Weekly News (Aug. 21-24)

We did it! We made it through our first week of Kindergarten! The children have already been making new friends, and they are doing a TERRIFIC job learning our kindergarten routines. I have really enjoyed getting to the know the students this first week, and I am super excited about the school year ahead. Take a peek below to see what we have been up to this week!

Morning Kindergarten

Afternoon Kindergarten

On our first day of kindergarten we read The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn, which is a sweet story about a raccoon named Chester who is nervous about going to school until his mother tells him a story about a special "kissing hand." After placing a kiss in the palm of Chester's hand, she tells him that he will always have his mother in his heart no matter where he goes. After reading the story, we found a letter from Chester with some clues that sent us on a scavenger hunt around the school. We had fun following the clues and seeing many new places and meeting many new faces. We were also thrilled to find special hearts left for us by Chester!

The children also loved listening to two other Chester stories this week that helped us learn about sharing, being a good friend, and the importance of trying new things even if they seem challenging! We even had special guest readers from the LMC--Mrs. Kenney in the morning and Mrs. Kovacic in the afternoon!

We began our calendar routine this week which provides time for us to practice many math concepts including: counting and identifying numbers; recognizing numbers that come before and after a given number; identifying the days of the week and the months of the year; and beginning to understand the concept of place value as we keep track of the number of days we have been in school. We also introduced our "Hello Helper" routine. Each day we will have a new helper who will guide us through our calendar routine and act as our line leader for the day. The children always LOVE when it is their turn to be the special helper! We've been using the videos below during calendar time too!

Math

We began our math lessons this week using our new Math in Focus program. Our first unit will focus on learning about the numbers to 5 and identifying similarities and differences between objects. We took a closer look at the numbers 1 and 2 this week and used our interactive white board to find pictures that represent 1 and 2.

The class was thrilled to spend some time in our interactive play centers too. It was a great opportunity for them to practice cooperative learning skills such as turn-taking, teamwork, and sharing!

We also had a chance to attend some of our specials classes this week, which include: Music, Art, Physical Education, and time in the LMC to check out new books and engage with technology.

I hope you all enjoyed our first kindergarten blog post!

Click HERE to see more photos from our first week or use the "Photos" tab at the top of the blog!

Looking forward to another great week!