October Highlights- So Much to Share!

To the Families of Cantiague Room 4 (...and beyond!)

Month two of Kindergarten has come to an end, and what an incredibly PACKED month it was.  It took a lot of September to adjust to school and create routines, but October was filled with learning, fun, celebrations, explorations and of course, a lot of smiles!

We were so excited to welcome a new student to our class this week!  Amy has been a smiley, sweet, addition to our class, and we already would feel incomplete without her!

We have established many excellent reading routine's during Reader's Workshop.  The children have reading jobs, which help them responsibly "set up" to read each day with their reading partners.  Ask your child about their job and partner!  They've learned many important things that readers do such as reading books from cover to cover, rereading books to learn and notice more, and that readers can read books to learn!  Your readers have learned that there are different ways to read, both privately and with a partner.  Partner reading has been a wonderful experience to share reading with a friend by reading one book together, seesaw reading (each reading a page), sharing WOW pages, and just sharing the experience of growing as a reader!

We learned that everybody has books that are just right for them, which may look different from books that are just right for others.  We then filled our book baggies with books that were just right for us!

This week we even learned our first Reading Super Power to put in our Super Power Tool Box.  We have POINTER POWER!  We activated our special Power Pointers which help us point to each word as we read.  Wait until you see the amazing readers that develop as we continue to learn more reading powers!

In Writer's Workshop we are continuing to write about things we know a lot about and thing that make us happy.  We have read many anchor texts to inspire different autobiographical writing pieces.  We are currently revising our writing using a red revising pen to fix and add to our text an illustrations from these pieces, which will make up the pages of a book.  Stay tuned in the coming week or so to see our first published works as Kindergarten authors!

In the Science Lab we've been learning all about bones!  It's been so interesting to talk about the important parts of our body that we can not see!  We learned that bones come together at joints to help them move.  We even learned that we have over 206 bones in our body!

We learned all about Christopher Columbus and his journey across the ocean to new land in 1492.  We created boats with sails like Columbus's ships and sailed them with wind across our "Atlantic Ocean."  We also did some great Columbus centers!

October was also fire safety month.  We had a visit from men and women from the Jericho Fire Department, who taught us all about fire safety.  We learned to have a plan with our families for what we should do in case of a fire.  Be sure to have a conversation and make a plan with your family, so that you're prepared in an emergency!

One major highlight of this month was our first field trip to Green Meadows Farm.  The children got to step outside of their comfort zones and get some great hands on experiences with different farm animals.  They rode horses, fed alpacas, pet chickens, and milked a cow just to name a few.  They ended the trip by getting to pick a their very own pumpkin.  It was a gorgeous fall morning and fun was had by all!  Thank you once again to our parent volunteers for accompanying us on this trip.  We look forward to the spring for more adventures together.

Another special experience was our Haunted House S.T.E.A.M (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) Project.  We collaborated with friends from all kindergarten classes to research, plan, design and create and decorate haunted houses from recycled object from home.  It was amazing to see these young architects and engineers come alive!  The conversations that went on each group involved critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration.  These are incredibly important 21st century skills that we hope to promote and foster in our children as often as we can.

We ended the month together with a wonderful day of celebrations.  The day began with PARB- Parents as Reading Buddies, where so many of you got to be a special part of our morning.  Thank you for reading with your children, and showing your excitement about their early reading skills coming to life!  We were so excited to be in school dressed up in our Halloween costumes, and the spirit was palpable.  While Halloween is usually intended to be spooky or scary, our kids were nothing short of ADORABLE!

October was a fabulous month, and as it comes to a close, it's wonderful to look back to the beginning to see how far they've already come!  We are looking forward to November, and the children are more than ready for everything that is coming their way!

 

Peace, Love and Kindergarten,

Miss Grossman

September in Review!

To the Families of Cantiague Room 4,

WOW! It's amazing that the first full month of Kindergarten has come to an end.  We have spent a wonderful 20 school days getting to know each other, and it's hard to imagine a time when we didn't.  The children in our room are learning and growing together each and everyday and we are already a family.

In Room 4 we have truly hit the ground running and we are learning more and more about ourselves and what we can do each and every day. The children have already begun to take the lead in our classroom by leading our calendar each morning, performing their classroom jobs, teaching their friends using the smart board, leading a whole class reading of a poem and in so many other ways.  The "babies" who left your homes on September 1st have become lead learners in one short month.

In Reading  we are learning that readers "read the world."  When asked if they knew how to read, many children in our class answered "no" or "not yet" and yet it wasn't long until they realized that they are already readers.  Although many of them are not reading books, they can read the outside of their snack and know that there are Cheez-Its inside, or pass Target and know they can go there for some great shopping!  We established that readers read much more than books.  Together we discovered and brainstormed a list of "other" things we can read.  The children explored menus, invitations, newspapers, cereal boxes, ipads and more to realize that there is so much more to reading than books.  We also spent time reading our school.  The children explored Cantiague and found many words that they could stop and "look, think and read."  We also have learned about the parts of a book.  Your readers are already using the things that have learned to explore their books from home and the books in our classroom. I love seeing their confidence as readers and learners blossom.  

In Writing  the children are learning that we can use pictures to tell a story.  We have begun a writing activity that we will do every Monday, Weekend News.  The children choose one thing that they did over the weekend and write about it.  Of course at this point in the year, the writing mostly consists of pictures, but it will amaze you by the end of the year how much they can write about one event during their weekend.  I encourage you to have conversations on Sunday evenings or Monday mornings about what your learner plans to write about for their Weekend News.  This week we also launched Writer's Workshop.  This is the writing time where children will learn to write, revise, edit and publish many different pieces of work throughout the year.  We read the book Library Mouse where we learned that writer's write about things they know a lot about.  The children are already authors and are using pictures, and even experimenting with letters and words to write about the things they know and love.  We decorated our writing folders to help inspire us for future writing pieces! 

We have begun Fundations, which is the way the multi-sensory program in which the children study letters, sounds, words and letter formation.  So far we have learned the letters t, b, f, m, n, i and u.  Each week we study 2 or 3 letters and truly become experts on them.  We have explored our classroom for letters and sounds, learned about the lines of our writing grid and continue to use the website www.starfall.com for fun activities and words to help us learn correct letter sounds.

In Math the children are learning all about the numbers 1-5.  We have used manipulatives, drawings, images and even our own bodies to help us count, compare and explore these numbers.  We are also learning about comparing objects by using the words "same" and "different."  While originally this proved a challenge, many of the children are now able to articulate and explain the ways things are the same and the differences between them.

After having a mostly Monday-less month we were finally able to attend the Science Lab for the first time this week.  Mrs. O'Neill dug right in and the children were up to the challenge.  They began (as they always do) by listening to a book about Whales.  The children then learned about blubber, and how it helps whales to float.  The children then did an experiment in which they tested "blubber" (Crisco) to see if it would help their "whales" (olives) to float in 100ml of water.  They even measured the water in a beaker themselves!  My favorite accomplishment was NOT ONE SPILL!!  We are also learning all about apples.  We have read books and poems about apples, created apple art and even did an apple taste test! Ask your Kindergarten kid which apple was their favorite! 

There have been so many other amazing, fun, exciting and happy things going on in our classroom each day.  Dr. Sinanis has declared this school year the #yearofhappy and that feeling has permeated the building.  The happiness on the children's faces when they make a new discovery, develop a sense of pride, make a new friend, and even build a higher tower than they've ever built before is contagious.  I can only hope that the next 9 months are filled with as much excitement and happiness as our first one together!

Remember: If you do not already, please feel free to follow me on Instagram (@missgrossmansclass) and twitter (@AGrossman10) to see more of what goes on in our classroom each day!

Peace, Love and Kindergarten,

Miss Grossman