Remember to keep making sure your kindergartner is getting plenty of rest…they are needing it!  Our sharing schedule will start on Monday September 15.  I can't wait to show you our new learning next week.