Scarecrow, Scarecrow Book by the Kindergartners

To get ready for our trip to Ganyard Hill Farm next week, kindergartners learned to read a poem called Scarecrow, Scarecrow.  Students illustrated the poem carefully, and then read it aloud for our first digital class book!  Enjoy!

http://voicethread.com/share/5005508/

Verbal Pathways

Kindergartners use verbal pathways to learn how to form lowercase letters.  They say the Verbal Pathway while writing the letter, then say the letter name after they finish to reinforce their letter naming fluency.  After practicing a letter, students write sight words using that letter.  Today we practiced the words "he" and "that" after writing h.

Sight Word Fun

Kindergartners celebrate moon festival!

Thursday, September 19th was the moon festival, or Mid-Autumn Festival.  Kindergartners read books like "Thanking the Moon" and "Round as a Mooncake" by Grace Lin in English class with Mrs. Jiang to learn more about the moon festival.  Students also drew and wrote about what their own Moon Festival picnic would look like!

In Chinese class with Ms. Wang, students practiced writing the character 月 （yue） for moon and made their own play-doh mooncakes.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

(This post was originally posted to the first grade blog by mistake and has now been removed).

The First Day of Kindergarten!

The time has finally come:  Kindergartners had their first day of school today!

I am so impressed by how "school ready" our kindergartners are!  They came in ready to learn and meet new people.  On our first day students learned about many important classroom and school routines.  Ask your child to tell you how they do the following things at school:

1. Make your lunch choice and "check in" on the Smartboard
2. Walk in the hallways
3. Eat lunch in the cafeteria
4. Let the teacher know you need to use the bathroom
5. Sit on the carpet for a whole group lesson
6. Let the teacher know you have something to say
7. Use the slide and monkey bars
8. Give someone a "CHOMP" (and for bonus, ask them what getting a CHOMP means!)

For fun, try practicing some of these at home!  Act out the correct way to use the slide in your living room, or turn your child into the teacher and let them call on each family member at the dinner table while you're eating dinner.  We'll be talking more about CHOMP as school progresses, but for now, encourage your child to look for "CHOMP" behavior at home.  For example, if your child's younger or older brother is sitting patiently and waiting, encourage your kindergartner to give him a CHOMP!

Reflecting on how our writing has changed this year

What did kindergartners notice about how their writing has changed this year?

• In the beginning of the year, I spelled pumpkin like "a-kin" but now I spell it "p-u-m-p-k-i-n."  Now I know all the sounds in the word!
• At the beginning of the year, when I spelled some words, the a turned into the b. Now I know my letters better than before.
• At the beginning of the year, the lines were crooked when I wrote and I'm like "Uh, how do I read this?" Now my lines are straight and I can read all the words I wrote.
• When I was reading my writing from the first day of kindergarten, one word was "tuh" but it wasn't a real word.  Now I know what words I write.
• At the beginning of kindergarten, I didn't know how to spell so many words, but I know how to spell alot!!!!!!!!!!!
• At the beginning of kindergarten, I was sounding words out and I didn't write alot.  Now I write alot.
• In the beginning of the year, I thought b was d and d was b, and at the end of the year b was b and d was d. 
• At the beginning of the year, we sometimes forgot to use capital letters at the beginning of sentences and periods at the end of sentences.  Now, we know to put capital letters at the beginning of sentences and periods at the end of sentences.
• At the beginning of the year, some of us forgot to add spaces between words, but now we all use spaces.
• At the beginning of the year, sometimes we forgot illustrations, or our illustrations didn't have color or details, but now we have more details in our illustrations.

At the beginning of the year, I didn't know how to read.  But now I know how to read very well.   

How does being able to read help us become better writers?

• If you write something, you can read a book and that tells you more to put in your writing and you can write more sentences.  
• If you can read more, you can learn more words that you never knew how to spell and you never heard of, and books can help you.  Alot!
• If you have a word that you want to write and you don't know how to spell it, and its in the book, then you know its spelled that way or a different way.

Saturday morning in the chick house

The chicks seem to have grown a ton overnight! Hopper and Skinny, who both spent Friday in our chick hospital, are back in good health and socializing with their siblings. As the chicks grow older, they're getting mischievous! 3 more chicks have earned names:
Fearless, who frequently runs at the window of the chick house at full speed (perhaps hoping to escape)
Pecky, who bravely defends the food trough by pecking everything that comes close (fingers, cups, extra food, etc.)
and Trouble, who needs a little extra help learning CHOMP - I caught him dragging another chick around by the toe! Hopefully our kindergartners will be a good influence on Trouble!