September 24-27

This week in Kindergarten our poem was Apples. The students made movements to this poem, did a  sorting activity with rhymes, and did a color sorting activity.

Our read aloud book this week was "Chrysanthemum". We worked on predicting how Chrysanthemum would feel starting school, we retold key parts of our story, we compared and contrasted "Chrysanthemum" with "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse", we made inferences, and talked about our favorite parts. 

For word work, we looked at J or G words, E or J words, O or E words, and Q or O words.

For word wall words, we have introduced the words I, Can, Am, and See. Practice spelling and writing these words with your child.

For handwriting, we looked at the letter E. We used our chalkboards to practice making the letter E. The students should be saying to themselves, "big line down, frog jump up, little line, little line, little line" when they practice E's at home.

For writing, we focused on the structure of our writing workshop. We always start with a mini-lesson where the students learn a new skill. Then we move into try it out where they practice that new skill. Then we have a sharing time where they can share their writing and ideas. We worked on telling the beginning, middle, and end to a story. We also looked at writing stamina and started our class chart.

In math, we built some shapes together. We built different kinds of triangles, squares, and rectangles. We worked with our partners to count corners and sides of shapes. We introduced hexagons and circles. Lastly, we talked about positional words and played "Simon Says".

On Tuesday, we had a birthday celebration. We did a fun science experiment with milk, dish soap, and food coloring. We also did a STEM activity where the students built towers using pencils. They were trying to have the highest tower!

We had our first assembly to kick off the Fun Run fundraiser at Thorson. Our class name is, "Miss Davel's Dangerously Cute Dogs". More information about the Fun Run is to come!

Thank you so much to everyone who helped me celebrate my birthday. Thank you for the amazing flowers, cake, and candy! I love each and every one of my students so much and I was so happy to spend my special day with them!

Enjoy some pictures from our week!

September 17th-21st

 This week, our poem was "Sticky Situation". The students learned the poem and made up movements to go along with the words. We also sorted objects by numbers and did some rhyming sorts. The students really like rhyming! We also sang our poem for the office on Friday. Check out the Thorson Elementary School Facebook page to see it!

For reading, we focused on "Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse". We practiced making predictions, retelling the events in the story, connecting to the characters, making inferences, and writing about our favorite part!

For handwriting, Mrs. DeRosa was in our room this week! She taught us all about sitting in our chairs during writing time, holding our pencil, and the number 1. She will continue to work with us next week for handwriting. 

For writing, we worked on telling a story on paper. The students thought about stories, shared stories, drew their story, and added labels. We are working on telling little parts of our stories now like the beginning, middle, and end. 

In math, we played a cube game where the students rolled a dice and built a tower using the same amount of cubes as the number they rolled. This helped with one-to-one correspondence and tracking (counting and pointing at the same time). We also introduced 2D shapes this week and sorted them into two groups, curvy and not curvy. 

We also had the opportunity to do some science this week. I love STEM projects and we had the opportunity to do 2 of those this week. The first one was testing if a car moved faster on carpet or on tile. The students had the opportunity to make a ramp out of anything for their car to go down on. Some of my favorite ramps were clipboard ramps and shoe ramps. We found that the car moved faster on tile than it did on carpet. We also completed a stem project to go along with "Lilly's Plastic Purse". The students were given a purple piece of paper and were asked to make a purse out of that paper. They could use any supplies they wanted! The purse had to fit sunglasses and coins without them falling out. I lot of my purses have cute handles and one even has a bow! They were very creative. 

We also had a visit from baby chicks this week! Enjoy some pictures of the chicks in our classroom! The students thought they were all so cute and cuddly. 

Week 2 of Kindergarten

Week 2

We did lots of things this week! Our interactive read aloud text for the week was "Recess Queen". We read the book, listened to the book online, and read some of the book together as a class. We also worked on predicting, connecting with characters, inferring, and making connections to the text. 

We also learned a new poem this week! Our shared reading poem was called family. We learned how to sing this poem, we came up with movements for our poem, and we sorted words on rather they started with an M like Mom, D like Dad, of F like Family. 

We looked at different word studies this week as well. We sorted N or H words, M or N words, R or M words, L or R words, and I or L words. The students are learning so much about beginning sounds and how to write some letters. 

In math we focus on sorting this week. The students sorted shapes based on color, size, and shape.

We had our first Library visit this week. Library is always on Monday's. It is right away in the morning! Students have the opportunity to check out one book every week and should return that book by the next Monday. If a book is not returned by Library time then they are not able to check out a new one, which is okay! 

We had our first school assembly on Friday of last week. New teachers, staff, and students were introduced. We also had the opportunity to was a video clip or some fun pictures that were taken on the first week of school. Some of my friends were even in the video! 

This week, Mrs. DeRosa, Thorson's Literacy Coach, was in our room to help with our literacy block. She taught the students a lot about letter sounds and she taught me some new tricks and tips. We loved having her come to our classroom this week and we are looking forward to having her come to our class next week for writing. 

I sent home scholastic order forms tonight. You can log onto scholastic.com and make an account and order books right off the website. You can connect to my class by name, Abigail Davel, or by code, TJVG7. Order forms are due on September 28th. 

Thank you to all the parents who sent snacks and dixie cups! The students and I are very appreciative of your classroom donation! 

Picture Day

Don't forget that picture day is tomorrow!

Reminder

Please remember to send your child with a snack everyday and remember to keep it separate from their lunch. A lot of the students are eating their snack at lunch time and then are super bummed at snack time when they do not have anything.

Thank you!

First Week of Kindergarten!

The first week of Kindergarten is coming to a close! This week, we focused on routines and expected behaviors in the classroom, lunchroom, hallway, and out at recess. We also spent a lot of time on learning each other's name and learning the letters in our own names. We read lots of books and had lots of fun!

On the first day of school, we got new furniture! The new tables and chairs are very nice! Some of the chairs can wobble back and forth. The students are having fun experimenting with the different chairs and finding one that works for them!

In Kindergarten, we use Go noodle as brain breaks for the students. The students favorite brain break is "Whoop There it is".  Enjoy the video below of them dancing and getting their wiggles out!

Reminder: The students bring home a green folder every night. In this green folder there might be important information but more importantly, the students will have their work in these folders! Make sure to check this folder nightly and send it back to school!