OPEN HOUSE!!! You are all invited to the kindergarten open house on Wednesday September 29, at 5pm. This will give families a chance to see our new handwriting workbooks, literacy work stations, work samples done by students, your child’s portfolio, and to ask any questions you may have. I look forward to seeing you then!!!

This week in kindergarten, we continued our thematic unit on Farms. In our thematic study, we take one theme and incorporate that topic into every subject area. As part of this theme, we will be visiting Stearn’s Farm next week to add a real life farm experience.

ART: In art, children were creating collage crop fields. We learned that at a farm, there is also a large variety of crops with a variety of purposes. Then students selected a large sheet of paper and drew field lines across the paper. They filled in the each section with one type of collage material to symbolize one specific crop.

Students also participated in a cooperative painting this week. Many of us stood around our large table at the Creation Work Station. We spread out a large sheet of white paper. We painted with a small ball covered in brown paint. Students took turns picking up the ball, calling out a friend’s name, and rolling to ball to them. After the large paper dried, I cut out a large cow for our upcoming science project.

SCIENCE: The large cut out of a cow was then taped to a small table. We put a bucket under the cow. As a class, we learned about the cows udder and their purpose. Some of our students were able to tell us about times that they milked a real cow. Students then filled latex gloves with water, we poked small holes in them, and they pretended to “milk” their own cow.

SHARED READING: Shared reading occurs everyday in the classroom. We sit together as a class and read big books and poems on large chart paper. Depending on the day, we participate in a variety of activities to reinforce letter recognition, letter sounds, and emerging reading skills. This week, we focused on two big books, Mrs. Wishy Washy and The Farm Concert. Students completed their own small version of Mrs. Wishy Washy to take home. In the book, The Farm Concert, the animals are very loud at the beginning, the farmer yells at them to be quiet, and then the animals sing quietly. Students enjoyed being divided up into the quiet or loud animals and reading the story with me.

HOMEWORK: This week, we are beginning take home reading folders. These folders will go home every MONDAY, and come back to school every FRIDAY. We will be beginning our reading homework by completing a simple reading log. Have your child do as much of the writing in the log as possible. As the school year progresses, I will be including some activity pages, copied take home books, sight word cards, and enrichment activities.

WRITER”S CELEBRATION: This past Friday, students participated in their first ever Writer’s Celebration. At the end of each of our writing units, we celebrate their hard work by reading our stories, publishing our work, making a toast and having a special snack. Each student selects one piece of work to read aloud. This first celebration, we read to each other. In the future, they will read to other classrooms and even to parents. We will have approximately 8 more celebrations throughout the school year.

THE LOST BUTTON: We continued our exploration on buttons through the Frog and Toad story of “The Lost Button.” Students were able to act out the story several times this week, make their own buttons, and complete a variety of sorting games with the buttons they made.

FIELD TRIP: I will be placing a sign up sheet for drivers for our field trip. We are going to Stearn’s Farm in Parma this Friday, September 24. We will be leaving school right at 9am, and arriving back by noon. If you are not driving, you will need to leave your child’s labeled booster seat in the Wiggle Room that morning.

Thank you all for bringing in your time line photos. Students began work on this project on Thursday. They will be ready in about a week to display in the hallway.