Getting Good At Kindergarten

Hello Kindergarten Families!

This first week of Kindergarten together has been a really special one.  As a community, the children have been learning about each other, our school, our routines, how to care for the materials in our classroom, and how to follow agreements about what helps kindergarten feel good for everyone.

Just like the children, I am practicing getting into our routine, so I must apologize for not taking as many pictures as I normally would.  I missed a lot of our quiet moments together on the first day together, but tried to remind myself to document their actions in the later days.  Below are a few snapshots of some memories from our week together (you can click on each picture to view them larger)

Each morning, we come together for our Morning Meeting, which consists of a greeting, a written message, an activity, a share, and reciting our Songs and Poems.  We practice reading and singing along together.

We have also been getting to know the different materials in our classroom, learning different techniques, taking risks, and making discoveries!

Another significant idea we have been thinking about is writing our names.  As a class, we categorized each lower case letter in the alphabet as either a short letter, tall letter, or long/hanging letter.  Friends took to writing their names while checking if each letter was the correct case, facing the right direction, and the right height based on the ruled paper.

Throughout the week we have also been trying to get to know different people's names, so we have been playing different memory name games.  This one is Doggy, Doggy, Where's Your Bone.  As everyone hides the "bone" one "doggy" can ask up to three different friends, by their name, if they have the bone.

Thank you to Victoria for being our first Family Reader this week.  She brought in "Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom!"  We had a great time listening to the story and singing along.

We also had our first birthday celebration for one of our friends.  We made a list of all the things she wanted to do together. which included singing "All Together Now," working on a puzzle she brought from home, and sharing a special treat.  Thank you Bridget for helping make this moment happen!

We counted together to find that there were 48 puzzle pieces!  We split up into two groups to each have a try to put the puzzle together.

Then we all sat together to share the special treat.

Your children have been so lovely to work with and it's really neat getting to know their personalities and watching them come out of their shells. Thank you for sharing them with us!

Love,
Gaby