Weekly Note
Week of August 31st-September 4th
Welcome to Kindergarten!
Hello Parents! Welcome to Chesterbrook Academy 2015-2016! I am very excited to be your child's teacher this year! We are going to have an action packed year filled with lots of learning and fun! This week in your child's folder, you should have received our Specialist Schedule, Class Roster, and a "Meet the Teacher" bio about myself. Thank you to everyone for also filling out a student info sheet and returning it to me! It made it a lot easier to get our weekly smore out to all families! Each week, I will be sending out a smore highlighting our week and what we accomplished! If you are unable to view our "Sharing Our Day" bulletin on my classroom bulletin board in the hallway each day, not to worry! I include all of that information here in my smore! Thank you in advance for your support this year! Together, we will make this a wonderful year for your child! I look forward to seeing each of you on Thursday evening at Back to School night! Back to School Night begins in the gym at 6:30pm where you can visit various after school vendors! At 7:00pm, Mr. Rodia will start the night with his Back to School Presentation and then my presentation will follow in our classroom! Enjoy your weekend and our week below!
Meet our Class!
What did we do this week??
We had Morning Meeting! We will have Morning Meeting each day and what we do is review the calendar, school day count, weather, and schedule! We then sit in a circle and greet each other in a unique way! This week, students learned four ways to greet each other! We greeted each other using the pinky shake, fist bump firework, chicka chicka boom boom, and jump in jump out! Be sure to ask your child what each of these greetings are and how we do them! Afterwards, we went around and shared one thing about ourselves. This week we shared our favorite thing we did this summer, our favorite cookie, our favorite food, and our favorite sport!
We practiced our handwriting! Before we start writing letter, we need to learn our basic strokes! This week, students learned how to write vertical, horizontal, slant, and curved lines! We practiced in our handwriting book as well as on several worksheets! We discussed which letters were made up of which kind of strokes! We did a great job and we are ready to start writing letters next week!
We wrote in our journals for the first time! Each Monday when we come back from the weekend, students will write in their journals about what they did that weekend. We also use our journal to practice writing letters, sight words, amazing words, and also, to write about something we are learning or an event that we just had! This week, we wrote what our name is and drew a self portrait of ourselves. We also wrote about our favorite thing at school!
We were introduced to Math! Our math program is called My Math! This week, students were introduced to chapter one: numbers 0 to 5! Students learned our new vocabulary (which is posted in our room and was also sent home!) I tend to send these vocabulary cards home because I think it is very beneficial to practice them at home! I recommend making another copy of the set and practicing them with your child by playing memory or go fish! It is a way to make it fun for the student, while learning their math terms at the same time! Students also completed a pre-test for chapter one, which goes in their assessment folder! We then completed lesson one, counting items 1, 2, and 3!
In Language Arts, we completed many "About Me" and "Welcome to School" activities! On the first day of school, we read the story "Chrysanthemum", which is about a little girl who loves her name, however, her classmates do not think her name is great and make fun of her, which really hurts her feelings. Students learned that we must always be a kind friend and celebrate each other, rather than hurting their feelings. Students then used "happy stickers" to create their names! (these can be found on our hallway bulletin board) We then read "Library Lion" and learned the importance of having classroom rules! Together, we created our classroom rules and each student signed their name to a pawprint to show they understood and would obey all rules! We read "Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten" and made a T-Chart Comparing and Contrasting our classroom to Miss Bindergarten's! We read "The Kissing Hand" and dedicated a poem to our parents, where we included our very own handprint with a piece of our heart inside! (we hoped you enjoyed these!) We read "Amelia Bedelia's First Day of School" and we made a list of everything we would like to learn this year. Students then designed sailboats and dictated to me one thing they would like to learn this year (these are on the boards in the hallway with our sticker names!) We read "I like Me", "I love Myself", "It's Okay to Be Different", and "Me I Am" to learn about how everyone is special and different. Students then created their own "me" person, which will be up in the classroom when you visit for Back to School Night! Finally, we read the story "The Monsters of Class 7" and learned that a classroom cannot function without students that care for their classroom! Students must clean up after themselves and always use their manners. Students each were assigned one of our classroom rules we created on Monday and illustrated an example of how to obey that rule! We then compiled all of our rules together to form a class book! All students did a wonderful job!
We had centers! Students were given the chance to practice rotating through centers! During this time, students were able to work with different classmates and it gave them a chance to get to know one another! Our centers this week focused on cutting and pasting practice, handwriting practice, becoming familiar with manipulatives, and letter/sound/number identification with Mrs. Schettone! As we get further into the month, our centers will become more academic based and directly reflect our studies each week!
We had specials! Students were able to meet Ms. Moser in Music, Ms. Lopez in Spanish, and Mr. Wyatt in gym! Due to the first day of school and Labor Day, students will not have Art until September 14th (our art day is Monday!)
We practiced our handwriting! Before we start writing letter, we need to learn our basic strokes! This week, students learned how to write vertical, horizontal, slant, and curved lines! We practiced in our handwriting book as well as on several worksheets! We discussed which letters were made up of which kind of strokes! We did a great job and we are ready to start writing letters next week!
We wrote in our journals for the first time! Each Monday when we come back from the weekend, students will write in their journals about what they did that weekend. We also use our journal to practice writing letters, sight words, amazing words, and also, to write about something we are learning or an event that we just had! This week, we wrote what our name is and drew a self portrait of ourselves. We also wrote about our favorite thing at school!
We were introduced to Math! Our math program is called My Math! This week, students were introduced to chapter one: numbers 0 to 5! Students learned our new vocabulary (which is posted in our room and was also sent home!) I tend to send these vocabulary cards home because I think it is very beneficial to practice them at home! I recommend making another copy of the set and practicing them with your child by playing memory or go fish! It is a way to make it fun for the student, while learning their math terms at the same time! Students also completed a pre-test for chapter one, which goes in their assessment folder! We then completed lesson one, counting items 1, 2, and 3!
In Language Arts, we completed many "About Me" and "Welcome to School" activities! On the first day of school, we read the story "Chrysanthemum", which is about a little girl who loves her name, however, her classmates do not think her name is great and make fun of her, which really hurts her feelings. Students learned that we must always be a kind friend and celebrate each other, rather than hurting their feelings. Students then used "happy stickers" to create their names! (these can be found on our hallway bulletin board) We then read "Library Lion" and learned the importance of having classroom rules! Together, we created our classroom rules and each student signed their name to a pawprint to show they understood and would obey all rules! We read "Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten" and made a T-Chart Comparing and Contrasting our classroom to Miss Bindergarten's! We read "The Kissing Hand" and dedicated a poem to our parents, where we included our very own handprint with a piece of our heart inside! (we hoped you enjoyed these!) We read "Amelia Bedelia's First Day of School" and we made a list of everything we would like to learn this year. Students then designed sailboats and dictated to me one thing they would like to learn this year (these are on the boards in the hallway with our sticker names!) We read "I like Me", "I love Myself", "It's Okay to Be Different", and "Me I Am" to learn about how everyone is special and different. Students then created their own "me" person, which will be up in the classroom when you visit for Back to School Night! Finally, we read the story "The Monsters of Class 7" and learned that a classroom cannot function without students that care for their classroom! Students must clean up after themselves and always use their manners. Students each were assigned one of our classroom rules we created on Monday and illustrated an example of how to obey that rule! We then compiled all of our rules together to form a class book! All students did a wonderful job!
We had centers! Students were given the chance to practice rotating through centers! During this time, students were able to work with different classmates and it gave them a chance to get to know one another! Our centers this week focused on cutting and pasting practice, handwriting practice, becoming familiar with manipulatives, and letter/sound/number identification with Mrs. Schettone! As we get further into the month, our centers will become more academic based and directly reflect our studies each week!
We had specials! Students were able to meet Ms. Moser in Music, Ms. Lopez in Spanish, and Mr. Wyatt in gym! Due to the first day of school and Labor Day, students will not have Art until September 14th (our art day is Monday!)
Special Treats!
On Monday, to celebrate our first day of school, students got to enjoy a cool treat from the Rita's Water Ice truck! It was the perfect way to end a great day! On Wednesday, students got to participate in a Science Explorers Assembly (which will be offered as an after school club this year)! Students got to take part in several experiments and some students from our class got to participate in front of the whole school! It was a very neat way to start off our Wednesday!
Important Dates!
- Thursday, September 10th BACK TO SCHOOL NIGHT
- Friday, September 25th FAMILY MOVIE NIGHT