Letters to Cody

We mailed Cody's birthday cards last week and I will be mailing pictures that the students drew for him.  I wanted the parents to see the wonderful picture their child drew, so here is a look at them!

Updates...and Cody

I have added some updates to our web page.  I will be adding more soon!  If you hear your child talking about "Cody"--he is not a new student--he is a Marine!  He is a family member of a family member, a brother of a former student, and someone that my son played football with in Union.  I thought we could send letters to him throughout the year.  Well, today was his birthday and we sang happy birthday to him and posted it on his facebook account.  We also made birthday cards that we are sending to him.

Conference Updates...

I am missing my kinders....I hope you are having fun with Mrs. Helms, she is a wonderful teacher.  I am getting a lot of great ideas that we will be doing next week, I can't wait!  I was able to meet the author who wrote The Kissing Hand---and she signed 2 of our books!  I can't wait to show you.  Have a great weekend and I will talk to you soon.

Writing Workshop

I thought I would highlight some of the writing we are doing in kindergarten.  These are a few samples from last week.  More to follow soon.  Some writers are at the drawing stage, some are writing sentences, and some are in between with a few random letters or words.  Everyone is progressing at their own pace and doing a great job.

Gatlin was writing a about a barn.  He found the word he needed in a big book that we read the week before--awesome!  His sentence says:  I see a barn.

Isaac was writing about a chicken that lived in the barn.  He borrowed the resource that Gatlin used and labeled his barn and he labeled the chicken by using a word from our pocket chart.

Jordan was sharing a story about a haunted house that he went in over the weekend.  He was able to write popcorn words from memory and knew exactly where to go to find the other words that he needed--our themed word wall.

Katie was telling us about a time when she went to work with her mom.  Her sentence says:  Me and my mom are looking at the babies.

What wonderful writers we have!

Meet Rosalee

I am sure that you have already heard---we have an addition to our classroom ---Rosalee.  She is a baby hamster and she sleeps A LOT!  We are hoping that she starts staying awake more during the day.  We get very excited when she moves around.  She will be a big part of our writing I am sure!  She already has her own Star of the Day book in our class library and we created a class book about her last week.  I will post pics soon and you will be able to read it when you stop by for parent teacher conferences.

Here is our Rosalee!

Isn't she cute??

WE NEED A NEW PICTURE!

We have a new student in our classroom and her name is Taylor.  She joined us right before lunch and we are glad she did because we are talking about friends this week and now we have a new friend.  Yea!

MORE ABOUT OUR DAY...
I took some pictures of our math stations so you could see what we are working on during math.

My kinders love making designs with pattern blocks.

Lookin' good!

Great!

The kinders can't wait to make numbers with play dough.

I am an expert at number writing with dry erase markers!

Me too!

Look at us sort bears...

and more bears...

and links!

Counting the squares are fun too!

More squares to count...

and linking cubes to count.

Ask your kinder which math station they like the best--better yet, leave a comment and let us know!

What do we do in the classroom?

I thought you might like to see pictures of what we are doing in the classroom.  We begin our day with a smile and a "good morning" welcome to each other.  The students start with centers--it may look like "playing", but they are problem solving and learning how to work together in a group.

This is the kitchen area and is very popular.  The students are sharing their supplies and have decided that they are creating a restaurant.

I will be posting more pictures of what our day looks like, so make sure that you check back to see what we are up to!

ANOTHER GREAT WEEK...

We have had another great week in kindergarten and I was glad to see my smiling kinders on Tuesday!  I was a little worried because we had three days off, but everyone was ready to get back to work.  My students are becoming experts at math stations, so I will begin literacy stations next week--should be easy peasy lemon squeezy!  Love it.  The behavior chart is working nicely and my kinders are helping each other and minding their manners so they can move on up!  My kinders are learning the letters of the alphabet and WORDS!! Can you believe it--words!  We are putting our star of the day names on the word wall and our new words are red and me.  They are so smart!  I will be adding pictures to our shutterfly class webpage.  Please click the link on the right and check out the pictures and the events on the calendar.

GOOD TIME HAD BY ALL...

We had sooo much fun at the carnival tonight and I even saw a few of my kinders!  I was super excited!  Did you have a blast at the carnival?  I can't wait to see you tomorrow.  

Now that we are in the "swing" of things, I will posting more often and sharing what we are doing in the classroom.  If you follow us--look over to the right---you will always be up to date with our posts!

You can even click on our webpage--also over to the right--I will be posting pictures soon.

OPEN HOUSE

I enjoyed sharing our classroom last week when you came to visit.  I wish we could have had more time to visit and get to know each other--I guess I'll just have to wait until Wednesday.  Parents, we will be sharing a lot of things on our blog so please follow us and keep up to date with everything we are doing!  Kinders, are you ready to start school?

THE COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN...

I am putting letters in the mail today, but I thought I would give you a sneak peek before you receive them.

click to download

click to download

click to download

I thought I would include the supply list that was sent in Mrs. Hall's letter.

click here to download

My Blog is Changing...

This blog is changing for my new kindergarten class--

2011-2012 All Stars!

I am very excited to meet my new kinders and share a new year of adventures with them.  Please feel free to look around the blog (this was new to me) and click on our website link to the right.  I hope this website is very helpful--I am hoping that shutterfly is an easier way to post information and pictures of our class.  I am pretty sure that you can print pics from the website if you wish.  I want the students to have some privacy on the webpage, so I will not have the students' names and pictures posted together. 

More Pictures of our class 2010-2011

All the pictures will be downloaded to our class website (link to the right) today and tomorrow if needed.  Please go check them out and download, save, or print any pics that you want.  I have my class list for next year and will be dedicating my class blog and webpage to my 2011-2012 Kindergarten Class on July 18th.  Please leave a comment and let me know you stopped by...have a wonderful summer!

My class of 2010-2011

I am going to try to get the rest of the pics posted to this blog so I can dedicate it to my new kinders in July.  Please be KIND and leave me a comment if you stop by so I'll know who was stopping by to visit! Remember the pics are on our web page----go to the link on the right and click on Monkey Webpage!

Maybe you could tell me what you've been up to this summer!  Let me know if you received some mail!

MORE PICTURES

I added another photo album to our webpage.  Just click on the link to the right and then click on the photo tab.  The new album has photos of the 100th day collections.  I hope everyone is having a great time with their families...don't forget to read to someone!  Keep those reading skills strong.

Miss you guys!

UPDATES...

I have created a webpage through shutterfly for our class--this will make adding the pictures super easy!  Well, maybe not SUPER easy but easier than before! I think you will be able to copy/print pictures from that website too.  I have added a link over on the right side under "Our Favorite Links" so--click on it and check it.  Let me know what you think!  I have also added another way to follow us--through email.  I think that it will send you an email everytime I create a new post--you may or may not want this because this website will be geared toward my new kinders in July/August.  Feel free to follow or just check in based on what your needs are.

Thanks for visiting!

SUMMER VACATION

Well, school is over--what are you doing?  We had sooo much fun this year and I can't believe how fast it went by...

I did finally get the picture slide show to work and I will be sending it out next week.  I took a lot of pics this year and they did not all fit on the slideshow so I will put them on our blog so you can see them.  I am also working on publishing a few books from our classroom, be sure to check back for updates!

Here are my kinder babies on the 1st day of school...

August 18, 2010

Our first recess together...