An Amazing Start to the Year!

Hello Lovely Families!

So far the beginning of the year has been wonderful!  I am thoroughly enjoying getting to know your sweet children as we settle into a new school year!  Routines are being established, friends are being made and we are having lots of fun!

Math

We have begun our study of patterns!  We’ve learned some new games and have been building patterns with a variety of materials.  Can your child find or build patterns anywhere around home?  Perhaps a striped afghan or fancy socks…rugs, pajamas…we will soon be starting a list of patterns we find in everyday life, and I would love for you and your child to add to it!  Some of the new games we’ve learned will be added to the take home collection…please feel free to take games home anytime now! 

Language Arts

What a group of writers!  Writing workshop is already a success with everyone thinking of topics to write about and “writing” at his or her own level.  We have been exploring Language Arts choices…Alphabet BINGO, letter/word matching puzzles, beginning consonant games, letter hunts around the room, reading, name puzzles… We learned our first 2 letters in handwriting, F and E, using our special chalkboards for the first time…pretty exciting!  Next week letter studies will begin in small groups.

Theme

We have been busy with many activities getting to know each other better  and learning to use the 3 part message to help us solve problems peacefully.  

The 3 Part Message includes: Noticing (describing what you noticed or what happened), Feeling (telling how you feel), and Next Time (making a request for what you would like to see happen).  We spent a day on each part reading books to learn about it and using games to practice it.  Our feelings bean bag toss has been a big hit!  Be sure to ask your child about this one!  Finally, we used puppets to put all the parts together and practice using the 3 Part Message.  We have even had some real life opportunities to practice this message.  Sometimes we may say or do something in a grumpy way and then have a “rewind moment” and work on using this new method.  It is still new to the kids and will be something we work on throughout the year.  I am proud of the efforts they have put into learning how to use the 3 part message and extremely proud of those willing to try this in real life scenarios.  We have cards available in the classroom to help us remember each of the steps.  If you’d like one for home, let me know!

Inspired by projects we'd been working on for International Day of Peace, Cassius declared that he was going to work to end the war.  I asked what he was planning to do and he said "make posters".  I offered large paper and soon many friends had joined the cause!  Thanks for the idea Cassius!

Investigations

This is our end of the day choosing time.  There are so many ships to be built, picnics to be had, and books to be read!  It seems that this time of day has become a favorite for many.  I love taking a step back to watch the social interactions that occur as children explore various interests.  Free exploration offers a wonderful opportunity to grow as an individual and friend.  So far, favorite choices seem to be: tinker toys, the casita, reading, art, blocks and legos. 

I have rethought my request to have parents wait in the hallway until we clean up.  Investigations is actually a really neat time to come on in and interact with the kids.  So, as long as you think your child will still be able to participate in our community clean up (we all help to clean the whole classroom) at the end of the day, you are welcome to come on in and join us anytime after 2:30!  Please note: Wed is teacher planning day, so the afternoon schedule varies.

Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with me!  I cherish the time I get to spend with them and look forward to seeing them each day!  I am so thankful to have such an amazing group of kids to spend the year with! 

Our Beautiful Class!

What an amazing first two weeks of school!  It has been pure joy getting to know this sweet group of kiddos and creating community together.  We have been busy creating our class/school agreements, practicing how we like to communicate with each other and feeling out how we will work together as a group.  Here's what we have been up to at a glance (OK, maybe not a quick glance this time!  I promise a quicker one next time!):

Math: Addition games!  Reviewing and learning our math facts of 1-10 or 1-20.  Also, reviewing how we play math games so we can all learn our best by taming our dice and keeping voices low.  We are learning how to make choices that suit us as learners and help us grow our math brains.

Language: Writing Workshop and Literacy Centers!  Everyone was eager with stories ready to put onto paper in Writing Workshop.  We all like a quiet workshop to help us sound out our words, so we are working on creating this quiet space.  We started our Word Wall with our first word "are" so ask your child how to spell it!  We have been practicing going to Literacy Centers, managing our time at each one, and staying focused.  They are all doing amazing! We are ready for the real deal next week!  In handwriting, we reviewed our upper case letters and will begin our lower case letters next week.  Magic C will finally make an appearance (everyone is so anxious for her to come out and thinks she sleeps way too much!).

Afternoons: We spent this last week focusing on peace for International Day of Peace.  We read books about peace and thought about how we can help bring peace to our school, family, and community.  We also explored mandalas a bit and learning how there are mandalas all around us...a birds nest, a snow crystal, our eyes....we then created our own peace mandalas.  Look for these peaceful creations on our wall soon!  We will work more with peace next week by practicing peaceful communication (giraffe talk) and our solution wheel.  In P.E., we have been enjoying connecting with the older class and playing group games in the gym and outside. 

Reading Workshop:  We are practicing how to find a quiet spot, choosing books that we can read and help us grow as readers, and raising a hand when needing help. We are building up our reading time everyday!

Jobs:  Everyone is so amazing with their weekly jobs!  It warms my heart to watch the kids take care of our classroom in such a sweet, thoughtful, and caring way. 

Friday Workshop:  I love how eager the kids were to jump right in and teach a workshop on the very first Friday of school.  Thank you for teaching us how to make egg carton caterpillars, gak, and dressing up and acting out stories!

  

 I feel so grateful to get to spend the day with your children, to be their teacher, to learn from them, and to be a part of their lives.  Thank you for a wonderful start to a new school year!