Welcome to Class K-207

Dear Families of K-207:

Do you believe we have been in school for two weeks already and are now beginning our third week of school? Time sure files!!! As I told you during the summer, this is our class blog for our wonderful Kindergarten class. I am excited! I thought that this would be an excellent way for us as a community to interact with each other. I know how sad it must be for all of you to not know every move your young five year old is making throughout the day. So I am going to attempt to fill in some of the spaces. I am sure that as time goes by, this site will get better and better. As your child's kindergarten teacher, I am deeply aware of how the quality of the family/teacher/child partnership impacts a student's successful year. I believe that one of the greatest factors affecting student success - that cuts across all boundaries of race, religion, economics, culture and ability - is the level of appropriate parent involvement. I think a great deal about family/teacher/child partnerships. One of my main objectives as a teacher is to have strong partnerships with all of our class families, and to involve families in the daily life of our classroom and school. I hope this blog will help a little.

Tomorrow will mark our 13th day of school. We are having a great time. As many of you know, we begin our day with Table Toys. This is an opportunity for the children to interact with one another and share their experiences with their fellow classmates. The children already know that when they come into our class, they open their schoolbags and take out their red homework folders and look books. They put their red folders into their mailbox and take a new look book for the day. I try not to help them because I have been stressing independence from day one. It is hard in the beginning but the children become more and more independent as the weeks goes on. At the end of the year, the children are soooo ready for First Grade!!!

During Writing Workshop, we are currently working on our personal narrative writing. Don’t worry… we do not expect young kindergarteners to be actually “writing.” The idea behind our Writing Workshop is that all children have a story to tell. They can do this through letters and words but most of the time – during the first couple of months of the year – they “write” their stories through their “pictures.” It is amazing. The children really have many stories to tell – from learning to swim without floatees to walking their dogs. Soon we will be publishing our first piece of writing and inviting you to join us for our “Publishing Party.” When we talk about publishing, we want the children to pick a piece of writing that meet three criteria: (1) they love it, (2) they can "read" it and (3) they can make it better. The children revise their writing by adding to the pictures, adding to the words and coloring it in! It is a very exciting time and you will learn more about this as the weeks progress.

During Reading Workshop, we are learning what good readers do – how to pick a book, what are some of the first things we do when we pick a book that we like. Ask them….they will tell you.

During Math Workshop, we are working on the Everyday Math program. This is a “hands-on” math exploration. Everyday we work on a different math concept and the children love it. They do know a lot about math and are becoming great mathematicians!!! You have done a good job parents.

As you know, for our Social Studies curriculum, we will be working throughout the year on a Playground study. This is an inquiry based study where will have a lot of hands on activities and take many different trips to various playgrounds throughout the city. More information to come.

Thanks to our wonderful Parent Teacher Association, Kindergarten will be receiving chess instruction. The children are very excited about this. I have not been told when this instruction will begin but I believe it will be relatively soon. Our chess instructor's name is Jairo and he is wonderful and an excellent teacher. Even I will be learning chess for the first time. Jairo has been teaching chess at PS 154 for several years. He is very talented and supportive. If you would like to join us for a session, please let me know.

Our children also will have Music and already involved in a NEW Physical Education program, a Class Community Program and Art.

This is what we will be working on for the week:

Shared Reading Poem: Hickory Dickory Dock

Shared Reading Big Book: Hairy Bear by Joy Cowley

Star Books for the Week: The Three Billy Goats Gruff and The Gingerbread Boy

Writing Workshop: Continuing with Personal Narratives

Reading Workshop: Reading our Emergent Story Books

Math: Patterns all around, Multisensory Counts, Countdown to Zero

Science: Tree Exploration

Social Studies: Playgrounds

Our Star Books are:

The Three Billy Goats Gruffs
The Gingerbread Boy
Will I have a Friend?
The Three Little Pigs
Little Red Riding Hood
Leo the Late Bloomer
Caps For Sale
Harry the Dirty Dog
Corduroy
The Lion and the Little Red Bird
Owl Babies

THE FOLLOWING IS A VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE!!!!!!!

We have several children in our classroom who are VERY, VERY allergic to all kinds of nuts. I want to incorporate a NUT-FREE classroom environment and need your help. I would very much appreciate it if you would not send any “nut” lunches or snacks with your child. YES, that includes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches if you can help it. I would not be asking this of you – because I know how much children LOVE peanut butter and jelly sandwiches – if it was not a dire circumstance. The health of all our children is imperative to me and to the school community. Please speak to your child about this. It is important that they know the circumstances and are able to talk about it. THANK YOU. If you need to speak to me, please do not hesitate.

I am looking forward to seeing all of you at our Curriculum Conference on Wednesday night, September 30th. With my kindergarten colleagues, we will explain our curriculum in detail and answer any questions you may have about the school. I recommend that all parents attend. If you are unable to attend, I will send home information for you to review about the curriculum. If you have any personal questions or need to contact me about any issues pertaining to your child, please email me at kindergarten.k207@gmail.com.


Have a wonderful week. Please feel free to post a comment. I would love this to be an interactive site for our classroom community.

Fondly,
Ms. Graham

PS: Now I have posted several pictures of our Shared Reading where the children and I put on a short play for our Big Book – The Farm Concert (Everyone got a chance to participate!!) and our first Parent as Enrichment Partners. ENJOY!